GREECE IS | DEMOCRACY | SEPT 2015

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SPECIAL edition

DE MO C RA C Y

SEPTEMBER 2015

16 - 47

48 - 93

94 - 117

118 - 137

Τ ΗΕ B E G I N N I N G

Τ ΗΕ RE A LIT Y

ΙN SPIRATION

ΤΗ Ε ΤΕST OF TI ME

Τhe founders and opponents of ancient democracy; the places where its seed took root; the lessons of Pericles and Aristotle on the system of government that changed the course of history.

Democracy in practice: How did the system work?

What mechanisms did it develop to mitigate inequalities? Which critical factors contributed to the miracle of the Athenian city-state?

The masterpieces of the Golden Age still inspire awe 2,500 years on, while Ancient Messene is a perfect, amazingly preserved, example of how the democratic ideal reflected on city planning.

Can the ancient concept of democracy still serve as a model?

Are there limits to inclusiveness?

How can the democratic system brace itself against the challenges of a volatile world?

WE LCOME

The Lesson of Athens B y G i o r g o s K a m i n i s , M ay o r o f At h e n s

With the country’s unswerving commitment to Europe as a starting point, the place and the city that became the cradle not only of democracy but of western thinking are turning once more to the great pedagogical and historical role of democracy in the quest for consensual solutions.

The city where democracy was born today finds itself, after some 2,500 years, in a place rife with major challenges, upheavals, often dramatic predicaments, burning issues and the pressing questions of a modern, European democracy.

Athens’ symbolic status as the cradle of democracy is taking on even greater importance and gaining fresh momentum in the new – international – environment, where post-war certainties and states of affairs are being redefined on account of sweeping changes, unforeseen events and sudden crises.

The economic and social crisis of the past five years, which is of course not an exclusively Greek phenomenon, has thrown the spotlight on many of the malaises of recent decades which have raised serious questions about democratic governance.

This is the lesson of Athens.

A state of lawlessness where diverse privileges prevailed, opportunistic or not, and which undermined democracy. Fragmentation and degradation of the public interest. A significant loss of citizens’ trust in politics and democratic institutions in general. And at the same time, widespread corruption, rampant bureaucracy and administrative absurdities, unfair political influence wielded by economic interests, constitutional problems.

The crisis also brought to the surface those malaises which Greek society’s fictitious prosperity – built on a foundation of straw – not only concealed, but to a large extent fuelled. As this illusion of prosperity burst like a bubble, violently overturning the everyday lives of thousands of citizens and testing social cohesion to the limits – as Mayor of Athens I am in a position to know just how difficult and just how important it has been to safeguard this cohesion –

the place that gave birth to democracy entered a transitional period of instability and uncertainty which sparked manifestations of extreme radicalism, fanaticism and intolerance.

Meanwhile, political battles became dangerously fierce, increasingly being reduced to hate speech; it was not enough to defeat political opponents, they had to be wiped out as enemies of democracy. The situation was further exacerbated by other phenomena that posed an equally serious threat to democratic institutions, particularly acts of violence, which (again) began to be used as a means of settling political disputes.

Democracy’s reflection in the mirror became very hazy, almost to the point of being unrecognizable. Nevertheless, as the country followed its dramatic historical orbit, the last five years have shown that the cycle of governance which began with the restoration of democracy in the mid-1970s is coming to an end, and this in turn is signaling a change in the way we perceive democratic governance. Of course, many of the political, economic and social problems – which are in any case shared by other European countries – have not yet been resolved and new ones are emerging.

But Athens is learning. Democracy is returning to its fundamental principles. With the country’s unswerving commitment to Europe as a starting point, the place and the city that became the cradle not only of democracy but of western thinking are turning once more to the great pedagogical and historical role of democracy in the quest for consensual solutions.

After all, for the impartial reader of classical and modern history, only governance of a consensual nature, politics that allow the dialectical coexistence of opposites, can ensure a well-functioning democratic society and social cohesion.

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CONTENTS Special Edition, September 2015 WELCOME 8. Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon

THE REALITY 48. How the People Ruled: Structure &

THE TEST OF TIME 118 A Radical Experiment:

message to the third Athens Democracy

functions of the Athenian democracy

Can the Athenian "demokratia"

Forum

be a model for 21st-century governance?

10. State and Civil Society:

56. A Tale of Two Stoas 62. Explaining the Glory:

A Winning Combination by Annika

The merits of economic specialization

Truth and Fiction

Savill, Executive Head, UNDEF

and exchange

126. The Transition:

12. Beacon of hope,

70. Regulating for Sucess.

76. Sharing the Wealth: Inequality and

A crash course on the last 200 years

by Achilles Tsaltas,

VP Int. Conferences - International New York Times

122. Direct Democracy:

of Greek political history

redistribution in the classical period

130. A Democracy that Lives On:

80. An Engine for Progress:

The impressive longevity of Greece’s

How democracy helped the sharing

constitutional parliamentary democracy

THE BEGINNING 16. Timeline 20. “Equal Justice to All...”

of knowledge and boosted innovation

134. Voting is Not Enough:

84. The Politics of Laughter:

Democracies are neither all-powerful

Extract from Pericles’ funeral oration

Athenian society did not fear self-ridicule

nor infallible

24. Aristotle’s approach:

90.

The fundamental principles of democracy

Democracy around the table

26. Words of Wisdom 30. The Landmarks 42. The Pioneers: Lawmakers,

INSPIRATION 94. An Artistic Anthem

Eating & Philosophizing:

reformers and patriots who led the way

to the Golden Age

45. The Subversives: Key figures

112. When Democracy Became

of the opposition

a City: The case of Ancient Messene

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WHILE IN ATHENS 148. Treasures Galore.

151. Αutumn Art 152. Where to Eat: An eclectic mix 154. Pit-stops: For coffee or drink 158. Saronic Sojourn

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Published by: Kathimerines Ekdoseis SA, Ethnarchou Makariou & 2 Falireos St, Athens, 18547, Greece www.kathimerini.gr ISSN: 2459-2498 Manager of Magazine Publications: Socratis Tsichlias Editor-in-chief: Giorgos Tsiros (editor@greece-is.com) Deputy editor: Vassilis Minakakis Creative consultant: Costas Coutayar Creative director: Thodoris Lalangas / www.youandi.gr Contributing art director: Ria Staveri Translations: John Leonard, Christine Sturmey, Stephen Stafford Proof-reading: Christine Sturmey Photo Editor: Maria Konstantopoulou Photoshop: Christos Maritsas, Michalis Tzannetakis, Stelios Vazourakis Commercial director: Natasha Bouterakou Advertising executive: Deppie Papazoglou (sales@greece-is.com) Head of public relations: Lefki Vardikou Online content powered by: KATHIMERINI Newspaper (www.kathimerini.gr, www.ekathimerini.com) Online marketing: Thanasis Sofianos, www.relevance.gr GREECE IS DEMOCRACY is published on the occasion of Athens Democracy Forum 2015 and distributed free of charge.

Contact us: welcome@greece-is.com

It is illegal to reproduce any part of this publication without the written permission of the publisher.

ON THE C OVER Pericles speaking on the Pnyx; wall painting by Philipp von Foltz (1860)

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WE LCOME

“We need all global citizens to engage...”

U n i t e d N at i o n s S e c r e ta r y- G e n e r a l’ s M r B a n K i - M o o n ’ s m e s s a g e t o t h e t h i r d At h e n s D e m o c r a c y F o r um

I commend you for coming together in the birthplace of democracy to observe the International Day of Democracy, in cooperation with the United Nations Democracy Fund.

The painstaking work of building democracy is never finished.

At times, while pushing the proverbial boulder up the hill, your work may feel like the unending labor of Sisyphus: each succeeding generation is obliged to argue for democracy, and to work towards strengthening its foundations.

In that work, gatherings like the Athens Democracy Forum provide the much-needed oxygen of dialogue. They demonstrate that diversity is a strength; that giving voice to all people is our collective responsibility; that freedom of expression and respect for the beliefs of others are not mutually exclusive; that when the people have spoken and when they have been heard, democracy lives.

I am encouraged that you will discuss many complex issues that are at the heart of today’s democratic debate – from multiculturalism to modem media and the role money plays in politics This year, as the international community strives to agree on new sustainable development goals and a new universal and meaningful climate agreement, we need all global citizens to engage. On this International Day of Democracy, may the oxygen of dialogue travel from Athens to places far and wide around the world.

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WE LCOME

State and Civil Society: A Winning Combination

By A nnik a S av il l E x e c u t i v e H ea d , U n i t e d Nat i o n s De m o c r a c y F u n d

The role of civil society has never been more important. We face mounting challenges of extremism, humanitarian crises and unprecedented migration flows.

And yet today, the space for civil societies is closing in a range of countries on every continent.

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Civil society is the oxygen of democracy. Look at the most vibrant and stable democracies in the world. What do they have in common? Government and civil society work together for common goals, while civil society – all those who represent neither the state nor the market – helps keep government accountable, fights corruption, works for sustainability and broader implementation of government policies.

As the Athens Democracy Forum takes place for a third year, the role of civil society has never been more important. We face mounting challenges of extremism, humanitarian crises and unprecedented migration flows. On the global development agenda, this year also marks a turning point for the international community.

The world’s nations are uniting behind a new development framework and meaningful climate agreement beyond 2015 – and looking for ways to implement them.

And yet today, for civil society, the trend is going in wrong direction. The space for civil society is closing in a range of countries on every continent.

An alarming number of governments have passed restrictions into law, limiting either the ability of NGOs to operate, or their ability to receive funding from outside, or both. Studies show that in the past three years, more than 100 new such laws have been introduced by more than 50 governments.

This includes several countries that for two decades had accepted the existence of active, vocal and growing civil society. It includes some nations that are growing into economic powerhouses and leaders of their region; it seems that the need to assert control expands along with their growth. It includes some countries where

the leaders in power themselves rose through the ranks of community activism, and once in power, their leaders’ focus has shifted to staying there. And with that agenda, civil society becomes a threat. The revolution has eaten its children.

For some governments, civil society has become a code word for conspiracies designed to overthrow them. As citizens rise up in many countries and question their leaders, some seek to explain it away without foreign subversion.

For others, there is an exaggerated belief in the power of what are often relatively modest programs. So support for civil society has become almost impossible for some external funders. Here, the United Nations can and does play a special role.

The UN Democracy Fund is often able to act as an objective funder without the baggage of politics and history.

To those who see contradiction between an active and vocal civil society on the one hand and an effective state on the other, I would venture: It is possible to have strong state and a strong civil society at the same time. It is often a winning combination. Many of the most stable and established democracies in our world have built their success on precisely this model.

That is why, on this year’s International Day of Democracy, September 15, the United Nations is focusing on the theme of space for civil society. I hope that this year’s Athens Democracy Forum can serve as a reminder to governments that progress and civic participation go hand in hand. That a confident and mature nation gives citizens a say and role in the development of their country. That the State and civil society can and should be partners in building the future we want.

Athens: Voukourestiou 21, tel.2103628003 Mykonos: Tria Pigadia, tel.2289022922 info@fmathens.com Also available at Boutiques in Athens www.kassis.net

WE LCOME

Beacon of hope An Introduction to the Athens Democracy Forum B Y A c h i l l e s T s a lta s V i c e P r e s i d e n t, I n t e r n at i o n a l C o n f e r e n c e s - I n t e r n at i o n a l N e w Y o r k T i m e s

Greece is not only the cradle of democracy, but also a nation that in recent years has learned much about navigating the turbulent waters of economic and social crises.

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At a time when the world and democracy are confronted with numerous crises and challenges, it would be comforting to be able to turn to a North Star.

Athens and its Ancient Agora provide the perfect historical background and setting to serve as such a beacon, one we can use to reorient ourselves when democracy appears in peril. Greece is not only the cradle of democracy, but also a nation that in recent years has learned much about navigating the turbulent waters of economic and social crises.

The world can also learn from this experience and this is why the International New York Times chose Athens to convene its Democracy Forum.

The New York Times partnered with the United Nations three years ago to establish this annual forum to reflect on the state and much needed evolution of the political model known as democracy in the place where it was born — and on the day designated by the United Nations as International Day of Democracy (September 15). The Athens Democracy Forum certainly speaks to the mission of The New York Times to better society and support democracy by providing impartial and thorough news from around the world.

Through a number of panel discussions and debates, as well as a program of cultural and educational activities, this four-day forum aims to engage experts and the community at large in order to highlight the challenges that democracy is facing and offer hope and solutions for better governance and polity.

Democracy was born here 2,500 years ago, when Pericles made it the foundation of his Golden Age and the cornerstone of Western civilization.

But the ruins of the Ancient Agora also

remind us that for more than 2,000 years democracy went into hibernation, before re-emerging with the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. It found impetus in the rebellion of the American colonies against British rule, as well as in the French Revolution, and survived the massive upheavals of the past century to become the dominant political system in the world. To paraphrase Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the free peoples of the world succeeded in shielding the great flame of democracy from the blackout of barbarism.

But the barbarians are back at the door, and that is why we are convening the Athens Democracy Forum. The Arab Spring, the Maidan and Hong Kong protests, among other events, are testament to the challenges facing democracy. Even in the United States, for many the shining beacon of democracy, there are dark clouds. In Europe, economic turmoil has given rise to populist parties opposed to many of the principles that have guided the West for decades. The challenges of the digital revolution, income inequality, alternative authoritarian political systems and the rise of fundamentalist ideologies are the four main topics that the conference will cover this year. So, with democracy again under intense pressure to adapt and evolve, we trust that this forum and “Greece Is Democracy,” this accompanying publication so generously provided by our partner in Greece, Kathimerini, will offer some useful insights and clarity.

Visit athensdemocracyforum.com for more information on the speakers, the agenda and the sponsors of the Athens Democracy Forum

Mary Beard

John McK. Camp II

Edward Harris

Stathis N. Kalyvas

Winifred Mary Beard, a wickedly subversive commentator on both the modern and the ancient world, is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement and author of the blog “A Don’s Life,” which appears in The Times as a regular column. She is widely regarded as “Britain’s best-known classicist” (“A Radical Experiment,” p. 118)

John Camp is Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of Classics at Randolph-Macon College, Virginia, Director of the Athenian Agora Excavations and author of many books on ancient Greece. His contribution to shedding light on Greece’s distinguished past spans nearly five decades. (“How the People Ruled,” p. 48)

Edward Harris is Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at Durham University. He is author of “The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens” (Oxford, 2013) and co-editor of “The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households and City-States” (Cambridge, 2015). He teaches at College Year in Athens. (“Regulating for Sucess,” p. 70)

Stathis N. Kalyvas is Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science at Yale University and author of “Modern Greece: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford University Press, 2015). He is Director of the Program on Order, Conflict and Violence and Co-director of the Program in Hellenic Studies, both at Yale. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he specializes in the study of civil conflict and political violence. (“The Transition,” p. 126)

contributors

Josiah Ober

Takis Theodoropoulos

Josiah Ober, Mitsotakis Professor in the School of Humanities and Science, Stanford University, works on historical institutionalism and political theory, focusing on the political thought and practice of the ancient Greek world and its contemporary relevance. His new book “The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece” (Princeton University Press), documents and explains the remarkable Greek efflorescence of ca. 800-300 BC, the Macedonian conquest of the late 4th century, and the persistence of economic flourishing into the Hellenistic era. (“Explaining the Glory,” p. 62 & “An Engine for Progress,” p. 80)

Takis Theodoropoulos is a novelist and a columnist for the Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini. His latest novel “The Barefoot Cloud” deals with Aristophanes’ “The Clouds” and the discord between the great comic playwright and Socrates in 5th century BC Athens. It has been published in French under the title “Le va-nu-pieds des nuages.” His novel “The Spell of Dionysus” has been published in English (Academy of Athens Award, 1999). (“The Politics of Laughter,” p. 84)

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Nikos Konstandaras

GIANNIS Lemonis

John Leonard

Nicholas Kyriazis

Nikos Konstandaras is managing editor and a columnist of the Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini. He became a contributing opinion writer for The International New York Times in the fall of 2013. He is also the founding editor of Kathimerini English Edition, which since 1998 has been published as a supplement to the International New York Times (formerly the International Herald Tribune) in Greece and Cyprus. (“Voting is Not Enough,” p. 134)

Giannis Lemonis was born in Athens in 1956. He is a food connoisseur and researcher into ancient Greek gastronomy. Author of cook books and of the historical novel “Murder in the Kitchen of Ptolemy.” In addition to his column “Gastromythologia” for the magazine Gastronomos, a Kathimerini newspaper supplement, he also delivers lectures on ancient Greek gastronomy and the Mediterranean diet. (“Eating & Philosophizing,” p. 90)

John Leonard is an archaeologist, journalist and teacher, whose professional and personal interests blend into one when it comes to Greek and Cypriot history, archaeology and exploring the ancient landscape, above and below the waterline.

Since 2007, he has contributed extensively to three of Athens’ (now crisis-bitten) English-language newspapers as a columnist and feature-writer. (“The Pioneers” & “The Subversives,” p. 42)

Nicholas Kyriazis is Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Thessaly. Ηis book “Why Ancient Greece?” on the birth and influence of democracy, is the result of eight years of research and a dozen contributions to academic journals. Co-author, Emmanouil M.L. Economou, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Thessaly, Department of Economics. (“Sharing the Wealth,” p. 76)

Soti Triantafyllou

Panos Valavanis

Thanos M. Veremis

Soti Triantafyllou is an American history scholar, novelist and essayist. She has studied in Athens, Paris and New York.

