III Power in the hands of the people / K.A. Raaflaub
PROBLEMS AND QUESTIONS
we can safely dismiss the specter-presented long ago by Thorkild Jacobsen (1943) and revived recently by Martin Bernal (1993: 250)-of a "primitive democracy" that already existed in Mesopotamia in the third and second millennia B.C.
民主政治的建立者：
The Athenians themselves thought of Cleisthenes, Solon, and Theseus (Ruschenbusch 1958; M.H. Hansen 1989b).
Modern scholars dismiss the latter but add Ephialtes, Pericles, and those who revised the political system in the early fourth century.
What are we commemorating with "Democracy 2500"? What exactly do we mean by "Athenian .democracy"?
But first, a few comments on scholarship and methodology. I select four examples.
There is, first, a tendency toward "monocausality," visible especially in the answers given to the question of what caused the emergence of democracy. P31
There is another tendency, toward "monofocality," illustrated by the titles of several recent publications: democracy or the rule of law (Sealey 1987), from sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of law (Ostwald 1986), ideology or pragmatism (Ruschenbusch 1979), fourth-century democracy-crisis or climax (Eder 1995a), and so on.
Second, there is an extraordinary discrepancy in dating certain crucial phenomena: democracy itself is attributed to Solon (Wallace, Ch. 2) or even "Homeric Society" (Ruschenbusch 1995), or again to the fourth century (Eder 1995a; Ch. 6, below); the emergence of citizenship to the early sixth (Manville 1990) or to the mid-fifth century (Sealey 1983; 1987: 124-26).
Third, there is a tendency, still quite common in scholarship, to treat Athenian democracy as a single, homogeneous phenomenon, encompassing the entire fifth century (or at least two-thirds of it) and the fourth century.
Fourth, there is another tendency (frequent, understandably, especially among modern historians and political scientists) to analyze and judge Athenian democracy entirely on the basis of Aristotle's views and theoretical categories or on our own terms, from our modern perspective (see Ch. 1).
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My thesis is that the "isonomic" system introduced in the late sixth century by Cleisthenes ought to be distinguished quite sharply from the democracy that' evolved, under fundamentally changed conditions, two generations later: it was only at this later stage that the unique features of Athenian demokratia-full participation in power and government by all citizens-was realized.
I consider it essential to determine as precisely as possible when and for what reasons Athens's path to democracy diverged from and transcended egalitarian tendencies realized by the late sixth century in a wide area of the Hellenic world.
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But was the system the Athenians called demokratia a democracy?
The answer obviously depends on how we choose to define "democracy."
Isocrates (7.60-61, cf. 12.153-55) called even Sparta's constitution, considered by most the model of an oligarchy, a democracy.
Since we are concerned here with the beginning of Athenian democracy, we might best start from the Athenians' own understanding of what democracy meant and what it comprised.
Demo-kratia: the demos holds kratos, "the people hold power." By the late fifth century demos meant, in the view of supporters, the entire citizen body, equivalent to pasa polis (the whole city), and,
in the view of critics, only the lower classes, thus equivalent with ochlos (rabble), kakoi, poneroi (the bad and base ones), and other negatively loaded terms (Donlan 1970; Sealey 1974: 253-63, 283-90).
Demokratia thus meant that the demos, including the lower classes, enjoyed political equality and, while respecting laws and institutions, was in full and absolute control of power and government. P34
On the other hand, kratos meant that the demos fully participated in government and controlled power and the entire political process, through the Assembly and the other institutions that were manned by citizens selected from the demos at large and, however independent in their decisions, represented the demos.
In short, through the Assembly, Council, and law courts, the demos, including all citizens of all classes, directly controlled the entire political process from election, deliberation, and decision- making to supervising the execution of decisions and the officials involved in doing so.
This was the reality of the late fifth century, and this shaped the general perception of democracy.
