Athenian democracy
idea · 8 works · 8 mentions · 13 anchored passages
democracy · Athenian tradition of liberty · constitution · constitutional government · constitutional governments · democracies · equal vote · equality · free citizens · freedom of a democracy
in the texts
On the Embassy
The democratic constitutional order of Athens, threatened by past folly and praised through civic legal practice.
A right provision, fellow citizens, and worthy of a democracy.
Finally they brought the city to such a pass that she was glad to make peace, giving up everything, tearing down her walls, receiving a garrison and a Lacedaemonian governor, and surrendering the democracy to the Thirty, who put fifteen hundred citizens to death without a trial.
for Atrometus our father, whom you slander, though you do not know him and never saw what a man he was in his prime—you, Demosthenes, a descendant through your mother of the nomad Scythians—our father went into exile in the time of the Thirty, and later helped to restore the democracy;
Against Androtion
The democratic constitutional order whose laws and ethos the speaker says Androtion has violated.
A democracy.
That is the spirit of democracy.
In them we find pity, pardon, everything that becomes free citizens.
Against Leptines
The Athenian constitutional order grounded in popular supremacy and civic competition for public honors.
Again, with regard to the absence of honors at Thebes, I think I can express the truth thus.
Because in an oligarchy harmony is attained by the equality of those who control the State, but the freedom of a democracy is guarded by the rivalry with which good citizens compete for the rewards offered by the people.
but with us the people is supreme, and any other form of supremacy is forbidden by imprecations and laws and other safeguards, but we have crowns of honor and immunities and free maintenance and similar rewards, which anyone may win, if he is a good citizen.
Fourth Philippic
The free Athenian constitutional order opposed to tyranny, oligarchy, and Macedonian domination.
Therefore he does not want to have the Athenian tradition of liberty watching to seize every chance against himself;
First, men of Athens, you must fix this firmly in your minds, that Philip is at war with us and has broken the peace, and that he is ill-disposed and hostile to the whole city and to the very soil on which the city stands, and, I will add, to the gods that dwell in it;
Besides these weighty considerations, he knows for certain that even if he masters all else, his power will be precarious as long as you remain a democracy, but if ever he meets with some mischance (and there are many to which mankind is liable), all the forces that are now under restraint will be attracted to your side.
The Funeral Speech
The Athenian constitutional order, credited with instilling shame-driven virtue in its citizens in contrast to fear-driven absolute governments.
For though absolute governments dominated by a few create fear in their citizens, they fail to awaken the sense of shame.
Democracies, however, possess many other just and noble features, to which right-minded men should hold fast, and in particular it is impossible to deter freedom of speech, which depends upon speaking the truth, from exposing the truth.
Suppliants
The Athenian political doctrine, articulated by Theseus, that the city is ruled by its citizens collectively and equally rather than by a single despot.
What greater equality can there be in a city?
For them I made supreme, when I set this city free, by giving all an equal vote.
The people rule in succession year by year, allowing no preference to wealth, but the poor man shares equally with the rich.
Antidosis
The Athenian democratic order attributed to the work of Solon and Cleisthenes.
Next, Cleisthenes, after he had been driven from Athens by the tyrants, succeeded by his eloquence in persuading the Amphictyons to lend him money from the treasury of Apollo, and thus restored the people to power, expelled the tyrants, and established that democracy to which the world of Hellas owes its greatest blessings.
To the Children of Jason
The political arrangement whose honors and advantages Isocrates prefers to monarchy and despotism.
[Then followed in the letter the practical advice of Isocrates to the future rulers of Thessaly, presumably setting forth the advantages of a government under a constitution, i.
To me the life of a private citizen seems preferable and better than that of a king, and I regard the honors received under constitutional governments as more gratifying than those under monarchies.