She also works as a columnist and translator. Her most recent book, “Mechanic Falls,” was published in October 2014, while her forthcoming “Multiculturalism, Pluralism, Integration, Assimilation” will be out in October 2015. Ηer books have been translated into German, Italian, Catalan and Turkish. (“Direct Democracy: Truth and Fiction,” p. 122)

Panos Valavanis is Professor in the Department of History and Archaeology at the National and Capodistrian University of Athens. He has participated in numerous excavations and is the author of 12 books, including “Games and Sanctuaries in Ancient Greece” (Getty Publications, 2004), “Great Moments in Greek Archaeology” (Ed., Getty Publications, 2007) and “Τhe Acropolis through its Museum” (Athens, 2013). (The Landmarks, p. 30)

Thanos Veremis is Professor Emeritus of Political History at the University of Athens, Department of European and International Studies and Founding Member of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). He has served as President of the National Council for Education (2004- 2010). His most recent publication (with John Koliopoulos) is “Modern Greece. A History since 1821” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). (“A Democracy that Lives On,” p. 130) G R E E C E IS

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TIME LINE

THE EVOLUTION STAGE 561 BC

508/507 BC

Peisistratos seizes power in Athens as a “tyrant.”

Democracy is restored and broadened; a democratic constitution drafted; Cleisthenes’ reforms enacted.

Practice of ostracism established, which Pericles later exploits in his rise to power – having his chief rival Kimon ostracized in 461 BC (Ostrakon with Kimon’s name, Ancient Agora Museum).

487 BC

Ca. 700 BC

Athens joins with the other towns and villages of Attica to form a single political unit, the Athenian city-state, centered around the Acropolis.

Ca. 683 BC

An aristocratic republic, ruled by archons (serving 1-year terms), becomes fully established in Athens.

594 BC

Solon institutes social and constitutional reforms in Athens (Marble bust of Solon (640ca 561 BC), Roman copy of Greek original from the 4th century BC, Naples National Archaeological Museum).

514 BC

The tyrant Hipparchos, Peisistratus’ youngest son, is slain by Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the “Tyrranicides” (Stamnos by the Syriskos Painter, Martin von Wagner Museum, University of Würzburg, Germany).

Archons no longer elected,now appointed by lot (north frieze, Block X. A procession of “Thallophoroi” marching or standing and conversing, Acropolis Museum).

480 BC

Persians overrun the Athenian Acropolis; later defeated by the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis (Painting by Wilhelm von Kaulbach, 1868).

510 BC

The tyrant Hippias, Peisistratus’ surviving, eldest son, is overthrown.

cA. 700 BC 451 BC

Athenian citizenship restricted; Pericles elevates status of Athenian women by requiring a citizen to have both a native father and mother. Pay for jurors introduced.

Pericles would also “democratize” Athens’ knighthood by offering subsidies to citizens aspiring to be knights but unable on their own to afford the necessary equipment. (Pictured, a white ground jug made in Athens in the early 5th century BC with a woman’s figure, British Museum).

478/477 BC

Athens takes the lead in forming the Pericles and Ephialtes bring Delian League, an democratic reforms to Athens: alliance of Greek powers of Areopagus Court city-states, to and archons are transferred combat the to Council of 500 (Boule) and Persian threat people’s law courts; payment (Delos). established for members of Boule; Council members now appointed by lot (Marble portrait bust of Pericles, British Museum).

454 BC

Treasury of the Delian League transferred to exclusive Athenian control on the city’s Acropolis (where it was eventually stored in the Parthenon). Henceforth, Athens retains one mina from each talent (1/6th of a talent) of tribute paid by its allies, ostensibly as an offering to Athena, thus signaling another move by Athens toward an imperialistic foreign policy and ensuring greater prosperity at home.

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431 BC

Start of Peloponnesian War; the year Pericles delivered his Funeral Oration (as transmitted by Thucydides) at the Athenian cemetery, the Kerameikos, in which he states that Athens considers citizens who do not participate in the operation of their government as useless; discussion among citizenry is no stumbling block to action, but an indispensable preliminary to any wise action; democratic Athens described as the “School of Hellas.”

© GETTY IMAGES/IDEAL IMAGE, ACROPOLIS MUSEUM

Beginning 462/461 BC

Along an often arduous, twisting path, many ancient milestones mark the early stages of modern democracy.

BY John Leonard

404/403 BC

Democracy overthrown by the Thirty Tyrants.

406/ 405 BC

Socrates serves on the Boule (Socrates bust, British Museum).

429 BC

Pericles perishes from plague (“Plague in an Ancient City,” Michiel Sweerts, circa 1652-1654, Los Angeles County Museum of Art).

425/424 BC

Total annual tribute paid by allies to Athens is recorded in an inscription at a level of more than 1460 talents. (Fragment of an inscription, ca. 425–424 B.C.) of a tribute list recording payments to Athens by members of the confederacy (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

404/403 BC

Thrasyboulos and fellow democratic freedom-fighters occupy mountain deme of Phyle NW of Athens, which they use as a staging point to rally additional pro-democracy troops. After defeating a force sent against them by the Thirty Tyrants (mainly Spartan troops), Thrasyboulos’ army descend to Athens and Piraeus, defeat the Thirty, free Athens of military occupation and restore constitutional democracy. (Pictured, Thrasyboulos receiving an olive crown for his successful campaign against the Thirty Tyrants. From Andrea Alciato’s “Emblemata” (1531), a collection of short Latin verse texts and accompanying woodcuts).

404 BC

Ca. 385 BC

End of Peloponnesian War; Athens surrenders to Sparta, led in victory by Lysander, a cunning naval strategist (“Lysander” by J. Chapman, 1807).

The great philosopher Plato starts teaching in Athens (Athens University entrance).

Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens, Ancient Agora, Archive ΑSΚSΑ © Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

146 BC 336 BC

An anti-tyranny law is passed in Athens, allowing the blameless killing of anyone who seeks to become a tyrant or who conspires to establish tyranny. Also the year Philip II is assassinated, Alexander the Great elevated to Macedonian throne.

359 BC

Philip II becomes king of Macedon (Pictured here on silver tetradrachm, Cabinet des Médailles, Paris).

323 BC

Alexander dies (Lithograph by Karl von Piloty).

351 BC

307/306 BC

Demosthenes rallies Athenians against Philip II.

338 BC

Battle of Chaeronea; Athens and allies defeated by Philip, Macedonians become the imperial masters of Greece.

(The Lion of Chaeronea, probably erected by the Thebans in memory of their dead).

Reestablishment of democracy

by Demetrios Poliorketes (Pictured here on silver tetradrachm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

335 BC

Aristotle, Plato’s student, founds school (Lyceum) at Athens (Pictured, Aristotle by Justus of Ghent and Pedro Berruguete, 15th century, Louvre Museum, Paris).

146 BC

Corinth burned by invading Romans; Greece eventually becomes an imperial Roman province.

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TIME LINE

A WORK IN PROGRESS 1689

England

1215

England

c. 930 Iceland

The Viking Age parliament – the Althing – is first established, constituting a more elaborate version of the early governing assemblies (Things) found throughout Northern Europe.

Rebellious barons force King John to sign the Magna Carta. For the first time, this “Great Charter” establishes the principle that everyone, including the king, was subject to the law, thus marking the start of Britain’s transition from absolute to constitutional monarchy.

1295

England

Edward I convenes the “Model Parliament,” which brings together members of the clergy and the aristocracy, as well as representatives from the counties and boroughs.

In doing so, he becomes the first king to call a parliament. Although Edward’s main goal is to raise funds for his military campaigns, the writ of summons to attend Parliament states that “... what touches all, should be approved by all...”.

Reflecting the ideas of Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, widely considered the “Father of Classical Liberalism”, the Bill of Rights further limits the powers of the monarch while firmly establishing the principle of regular parliaments, as well as of free elections and freedom of speech in Parliament.

1787 USA

The US Constitution establishes a federal system of government in which powers are separated. A system of checks and balances is introduced to prevent any single branch acquiring too much power.

The Constitution guarantees certain basic rights for citizens, though slaves and women cannot vote.

c. 930 1789

France

The outbreak of the French Revolution is followed by a decade of social and political turmoil which sees the overthrow of King Louis XVI and the country’s transition from an absolute monarchy to a republic.

USA

1917

1918

Social and political upheaval leads to the overthrow of the Tsarist autocracy, only to usher in seven decades of totalitarian communist rule.

Women aged 30 or over win the right to vote. Ten years later, suffrage is extended to all women over the age of 21, finally giving them the right to vote on the same terms as men.

Russia

1835 France

French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville publishes the first two volumes of his extremely influential Democracy in America.

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1893

New Zealand

The self-governing British colony becomes the first country to grant adult women the right to vote.

Britain

1947 India

India attains independence from the British Empire to become a republic and the world’s largest democracy by population.

A constitutional amendment extends the right of suffrage to women.

© CORBIS/SMART MAGNA, GETTY IMAGES/IDEAL IMAGE

1920

Highlights in the 11-century adventure of democracy around the world

BY S T E P H E N S TA F F O R D

1976

Portugal

1968

Czechoslovakia

1967 USA

Congress passes the Freedom of Information Act, fostering greater accountability through transparency, which is vital to the functioning of a democratic society.

The following year, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, providing for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed or origin.

The “Prague Spring” reform movement is crushed by Soviet tanks, but the nonviolent resistance prefigures the transition to liberal democracy just over two decades later.

The Constituent Assembly adopts a democratic constitution, ending decades of dictatorship.

1985

1974

Soviet Union

Greece

Mikhail Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party. His efforts to democratize the country’s political system and reform the economy precipitate the end of the Cold War, the break-up of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism in Europe.

The seven-year military dictatorship collapses and democracy is restored.

1970

1989

Chile

China

Salvador Allende becomes the first Marxist to be democratically elected as president of a Latin American country, though three years later he dies in a military coup.

Student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square are brutally suppressed by the military.

Chile General elections are held, ending 16 years of military rule.

2010 1990

1993

Solidarity trade union leader Lech Walesa becomes the country’s new leader in its first-ever direct presidential election, accelerating Poland’s transition from communist party rule to a Westernstyle liberal democracy.

End of the Apartheid system of racial segregation which disenfranchised the country’s non-white population, with two-thirds of white voters voting for its abolition in a referendum. Τhe following year, the country holds its first multi-racial elections and Nelson Mandela becomes the first democratically elected president.

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Poland

2004

South Africa

Afghanistan

Mohammed Karzai wins the country’s first-ever direct presidential election, though the process is marred by accusations of widespread fraud.

2005

Iraq

Multi-party elections are held for the first time in half a century, resulting in the formation of a permanent 275-member National Assembly, despite numerous allegations of vote rigging.

1991 Burma

While under house arrest in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her courageous nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma.

2010

Arab world

A popular revolutionary wave of protests, riots and armed rebellions – which has become known as the “Arab Spring” – begins to ripple across the Middle East and North Africa, driven by demands for greater democracy, political accountability and civil rights.

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Equal Justice to All...

Extract from Pericles’ Funeral Oration (430 BC), a timeless statement on the value of democracy.

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Pericles speaking on the Pnyx; wall painting by Philipp von Foltz (1860).

“O

ur constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition.

The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty.

But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens.

Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.

Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself from busi-

ness. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen; while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbor, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own.

If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from antagonists.

We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger. In proof of this it may be noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone, but bring with them all their confederates; while we Athenians advance unsupported into the territory of a neighbor, and fighting upon a foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their homes.

Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy, because we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so

“Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters.”

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Marble bust of Pericles; Roman copy of an original by Kresilas (Vatican Museums, Pius-Clementine Museum, Rome).

Scene of a departing warrior, detail of an Attic red-figure vase attributed to the Kleophon Painter (ca. 430 BC, State Collections of Antiquities in Munich).

Grave stele of Chairedemos and Lykeas, two young hoplites believed to have been killed in battle during the Peloponnesian War (420 BC, Piraeus Archaeological Museum).

that, wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength, a success against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of our entire people. And yet if with habits not of labor but of ease, and courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing to encounter danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as fearlessly as those who are never free from them.

Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of admiration.

We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle

against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.

Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who

best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring not by receiving favors. Yet, of course, the doer of the favor is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be a payment, not a free gift. And it is only the Athenians who, fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.”

Thucydides | “The History of the Peloponnesian War,” London, J. M. Dent; New York, E.P. Dutton. 1910.

INFO The winter of 430 BC marked the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). As was their custom, the Athenians buried the war dead at public expense and asked Pericles to deliver the funeral speech. This speech, a passionate hymn to the Athenian state and democracy, was recorded by the Athenian historian Thucydides (c. 460 – c. 400 BC) in the second book of his “History of the Peloponnesian War” (2.35 to 2.44).

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Statue of Aristotle

by Cipri Adolph Bermann (1915), at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany.

GOVERNMENT OF EACH

BY ALL AND OF ALL

BY EACH IN TURN Aristotle’s approach on the fundamental principles of democracy

“Α

fundamental principle of the democratic form of constitution is liberty – that is what is usually asserted, implying that only under this constitution do men participate in liberty, for they assert this as the aim of every democracy.

But one factor of liberty is to govern and be governed in turn; for the popular principle of justice is to have equality according to number, not worth, and if this is the principle of justice prevail-

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ing, the multitude must of necessity be sovereign and the decision of the majority must be final and must constitute justice, for they say that each of the citizens ought to have an equal share; so that it results that in democracies the poor are more powerful than the rich, because there are more of them and whatever is decided by the majority is sovereign.

This then is one mark of liberty which all democrats set down as a prin-

ciple of the constitution. And one is for a man to live as he likes; for they say that this is the function of liberty, inasmuch as to live not as one likes is the life of a man that is a slave.

This is the second principle of democracy, and from it has come the claim not to be governed, preferably not by anybody, or failing that, to govern and be governed in turns; and this is the way in which the second principle contributes to equalitarian liberty.

the beginning

Title page of Aristotle’s “Politics;” French edition (1596).

And these principles having been laid down and this being the nature of democratic government, the following institutions are democratic in character: election of officials by all from all; government of each by all, and of all by each in turn; election by lot either to all magistracies or to all that do not need experience and skill; no property-qualification for office, or only a very low one; no office to be held twice, or more than a few times, by the same person, or few offices except the military ones; short tenure either of all offices or of as many as possible; judicial functions to be exercised by all citizens, that is by persons selected from all, and on all matters, or on most and the greatest and most important, for instance the audit of official accounts, constitutional questions, private contracts; the assembly to be sovereign over all matters, but no official over any or only over ex-

Plato (left) and Aristotle (right) in a wood sculptural composition (tympanum) over the entrance to the Public Library of Santa Barbara, California.

Designed by Carleton M. Winslow and executed by Marshall Laird in 1924.

tremely few; or else a council to be sovereign over the most important matters (and a council is the most democratic of magistracies in states where there is not a plentiful supply of pay for everybody – for where there is, they deprive even this office of its power, since the people draws all the trials to itself when it has plenty of pay, as has been said before in the treatise preceding this one); also payment for public duties, preferably in all branches, assembly, lawcourts, magistracies, or if not, for the magistracies, the law-courts, council and sovereign assemblies, or for those magistracies which are bound to have common mess tables.

Also inasmuch as oligarchy is defined by birth, wealth and education, the popular qualifications are thought to be the opposite of these, low birth, poverty, vulgarity. And in respect of the magistracies it is democratic to

have none tenable for life, and if any life-office has been left after an ancient revolution, at all events to deprive it of its power and to substitute election by lot for election by vote. These then are the features common to democracies.

But what is thought to be the extreme form of democracy and of popular government comes about as a result of the principle of justice that is admitted to be democratic, and this is for all to have equality according to number. For it is equality for the poor to have no larger share of power than the rich, and not for the poor alone to be supreme but for all to govern equally; for in this way they would feel that the constitution possessed both equality and liberty.”

“Politics” | Book 6 Sections 1317a and 317b

Info Aristotle (384-322 BC), one of ancient Greece’s pre-eminent thinkers, was pivotal in influencing western thought by taking a pioneering and systematic approach to the sciences. Politics, one of his greatest works, addressed the political institutions of antiquity. The Constitution of the Athenians was also analyzed in the book of the same name, which was discovered in 1879 in Egypt and has also been attributed to Aristotle.

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WORDS OF WISDOM A collection of timeless quotes on democracy and its merits C o m p i l e d by Va s s i l i s M i n a k a k i s

Democracies experience something of the same sort as do the seas; for just as the latter are agitated by the winds, though it is their nature to be tranquil, so the former are disturbed by the demagogues, though they have in themselves no evil.

D i on y s i u s o f H a l i c a r n a s s u s ( 1s t ce n t u r y B C ), Ro m a n A n t i q u i t ie s

That is no true democracy in which the whole crowd of citizens is free to do whatever they wish or purpose.

When men destroy free constitutions and convert them into oligarchies, I say that you must think of them as the common enemies of all whose hearts are set on freedom.

Demos thenes (38 4 -322 BC), F o r t h e F r e e d o m o f t h e Rh o di a n s

Democracies... 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.

A government (referring to the democratic system instituted by Solon and reestablished by Cleisthenes, Ed.) than which we could find none more favorable to the populace or more advantageous to the whole city. The strongest proof of this is that those who enjoyed this constitution wrought many noble deeds, won the admiration of all mankind, and took their place, by the common consent of the Hellenes.

