themselves, as was their ability to be “free and tolerant in
their private lives,” according to the funeral oration by the
Athenian stateman Pericles (r. ca. 460–429 b.c.e.) as recorded
by Th ucydides. Th ere was a striking degree of frank speech,
particularly in the theater.
Th e comedies of the Athenian playwright Aristophanes
(ca. 450–ca. 388 b.c.e.) are full of scurrilous attacks on politi-
cians; their competence, honesty, physical characteristics, and
sexual proclivities are all fair game. Further, Aristophanes
mercilessly criticizes state policy even in wartime. In his Ly-
sistrate, produced in 411 b.c.e., he shows the women of Greece
taking power (by means of a sex strike) to end the unpopular
war the men had created. Th e play is unstinting in assigning
blame to politicians, military leaders, and the people of Ath-
ens, and it jokes about the pro-Spartan factions within the
city. Yet Athens was in serious danger at the time: Th e disas-
trous Sicilian expedition four years earlier had cost the lives of
thousands of its citizens, and the oligarchic conspirators Aris-
tophanes mocks overthrew the democracy within a matter
of months. It is hard to imagine a modern democracy under
similar circumstances tolerating this degree of dissent.
Alongside this openness were times in which citizens
were punished for exceeding the limits of tolerance. Despite
the extreme freedom of speech usually granted to the theater,
the tragic poet Phrynichus (fl. ca. 500 b.c.e.) was fi ned 1,000
drachmas for “reminding the audience of their own trou-
bles” by putting on a play about the Persian sack of Miletus
at a time when the Athenians themselves feared the Persian
threat. Aristophanes, too, was prosecuted (apparently unsuc-
cessfully) in the 420s b.c.e. by the Athenian politician Cleon
(d. 422 b.c.e.) for making fun of the city’s magistrates.
For religious issues there was a similar alternation be-
tween freedom and intolerance. Athens in the fi ft h century
b.c.e. included several philosophers who challenged tradi-
tional notions of morality and religion; in addition, cults
such as Orphism and Pythagoreanism were popular. At
the same time there were several high-profi le prosecutions
for impiety. In 437 b.c.e. the philosopher Anaxagoras (ca.
500–ca. 428 b.c.e.) fl ed the city in the wake of such a charge;
in 415 b.c.e. Alcibiades (ca. 450–404 b.c.e.) and others were
charged with mutilating statues of the god Hermes and
holding mock versions of the Eleusinian Mysteries (initia-
tion ceremonies in the cult of the goddesses Demeter and
Persephone); and in 399 b.c.e. the charge of “believing in
strange new gods” was one of the accusations against the
philosopher Socrates (ca. 470–399 b.c.e.), for which he was
sentenced to death. In a sense these prosecutions actually
were about religion: Religion was a state matter, and to of-
fend religious sensibilities was to threaten the state. For the
most part, however, the religious prosecutions were moti-
vated by politics: Anaxagoras and Alcibiades had powerful
enem ie s , a nd S oc r ate s wa s a s soc iated w it h ma ny notor iou sly
antidemocratic characters (including Alcibiades), some of
whom had played a role in the brutal dictatorship of the
Th irty Tyrants in the aft ermath of Athens’s defeat in the
Peloponnesian War.
Some conclusions may be drawn from this information.
First, the Athenians tolerated a great deal of free speech as
long as it did not seem immediately threatening to their
physical safety or to their sense of well-being. Th e come-
dies of Aristophanes probably did not normally pose such a
threat but were instead a type of contained dissent: He poses
revolutionary ideas in a circumscribed, well-defi ned space
but does not argue for revolution or even serious change. (It
is noteworthy that Lysistrate, like many of his other com-
edies, ends with a return to a kinder, gentler version of the
status quo.)
Second, the principle of parrhesia was a tradition, not a
constitutionally guaranteed right. Pericles speaks of the un-
written laws that govern conduct; Socrates recognized at his
trial that the unwritten accusations against him were more
damaging than the actual charges. Popular opinion and
prejudice could be worth more than the force of law; Pericles’
idealized vision of the city notwithstanding, Athens was full
of petty jealousies. Th e law was extremely fl exible: Irrelevant
charges could be used to punish political enemies, and court-
room procedure was ill defi ned and very much subject to the
immediate will of the people. Cleon’s prosecution of Aristo-Head of Greek philosopher Socrates (Alison Frantz Photographic
Collection, American School of Classical Studies at Athens)
878 resistance and dissent: Greece