ABSTRACT

The first question to address concerns whether the word is being used with the same meaning when it is said that the Athens of the fifth century BC was a democracy and when we talk about the great western democracies of today. The Athenian regime was characterized by the direct nature of popular government. It was a citizens’ assembly, never exceeding 20,000 persons, which took direct decisions on public affairs. The citizenry was confined to free men, and excluded slaves and aliens resident in the city. It is also true that the magistrates-as shown by the example of Pericles, who contrived to be re-elected a number of times-exercised in fact a greater influence on the affairs of the State than would be apparent at first sight from the way they were elected. They were not, as Rousseau would have us believe, simple clerks or minor officials, but in many cases ‘demagogues’, or in other words, political entrepreneurs. Despite these reservations, Athens was a direct democracy, where the citizens, as a body which was only a minority of the population, exercised sovereignty.