Demos thenes (38 4 -322 BC), Funer a l Speech

Isocr at e s (4 3 6 - 3 3 8 BC), A reopagi t icus

P o l y bi u s ( 2 0 4 - 1 2 2 B C ) , Th e H i s t o r i e s

Democracies are not overthrown by just anyone but by men of extraordinary capacity.

D i o d o r u s Si c u l u s ( c . 9 0 - 3 0 B C ) 26

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It is manifest now to all that the unjust acts of rulers in an oligarchy produce democracy, whereas the trade of slanderers in the democracy has twice led to the establishment of oligarchy.

L y s i a s ( 4 4 5 - c . 3 8 0 B C ) , D e f e n c e a g a i n s t a Ch a r g e o f s u b v e r t i n g t h e D e m o c r a c y

The things which in the main uphold our democracy and preserve the city’s prosperity are three in number: first the system of law, second the vote of the jury, and third the method of prosecution by which the crimes are handed over to them.

Ly c u rg u s ( 3 9 0 - 3 24 B C ), A g a i n s t L e oc r at e s

There is a point which some find extraordinary, that they everywhere assign more to the worst persons, to the poor, and to the popular types than to the good men: in this very point they will be found manifestly preserving their democracy. For the poor, the popular, and the base, inasmuch as they are well off and the likes of them are numerous, will increase the democracy.

Xenophon (c. 430 -a f ter 355 BC), Cons t i t u t ion of t he At heni a ns

Liberty, it is said, is all-powerful to feed the aspirations of high intellects, to hold out hope, and keep alive the flame of mutual rivalry and ambitious struggle for the highest place.

And how, pray, could one find a democracy more stable or more just than this, which appointed the most capable men to have charge of its affairs but gave to the people authority over their rulers?

L on g i n u s ( 1s t ce n t u r y A D), On t he S u b l i me

Isocr at e s (4 3 6 - 3 3 8 BC), A reopagi t icus

Even badly constituted democracies are responsible for fewer disasters than are oligarchies.

Isocr at e s (4 3 6 - 3 3 8 BC), A reopagi t icus

In a democracy it is the laws that guard the person of the citizen and the constitution of the state, whereas the despot and the oligarch find their protection in suspicion and in armed guards.

A e s c hi n e s ( 3 8 9 - 3 1 4 B C ) , A g a i n s t Ti m a r c h u s 28

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The Landmarks A photographic tour of the locations where the most important chapters in the history of Athenian democracy were written.

BY Pa n o s Va l ava n i s

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Ancient Agora The Birthplace

© CLAIRY MOUSTAFELLOU

Occupying a large square, the Ancient Agora of Athens was the center of the city’s social, political and economic life. Athenians would gather here every day to engage in a broad spectrum of activities: political contacts, religious ceremonies, commercial transactions, administrative duties, contests, trials and discussions of every imaginable type. Around this square, most of the public buildings were gradually constructed: the Bouleuterion (council house), the offices of institutions and officials, the public archives, the mint, courthouses. There were also a number of long stoas which, together with the trees in the area, provided shade for people wishing to walk or talk. Here and there stood shrines and altars of political significance, as well as works of art and monuments reminding Athenians of the city’s glory, magnificence and power.

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Acropolis The Timeless Symbol

All great works of architecture, sculpture and painting in ancient Greece were commissioned by the state and its authorities for religious, political or ideological purposes. For the Acropolis, the city’s age-old center of worship, Pericles proposed (and the Athenian people agreed) the construction of three temples in honor of the city’s patron goddess, Athena, in four of her manifestations (Athena Parthenos and Athena Promachos in the Parthenon, Athena Polias in the Erechtheion, Athena Nike in the temple of the same

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name). At the same time, these magnificent works with their splendid architecture and elaborate sculptural decoration of the pediments, metopes and friezes conveyed a variety of political and cultural messages to local people and foreigners alike: Athens’ preeminent position as an economic, military and political superpower; the superiority of the democratic polity from the viewpoint of principles, institutions and operational effectiveness; as well as the creativity and high esthetic standards of its citizens.

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Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum Nurturing Thought

Philosophy is inextricably linked with democracy.

Without the questioning presupposed by philosophy, the ancient Greeks would not have invented democracy. Similarly, the atmosphere in democratic Athens created ideal conditions for the emergence of philosophy: Initially with the Sophists, later with Socrates and finally, in the 4th century BC, with the founding of the first great philosophical schools in history, Plato’s Academy (pictured) and Aristotle’s Lyceum. These schools were established on the

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sites of older public gymnasia (athletic training centers), since the philosophers primarily wished to address the young people who frequented such places. Gradually, theoretical teaching became more important than physical training and these places became centers of study and education. It is no coincidence that many of the words used today for educational institutions in many languages derive from the names of these centers of learning in ancient Athens (gymnasium, lycée, academy, etc.).

© DIONYSIS KOURIS

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Pnyx The People’s Hill

On account of its location and terrain, this rocky hill to the south of the Acropolis was chosen as the meeting place of the legislature known as the Ekklesia, i.e. the popular assembly of all Athenian citizens, who would gather to vote on laws drafted by the Boule. Those attending the meetings would stand and listen carefully to the speakers – usually public figures – before forming a personal opinion based on the arguments put forth and voting in favor or against the respective proposals, usually by a show of hands. The hill was first established as a meeting place by Cleisthenes and subsequently remodeled during different phases to accommodate between 5,000 and 13,000 citizens. It was on the Pnyx that Pericles

in the mid-5th century BC proposed to the people of Athens his great building program that focused on the Acropolis. It was also where Alcibiades in 415 BC argued with Nikias about whether Athens should launch a military expedition to Sicily.

However, it was rarely full and the state devised various ruses to overcome people’s indifference to political matters. One such stratagem is described by Aristophanes: at the time set for the commencement of proceedings on the Pnyx, two slaves would walk around the crowded Agora each holding one end of a rope soaked in red paint.

They would approach any citizens loitering there, who would reluctantly begin the ascent of the hill rather than have their clothes stained.

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© DIONYSIS KOURIS

Theater of Dionysus Educating the Citizens

Theatrical performances in Athens began in the late 6th century BC in the framework of religious festivals in honor of Dionysus, at the first theater in the history of European civilization, on the southern slopes of the Acropolis. The great works of outstanding tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides) not only provided Athenians with a source of quality entertainment, but also indirectly disseminated among spectators the values of justice, democracy, belief in the gods and in the city’s time-honored institutions, while warning them of the dangers of extremist ideas and acts that undermined the binding structures of communities. Even criticism of the state and politicians (nowadays taken for granted) was a phenomenon that appeared here for the first time in history, through the comedies of Aristophanes.

Other significant innovations included the financing of theatrical performances by wealthy citizens and the granting by the state of free admission to the poor. This latter was introduced by Pericles as one of the great achievements of democracy but he was accused by the opposition of pursuing populist policies with public money.

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SounioN & PIRAEUS Naval Power

© SHUTTERSTOCK

The power of the city and of the state relied heavily on the Athenian navy. Themistocles’ choice of Piraeus for the main port and the building of hundreds of war vessels and ship sheds provided the initial impetus. The defeat of the Persians and the creation of the first Athenian confederacy, a primarily naval alliance of Aegean islands and Greek cities of Asia Minor, were made possible by the existence of the powerful Athenian fleet. At the height of its power, Athens had a fleet of 400

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ships, powered by some 80,000 oarsmen. The latter were drawn from the poorest classes, paid by the state and regarded as an important force for the defense of the democracy. The choice of Cape Sounion – the southernmost tip of Attica in the Aegean and the last image of Athens seen by departing travelers – as the site for the Temple of Poseidon, was an obvious one. The god of the sea, the very embodiment of naval power, could not be absent from the city’s pantheon.

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© DIONYSIS KOURIS

AREOPAGUS Where Gods and Men Stood Trial

To the northwest of the Acropolis lies the plateau of Areopagus (lit. “Ares Rock”), the stage of many important events in the city’s mythology and history.

This rocky hill was the meeting place of the Areopagus, a powerful political council of the city’s elders – a type of Archaic “parliament” – which after 462 BC was stripped of its political duties and instead functioned as a court for hearing serious crimes such as homicide as well as other special cases. It is perhaps for this reason that in Athenian tradition the Areopagus was the venue for a number of mythical trials. Among them, the trial of Ares before a jury of fellow gods, for the murder of Poseidon’s son Alirrothios. Also, according to Aeschylus’ “Eumenides,” it was where Orestes was tried for killing his mother and her lover, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. The great tragedian says that the name stems comes from the Ares-Erinyes (or Eumenides or Semnes), chthonic deities of vengeance, as well as of the curse and guilt that haunted criminals.

Also known as Furies, the Erinyes were worshipped at a sanctuary erected at the foot of the hill. In AD 51, the Areopagus was where the Apostle Paul first preached Christianity to the Athenians.

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THE PIONEERS Lawmakers, idealistic reformers and patriots who led the way.

BY John Leonard

As Athens’ first lawmaker, Draco became something of a notorious hero for ancient democracy when he drafted a code of written law, ca. 622 BC, that proved to be very harsh (“Draconian”), with the death penalty imposed even for minor crimes. Consequently, his laws were said to be written not in ink, but in blood.

On the positive side, he may have been the one who introduced the Council of 400, chosen by lot. All of his laws were later repealed by Solon, except those related to the crime of homicide.

Solon (ca. 638 - ca. 558 BC)

A high-born Athenian philosopher, poet, merchant and lawmaker, Solon was liked by both rich and poor, as he was known to be well-to-do but also honest.

Viewed as a wise man who championed the working classes, he was also thought to be a neutral party best suited for reforming the Athenian law code. In 594/593 BC, he addressed workers’ rising resentment, their increasingly oppressive debt and an impending schism in Athenian society through a program of “disburdenment,” in which he cancelled all debts and decreed that lenders could no longer hold a borrower’s own personal freedom as collateral. He also regulated commerce through a fixed price code and defined four classes of citizens (based on annual income measured in cereals production): the Pentakosiomedimnoi (500 measures), Hippeis (300 measures), Zeugitai (200 measures) and Thetes (everyone else). Solon called for all citizens to participate in the Assembly (Ekklesia) and was sometimes credited with having created the Council of 400 (Boule), which prepared the Assembly’s official business.

He also established the popular court system, allowing people the right to sue for perceived wrongdoing and to appeal a magistrate’s decision before a jury of their fellow citizens.

Solon’s laws imposed regulations on everything from land and water rights to marriage (e.g. no more dowries: marry for love/children, not money; a man must keep his wife and home life in order by performing his “husbandly duties” three times monthly); when a woman can leave the house (not at night, unless in a wagon, with a lamp); when a son is required (or not) to support his father; and what to do with a dog that bites (fit it with an enormous wooden collar). Solon also punished apathetic citizens who refused to participate in defending the state and he tried to control citizens’ hatred/anger by forbidding anyone to speak ill of the living in main public areas.

© WWW.VISUALHELLAS.GR, GETTY IMAGES/IDEAL IMAGE

Draco (7th century BC)

After successfully assassinating Hipparchos, Harmodios is quickly dispatched by the tyrant’s bodyguard.

Lithography from “Hutchinson’s History of the Nations” by William Spencer Bagdatopoulos (1888-1965).

Cleisthenes (born ca. 570 BC)

Widely acknowledged as the founder of the Athenian democracy, Cleisthenes reorganized Attica into 10 geographically-based tribes in 508/507 BC, rather than four family-based tribes. He also increased the Boule to 500 members, 50 from each tribe, and established a more objective system of filling governmental positions randomly by lot. Juries were similarly selected, ranging in size from 201 to 5001 depending on the daily needs of the courts and their particular cases.

To combat the rise of powerful individuals as “tyrants” (leaders such as Peisistratos and his sons, who seized control and ruled outside the constitution), Cleisthenes instituted, according to Aristotle, the popular vote called ostracism, by which any citizen could be banished from Athens for 10 years.

Harmodios and Aristogeiton (died 514 BC)

Known as the “The Tyrannicides”, they killed the Athenian tyrant Hipparchos, son of the earlier tyrant Peisistratous, in 514/513 BC. Although both died following their actions, either on the spot (Harmodios) or under torture shortly afterward (Aristogeiton), they ultimately became popular heroes, heralded as champions of democracy. Statues depicting them were prominently displayed in Athens and their descendants were granted permanent maintenance at public expense. Their story is told by numerous ancient authors, including Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristotle and Plutarch.

Ephialtes (assassinated in 461 BC)

An Athenian admiral, general and statesman, Ephialtes took various political steps to promote a more democratic Athens. In 462/461 BC, he opposed Athenian military assistance to Sparta, the city’s notoriously anti-democratic rival, when the helots rose up against their Spartan masters. Around the same time, he stripped the supreme Areopagus court of its powers and redistributed them among the Council of 500 (Boule), the Assembly (Ekklesia) and the people’s lower courts.

Solon addressed workers’ rising resentment and increasingly oppressive debt... He cancelled all debts and decreed lenders could no longer hold a borrower’s personal freedom as collateral.

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Pericles (ca. 495-429 BC)

Pericles, a wealthy aristocrat and successful prosecutor in Athenian courts, followed in the radical pro-democracy footsteps of his relative Cleisthenes.

After his initial reforms of the Areopagus court (with Ephialtes, 462/461 BC), Pericles strove to establish Athens’ imperial reach and his own political power through colonization, military gains and the ostracism of his rivals. As Solon had done previously, Pericles profoundly changed the economic and social life of the average Athenian citizen. In the 450s and 440s, he further weakened the Areopagus; brought more citizens into the state’s political and judicial processes

Thrasyboulos (ca. 440-388 BC)

by introducing payment for their service on the Council or in the Heliaea courts; allowed the two lowest classes (Zeugitai, Thetes) to be eligible for the archonship; subsidized less-advantaged citizens who wished to become hippeis; reduced unemployment by hiring state-paid workers for increasing the naval fleet, expanding arsenals and erecting a large grain exchange at the Piraeus port; built an odeon for hosting public entertainment and gave every citizen two obols annually to cover admission to games, plays and festivals. He also showed his aristocratic colors when he reduced the number of Athenian citizens by requiring they have

A general and politician, Thrasyboulos was a true – although historically undersung – Athenian patriot, a steadfast proponent and defender of democracy and Athenian imperialism, who opposed the oligarchic regimes of 411 and 404 BC. Following the latter crisis, he led a group of like-minded democratic rebels in occupying the mountain outpost at Phyle northwest of Athens in the winter of 404/403 BC. After gathering additional pro-democracy troops and defeating an army of Spartans sent by the Thirty Tyrants, Thrasyboulos marched down to Piraeus, where his forces defeated the oligarchs and restored Athenian democracy. Later, in 389-388 BC, Thrasyboulos made short-lived military gains toward reinstating the Athenian empire, but was killed in a local uprising in Asia Minor. He remained largely underappreciated until Roman times. Pausanias called him “the greatest among all famous Athenians.”

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both a native-born father and mother, but in doing so he elevated the status of Athenian women. Pericles was a strong, if not always successful leader, who encouraged intellectual and artistic achievement.

He left his own mark by beautifying the Acropolis with new, richly decorated temples – including the Parthenon – and a monumental gateway. Plutarch (ca. AD 46-120) described this latter accomplishment as “the one…which…gave the greatest pleasure to the Athenians, adorned their city and created amazement among the rest of mankind; and which is today the sole testimony that…Greece’s ancient power and glory are no mere fables.”

© ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES/IDEAL IMAGE, CORBIS/SMART MAGNA

Pericles supervising building activities in Athens.

Peisistratus wins popular support after entering Athens accompanied by a woman resembling the goddess Athena.

THE SUBVERSIVES Athenian democracy’s idea of power to the people drew stiff opposition from autocrats, conservative elites and culturally disparate city-states.

© LOOK & LEARN/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

The Peisistratids

Peisistratus (died 528/527 BC) and his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus, who ruled after his death, were known as The Peisistratids. A “tyrant” who took power by force, Peisistratus was considered benevolent because he generally adhered to the constitution, even improving the workings of government. However, he ruled through force and intimidation, relied on a private mercenary army, may have disarmed the citizenry and ensured the cooperation of the leading Athenian families by holding their relatives hostage on Naxos. Cooperative aristocrats he allowed to serve as archons. Characterized by p er si s tenc e , de ter m i n at ion a nd political resourcefulness, Peisistratus was a populist who appealed to both urban

and rural citizenr y. He ruled Athens twice brief ly (560/559 BC, 556/555 BC), then longer a third time (546-527 BC).

He init ia lly gained popular suppor t and military power through gross, even theatrical manipulation. After his second power-g rab a nd a 10 -yea r ex i le, he exploited the mineral wealth of Thrace to fund his return. He became a religious reformer, encouraging countryside-based cults to relocate to Athens or to establish secondary urban sanctuaries on or near the Acropolis. He also elevated Athena to her place of primary sacred importance for the city. Something of a darker version of the later Pericles, Peisistratus similarly built many new buildings and temples on the Acropolis; star ted erecting a

forerunner to the Parthenon; improved the city’s infrastructure and economy; improved the lot of the working classes; subsidized poor farmers; and developed public festivals, including the first Greater Panathenaia and the musical and tragic contests of the Dionysia. Unlike Pericles, he did not promote Athens as an imperial power among the other city-states. He preferred political stability, economic grow th, an unarmed citizenr y, more evenly distributed wealth, greater access to the state-controlled judiciary and a domestically strong, efficient government supported by a broad system of taxation.

As reported by Aristotle, his rule was remembered as a golden age, if not as a time of democracy.