The question I discuss in this essay, then, is when and how the essentials of this system came into being and whether even before it was fully developed the demos was sufficiently in control of power and government to justify the use of the word "democracy" (see also Ch. 5, "The Thetes and Democracy").
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I suggest that this more specific use of demos in its pejorative sense was provoked precisely by the political ascendance of the lower classes, that is, by democracy itself.
With aristokratia and oligarchia it forms a set of constitutional terms that stresses the number or quality of those who hold power in the polis: one, a few, many or all, a tyrant, the best, the demos.
All three terms are attested only in the last third of the fifth century.
By contrast, monarchos and tyrannos are old terms;
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Thus isonomia, which in all likelihood originated in an aristocratic context and initially designated power sharing among the elite, eventually became one of the main characteristics of, and could be used almost synonymously with, demokratia.
It is quite possible, although it cannot be proved, that isonomia also was the hallmark of the system that Cleisthenes introduced (Raaflaub 1996a)-a system characterized precisely by expanded equality.
At some point, however, demokratia became the dominant term.
For aristokratia and oligarchia we have only late-fifth-century testimonia.
The same is true for demokratia, but indirect evidence suggests that the term existed by the early 460s:
it is paraphrased twice in Aeschylus's Suppliants of 463 (demou kratousa cheir; to damion to ptolin kratynei [604, 699]), and
we happen to know of two Athenians with the-clearly politicalname Demokrates who must have been born around or shortly after 470 (Davies 1971: nos. 3519, 3536; see M.H. Hansen 1986; 1991: 69-71).
on the basis of the evidence currently available, Cleisthenes' contemporaries did not call his new system a demokratia.
If, as seems possible, they propagated it as isonomia, this system still was perceived as' characterized primarily by political equality.
If indeed demokratia was created as a new term in the late 470s or 460s, this may attest to a substantial change of perception caused by an important change in political realities and experiences, or else by political debates anticipating such changes.
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CLEISTHENES
But was he? To what extent was the order Cleisthenes instituted in Athens really a democracy?
I briefly state my position on a few much-debated issues.
First... the system must have offered all or most Athenians individual and collective advantages, and this must have been the primary reason attracting them to Cleisthenes' side.
Second, after the departure of Cleomenes and Isagoras, we hear of no opposition whatsoever against Cleisthenes' reforms nor of any later effort to repeal them.
Third, Cleisthenes' system contained strong elements of civic equality.
Fourth, as already suggested, several indications favor the assumption that the terminology of political equality (isonomia, isegoria) was known in the sixth century and thus to Cleisthenes and possibly applied to his new system; whether the latter actually was the case or not remains unprovable.
I now turn to my main questions.
How far did equality reach; that is, were all citizens en- P40
titled to participate equally? To what extent was power transferred to the institutions in which such equality could express itself most forcefully?
To begin with, how precise and authentic is Herodotus's account, particularly as far as details and terminology are concerned?
Thucydides, whose account is the fullest we have, offers a striking detail: when the Athenians noticed Cylon's deed, they all came running in full force (pandemei) from their fields and surrounded and blockaded the usurpers on the Acropolis (1:126.7).
The narrative pattern is similar to that of Herodotus in Isagoras's case: a spontaneous uprising by all Athenians, without a named leader, against a coup attempt undertaken by an aristocratic faction and supported by foreign contingents sent in on the basis of private obligations.
the similarities in the narrative should suffice to discourage far-reaching historical conclusions based on any details.
To return to the events of 508/7, what exactly does demos mean in this context, and what does it mean when we say that more equality and political participation was "extended" to the demos by Cleisthenes' reform?
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Another question is equally important: how powerful were the institutions in which the demos participated and enjoyed equality?
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At any rate, it seems dear that the potentially "democratic" institutions (Assembly, Council, law courts) were far from assuming the dominant role characteristic of them in the fifth century:
the demos did not yet fully control, through the bodies representing the entire citizen body, the whole political process.
