11.05.2016

ATHENS - SLAVERY AND THE FIRST DEMOCRACY


Ancient Greece has long been hailed as the cradle of democracy. In reality, democracy was a luxury reserved only for the society's free men- one that was made possible by millions of slaves, whose labor gave others the time to attend to government matters.

To many people, the Classical period in Athens was an idyllic time - it was the era that saw the building of the temples on the Acropolis, the proliferation of artworks from richly ornamented vases to beautiful, anatomically correct statues, and some of the earliest advanced scientific theories. Perhaps most importantly, this was the age in which the ancient Athenians created a new system of government, democracy, which was based on the principle of one man, one vote.

However, the system would never have come into being had it not been for the large number of slaves who were compelled to perform the everyday work of society while free men governed. As it says in The Cambridge World History of Slavery, a 2011 book edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge, democracy is a time-consuming process.

But Athenian democracy did not extend to everyone - far from it. Slaves had no political rights; neither did women or the many foreigners who lived and worked in Athens but were not citizens. Historians estimate that only about 30,000 of Athens' some 300,000 citizens -10 percent- had the right to vote.

By ancient standards, this was still a significant number of people who were permitted direct participation in state affairs. Earlier, that privilege had been granted to few. Around 900 BCE, when Athens started to become a regional power, the city was ruled by a king. Together with city and regional landowners, he held the political power and made policy decisions, which were primarily intended to increase Athens' territorial powers and thus ensure more influence for the king and more land for the aristocracy.

At that time, Greece was comprised of small, autonomous city-states - a structure dictated by the region's geography, whose bays, cliffs and valleys segmented the country, isolating settlements from one another. For the cities located on the coasts of the Aegean Sea to the east and the Adriatic and Ionian seas to the west, navigation and trade were especially important.

In the three centuries from 900 to 600 BCE, Greek sailors actively plied the seas around Greece, establishing colonies in places that they considered strategically important or useful for trade. For hundreds of years, the colonies were part of a network that stretched from the western portion of Asia Minor south to North Africa and east beyond Sicily to the shores of southern France and Spain.

Wealth inequality poses a danger

The most powerful cities in Greece continually competed for power, a race in which Athens generally held the lead. Its location, at the entrance to the Aegean Sea, offered access to essential waterways, while the Acropolis, a flat rock perched 490 feet above sea level with panoramic views, was ideally situated for keeping watch for invaders or enemies.

One by one, Athens went to war with the other cities in Attica, the peninsula in which it is located, accumulating riches and power with each victory. But its wealth and power were distributed unevenly. The aristocratic landowners enriched themselves, while the poor had to work hard to make a living, and those who made too little often incurred debt. Often the only thing they had available to use as collateral was their own bodies, so if they were unable to pay, they were forced to become slaves.

As Athens' wealth grew, so did its inequality, until the discontent threatened to explode. But in 594 BCE, the statesman Solon was appointed to draft a new code of law. Among the reforms he enacted was the abolition of debt slavery.

Slaves freed up their owners' time

That was the first modest step toward a democratic system, but real democracy wasn't established until the statesman Cleisthenes led the effort in 507 BCE. He classified the population into tribes, not by virtue of their status or fortune, but according the place in which they lived. Thus the tribes functioned somewhat like modern-day constituencies. Decisions concerning important foreign and domestic matters were ultimately made by the Ecclesia, or general citizens' assembly, which convened 40 times a year and required at least 6,000 citizens to be present in order to conduct business.

Apart from the citizens' assembly, there were a great many councils and assemblies making decisions in matters of justice and law and governing the army, navy, religious institutions and other important components of society. The court of justice, the Dikasterion, alone met 200 times a year.

Every citizen had access to all these opportunities, so for those who also needed to attend to work and family, the democratic process was both fatiguing and time-consuming. The solution to the problem was to obtain more slaves. The idea was not new to Athenians, as slaves had been a part of society for as long as anyone could remember. Many were war prisoners from areas conquered by Athens. But the Athenians also started to produce a class of native slaves by allowing their existing slaves to have children, who automatically became slaves - even in cases where the father was also the the slave owner.

Owning slaves was commonplace

Most Athenian families had slaves. Even the poorest of free citizens had at least one. This great demand for slaves, generated by the democratic reforms, couldn't be met by either the influx of war prisoners or the natural growth of the slave population, so Athenians began to acquire slaves by purchasing them in markets. Prices varied by age, gender and health, with the most expensive slaves fetching one talent, equal to 6,000 drachmas. Most were cheaper, however, costing about 200 drachmas.

In the markets, slaves were exhibited like cattle. Often, male slaves stood naked on a podium to allow buyers to see them from all angles. The slave could also be asked to do exercises to reveal any physical impairments; if he had hidden handicaps or other severe defects the buyer failed to notice, the transaction could be annulled.

Slaves did have one important protection: They could not be killed without the murderer suffering punishment. (Roman slaves were the unfortunate exception to the rule.) This custom was rooted in Greek culture, in which killings were connected with religious impurity and could make the gods angry not only at the killer, but at the entire society. But otherwise, an owner was free to do whatever he wanted with his slaves.

Sometimes slaves rebelled or fled, incurring punishments such as whipping. But by importing slaves from different regions who spoke different languages, an owner could lessen the risk that they would conspire to rebel. This resulted in an eclectic population: One register of35 slaves from 414 BCE lists at least 12 different places of origin.

Conquest ended democracy

This was indeed Athens' golden era. Art and culture flourished as the democracy thrived. When Pericles, one of the citystate's greatest leaders, rose to prominence in the 460s BCE, he took democracy even further by introducing a policy in which Athenians were paid for participating in political meetings.

But Athens' heyday would not last. Rivals challenged the affluent city, particularly Sparta, another regional power that frequently clashed with Athens in battle, costing both cities dearly. When these conflicts escalated into the Peloponnesian War in 431, Sparta invaded Attica; the following year, Athens was ravaged by a plague that ultimately killed many citizens, Pericles included.

Macedonia finally put an end to Athens' reign as an independent power- and a democracy. Though it took a long time to reappear, democracy now flourishes in many parts of the world- without slavery.

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Ostracism prevented tyranny

When Cleisthenes finalized the principles of democracy in Athens in 507 BCE, one of the safeguards he built into the system was ostracism, which was a form of exile. It was used to ensure that no man could become a tyrant by buying himself supporters or otherwise amassing an excessive amount of influence.

Ostracism was implemented through a simple vote. At the beginning of each year, the citizens' assembly was asked if it wished to hold an ostracism.lf the answer was yes, a date was set for the vote.

On that day, all free men who wished to participate could appear at the assembly to cast their vote. Each voter wrote the name of the person he wanted expelled on a piece of broken pottery, which was placed in an urn. An individual who received enough votes was banished from Athens for 10 years, although he did retain his fortune and property.

By Else Christensen in "Science Illustrated", USA, September/October 2012 issue, excerpts pp. 28-33. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

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