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the beginning

Hippias (died 490 BC); Hipparchus (died 514 BC)

Incited by the “democratizing” social and political reforms of Solon, Cleisthenes, Ephialtes, Pericles and even Peisistratus, Athens’ aristocrats and their supporters in the 5th century BC became a seething group of disgruntled citizens who desired and repeatedly attempted to take back their former power and return to a more conservative, less democratic form of government. As the members of this troublesome group did not all agree with each other (not surprising in Greece), they split into moderate and extremist factions. Two of their most famous overthrow attempts came in 411 (fomented by the capricious, self-serving Alcibiades, a fair-weather democrat) and 404 BC. Prominent among the moderate faction were Theramenes and Aristocrates, son of Scelias, while the extremist and most vigorous coup leaders included Phrynicus, Peisander, Antiphon and Critias. The latter, Plato’s great-uncle, was particularly notorious for his black-

listing and execution of former democrats during the rule of the Thirty Tyrants in 404 BC. In opposition to Critias, the more reasonable Theramenes was branded a traitor to the oligarchs’ cause for being resistant to such violent, vengeful actions and for wishing to include more citizens in their power base. He also opposed the seizure of private property and charged extremist oligarchs with offenses more insidious than anything perpetrated by the democrats.

Critias ordering the execution of Theramenes (illustration from Hutchinson’s “History of the Nation’s,” 1915).

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Peisistratus son Hippias inherited control of Athens (528/527 BC510 BC) with his younger brother Hipparchus, who was later killed by the Tyrannicides (Harmodios and Aristogeiton). Initially a benevolent tyrant, like his father, and a patron of the arts and of craftsmen, Hippias was soured by his brother’s murder and became a bitter, repressive ruler. After being forced out in 510 BC, Hippias fled to Persia, there advising Darius on his eventual invasion of Greece and suggesting a major assault at Marathon. He accompanied the Persian army back to Greece in 490 BC, but died en route.

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The Spartans

Athens’ long-time rivals, the Spartans, were disturbed not only by the Athenians’ demonstrated military (especially naval) strength and increasingly imperialistic tendencies in the 5th century BC, but also by their fondness for democracy – a form of government and a way of life diametrically opposed to Spartan ways. Sparta was a deeply militaristic, sharply stratified society, ruled by hereditary general-kings. Its government was oligarchic and its leaders preferred other Greek city-states, particularly Athens, also to be controlled by oligarchs. Spartan citizenship was exclusive, usually limited only to those “Spartiates” who could demonstrate a native Spartan origin. Other free Spartan residents (mothakes, perioikoi) and enslaved locals (helots) were kept firmly in their place, serving the Spartans and their state machine.

In its relations with Athens, Sparta displayed its pro-oligarchic, anti-democratic sentiments numerous times through the late 6th, 5th and 4th centuries BC. In 510 BC, the Spartans aided oligarchic Athenians to overthrow their Peisistratid tyrant Hippias. Encouraged by Alcibiades, they also backed an Athenian oligarchic coup in 411 BC, then brought the Thirty Tyrants to power in 404 BC. Free from untidy democracy and its corruptive influences, Sparta was often upheld by Platonists and other Greek philosophers as the ideal state.

Free from untidy democracy and its corruptive influences, Sparta was often upheld by Platonists and other Greek philosophers as the ideal state.

The Spartan phalanx was considered the most intimidating and invincible in ancient Greece.

W HAT T O READ • Charles Alexander Robinson, “Athens in the Age of Pericles,” Norman, Oklahoma (1959) • Donald Kagan, “Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy,” New York (1991) • Michael Poulton, “Pericles and the Ancient Greeks,” Austin, TX (1997) • David Skeele (ed.), “Pericles: Critical Essays,” New York (2000).

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Men vote to ostracize a fellow citizen in the Athenian Agora (colour lithograph), Herget, Herbert M. (1885-1950), National Geographic Creative

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HOW THE PEOPLE RULED Understanding the structure, functions and dynamics of the Athenian democracy in antiquity.

BY John McK Camp II

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et on gently sloping ground northwest of the acropolis, the Agora public square was laid out in the 6th century BC and has been under excavation for 85 years by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, under the supervision of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

Here have been found the buildings which housed the first recorded democracy (magistrates’ offices, law courts and assembly places), along with the objects used every day to make sure the system worked as it should (laws and regulations inscribed on stone, allotment machines, water clocks and ballots).

A visitor to the Agora in antiquity would have occasion to see all three branches of the government in action: executive, legislative and judicial.

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A potsherd (ostrakon) used in ostracism and etched with the name of Themistocles, Athens’ triumphant leader at the Battle of Salamis. Themistocles became a candidate for ostracism in 480 BC and was ostracized 472 BC.

EXECUTIVE: The Archons and the Royal Stoa Coming from the main city gate, our visitor entered the Agora at its northwest corner and immediately came upon the Royal Stoa (Stoa Basileus), seat of the King Archon. There were, of course, no monarchs in democratic Athens, but the second in command was known as the King Archon; he was a powerful individual, responsible for religious matters and the laws. The stoa was his headquarters, in which he heard most of the cases brought be-

A fragmentary of a marble kleroterion, a device that served in the selection of judges and jurors, which was placed at the entrances to the courts (all artifacts on this page: Agora Museum).

A ceramic clepsydra of the 5th century BC. Clepsydras were a type of simple water clock, used to calculate the time allotted for speeches in court proceedings.

fore him. It was here, for instance, that he heard the charges of impiety laid against Socrates in 399 BC and determined that there was, in fact, sufficient evidence to send the matter to a full court of 500 jurors. The king also administered the annual oath of office to all incoming officials and magistrates, who swore to uphold the democracy and not take bribes, lest they pay a huge fine. The oath was performed at or on a massive unworked stone (lithos) which rested on the steps of the stoa. The building itself was lined with marble slabs recording in stone the constitution and laws of the city.

Like most Athenian magistrates, the king was not elected; almost all were chosen by allotment rather than election. Only a handful of positions were elective, those that required real

Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens, Ancient Agora, Archive ΑSΚSΑ © Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

Bronze juror’s ballot of the 4th century BC. If the cylindrical shaft protruding from the center had perforated (open) ends, the accused was guilty.

Artistic reconstruction of the interior of the Old Bouleuterion (Design: Marina Roussos, after an original by the American School of Classical Studies).

expertise and experience: the water commissioner, some of the treasurers, as well as the generals. These roles were too important to leave to the luck of the draw. Pericles, for instance, seems never to have served as a senior archon, but showed his influence by repeated election as general of his tribe.

Whether elected or allotted, all Athenian officials were subject to an official, regular opportunity for the populace to remove a problem in the political system. A serious application of term limits, known as ostracism.

Once a year the Athenians gathered in the Agora and took a simple vote: is anyone aiming at a tyranny, is anyone a threat to the democracy? If a simple majority voted yes, the people gathered again several weeks later. On this second occasion they brought with them a

potsherd (ostrakon), on which they had inscribed the name of the individual they thought was a problem. The man with the most votes lost and he was exiled for 10 years. Many Athenian politicians took one of these extended vacations, courtesy of the Athenian people, and their votes, scratched onto sherds, were readily discarded and have been found by the hundreds throughout the excavations.

LEGISL ATIVE: The Boule a nd the Bouleuterion Moving south from the Royal Stoa, the visitor would pass several buildings dedicated to gods (Zeus, Apollo and the Mother of the Gods) before arriving at the next government building, the bouleuterion. This was the meeting-place

of the Boule, a council made up of 500 Athenians, chosen by lot. This may at first seem odd, but when one considers the cost, corruption, inefficiency and poor results of many modern democratic elections, it seems hard to believe we could do worse than the random choice of 500 individuals. Members of the boule served for a single year and they met most days, except during festivals, to consider and propose legislation.

Once a decision had been made, the proposal was written up and posted on the face of a long statue base, the Monument of the Eponymous Heroes, which lay within the square itself, just to the east. All proposals had to be displayed for at least three days, so the citizens would have ample opportunity to read the proposal and discuss its merits. Every 10 days or so, the full citizen body

When one considers the cost, corruption, inefficiency and poor results of many modern democratic elections, it seems hard to believe we could do worse than the random choice of 500 individuals as members of the Boule.

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The fact that most of the vessels found in the tholos were for wine suggests that perhaps the legislators were not always fully sober when they deliberated.

Reconstruction of the Tholos, the Old and New Bouleuterion and the Hephaisteion, at the end of the 5th century BC (Source: American School of Classical Studies).

met in assembly (Ekklesia) on the Pnyx, a large theatral area on the ridge to the southwest of the Agora. Here they would debate the proposal and then either approve it or vote it down. This dual passage of legislation is reflected in the opening of all Athenian laws inscribed on stone: “Approved by the boule and people (demos) of Athens”...

The Boule was managed by tribal contingents (prytaneis) of 50 councilors, who served in rotation for a month, acting as an executive committee.

During their month in office, the prytaneis had as their headquarters the tholos, a round building just south of the bouleuterion. The prytaneis were fed at public expense and the tholos was their dining room. Cups and pitchers have been found all over the area, carrying the ligature ΔΕ, standing for demosion (public property) to make sure the prytaneis did not walk away with the stateowned crockery at the end of the meal.

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legislators were not always fully sober when they deliberated.

In addition to dining in the tholos, at least 17 prytaneis were expected to sleep there overnight. If some emergency arose, any messenger could go directly to the tholos to find 17 citizens serving as councilors, on duty and ready to deal with any issue. In this sense, the building represents the functional heart of the Athenian democracy, a symbolism not lost on the Thirty Tyrants who, during their brief reign in 404/403 BC, used the tholos as their headquarters.

JUDICIARY: The Law Courts The bedrock of democracy is the legal system. Only an independent judiciary can guarantee the rights of all individuals and prevent abuses by the more powerful and privileged segments of society. The formation of the Athenian democracy was a process, not an event, and the first crucial step was taken by Solon in the 6th century

BC, when he created “popular” courts, where individuals were tried by their fellow citizens, not just aristocrats or magistrates. The Athenians had many courts all over the city, at least one of which has been identified under the north end of the later Stoa of Attalos.

Because they were so essential, the courts were among the most regulated sectors of government. To ensure a fair hearing, the minimum Athenian jury was comprised of 200 citizens, while courts of 500 were not uncommon.

Elaborate allotment machines assigned the jurors to the courts so there was no way to influence an Athenian jury without bribing all of the literally thousands of citizens eligible for jury duty each year. Clepsydras (terracotta water clocks) guaranteed that each side would have the same amount of time to argue the case. And jurors were provided with two bronze ballots — one for guilty, the other for acquittal — which allowed them to arrive at a verdict in secret.

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Day to day running of the city.

In between meetings of the Assembly, 50 citizens were on call day and night for a month at a time. They lived in a circular building, the Tholos, on the corner of the Agora.

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a democr acy not wildly democr atic There are both parallels and differences in how democracy was practiced in ancient Athens and the modern versions of today.

Ancient Athenian democracy, by today’s standards, was not wildly democratic. Excluded from participation were women, a large number of slaves and a vast population of free Greeks from others cities who lived in Athens but had no citizen rights.

That is, only a small and unknown proportion of the inhabitants had a direct vote in the democratic process.

On the other hand, if you were a participant, you were expected to play an active role, to “rule and be ruled in turn” as the phrase went. Both the modern and ancient systems were flawed, but they are usually regarded as better than any of the other options. Despite any flaws, the concept of equal citizenship, the protected rights of the individual, a communal civic awareness, as well as a sense of the corporate identity of the people developed over time and led to an entirely new Athenian society, one which endured in reality for 200 years and which has remained an ideal for another 2,500.

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“Ballots” in ancient Athens were pieces of broken pottery, on which ancient Athenians scratched the name of a politician they saw as a threat to democracy, in this case, Themistocles.

(Agora Museum).

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Ostracism voting for or against forced exile to safeguard democr acy

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A Tale of Two Stoas Come rain or come shine, the Athenians gathered under their roofs to worship, shop, interact or simply find an audience.

BY John McK Camp II

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Views of the open space in front of the doublecolonnaded Stoa of Attalos, where important sculptures and architectural elements from the site of the Athenian Agora are displayed.

The Stoa of Attalos was reconstructed in the mid-1950s to serve as the Agora Museum.

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Š Panayiotis Tzamaros

esides civic buildings, the Athenian Agora also provided basic amenities to the hundreds of people who congregated there each day. Two basic needs had to be met: water and shelter. Water was piped into two large fountain houses at the southwest and southeast corners of the square by means of subterranean aqueducts, usually made of baked clay. For shelter, the Athenians resorted to stoas. A stoa was any long colonnaded building, well adapted to the Greek climate and the needs of the people. The open colonnaded side provided good light and fresh air, while the roof and side walls provided protection from the sun in summer and wind and rain in winter. Stoas were often very large, capable of accommodating thousands of individuals, and they are found wherever many people were expected to gather: in sanctuaries, near theaters and particularly around agoras. The Athenian Agora had as many as six, two of which are of special interest.

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The most recent excavations, at the northwest corner of the square, across modern Adrianou Street, are bringing to light the remains of a stoa of the Classical period, dated to about 475470 BC. It is 50 meters long, with a row of columns of the Doric order outside, and a row of Ionic columns inside. Less than a third of the building has been uncovered thus far. If we are interpreting the ancient sources correctly, especially the traveler Pausanias who described Athens as he saw it around 150 AD, then this building should be identified as the Painted Stoa, one of the most famous buildings of ancient Athens.

The Painted Stoa (Stoa Poikile) was built at the time of Cimon, the predecessor of Pericles. Soon after it was built, it was decorated with handsome paintings done on wooden panels and from then on was known as the Paint-

ed Stoa. In a sense, one can regard the stoa as the first public art museum. For centuries, magnificent art had been produced all over the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Africa; but it was not for everyone, just the elite. It decorated the king’s palace, the walls of temples with limited access, as well as tombs. In Athens, the art was displayed in a large open building, set right on the edge of the public square, where anyone and everyone was free to enter. The paintings went up around 460 BC and 600 years later, Pausanias could still describe four of them, showing Athenian military exploits, both mythological and historical: the Athenians fighting Amazons, the Fall of Troy, the Athenians about to engage the Spartans and — most famous of all — the Athenians defeating the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC. By 400 AD the paintings were gone. The bishop Synesius visited Athens at that time and was

a bitterly disappointed tourist; having come to see the famous paintings, he found they had recently been removed by a Roman proconsul.

So we will not find the paintings; but the building has other interests.

Unlike all the others around the Agora, the Painted Stoa had no specific function, nor did any magistrate or group of officials have priority of use. It was built and used as a hang-out and must have been the most public building of the city, full of Athenians with time on their hands. So anyone with a trade that required an audience would come to the Stoa, and we hear specifically of beggars, sword-swallowers and jugglers congregating there.

Another group who required an audience were philosophers, and when Zeno came to Athens from Cyprus around 300 BC he found the Stoa to be a useful place: he was allowed to use it, it was right on the central square and

Isometric reconstruction of the western end of the Painted Stoa (Stoa Poikile) (Source: American School of Classical Studies).

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Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens, Ancient Agora, Archive ΑSΚSΑ © Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

THE PAINTED STOA (ca. 470 BC)

Dedicated to the king of the gods, the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios was used not only for worships but also for other purposes, including discussions, social interaction and walks. It is said to have been frequented by the philosopher Socrates.

Winged, flying Nike, once an akroterion (roof ornament) from the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios (late 5th-early 4th century BC).

An impressive sculpture, the garment of which, through the Victory figure’s movement, adheres to the body and clearly reveals its form (Agora Museum).

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Ceramic container (pyxis) for storing cosmetics or jewelry, placed as a grave good in a female cremation burial (850 BC, Agora Museum).

A bronze shield, seized by the Athenians as Spartan booty at the battle of Sphacteria (425/4 BC) and mounted as a trophy on the Painted Stoa.

it was full of Athenians who were not too busy. Using it repeatedly, he and his followers became known — from their meeting-place — as the Stoics. So the remains coming to light constitute an important element in the development of western thought and philosophy.

Another stoa in the Agora draws our immediate attention: the Stoa of Attalos II, reconstructed in 1953-1956 to serve as the Agora Museum. As one experiences it today, it provides an excellent sense of how an ancient stoa was meant to work, sheltering hundreds of people in an environment where the play of light and shadow inside changed constantly. The building dates from the

Hellenistic period, a transitional time when Athens had lost all military, economic and political clout. Only in one sphere of influence did Athens remain dominant: education. The founding of the Academy by Plato (ca. 388 BC), the Lyceum by Aristotle (ca. 335 BC) and the Stoic school of philosophy by Zeno (ca. 300 BC) ensured that Athens was the educational center of the Mediterranean throughout antiquity, patronized by Hellenistic dynasts and then Roman nobility.

Such was the case of Attalos II, whose family ruled Pergamon, in what is now western Turkey. While still a prince, he came to Athens to study under the philosopher Carneades. Returning home and becoming king (159138 BC), he gave the city this handsome

stoa of marble, largely in appreciation of his happy college days in Athens.

This is, in effect, an alumnus gift, of the sort familiar to anyone who has ever set foot on an American university campus, where every building carries a donor’s name.

What Attalos gave the Athenians was a fully developed stoa, with rooms added behind the double colonnade, and then the whole thing repeated on a second story. The rooms served as shops, rented out by the state, making the stoa the commercial center of the city for over 400 years. With 42 shops on two levels under a single roof, the building may well lay claim to being the world’s first mall. Not much has changed since antiquity except the technology.