From a strictly constitutional perspective, then, there are good reasons to conclude that Cleisthenes' system was not democratic in the full sense of the word because it neither took demos in its comprehensive meaning nor assigned to the institutions of the demos such a comprehensive and powerful role that would have allowed the demos to fully control the government.
Accordingly, the "Athenian revolution of 508/7" was not really a democratic revolution.
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THE REFORMS OF EPHIALTES
Essentially, in 462 the Areopagus Council lost certain powers, which were transferred to the Assembly, the Council of 500, and the popular courts.
Most likely these powers concerned at least the scrutiny and control of the officeholders and perhaps other judicial functions, especially in state trials.
Subsequent measures included the introduction of pay for public office, the reduction of property qualifications (seen. 24), and a new definition of citizenship.
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The supplementary measures of the 450s make most sense if they were indeed intended to supplement and complete the initial reforms of 462.
If so, the intention of the latter must have been-in fact or in widespread perception soon after 462-to root power and government in the demos and its institutions and to integrate in such sharing of power all citizens, including the thetes.
Thus for the first time this group came to enjoy full political equality and participation, for the supplementary measures were explicitly designed to facilitate the realizotion of such equality in political practice and to define precisely who was to share in such equality.
Heated debates there were, before and after.
The contemporaries were fully aware of the great significance, if not revolutionary nature, of the changes that were being introduced to their political system.
All this represents a stark contrast to the absence of opposition to Cleisthenes' reforms, mentioned earlier.
It must be indicative of an important qualitative difference.
This, I suggest, is the context, in which demos and demokratia received their incompatible partisan interpre- P49
tations: "government by all citizens" versus "mob rule."
why are they recorded so poorly in ancient historiography?
Like Cleisthenes, Ephialtes had a brief and somewhat obscure career.
nor did he leave writings of his own or a law code.
Finally, the overpowering personality and career of Pericles early on may have overshadowed the achievement of Ephialtes.
The scarcity and vagueness of our evidence, therefore, should not encourage us to belittle the significance of the reforms enacted between 462 and 450.
Rather, I conclude, by these reforms democracy was fully realized for the first time in the Greek world. To extend full political participation to all citizens, without regard to descent, wealth, landed property, education, or other criteria that normally determined political rights in Greek poleis, was an unprecedented step into uncharted territory.
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THE FOUNDATION OF DEMOCRACY: EVENT OR PROCESS?
Is it sensible to assume that a change so massive as the creation of democracy was the product of one man's genius or of one reform-or, as Ober claims (1993a; Ch. 4), one revolution? Would it not be more cautious, and more appropriate, to think not of a single event but of an extended evolutionary process?
This process can be traced back to the early sixth century, if not earlier.
It received a powerful stimulus with the reforms of Solon, was advanced by the tyrants, was accelerated by Cleisthenes' reforms, was decisively advanced by the changes brought about by naval power and empire, was brought to a first completion or highpoint by the reforms of the 460s and 450s, but continued even thereafter and reached its conclusion only in the fourth century.
It was, of course, not a linear, steady process but one moving through leaps and interruptions, pushed forward by the impact of changes in external or domestic circumstances, by the intervention of visionary individuals and the powerful, perhaps even revolutionary, experience of popular will.
For it is clear that democracy, as it emerged around the mid-fifth century, was based very broadly on the foundations laid by Cleisthenes.
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CONCLUSION
Democracy originated under extraordinary circumstances.
Like everything that is new and untried, it had to "work out its bugs."
This happened in the fifth century.
The fact that, in the final phase of its evolution, democracy emerged from stasis and in more than one way was tied to the empire left deep marks.
At the same time the empire also created the conditions for a relatively high level of domestic peace and stability over a relatively long time-long enough to enable the non-elite citizens to learn their new role and to identify intensely with "their" democracy.
Thus when the long period of imperial success ended and the community got mired in defeat, crisis, and stasis, oligarchy was able to prevail only because of exceptional circumstances or outside support, and it was overthrown again at the first opportunity.
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