> <<<<<>>>>>
>
> most athenian citizens ('free white males', about 10% of city-state's
> inhabitants) called their polis democracy through most of second half of
> 5th century bc... michael hoover
>
> ------------------------
> of course! BTW, see the article below. JD
>
> COMMENTARY
> ... Unless It's All Greek to Him
>
> By Barbara Garson
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> According to Thucydides, the digression into Sicily in 416 BC - a
sideshow that involved lying exiles, hopeful contractors, politicized
intelligence, a doctrine of preemption - ultimately cost Athens
everything, including its democracy.
Michael & B Garson are both somewhat inaccurate. The Sicilian defeat
resulted in a quickly overthrown tyranny, and the Spartan victory led to
a very temporary rule of the "Thirty Tyrants," but after their overthrow
the Athenian democracy lasted until supppressed by Alexander of Macedon
-- and as one historian put, the Athenians went down fighting and
knowing what they were fighting for.
Michael is of course correct about the small percentage of the total
population (adult males born of citizen parents), but, abstracting from
that limitation, nevertheless the Athenian democracy remains still today
of immense political interest.
See the following:
Martin Ostwald, _Nomos and the Beginnings of the Athenian Democracy_
(Oxford, 1969)
Robin Osborne, _Demos: The Discovery of Classical Attika_ (Cambridge,
1985)
Jean-Pierre Vernant, _Myth and Society in Ancient Greece_ (Sussex & New
Jersey, 1980)
Ellen Meiksins Wood, _Peasant-Citizen & Slave: The Foundations of
Athenian Democracy_ (Verso, 1989)
Ostwald is a bit hairy going because (except for several long passages)
he neither translates nor transliterates his quotations from Greek
sources. Nevertheless the book is readable by the non-classical scholar
and I have found it of immense interest. A key element of the democracy
from its establishment in 510 b.c.e to its final defeat by Alexander was
political independence of peasants in their _demes_.
Carrol