Bronze head of Nike, which in antiquity was covered with sheets of gold and silver (420-415 BC, Agora Museum).

Rectangular clay plaque of the 4th century BC, bearing the name and stamp of a peripolarchos, a military official responsible for ephebic border patrols and border guards (Agora Museum).

Perfume bottle in the shape of a young, kneeling athlete, depicted at the moment of having the victor’s fillet placed on his head (ca. 540-530 BC, Agora Museum).

THE STOA of ATTALOS (ca. 150 BC)

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Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens, Ancient Agora, Archive ΑSΚSΑ © Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

Clay skyphos decorated by the Theseus Painter (6th century BC). On both sides a game known as “ephedrismos” is unfolding (Agora Museum).

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A scene from the first excavations conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in the Athenian Agora, in the early 1930s.

UNCOVER THE PAST! Excavations of the Athenian Agora by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens have been ongoing for 85 years.

All the work, including the reconstruction of the Stoa of Attalos, the restoration of the nearby Church of the Holy Apostles, as well as the landscaping of the archaeological park, has been done with private American money, a reliable indicator of how much Americans admire and cherish the Greek roots of western society, politics and art.

If you would like to participate in the ongoing work of recovery of all periods of Athens’ past, please contact the ASCSA at 6-8 Charlton St., Princeton, N.J. 08540 or go to: www.ascsa.edu.gr/index.php/giving.

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Imaginary view of the Athenian Agora in a 19th century lithograph (from “El Mundo Ilustrado,” Barcelona, 1880).

The splendor depicted has largely been based on the city’s economic achievements.

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Explaining the Glory The key to unlocking the puzzling success of the Greek city-state is economic specialization and exchange.

BY Josiah Ober

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Triremes, the emblematic warships of the Athenians, were manned and maintained – to a large extent – at the expense of the city’s wealthy citizens.

Among the most notable products of Greek specialization were new forms of expertise, notably in warfare and state finance.

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Lord Byron summed up the rise and fall of classical Greece in his epic poem “Greece Enslaved” of 1812: Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!

Immortal, though no more! though fallen, great!

By sharply contrasting the fortunes of ancient and modern Greece, Byron’s couplet poses two questions that have long puzzled historians: How did the ancient Greeks gain the wealth with which to build a culture that became central to the modern world? And if Greece had once been prosperous, why was it no longer?

In the early 21st century, as an ongoing economic crisis immiserates millions of Greeks and threatens the financial stability of Europe, those questions are more important than ever – and they can be answered. As we can now show, the ancient Greek cultural accomplishment was underpinned by robust and sustained economic growth, made possible in turn by a distinctive approach to politics.

The Greek economy reached its premodern peak in ca. 300 BC. It was not until the 20th century that the number of people living in the Greek core and their material welfare returned to levels comparable to those achieved some 2,300 years before (see graph: “The Development Index”).

The ancient Greek economic rise was exceptional in world history for its duration, intensity and long-term impact on world culture. It took place in a social ecology of hundreds of city-states. While wealth and incomes remained unequal in those communities – there were slaves in the most prosperous of the Greek states – many Greeks experienced prosperity. The

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Bone eyelets, iron nails and the base of a kylix (drinking cup) engraved with the name Simon.

Found in the ruins of a building from the second half of the 5th century BC and identified as the House of Simon the Shoemaker, a close friend of Socrates (Agora Museum).

City-State Ecology By the later 4th century BC, when Aristotle was writing his masterpiece on Politics, there were about 1,100 Greek city-states, or poleis. They stretched from outposts in Spain and France through southern Italy and Sicily, to the shores of the Black Sea and western Anatolia and south to eastern and southern outposts in Syria and North Africa. The total population of Hellas – that is, the residents of small states that were substantially Greek in language and culture – was over 8 million; about a third of them lived in “urban” areas (towns of more than 5,000 people). They inhabited large and well-built houses, lived relatively long lives and produced and consumed very substantial quantities of high-quality goods.

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empire, there were many more independent states in the Greek ecology at the height of the classical era than there had been several hundred years previously. Moreover, many of them were organized as democracies. Ancient Greek history points to an alternative to the dominant narrative of political and economic development, which, based primarily on the history of early modern Europe, calls for first big, centralized and autocratic states, and only then (sometimes) democracy and wealth.

The competition cycle The key to unlocking the puzzling success of the Greek city-state ecology is economic specialization and exchange.

Individual Greek states developed specialties based on natural resource endowments relative to other poleis. The Aegean island-state of Paros focused on the fine white marble found there, while the cities of southern Italy and Sicily focused on its favorable wheat-growing conditions. Other poleis developed ad-

vantages by perfecting industrial processes, as Athens did with its manufacturing of painted vases and warships.

Competition and conflict among poleis served to sharpen the recognition that it was necessary to exploit comparative advantages. The Greeks also recognized the value of lowering transaction costs, which encouraged open access and inter-state cooperation.

The upshot of the cycle of competition, specialization and cooperation was a high premium on innovation and entrepreneurship. Innovation in turn drove a dynamic that Joseph Schumpeter famously described as “creative destruction”: Advances in artistic and productive techniques drove out earlier techniques; new institutions marginalized traditional forms of social organization; poleis that exploited relative advantages absorbed their less innovative rivals, while new poleis were continuously being created on the ever-expanding frontiers of Hellas.

The products of local specialization were readily distributed within poleis, across the extensive small-state ecology and then beyond the Greek world through increasingly dense networks.

Local markets grew into regional markets, and some poleis succeeded in creating major inter-state emporia where

Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens, Ancient Agora, Archive ΑSΚSΑ © Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

growth of the economy was driven by an extensive middle class of people who consumed goods and services at a level far above subsistence.

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The institutions found in many citizencentered city-states, but especially in democratic Athens, put specialization and innovation in overdrive.

A measuring device, for solids such as grain.

It consists of a cylindrical vessel bearing the label “Public,” thus indicating its function as one of the state’s official measuring instruments (Agora Museum).

Ηonorary decree of the municipality of Aexoni for two choregoi (sponsors) of theatrical presentations. On the architrave are visible theatrical masks, representing types of characters in New Comedy (Athens Epigraphic Museum).

goods from across the Mediterranean and Black Sea worlds could be bought and sold. Experts in various arts and crafts migrated to new homes and established new centers of specialized production.

Meanwhile, the costs of transactions were driven down by continuous institutional innovations, notably by the development and rapid spread of silver coinage as a reliable exchange medium; the dissemination of common standards for weights and measures; the creation of market regulations and officials to enforce them; and increasingly sophisticated systems of law and legal mechanisms for dispute resolution.

Competition and conflict between poleis and between the Greeks and their non-Greek neighbors temporarily disrupted local networks of exchange.

But those disruptions only served to motivate poleis and individuals to seek out new markets for their goods and services, to deepen and broaden their exchange networks, and to develop cooperative solutions whereby conflict could be reduced or at least rendered less disruptive.

tion and exchange in the Greek world became so strongly intertwined with continuous innovation and creative destruction – thereby driving a sustained level of economic growth. The answer is good political institutions. The institutions found in many citizen-centered Greek states – but especially in democratic Athens – put specialization and innovation in overdrive. Greeks willingly invested in their own education and took the risks of entrepreneurship because they knew that they had legal recourse if and when a powerful individual or corrupt official tried to steal their profits.

Today, we typically think of such protections as “rights.” The Greeks developed a strong tradition of civic rights – immunities against arbitrary action by powerful individuals or government agents. These immunities guaranteed each citizen the security of his body against assault, the security of his dignity against humiliation and the security of his property against confiscation.

It is important to remember that many residents of a polis were not citizens, and so they were not full participants in the regime of immunity and security.

And yet, in some of the most highly developed poleis, these immunities were extended to at least some non-citizens.

Creative destruction To explain the rise of Hellas, we need to answer why and how specializa-

New approach to politics Citizens collectively held the authority to make new institutional rules, and as a result, they were more likely to trust the rules under which they lived to be basically fair. Judgments, by citizens who were empowered (by vote or lottery) to settle disputes and to distribute public goods, were made on the basis of established and impartial rules, rather than on the basis of patronage or personal favoritism. With these guarantees in place and successful innovation well rewarded, individuals had strong incentives to invest in their own special talents, to defer short-term payoffs and to accept a certain level of risk in anticipation of long-term rewards. The end result was a historically unusual level of sustained economic growth and an equally unusual rate of sustained cultural productivity and innovation.

The historically distinctive Greek approach to citizenship and political order was the key differentiator that made the Greek efflorescence distinctive in premodern history. It drove specialization and continuous innovation through the establishment of civic rights, aligned the interests of a large class of people who ruled and were ruled over in turn, and encouraged the free exchange G R E E C E IS

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of information. The emergence of a new approach to politics is what propelled Hellas to the heights of accomplishment celebrated by Lord Byron.

Among the most notable products of Greek specialization were new forms of expertise, notably in warfare and state finance. While developed within a civic context to further the purposes of Greek city-states as civic communities, military and financial expertise proved to be readily exportable. Relevant forms of expertise migrated across the borders between poleis – but also to emerging states at the frontiers of the

Greek world. Macedon was the most successful of those emerging states.

King Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great conjoined Greek expertise in finance and warfare with ethno-nationalism and rich natural resource endowments. The result was the emergence of state capacity that was unequalled in the prior history of the Mediterranean world: In the course of a generation, Macedon conquered not only the poleis of mainland Greece, but also the vast Persian Empire. Although the classical era was ended by the Macedonian conquest,

the Greek economic and cultural efflorescence continued. The Hellenistic kings allowed considerable independence to the city-states and taxed them at moderate rates. Democracy became even more prevalent, public building boomed and science and culture were codified and advanced. The perpetuation of prosperity in the Hellenistic era made possible the “immortality” of Greek culture: Greek culture was codified and was so widely dispersed that enough of it survived for Lord Byron to admire – and for us to explain what made it possible.

D e v e l o p m e n t I n d e x , c o r e G r e e c e , 13 0 0 B C – 19 0 0 A D

Independent Greek State

Late Ottoman

Early Ottoman

Late Byzantine

Middle Byzantine

Late Roman / Early Byzantine

late Hellenistic / Early Roman

CLASSIC Early Hellenistic

ARCHAIC

Early Iron Age

9

LATE BRONZE AGE

The Development Index based on evidence presented in Josiah Ober’s book “The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece” illustrates the rise and fall of the Greek economy (measured by population times consumption) from the Late Bronze Age to the dawn of the 20th century. Because, by Professor Ober’s definition, core Greece is limited to the territory controlled by the Greek state in the late 19th century, the graph understates the total population of the Greek world, so the chart captures only part of the rise and subsequent fall.

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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1900

-1300 -1200 -1100 -1000 -900 -800 -700 -600 -500 -400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800

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REGULATING FOR SUCCESS Τhe rule of law is an aspect of ancient democracy rarely discussed by historians, but it was crucial for economic growth.

BY EDWARD HARRIS

Reverse of a silver tetradrachm of Alexander I of Macedon (ruled ca. 498-454 BC, Bibliothèque Nationale de France - Cabinet des Médailles, Paris).

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Representation of a commercial transaction, from the black-figure amphora signed the Taleides Painter. The two men weigh goods without using weights, instead balancing the scale with equal quantities of goods distributed on each side (540-530 BC, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

T

he Greek world enjoyed remarkable economic growth starting in about 600 BC. Although communities in ancient Greece could not measure gross domestic product, there is much evidence for steady growth. Thucydides observed how the resources of the Greek states increased in the 200 years before the Peloponnesian War, and modern research has confirmed his observation. Field surveys by archaeologists have revealed a substantial increase in the number of settlements from 600-300 BC. Many cities had the resources to build impressive walls in the 6th century, and more did so in the following centuries. Inside settlements, the average sizes of houses grew several times during this period.

Coinage provides another sign of economic growth. Invented in Lydia during the 7th century BC, the practice of minting coins spread quickly to Greek communities. By 500 BC there were dozens of cities minting mainly silver coins, and the number of cities minting and the volume coinage grew steadily. Thousands of amphoras found in excavations that carried wine, oil and other products, attest to the thriv-

ing trade between all parts of the Greek world. Public building provides another sign of growth: the number of stone temples adorned many Greek cities in the 6th century. In the following centuries, public buildings like stoas and theaters increased exponentially.

In Classical Athens there were almost two hundred different professions providing an amazing array of goods and services. The market was so large that it was divided into different sections, each specializing in one type of product. Craftsmen did not cater just to the wealthy, but increased living standards for the majority of citizens and non-citizens residents. Their earnings were far above subsistence, allowing them to participate in market-exchange. The Agora of Athens was so busy that it was open almost every day. Goods came not only from Attica but also from overseas. In his Funeral Oration of 430 BC Pericles boasts that the Athenians enjoy products from all of the known world. These were not the fruits of conquest, but the benefits of trade.

Besides the central Agora there were also markets in many G R E E C E IS

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of the Attic demes such Sounion, Eleusis, Besa, Deceleia, Erchia, Kollytus, Kydathenaion, Skambonidai and other places.

One must not think of the average Athenian farmer as living in splendid isolation and existing from what he grew on his land. Aristophanes’ “Acharnians” shows us that Athenians in the countryside loved their markets and the products they could buy there. Attica was no exception: the marketplace was a standard feature of most Greek cities. Even Sparta had a thriving marketplace during the Classical period.

What was the reason for this remarkable economic growth and thriving trade in the Classical period? One cannot explain this phenomenon as a result of the rise of slavery in the 6th century BC. Slavery provided the surplus of Greek elites as early as 700 BC. As any reader of the Odyssey and Iliad knows, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Achilles and Priam had large numbers of slaves either bought or captured in war. The Greeks used slave labor, but it cannot explain how they used this and other forms of labor to create economic growth after 700 BCE. The ancient philosopher whom modern scholars call the Anonymous Iamblichi knew the reason for the growing volume

of trade: the rule of law (eunomia). According to this thinker, under the rule of law, goods circulated widely and freely; without the rule of law, goods do not circulate and there is not enough for anyone. When the law provides security, the wealthy have their assets protected, and the less wealthy can obtain credit. When there is no respect for the law, men hoard their assets through lack of trust and goods grow scarce.

The rule of law is an aspect of ancient democracy rarely discussed by historians, but it was crucial for economic growth. The rule of law contained many elements: peaceful resolution of disputes by fixed rules, obedience to laws enacted by the community, equality before the law, accountability of all public officials, fairness in trials, speedy resolution of disputes. The rule of law preceded democracy and laid the foundations for democratic ideas.

The Greek city-state promoted the rule of law that supported the economy in several ways. First, Greek communities appointed public officials to enforce market regulations and ensure that merchants use standard weights and measures. This built the trust necessary for market relations and

Representation of a foundry producing bronze statues, detail of a red-figure kylix (drinking cup) by the Foundry Painter (ca. 480 BC, Altes Museum, Berlin).

From local to international markets

Νumistatic Museum, Athens © Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

T r e n d s i n At h e n i a n c o i n a g e s t e p b y s t e p

Silver Athenian tetradrachm, ca. 530-520 BC. On the obverse is depicted the gorgon, while on the reverse the head of a lioness within a square frame. Most coins of this type were likely minted under the rule of Peisistratos.

Served mainly local needs, rarely found outside Attica (Numismatic Museum, Athens).

Silver Athenian tetradrachm, ca. 520-510 BC. On the obverse is the head of Athena. On the reverse, the owl (glaux), sacred to the goddess. The “Glaux” coin type began appearing in Athenian coinage under the rule of Hippias, son of Peisistratos, and inspired confidence by remaining unchanged for many years; thus, these coins circulated in many foreign market places (Numismatic Museum, Athens).

On the obverse, the head of Athena, with eyes that resemble those of an owl, recalling “Athena Glaukopis” (Bright-Eyed Athena) of Homer’s epics Silver Athenian tetradrachm, ca. 500 BC. On the reverse appears the owl.

(Numismatic Museum, Athens).

Silver Athenian decadrachm. On the obverse appears the head of Athena, wearing an Attic helmet decorated with olive leaves. On the reverse is an owl with open wings, reflecting the tradition that Athenian fighters saw such a bird hovering over their heads during the Battle of Marathon. The coin shown here is actually a souvenir from the Battle of the Eurymedon (ca. 467 BC, State Museum – Numismatic Collection, Berlin).

Silver Athenian tetradrachm, ca. 440-420 BC. On the obverse is the head of Athena surrounded with olive leaves, a symbol of victory against the Persians; on the reverse, an owl (Numismatic Museum, Athens).

Silver double stater of Thurii (380 BC), an Athenian colony in Magna Graecia.

On the obverse appears Athena; on the reverse, a bull ready to charge (Numismatic Museum, Athens).

