7

SETTING THE STAGE FOR DEMOCRACY

The Development of  Spartan Oligarchy

The Development of  Democracy   in  Athens: Solon

Other   Persons:    Slavery and Democracy

The Development of  Democracy   in  Athens: Cleisthenes

Ostracism

The Delian  League

The Dionysia    and the Drama   of  Aeschylus

The two Greek poleis that had played the most significant role in the defeat of Persia were Athens and
Sparta. This chapter will concern itself with these two cities and their very different characters, Athens
being a progressive, democratic city with the largest navy in the Greek world, and Sparta being a
conservative, even reactionary, oligarchy whose infantry was regarded as invincible. The special
character of Spartan society arose in part because of its earlier conquest of the territory of its Greek
neighbors, whom it reduced to the status of state slaves. The Spartans then imposed on themselves a
rigorous system of physical training and institutional control aimed at maintaining their authority over a
very large, servile population. By contrast, Athenian society in the sixth century BC developed
increasingly open and democratic institutions resulting, by the fifth century, in the most radically
democratic government the world has seen. The Athenians’ commitment to openness and democracy,
however, does not mean that they did not own slaves; like the Spartans, indeed like members of all
ancient societies, free Athenians relied very heavily upon the economic contribution of forced labor.
Radical democracy is based on the notional equality of all its free citizens, which may be perceived to be
inconsistent with the aristocratic values exhibited by “the best” members of society. Athenian democracy
therefore devised the practice of ostracism to remove from the city on a temporary basis any citizen who
appeared to pose the risk of subverting democratic values and usurping power as a tyrant. The Athenian
navy depended upon oarsmen drawn largely from the lower classes of citizen, whose interests were
served by the extension of democratic values and the expansion of Athenian naval power. In the course of
the fifth century BC, the naval alliance of which Athens had become the leader, the so-called Delian
League, in effect turned into an Athenian empire. The chapter closes with a consideration of the dramatic
works of the playwright Aeschylus, the earliest representative of the new genre of tragedy, which arose in
Athens at the end of the sixth century and flourished in the fifth century BC.

The successful defense of Greece against invasion by non-Greeks was decisive, not only for
determining the way in which Greek civilization was to develop throughout the rest of Greek history, but
for the way in which the Greeks conceived of themselves and their past. In the Iliad, Homer had not
represented the Trojans as being “foreigners”: The combatants on both sides of the Trojan War spoke the
same language, worshipped the same gods, and adhered to the same customs. By contrast, during the