ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates that Athens and Sparta is a result in part of the internal stability which each achieved. It suggests that Thucydide's account of the Athenian debate on how to treat Mytilenean captives in 427 was meant to illustrate lamentable morality. The chapter wonders how a mass audience which sustained such playwrights and politicians could regularly allow unprepossessing scenes such as its ancient critics report in the assembly. From the late twentieth century onwards, historians have examined the workings of Athenian dēmokratia far more closely, and their attitudes have become more respectful. No surviving ancient work gives a thorough and competent account of what the main elements of Athenian dēmokratia were meant to achieve. The chapter summarizes from scattered hints why Athens rejected the traditional systems of government, oligarchy and tyranny, and preferred cumbersome structures employing citizens en masse.