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reduced transactions costs by reducing what modern econoAccording to New Institutional Economics, one of the necmists calls “asymmetry of information.” Athens had “testers essary requirements for growth is effective third-party enof coins” in the Agora and Piraeus to detect counterfeits. forcement of contracts. The Athenians were well aware of the Greek communities built so many agoras for commerce connection between the enforcement of contracts and thrivthat they became a regular feature of public architecture. ing trade: a litigant speaking in an Athenian court around Pausanias thought that a community without an agora did not 330 BC observed that when the courts enforce contracts, qualify as a polis (city-state). To attract foreign Athenian trade increases. When they do not, commerce, cities on the coasts built harbor however, merchants avoid Piraeus. In fact, installations to protect ships and facilitate around 350 BC, the law at Athens ensured the loading and unloading of merchant vessels. that commercial lawsuits brought about Some cities built lighthouses to help merchants trade would be tried within 30 days. find harbors at night. We call this “investment in This is not to say that the ancient infrastructure”: the ancient Greeks considered it Greek state was interested mainly in common sense. protecting ownership rights and enforcAn important role of the state was to proing contracts. The ancient Greeks knew tect the property rights of owners. This did that markets were imperfect and did not not benefit just the wealthy because the always provide effectively for everyone’s majority of citizens in Athens and many needs. Cities therefore created funds to other Greek communities owned land. buy grain and distribute it for free or at To strengthen these rights, many cities low prices in times of shortage. Some pledged not to carry out redistribucities used state funds to hire public tions of land, which was associated doctors, who provided medical serwith tyranny. It was also customary vices for free. for states to keep public records of Greek cities expected the wealthy sales, which helped owners to prove to spend their profits providing entitle and to resolve disputes about tertainment and supporting athletic property. competitions and festivals. By rewardThese records about property ing those who contributed generously were essential for the growth of credwith honors and statues, the Greek it: owners who had secure title could city-state stimulated more spending pledge their land as security for loans. and promoted social harmony between Credit was widely available to many classes. The wealthy did not send their citizens: hundreds of horoi, markers inmoney abroad to Swiss bank accounts dicating land served as collateral, have because they enjoyed security at home. been found in Attica. The state also proDespite war and occasional civil strife, vided creditors with effective legal procethe economy of the Greek world grew condures for creditors to recoup their losses on tinuously from the Archaic period until the non-performing loans. Easy access to credit Roman conquest. The glorious achievewas key for economic growth. For instance, ments of Greek culture were underwritten silver from the mines at Laurion, perhaps by sound economic policies based on the Ceramic olpe (pitcher), used to measure liquids, the most profitable Athenian export in the rule of law. Whether the history of ancient dating to 500 BC late 4th century BC, was extracted by enGreece holds any lessons for the present (Agora Museum). trepreneurs, who financed operations with government of Greece, I leave it for the borrowed money. readers to decide.

The ancient Greeks knew that markets were imperfect and did not always provide effectively for everyone’s needs.

Cities therefore created funds to buy grains and distribute it for free or at low prices in times of shortage.

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Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens, Ancient Agora, Archive ΑSΚSΑ © Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

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SHARING THE WEALTH

The much-debated relationship between democracy, inequality and redistribution is an issue that was already being addressed as early as the Classical period.

BY Nicholas C. Kyriazis & Emmanouil M.L . Economou

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Even though the richest 3 percent of the total citizen population in mid-4th century BC earned roughly 20 times more than the average self-employed Athenian, the economy was more egalitarian than its modern-day western equivalent.

One criticism raised against the Athenian democracy is that it was not all-encompassing because it excluded women, slaves and foreign residents (metics), being limited to Athenian male citizens above the age of 20. While this criticism may be justified, it can be somewhat misleading. By including all males, without any further requirement for citizen qualification (such as wealth or status) the Athenian democracy was a revolutionary phenomenon at a time when monarchies, tyrannies or aristocracies, i.e. decision-making limited to very few, were the norm.

Also, one should not forget that even modern democracies in most cases extended the franchise very gradually. Voting rights in England (Great Britain since 1707) were linked to wealth criteria that were progressively relaxed during the centuries following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to include less wealthy citizens. Women in Great Britain were allowed to vote only after World War I, and in Switzerland, the longest established “modern” democracy (dating to the late 13th century, after the three original cantons — Schwyz, Uri and Unterwalden — rebelled against the Austrians), women were given the vote only after World War II. As for foreigners, even in modern states, they do not have voting rights. In the European Union for instance, a Portuguese citizen who lives in Germany cannot vote in German national elections. “Isopoliteia,” the right of equal citizenship, has not yet been applied in the EU, as it had been in the ancient Greek confederations between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC, with first and foremost the Aetolian and Achaean leagues, which incidentally were a source of inspiration to the Founding Fathers when they were drafting the American Constitution after the revolution of 1776.

Lastly, slaves. Slavery was an accepted institution till the mid-19th century and even later in Asia and Africa. Slavery was abolished in the Confederate states only

after the end of the American Civil War in 1865. Would one deny that the USA was a democracy before that date?

Economic inequalit y The Athenian economy was market-based, highly monetized and specialized, with a significant contribution of the services sector to GDP and employment (Athenian banks even offered offshore services!). Hence, one could call it the first “modern” economy. The view that Athenians enjoyed a life of leisure has been refuted by analyzing the ancient sources.

Xenophon in his “Memorabilia” mentions for example 180 professions of Athenian citizens and metics. De jure women in Athens did not have property rights (as they had in some Doric cities such as Sparta and Gortyna on Crete) but de facto they did and they worked, mostly at home but some even as entrepreneurs, such as two by the name of Artemis, both of Piraeus, the one managing a construction company and the other the best shop for women’s apparel (in today’s terminology, a boutique).

The average Athenian citizen had one or two slaves. Slave conditions were generally good, except for those working in the silver mines at Laurion. They could not be killed or harshly punished by their owners; they could own property and in some cases be freed or buy their freedom. We know of some famous examples of social mobility, notably of Pasion, who started as a banker’s trusted slave, married his widow at his death, was freed, then given full citizenship by the Athenians in gratitude for services rendered to the state, and died as the richest Athenian of the early 4th century BC. During the construction of the Acropolis in the mid-5th century BC, free citizens and slaves received the same daily wage, one drachma. These was also a category of “slaves living apart” e.g. in their own homes, working as self-employed laborers and just paying a fixed amount to their masters. The

A vast number of slaves were employed for mining in antiquity. In the photograph, the extraction of clay from the walls of a large pit. Detail of a Corinthian ceramic plaque (580 BC, Altes Museum, Berlin).

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fact that they could keep the remainder meant that one day they might even buy their freedom, a very strong economic incentive!

That living conditions for slaves were relatively good can be deduced also from the fact that no slave revolts ever took place in Athens (as they did in Sparta and Rome) and from the portrayal of slave characters in comedy, where Athenian slaves cannot be distinguished externally from citizens, are outspoken and sometimes even rude to their masters! These were certainly much better conditions than those endured by black slaves in the American pre-Civil War South.

During the 4th century BC, an Athenian self-employed citizen received a daily income of 1.5 drachmas, so his yearly income may be estimated at about 450 drachmas. The 1,200 richest Athenians, those qualifying as members of a “symmoria” (a group assessed together for tax purposes), according to Demosthenes had property worth at least 15 talents, or 90,000 drachmas. We also know that normal interest on bank loans was 8 percent, while for other types of investment (such as shipping) it was higher. Thus, we estimate that a rich Athenian could have generated a yearly income of 8,000-9,000 drachmas from his wealth. This again gives us a measure of inequality: the 1,200 richest Athenians, about 3 percent of the total citizen population (estimated at 60,000 in 482 BC and 40,000 in the mid-4th century BC on account of losses during the Peloponnesian War), earned roughly 20 times more per year than an average self-employed Athenian.

Nowadays, assuming an average

Clay figurine of a servant scheming to rob his master. Discovered along with 13 similar figures in an Attic tomb, it represents a familiar theatrical character often seen in comedies and beloved by Athenians (late 5th-early 4th century BC, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

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income of 40,000 euros for an employee in the West and remuneration (including bonuses, stock options, etc.) of 1 million euros (in some cases over 10 million euros) for top executives at major companies, one may conclude that on average the latter earn 25 times more than most employees. So these rough estimates show that the Athenian economy was more egalitarian than its modern-day western equivalent. And this egalitarianism was further underpinned by redistribution.

Redistribution There is a general impression that redistribution, mainly though taxation, is a “modern” discovery of democratic 20th century states. In fact, Athenians practiced redistribution on a wide scale during the Classical period. In general, Athenians were adverse to the taxation of income and wealth, believing that free people should not be taxed. State revenues came from a variety of sources such as income from the silver mines, custom duties (at 2 percent, very important, since Piraeus was the biggest harbor and entrepôt in the Mediterranean), the leasing of state property, the “metoikion” (a moderate tax paid by foreigners – metics – working in Athens) and even the “pornikon telos” (a brothel tax).

Only in times of urgent financial need, such as wartime, did the Athenians introduce a direct property tax, the “eisphora.” But they did find other ways to indirectly tax wealthy Athenians, namely in the form of obligations known as “liturgies,” the most important and burdensome of which was the “trierarchy.” Under this obligation, a rich Athenian would be required to command and assume the expenses of a trireme for one year (which usually meant an operational pe-

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Living conditions for slaves were certainly better than those endured by black slaves in the American pre-Civil War South. In comedy they are portrayed as outspoken, even rude to their masters!

riod of eight months). Since the Trierarch would be commanding the ship in naval operations and in battle, he had a strong incentive to provide a strong vessel, as his life could well depend on its performance at sea. The average cost of a Trierarchy was 3,000-5,000 drachmas, which would be equivalent to a tax rate of 30-60 percent on the basis of the income estimates presented earlier. The cost of a Trierarchy was so great that the obligation could not be imposed in consecutive years, while a successful outcome of the “liturgy” would give the Trierarch political prestige and great pride.

Another characteristic example of redistribution relates to two famous “tamiai” or treasurers, as actually today’s equivalent of “finance ministers.” Eubulus and Lycurgus, who were elected by vote rather than by lot, restored Athenian finances after the ruinous Social War (357-355 BC) when Athens unsuccessfully tried to bring rebel city-states back into their alliance. The two treasurers managed to boost the city’s coffers from 120 to 400 talents in 355 BC (Eubulus) and to 1,200 talents in 322 BC (Lycurgus). To achieve this, they had proposed a reconciling of seemingly conflicting interests through the implementation of a “social contract” between the poor on the one hand, and middle-income and rich citizens on the other.

The poorer citizens, who found steady employment as rowers in the Athenian navy, were in favor of the continuation of the Athenian war strategy. In contrast, middle-income and wealthy Athenians wanted peace, since in times of war, landowners had to serve as heavy infantry “hoplites” and were thus absent from their land, while entrepreneurs suffered diminishing profits due to a decline in trade. Lycurgus and Eubulus

proposed the following compromise to bring about “homonoia” (concord, or same-mindedness) among citizens: they financed a very extensive Keynesian-type program of public works, which provided ample employment opportunities to poor Athenians who might find themselves unemployed as rowers. The proposal was adopted in the Assembly, ushering in a period of 15 years’ peace (the longest during the Classical era), prosperity and many public works including the Theater of Dionysus on the southern slope of the Acropolis, new roads and a new sewage system for Piraeus which still stands.

Lycurgus’ program was the first ever to use taxation for redistribution in order to bring about a balance of interests among different social groups and implement through democratic procedures a social contract long before the writings of Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century. Greek philosophers such as Antiphon had been writing about the theory of social contract from as early as the 5th century BC.

Ceramic vessel on which the Centaur Chiron is shown trying, with the help of two servants, to climb the steps leading to a sanctuary (British Museum, London).

Similar scenes are found on many vases from Magna Graecia, reflecting a type of popular theatrical entertainment that parodied myths.

Grave stele of Xanthippos (ca. 420 BC, British Museum, London).

The stele’s carved relief depicts a bearded man holding up a shoe form in his right hand, the symbol of a shoemaker.

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An Engine for Progress Shared knowledge and investment in human capital were key elements of the Athenian democracy.

BY Josiah Ober

T

oday, the word “democracy” means very different things to different people in different countries. It is associated with majority rule, a commitment to human rights, with the constitutional rule of law, with multi-party systems of government, and, recently in my own country, with intense political partisanship and gridlock.

Going back to the beginnings of the practice of citizen self-government in complex societies, by using the analytic methods of contemporary social science, can help clear away some confusion about what democracy really is, and what it is truly good for. What we learn by going back to the Greeks – the people who invented the word and who first practiced democracy on a scale beyond small face-to-face communities – is that democracy is, at its heart, a remarkable system for advancing the security and welfare of communities of citizens.

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“The School of Athens,” a fresco by the renowned Renaissance painter Raphael (1509-1510), in the Vatican City’s Apostolic Palace.

At the center are shown Plato and Aristotle, representing the enduring bond between Athenian democracy and philosophy.

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With the sudden collapse of the palace-centered Bronze Age civilization in about 1100 BC, Greek communities rid themselves of kings and the strict hierarchy associated with the Mycenaean palaces. As Greece emerged from the “Dark Age” around the time of Homer, communities consolidated into citystates. In some of these city-states, citizens resisted the emergence of elite rulers; the result was a range of citizen-centered forms of government. The most fully developed version of citizen government was democracy.

Citizen government developed over a long period of time, but democracy was invented in the aftermath of a revolution. In 508 BC, the ordinary people of Athens rose up in arms to resist and defeat an attempt by Athenian elites to establish a narrow oligarchy. In the aftermath of this Athenian Revolution, all adult males currently resident in Attica, the territory of Athens, were considered citizens. As such they had both privileges and a duty to participate actively in democratic institutions and civic culture.

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MUCH more than majorit y rule Democracy, as it was practiced by the ancient Athenians and by other Greek communities that quickly followed Athens’ lead, proved to be a dynamic engine for progress. Democracy unleashed the latent power of useful knowledge dispersed across a diverse population. Citizens from all walks of life participated in democratic institutions, including a citizen Council that set the agenda for a citizen Assembly, which made decisions that were reviewed in the People’s Courts. Through these and other formal institutions, and through informal networks that connected citizens with other community residents, useful knowledge known by individuals – shoemakers, sailors, fishermen and traders, as well

Investment in knowledge, continuous education and innovation were key elements of Athenian democracy. In the picture: a school scene, in a detail from a red-figure kylix (drinking cup) painted

by Douris (485-480 BC, Altes Museum, Berlin).

as philosophers and statesmen – was disclosed and made available for community improvement. Through their participation in government and in the culture of the democratic city, citizens learned to learn from one another – and from non-citizen residents who lived among them. Democracy proved, in short, to be a system for the promotion of social and technical innovation and continuous learning.

For the ancient Greeks, democracy meant much more than majority rule. It meant “A People’s collective capacity to accomplish important things, for themselves, as a community.” The Greeks discovered that in order for a People collectively to accomplish important things for themselves, they must develop a strong commitment to citizenship – to equal high standing among an extensive and socially diverse body of people. This required that all citizens, rich and poor, highly educated and manual laborers alike, enjoy freedom of speech, freedom of association, equal standing and civic dignity. Moreover, the People’s capacity to accomplish

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important things for themselves was enhanced, rather than restricted, by requiring legislation passed by the People to conform to fundamental rules – rules that were approved on a regular basis by People themselves, but that could not be changed overnight. And thus the Greeks arrived at their mature conception of democracy: “collective and limited self-government by politically free, equal and dignified citizens.”

There are many reasons to care about this early chapter in the history of democracy. There are very good reasons for every individual to want to have political freedom, equality and dignity. I believe that people’s lives are better if they have the chance to live together as citizens, because it means that they can, together, decide on their collective future. But I also believe that there are other things people can and should care about as well, including their security as an independent country and their welfare as individuals: People’s lives go better if they live without fear, and with enough food, in decent houses, receiving fair pay for the work they do.

The history of ancient Athens – the best documented and in some ways the most democratic of all the Greek citystates – shows us that democracy, when it is well designed, can help a country to become more secure and can help its people to live in greater prosperity. It can also help a country to open access to its institutions to newcomers: to immigrants and visitors. Among the notable developments in Athens’ democracy was the strengthening of civil rights for non-citizen residents. Ancient Greek

society condoned legal slavery, but in Athens even slaves were granted legal immunity from certain forms of humiliation. Democracy builds national security and increases welfare because it promotes the improved use of human knowledge and widens the scope of those whose knowledge is regarded as potentially valuable. New innovations arising from shared information and deeper learning arising from rational investment in human capital, are the keys to long-term success, in ancient Greece, and in the modern world. Today, as in the ancient Greek world of 2,500 years ago, every organization, from a small business firm to the greatest nation, needs to find ways to innovate and to learn if it is to continue to prosper, over a long period of time, in a complex and changing world.

The incentive to do better The history of democracy in Athens shows us that democracy is an effective way to organize the many kinds of knowledge that are widely dispersed across a large population of people.

It shows us that it is a mistake to believe that all the knowledge required to maintain a country’s greatness in the long run is possessed by few experts. It shows us that it is a mistake to believe that a few experts will always be able to make the best decisions for the good of the entire community. In a citizen-centered democracy, open to knowledge and innovation, each citizen has a real chance, and a good reason, to share what he and she knows if and when that knowledge might help the community

to make a better decision about an important matter. Democracy is the great incubator of innovation and learning, because it gives each citizen the incentive to do better for himself, by sharing what he and she knows with fellow citizens, and thereby to help make his and her community better.

The story of democracy and how it worked to make ancient Athens great holds potential lessons for every organization and every nation of today’s world. We have the potential, today, to build on the Greek model. There are some aspects of Greek society that we, in the Western world, have finally left behind: notably slavery and the restriction of citizenship to men. But ancient Greece still has important lessons to teach western democracies, which have at times forgotten that democracy is about citizenship and knowledge, about collective responsibility for common interests, not just about which political party gets its way for the next few years. And ancient democracy hold important lessons for other countries, like India and China, with a long tradition of rule by elites, countries that do not have a long history of citizenship, political freedom, political equality and civic dignity, but that are eager to take a greater role in world affairs.

The heritage of the ancient Greeks, a heritage that includes but is not limited to democracy, is one of values that can potentially be embraced by all peoples of the world. These are not narrowly western values. The ancient Greek heritage is as relevant today to the people of Iran, Egypt, India, and China as it is to the people of Europe or the USA.

The history of democracy in Athens shows us that it is a mistake to believe that all the knowledge required to maintain a country’s greatness in long run is possessed by a few experts.

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the Politics of Laughter Athenian society had such confidence in its strengths that it did not fear self-ridicule. One of the most important and liberating achievements of democracy, was giving laughter a place among the institutions of the city-state.

BY Ta k i s T h e o d o r o p o u l o s

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the scandal, hoping for retribution, but they simply roared with laughter at his predicament. Divine laughter, perhaps, but by today’s standards laughter that would be more common in a military camp of new recruits.

And when you think about it, even believing that the proletariat of the gods – the crippled blacksmith Hephaestus – is married to the most attractive and erotic of all the beautiful goddesses, means you must have a healthy appreciation of the ridiculous.

So, the gods were laughing, the kouroi and korai were smiling, but democracy in the 5th century BC gave laughter a place among the other institutions of the city. Deriving from the komos, the Dionysian procession of drunken revelers who danced along the streets, ridiculing each other and passersby, comedy performances gained a prominent place in theatrical contests. These competitions, featuring dithyrambs, tragedies, saty-

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aughter predates the comic. In the Iliad, Thersites, the worst of the Achaeans who sailed against Troy, according to Homer, ugly, hunchbacked and vulgar, addressed the Greek army as it was rallying solely to mock and to make the others laugh.

A forerunner of Aristophanes’ characters, in the end he is forced to depart in tears when Odysseus strikes his hump with Agamemnon’s scepter.

A nobler version of this very human response is the laughter of the gods. As is known, unlike Christian saints who are never portrayed even smiling in icons, the Greek gods enjoyed having a good laugh. In fact they would often roll about laughing, as in the famous episode in the Odyssey in which Hephaestus caught his wife Aphrodite in the arms of her lover, Ares, in an unbreakable net that he himself had fashioned. Hephaestus assembled the other gods to reveal

Aristophanes’ “The Birds,” staged by Alfredo Arias at the Comedie Francaise in Paris, on April 2010.

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English actress Joan Greenwood (1921-1987, center) in the title role of Aristophanes’ classical Greek play “Lysistrata,” an English Stage Company production, directed by Minos Volonakis, London, 1957.

ric dramas and comedies, would have been the equivalent of today’s Hollywood. They were held in early spring, when the sea lanes were open and citizens of allied cities on the islands would flock to Athens to conduct their legal, commercial, tax and other affairs. The theater on the south slope of the Acropolis, in the shadow of the Parthenon, or of the construction sites before its completion, could accommodate an audience of roughly 25,000 men, women and metics.

It is certainly worth imagining what may have happened when a particularly good joke passed from the stage to the audience; their loud yells, their laughter, their retorts, all in an atmosphere of heavy human odors made even heavier by the consumption of garlic and shallots. The Athenians were not known for refinement in their social behavior. But it is worth noting that the democracy was not afraid to show to the entire Greek world its basest aspects; it didn’t hesitate to ridicule itself by brutally exposing the flip side of political virtue: sycophancy, litigiousness, greed and demagoguery.

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drunk in front of a Chorus whose members sported huge phalluses, were the same people who built the temple of harmony and balance, the Parthenon, in whose shadow they played out their degradation – yet more proof that the Greeks had to go to the furthest extremes before appreciating the value of moderation.

In contrast with tragedy, which sought its characters from among the heroic figures of mythology, comedy focused on day-to-day public life. Initially, performances were similar to contemporary Vaudeville: A show consisting of comedy sketches and gags targeting public figures, complete with slaps, kicks and bodily noises. Lots of music and song. The actors, males only of course, would quarrel among themselves about who should be entrusted with the show’s big hit. This is how Aristophanes learned his comic art at the side of his teacher, Cratinus, and began honing it in the mid-420s BC when still very young, not yet 25. If today, Aristophanes is still considered to be the “father of comedy,” it is because he was the first to give his art a dramatic structure; he created realistic plots in which he immersed his characters, while at

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the same time adding a political dimension to the comedy. It is generally accepted that laughter is the most elusive element in literary expression. The spectator, or reader, of the 21st century may understand the tragedy of Medea, abandoned by Jason, but it is by no means certain whether he or she laughs for the same reasons that the audience in ancient Athens laughed at the buffoon Strepsiades in “The Clouds”, or at Bdelycleon and Philocleon in “The Wasps”. But he or she definitely comprehends the directness and bluntness of the criticism leveled by an Athenian of the period against the democracy that we today consider to be the single most important achievement of 5th century BC Athens.

Theatrical performances were a public function and the presence of comedy on the stage demonstrates that, at the very least, the democracy of the 5th century BC had the courage not only to acknowledge its shortcomings but also to highlight them. Athenian society had such confidence in its strengths that it did not fear self-ridicule. It is probably no coincidence that the creation of the great tragedies, as well as of the remarkable comedies of Aristophanes, comes to an end with the city’s defeat in the Peloponnesian War. The miracle of a society that experimented with the condition of its co-existence (for democracy began as an experiment), lasted less than a century, but still occupies us today.

As does the courage of a society, but also the courage of its citizens and of its dramatic poets who performed a public function. Outspokenness was an obligation of Athenian citizens when they took the floor in the Ekklesia, but without it the comic poet could not serve his art. Outspokenness to the utmost degree, whether in terms of foul language or deliberate exaggeration, or the intentional distortion of characteristics Scene from the historic Art Theater production of “The Birds” in 1959, directed by Karolos Koun. The music was written by Manos Hadjidakis, with stage sets and costumes designed by painter Yannis Tsarouchis.

Top right, undated portrait of Aristophanes.

Democracy was not afraid to show to the entire Greek world its basest aspects; it didn’t hesitate to ridicule itself by brutally exposing the flip side of political virtue: sycophancy, litigiousness, greed and demagoguery.

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Costume and set designs by Karolos Koun for Aristophanes’ “Plutus.”

in order to highlight them, even ridicule them, without which laughter cannot be produced. And what remains captivating about Aristophanes’ comedies is the fact that the laughter they provoked was the result of withering criticism of the people and processes of democracy. Aristophanes does not create comic situations to provoke laughter, like today’s ridiculous TV “stars.” He creates comic situations to judge people and things, and the laughter that he may succeed in provoking is the result of his judgment. At this point, one must be careful. The comic poet, under the protection of Dionysus, had the right to judge the people and things of the democracy to the utmost degree. But he was prohibited from denouncing the polity itself. What we forget today is that democracy was born and developed along with a very strict observance of certain limits.

Just consider, however, how much courage it took on the part of that young Athenian, not yet 25 years old, with his city at war, to place on the stage a wretched peasant, Dikaiopolis, who desires peace with the mortal enemy, Sparta. While also seizing the opportunity in the same play to taunt the great tragedian Euripides. “The Acharnians” is the earliest of Aristophanes’ surviving plays and was followed, one year later, by “The Knights.” Here, the target is Cleon, a quarrelsome, warmongering demagogue who dominated Athenian politics a few years after the death of Pericles. In the play, Cleon helps Demos (“the people”) get drunk so that he can do with him as he pleases. In order to rid themselves of his influence, the Athenians choose someone even worse. “If you want to deal with something bad, find something even worse” – the conclusion reached by Aristophanes may have made his fellow citizens laugh, but it sounds like an “all-weather” political theorem. As we said, comedy has its limits. Those Athenians who applauded Cleon’s vilification and handed Aristophanes the first prize at the annual Lenaia festival were the same Athenians who, just a few months later, again elected Cleon as strategos (general). In “The Clouds,” it was the turn of Socrates to be lampooned. A real roasting, no holds barred!

Aristophanes portrays Socrates as a shyster headmaster who does not believe in the city’s gods and teaches his students how to talk their way out of paying their debts – a lesson that certainly has resonance in present-day Greece. To understand the power of comedy, one has only to consider that at his trial 25 years later, Socrates began his defense by saying he feared the comic playwright who had portrayed him as a fraud more than his accusers. A quarter of a century after his “conviction”

by Aristophanes, the judgment was upheld.

And what of women? One cannot speak about Aristophanes without referring to the classic Lysistrata. At the very

least, it overturns some of the most deeply entrenched stereotypes about Athens in the Classical period. Just imagine if, of all the ancient writings, only the comedies of Aristophanes had survived. We would no doubt believe that Athens had been a society dominated by women, in which the only thing that men knew how to do was kill each other in war. All other things, the serious matters, were handled by women.

Fortunately however, in addition to the works of Aristophanes, along with that huge volume of thinking and human experience handed down to us from the period, we also have the writings of Plato. In his philosophical text “Symposium,” Plato presents the comic playwright giving a speech in which he explains to those at a drinking party that love was born when Zeus decided to chop in half the spherical creatures, namely people, who until then had double bodies with faces and limbs turned away from one another. Since that time, one half has been searching for the other. And when at the end of the symposium, as dawn was breaking and everyone else had fallen asleep in a drunken stupor, Socrates explains to Aristophanes that a skilful playwright should be able to write comedy as well as tragedy. Years later, in Book X of his “Republic,” Plato concludes that all comic and tragic poets should be banished from the ideal city (Kallipolis), because they incite the passions instead of the faculties of reason. Plato’s “Republic” is in effect a rejection of the democracy that made Athens what it was in the 5th century BC, while in condemning comedy and tragedy, Plato demonstrates just how closely intertwined they are with the democratic institutions of the city. Intertwined with democracy and, by extension, intertwined with western civilization.

Borges, in his “Averroes’ Search,” part of his “El Aleph” anthology, portrays the Islamic philosopher as being unable to understand two words from Aristotle’s “Poetics” – “comedy” and “tragedy.” Despite being the foremost commentator on Aristotle in the Arab world, there was no way – as Borges points out – that Averroes could possibly understand the meaning of these two words, quite simply because comedy and tragedy lie beyond the boundaries of theocratic Islam, and of theocracy in general.

As is well known, fanatics have no sense of humor.

Aristophanes, under the protection of Dionysus, had the right to judge the people and things of democracy to the utmost degree. But he was prohibited from denouncing the polity itself.

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Eating & Philosophizing From the symposia of ancient times to today’s meals with family and friends, food and wine remain a cornerstone of Greek social life and even played a key role in the birth of democracy.

BY John Lemonis

Ancient Athens - reconstruction of the symposium (color lithograph) by the Italian School.

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astronomy, in other words the art of good eating, has enjoyed great popularity in recent years, and might even be considered one of the highest aspects of a people’s culture. The ancient Greeks had elevated cooking to a culinary art long before their culture had reached its peak.

One hundred years before the Golden Age of Pericles, the Greek city of Sybaris in Magna Graecia (southern Italy) had become famous throughout the Greek-speaking world for its great wealth and sumptuous feasts. The inhabitants had created dishes that would certainly not be out of place in today’s modern gastronomic culture. “In Sybaris, if any cook invented

a peculiar and excellent dish, no other person was allowed to make it for one year” (Athenaeus). The first gastronome in history is considered to be the 4th century BC Greek poet Archestratus of Gela in Sicily, who wrote a didactic poem advising readers where to find the best food in the Mediterranean. Sicily also produced the first cookbooks, including that of Mithaecus, who is mentioned in one of Plato’s dialogues, while another writer describes him as the “Pheidias of the kitchen.”

But what was happening in Athens? As the city-state’s power grew, the standard of living of its citizens rose too. The drinking parties hosted by wealthy Athenians in their homes,

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the renowned symposia, have become a part of history. At these gatherings, Athenian men had the opportunity to combine wine, good food and social interaction. In the Classical period, the symposium was divided into two parts: first the meal, at which guests would only eat and then the party, when they would drink and be merry.

Guests went to a symposium late in the evening. On arrival, servants would lead them into the men’s quarters of the household, where they would recline on couches and be given a crown of leaves or flowers (in the Hellenistic period, of gold or silver). Water would also be brought to them so they could wash their hands. A small table was placed in front of each guest. When the banquet began, servants would present the guests with large dishes piled with food, from which they could choose whatever they wished. The meal began with appetizers and bread, followed by meat and fish, and finally fruit, sweets and nuts. When the dinner was over, the servants took away the tables and brought a krater (mixing bowl) and amphoras containing either undiluted wine or water. Libations to the gods – particularly Dionysus – were then performed, after which the wine and water were mixed, usually in a ratio of 1:3, and the party began in earnest. During the symposium, guests would be entertained by musicians, dancers and acrobats, while engaging in poetry contests, playing games and above all, discussing politics and philosophy. This was where they shaped their new identity; this was where they built democracy and laid the foundations for Western philosophy.

In preparation for these banquets, the hosts would procure the finest food from all over the ancient world: Grain from Egypt, cheese from Sicily, truffles from Elis, eels from Boeotia and of course the celebrated produce of Attica, including figs, honey from Mount Hymettus, foie gras and delicious bread from Athens. There were 75 types of bread available in Athens and its inhabitants prided themselves on never having to make bread at home, on account of the large number of bakeries in the city. It was the first time in history that commercial bakeries operated on such a scale.

More than anything else, however, Athenians loved fish and seafood, despite the fact that they could be incredibly expensive. The 4th century BC comic poet Antiphanes tells how when talking to fishmongers he felt compelled to turn away his head, like Perseus trying not to look into the eyes of the Gorgon Medusa, lest he be turned instantly to stone, “for when I see how high a price they ask, and for what little fish, I’m motionless.”

Demosthenes accused Philocrates of taking bribes “to spend the money on whores and fish.” Nevertheless, Athenians were free

to indulge in their passion for fish without restriction, whereas the consumption of meat was subject to quite strict rules, regarding which there is an interesting story.

The ancient Greeks would often organize great festivals in honor of the gods, which involved theatrical performances, athletic contests and mass sacrifices of animals. However, only the thick fatty smoke would be offered to the gods. The meat itself was shared among the people attending, on small skewers (just like the ever popular, modern-day souvlaki). It was essential that the portions were equal and contained both prime and secondary quality pieces, so that when they were distributed, everyone could participate in the sacrifice on an equal basis.

Because the requirement of impartiality was extremely important at these sacrifices, with the Athenians being particularly sensitive in such matters, it can be argued that the sacrificial procedure made an important contribution to the establishment of democracy, since it was then that they first began talking of isonomia, equality or fair share, even before demokratia, democracy. Isonomia refers to a set of concepts; the word derives from the verb nemo (to distribute or share) and is directly connected with kreonomia, the sharing of meat at a sacrifice. When the last tyrants were thrown out of Athens in 510 BC, Cleisthenes introduced isonomia to the city. And just as the Greeks had insisted on their right to an equal share of the food at sacrifices, they naturally also demanded a share of power. Subsequently, Cleisthenes turned equal portions of food into equal parcels of land. In this way, the people became a force with equal rights, in effect establishing the concept of democracy. It is interesting to note that the consumption of meat was so strongly associated with democracy that if someone was seen eating meat greedily, he would be considered a threat to the state.

Symposia may be a thing of the past, but the Greeks never abandoned this social institution. Nowadays, the only difference is that the symposium has taken on the form of a dinner and guests sit in chairs. The “same” people gather at homes or at some taverna after work in the evening to enjoy the company of friends, good food and wine, but above all, to talk. Food is an integral part of the occasion. The numerous small dishes, featuring seafood in the summer and meat in winter (much of which has changed little since ancient times), accompanied by wine, ouzo or tsipouro, provide “fuel” for the conversation.

Just like their ancestors, modern-day Greeks are driven by a deep need to appraise, analyze and speak. As in the past, democracy – the participation of citizens in public affairs – continues today to epitomize Greek culture.

The consumption of meat was so strongly associated with democracy that if someone was seen eating meat greedily, he would be considered a threat to the state.

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Heracles at a symposium being addressed by the goddess Athena, on an Attic amphora by the Andokides Painter (ca. 515 BC, State Collections of Antiquities, Munich).

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Artistic Anthem to the golden age The Athenian democracy of the 5th century BC was accompanied by a flourishing of art and culture that still inspires admiration.

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An Iconic Achievement The Parthenon represents the crowning achievement of the Classical Athenian democracy. Its architects are considered to have been Iktinos and Kallikrates, while the sculptor Pheidias also played a key role in its design. Along with his students, the famous artist created the full panoply of the temple’s exterior sculptural decoration, as well as the enormous statue of Athena Parthenos sheltered within its cella. Building of the Parthenon’s structure was launched in 447 BC and completed in 438 BC. Additional work continued until 432 BC, however, when the last of the temple’s sculptural decoration was installed. The harmony displayed in the dimensions of the Parthenon’s surfaces and volumes, the ingenious artistry behind its decorative sculpture and its masterful overall execution reflect an extraordinary level of political, cultural and artistic development.

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The Varvakeion Athena, a Roman copy of the Parthenon’s illustrious gold and ivory statue of Athena Parthenos (first half of the 3rd century AD, National Archaeological Museum). Pheidias’ original work consisted of a wooden core covered with ivory and gold. The golden plates altogether weighed about 1,140 kilos and were skillfully arranged to be removable. Thus, when Pheidias was later accused of stealing a portion of the gold, the plates were dismantled, weighed and Pheidias’ innocence was proven.

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National Archaeological Museum, Athens (phot. Kostas Xenikakis, Giannis Patrikianos, Hans Rupprecht Goette) © Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

The Magnum Opus

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In Praise of the Athenian Democracy Battle between a Centaur and Lapith: Metope 27 from the south side of the Parthenon (British Museum, London).

On the Parthenon’s metopes are depicted mythical confrontations between Greeks and Trojans, Greeks and Amazons, Centaurs and Lapiths and Olympian gods and Giants. These contests are evoked as parallels to the recently concluded struggle between the Greeks and the Persians, and the ongoing human battle between Good and Evil.

Essentially, then, the carved scenes praised the excellence of the Athenian democracy — in response to those who might question or conspire against it.

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BEAUTY AND STRENGTH Caryatids were architectural sculptures employed in lieu of columns to support the entablature of buildings. The most famous are the six marble maidens (korai) that supported the porch on the south side of the Erechtheion. On their heads, their thick hair carved in elaborate braids, they carry a marble, basket-shaped capital. They are dressed in a Doric peplos and support their weight mainly on one leg, with the other slightly bent. The bent leg and the folds in the drapery have been interpreted as indications that the Caryatids are moving in a ritualistic procession (ca. 415 BC, originals in the Acropolis Museum).

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National Archaeological Museum, Athens (phot. Kostas Xenikakis, Giannis Patrikianos, Hans Rupprecht Goette) Š Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

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Ethereal Sadness The well-known grave stele of Hegeso of Proxenos, from the Kerameikos Cemetery. Hegeso, seated and sorrowful, examines an item, probably jewelry, which she holds in her hand, taken from a box presented by a maid standing in front of her. The carved relief has been attributed to Kallimachos, a pupil of Pheidias, famous for his exquisite forms, or to some other member of his artistic circle. Such stelai were commonly used for grave markers and first appeared in Greece during the Mycenaean era (410-400 BC, National Archaeological Museum).

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Dexterity and Imagination “The most perfect creation of Greek art,” as Théophile Gautier describes the famous Nike unbinding her sandal (Sandalizomene). This carved relief depicts Nike (Victory), balancing on her left leg, raising her right and bending to unfasten her sandal before ascending to the altar. The draping of her robe, beneath the folds of which can be distinguished the curves of her body, is eternally impressive and reflects great imagination and artistic dexterity. Considered to be the work of Kallimachos, it comprised just one panel in the parapet that surrounded the Temple of Athena Nike (409-406 BC, Acr. 973, Acropolis Museum).

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A Diminutive Ionic Jewel

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Thus has been described the Temple of Athena Nike, also known as the Temple of Wingless Victory, which is distinguished by its harmonious proportions and symmetry. Although planned already from 449 BC, it was constructed between 427 and 423 BC—in the midst of the Peloponnesian War—probably in time to glorify the triumph of the Athenians over the Spartans at Sphaktiria (425 BC).

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The Pain of Farewell

National Archaeological Museum, Athens (phot. Kostas Xenikakis, Giannis Patrikianos, Hans Rupprecht Goette) Š Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

An Attic white-ground lekythos from Eretria. In its painted figural scene, a seated Athenian noblewoman bids farewell to her husband as he departs for war. A work of the Achilles Painter (ca. 440 BC, National Archaeological Museum). High-fashion white-ground lekythoi were hallmark funerary vases of the 5th century BC, found in many tombs. They were characteristically decorated with depictions of deceased persons or other figures, such as Hermes Psychopompos (escort of souls), painted on a white background.

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Rendering of Emotion The “Pensive Athena,” a masterful example of votive relief, depicting the goddess in a posture of meditation. Athens’ protectress wears a Doric peplos and a Corinthian helmet and leans on her spear. The subtly evocative portrayal of her inner mood by the work’s Classical-era sculptor is considered unique (circa 460 BC, Acr. 1332, Acropolis Museum).

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A reflection of Beauty Bronze mirror of the Classical era (ca. 455 BC, National Archaeological Museum). The handle takes the form of a peplos-attired kore (maiden), who rests on a circular pedestal with three legs. Above her head soar two winged Eros figures. The object’s disk was once highly polished, so as to give its surface the reflective properties of a mirror. Mirrors were a symbol of the goddess Aphrodite, who was associated with beauty and often depicted with a mirror in her hand.

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National Archaeological Museum, Athens (phot. Kostas Xenikakis, Giannis Patrikianos, Hans Rupprecht Goette) Š Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

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Feminine Elegance Elaborate gold earrings from Eretria. Their central motif is comprised of a writhing female figure which a man is trying to seize. The lion and snakes in front of the woman point to her identity as Thetis, who successively transformed herself into fire, a lion, a snake and water to avoid the erotic pursuits of Peleus (second quarter of the 5th century BC, National Archaeological Museum).

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Bronze statue, discovered on the seabed near Evia Island’s Cape Artemision, which likely represents Zeus rather than Poseidon (as initially proposed).

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National Archaeological Museum, Athens (phot. Kostas Xenikakis, Giannis Patrikianos, Hans Rupprecht Goette) Š Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs/Archaeological Receipts Fund

Divine Magnificence

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INSPIR ATION

HERO Attic red-figured amphora, on which is depicted Achilles, the mythical hero of Homer’s Iliad (ca. 450 BC, Gregorian Etruscan Museum, Rome). This vase typifies the works of the distinguished artist known as the Achilles Painter, who was active in the period 470/460-435/430 BC. 108

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PERFECT FORM The Diskobolus (Discus Thrower), Myron’s preeminent bronze statue created around 450 BC, depicts an athlete with great artistic naturalness, just as he prepares to hurl the discus.

Characteristic of the work is the combination between the tension in the well-proportioned, highly trained body and the serene introspection of the face. This is one of many Roman copies of the work, exhibited in the National Museum of Rome (found in the Baths of Diocletian); another copy stands in London’s British Museum, as well near the Panathenaic Stadium.

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The rule

In the 5th century BC, Ephesus announced a competition for the creation of an Amazon statue, which would serve as an offering in the Temple of Artemis. The competition called for famous sculptors of the era (Pheidias, Polykleitos, Kresilas and Phradmon) each to submit a bronze statue. Ultimately the winner was Polykleitos.

Copies of the original works from the period 440-430 BC were produced during the Roman era and today are displayed in various Italian museums. One of them, the so-called Wounded Amazon (Amazon Mattei type) is exhibited in the Vatican’s Pius-Clementine Museum and believed to be a copy of an original work by Pheidias.

The “Spear-Bearer” by Polykleitos (ca. 440 BC), a work that reflects harmony in its proportions of the human body and attests to its creator’s absolute knowledge of anatomy, was considered in antiquity as the ideal model for sculpture and male beauty, and thus it became known as “The Canon,” or the rule. The composition is most notable for its dynamic expression of the human body and its balance of contrasts: the right hand is relaxed over the leg that supports the figure’s weight, while the left hand supporting the spear is held above the loose leg. One of the most faithful later copies of Polykleitos’ original bronze work is exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

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The Blossoming of Theater Playwrights in all three genres (drama, satirical drama, comedy) produced crowning, timeless theatrical works during the years of ancient democracy which served to showcase Athenian values. In the photo, two actors backstage with their masks and costumes during a satyric drama. Detail of an Attic red-figure krater attributed to the Pronomos Painter (late 5th century BC, National Archaeological Museum, Naples).

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The first phase of construction at Ancient Messene has been dated to the late 3rd century BC.

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When Democracy Became a City The democratic ideals of the 4th century BC were enshrined in Ancient Messene’s innovative planning, just like in the case of Piraeus and the cities founded in Asia and Africa by Alexander the Great.

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One of two Doric stoas that framed the Gymnasium, which formed a single architectural unit with the Stadium.

371 BC: The Thebans, led by General Epaminondas, vanquish the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra in Boeotia.

Sparta’s defeat spells the end of the Spartan League and the start of Theban hegemony in ancient Greece. In the Peloponnese, the Messinians have every reason to celebrate. After more than three centuries of servitude as helots of their Laconian neighbors, they are at last liberated. Refugees return to the land of their ancestors; now citizens of an autonomous city-state. The time has come for them to determine their own destiny.

369 BC: Epaminondas founds their new capital. With its size and splendor, he wishes to underline the new beginning for the Messinians, shape their political identity and foster their ethnic awareness. Thus, in the fertile land of Messinia, the city now known as Ancient Messene is born. It is named after the first mythical queen of the region, daughter of Triopas, king of Argos, and wife of Polycaon of Laconia. Covering an area of 290 hectares, the city is bigger than Athens and surrounded by massive fortification walls that stretch for 9 kilometers.

“Epaminondas was not only a great general who devised the Oblique Phalanx – a formation later adopted by Alexander the Great – but he was also highly educated for his time, deeply philosophical and a firm believer in democracy. His entourage included a large number of surveyors, architects and urban planners, who chose the orientation of the cities he founded, established their boundaries and laid out the blocks,” notes Emeritus Professor of Archaeology Petros Themelis, who has G R E E C E IS

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led excavations at Ancient Messene for more than three decades.

At both Messene and Megalopolis, Epaminondas asked his team of builders and planners to use the Hippodamian grid system, which had been devised and initially implemented in Piraeus (at the request of Pericles) by Hippodamus of Miletus, an architect, urban planner, physician, mathematician, meteorologist and philosopher.

In effect, this meant that everything had to be built in a way that expressed perceptions of democracy at the time, particularly isonomia (“equality before the law”) and isomoiria (“equal distribution”). To begin with, parallel streets were laid out, which were cut vertically by other streets in order to create city blocks of equal size (in Ancient Messene, each covering an area of 3,200 square meters). The building plots too were all of equal size and granted by the state to rich and poor without discrimination.

The houses were identical, built according to the same design and with the same orientation, each with a surface area of approximately 300 square meters.

They were two-story residences. On the

ground floor were the stable and the pitheon, i.e. the storeroom with large jars containing olive oil, pulses and grain.

Here too was the hestia (“hearth”), where the great fire would be lit in winter, the area where servants would prepare meals and, of course, the andronas (“men’s quarters”), where the man of the house would entertain his male guests and host the celebrated symposiums (drinking parties). The only females allowed in the men’s quarters were the hetairai (professional courtesans) and flute-girls, invited to entertain the men.

The lady of the house and other females in the family lived in the gynaikonitis (“women’s quarters”), where they raised their children.

But Ancient Messene’s democratic planning also extended to communal spaces. All the houses had easy access via wide roads to the imposing city center (an Agora covering 4 hectares), the Stadium (with a length of 200 meters), the impressive Theater (with 12,000 seats and a small movable stage) as well as to other public buildings and places of worship.

Epaminondas was also keen to safe-

guard the health of the inhabitants. To this end, the city’s water supply was designed in such a way as to provide all buildings with plenty of water, while roads were constructed with a slight camber to help rainwater drain off and prevent them becoming boggy.

“We should of course clarify what we mean by ‘democracy’ at that time.

All the privileges – in particular the equal distribution of building plots and land – were reserved for free citizens, those having the right to vote,” Professor Themelis stresses. “In any case, the slaves and sharecroppers who worked the land didn’t reside in the city itself but in settlements in the surrounding area. But they did not always remain quiescent. They would either serve as mercenaries, returning with the money they earned to buy land, or rise in revolt to demand more rights. As was the case in 215 BC, when the lower classes in Messinia rose against the ruling class and secured broad-ranging reforms for greater democratization of the polity.

They also received a share of the land.

Isn’t this how changes take place all over the world? Through struggles?”

Info The archaeological site of Ancient Messene is open to the public.

Winter opening hours (30 October – 31 March): 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Summer: 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. • www.ancientmessene.gr

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© ANTON HARFST, PERIKLES MERAKOS, KATERINA KAMPITI, MARO KOURI

All the building plots were of equal size and granted by the state to rich and poor without discrimination. The houses were identical, built according to the same design and with the same orientation, each with a surface area of approximately 300 square meters.

Aerial view of the Asklepieion, the center of public life in the city.

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1. The Stadium, among the most impressive of the city’s structures and certainly one of the best preserved.

2. Work to restore the monuments began in 1987 and continues to the present day.

3. Excavations at Ancient Messene have brought to light more than 18,000 artifacts, including statues, inscriptions, coins, pottery and parts of buildings.

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4. The Archaeological Museum of Messene houses the finds from excavations at the site.

5. Professor Petros Themelis, the dedicated archaeologist who has led excavations at Ancient Messene since 1986.

6. The impressive Heroon Mausoleum, at the south end of the Stadium.

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7. In August 2013, after 1,700 years of silence, the theater was re-opened to the public.

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A Violent Experiment The glorious myth of ancient Athens is a poor model for re-creating the virtues of government in the 21st century

BY Mary Beard

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William Spencer Bagdatopoulos, “The Mytilenean Debate,” illustration from Walter Hutchinson’s “History of the Nations” (1915, private collection).

The Athenians discuss reprisals against the city-state of Mytilene for its revolt during the Peloponnesian War (427 BC).

he people of Athens voted, democratically, in 427 BC, to put to death the entire adult male population of the town of Mytilene and to throw into slavery the women and children – thousands in all. As a punishment for changing sides in the great war between Athens and Sparta, this was brutal even by the permissive rules of ancient warfare. The next day the voters got cold feet.

Meeting again, they reversed the decision, and sent a second message to their commander in the field, canceling their earlier orders. With good luck, incentive payments and favorable winds, this arrived just in the nick of time, before the mass slaughter had been carried out. Under the new ruling, the number of executions barely reached four figures – a selective cull of the leading insurgents.

Most ancient writers used this kind of incident not, as we might, as an indictment of Athens’ ruthlessness, but of the incapacity and fickleness of its democratic decision-making process.

And they had plenty of other examples to choose from – whether the disastrous invasion of Sicily, which effectively lost Athens the war with Sparta, or the execution of the dissident Socrates.

Needless to say, all these writers were the equivalent of the ancient rightwing.

They were acerbic, sometimes nasty critics of the power of the people, and at the same time victims – from Plato down – of the odd delusion that an intelligent autocrat or an elite cabal was less likely to make military or political blunders than a democracy.

All the same there is a stark contrast here with our own modern political fetish, from both left and right of the spectrum, for Athenian democracy.

The more that “democracy” becomes an empty slogan – all too often the west’s convenient alibi for intervention in non-western politics (a bubble pricked only when our new democratic converts vote in some regime we don’t much like) – the more we hark back to its ancient pedigree. Think, for example, of the self-congratulatory celebrations of the GREECE IS

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Jacques-Louis David, “The Death of Socrates” (1787, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

The trial and execution of Socrates highlighted the limits and weaknesses of the Athenian democracy.

2,500th anniversary of world democracy, more than 20 years ago, which fixed on some murky and probably self-serving reforms in 508 BC as the originary moment.

It was for this occasion that George Bush Sr penned, or presumably had penned for him, a gushing introduction to a US exhibition catalogue celebrating “The Greek Miracle”. But the Athenian democratic allure extends beyond what was once the Bush-Blair axis, or is now the self confident parades of western liberalism in their interventions in the Middle East. As far away as the Pacific island of Tonga there is a university parading its intellectual credentials with the title “Atenisi” and with a mission to embrace the “democratic ideals” of ancient Greece (www.atenisi.edu.to).

This fetish casts ancient democratic Athens as the foundation of modern political virtues: one man one vote, freedom of expression, communal decision-making, the sovereignty of the law and equality before it, and so on.

At the same time, it deftly airbrushes out the less appealing aspects of Athenian democratic culture. The wellknown exclusion of women and slaves from any form of political action is one factor, but not the only one. And to be honest, even if Athens operated a more thoroughgoing repression of its female population than any other Greek state 120

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we know, no ancient culture would score highly here.

The Athenian democracy which we so admire was, in reality, a short-lived and violent political experiment; it lasted 50 or so years in its most radical form, a half-century that saw the assassination of one of the most influential democratic reformers and numerous attempts by the enemy within to betray the city to the undemocratic Persians or Spartans. During its almost equally short-lived empire in the 5th century BC, it imposed democratic government on its satellites with as much ruthlessness (and probably as little understanding) as the West now imagines it can intervene to impose its own version of popular government on very

different political systems. It was also a tiny community, with perhaps some 30,000 full male citizens, making its political nucleus roughly the same size as the student population of the modern University of Manchester, or, to put it another way, half the size of modern Sparta. And their citizen rights were fiercely guarded. With a strategy that would endear it to UKIP and other parties of the European right, it made sure that only those born of both Athenian mothers and Athenian fathers would qualify to be part of the exclusive club of citizens. No political integration of migrants or asylum-seekers here.

It goes without saying, of course, that there were, and are, many attractive and important features in Athe-

By choosing a tiny community with a narrowly restrictive idea of citizen rights and of nationality as our founding democratic myth, we are in a sense turning our back on the central political issues that face us now.

nian democratic politics. For a poor, free, male and ambitious citizen, over a short period in the 5th century, it was surely the best Greek city in which to live: with a chance of playing a full political role (thanks to the selection of most political office-holders by lottery) and of being adequately compensated financially for time taken up with political duties. Pay for taking on public responsibility was anathema to the noblesse oblige attitudes of the rightwing, but a central plank in the sharing of power. Equality of political opportunity between the male citizens was as close to being a reality as it ever has been in history.

Classical democracy also launched (thanks, ironically, to ancient theo-

rists who were deeply opposed to it) the whole tradition of western political analysis, from Plato and Aristotle on; as well as giving a kick-start to numerous 19th century movements for political change. Most people in the UK have reason to be very grateful that those behind the 1832 Parliamentary Reform Act which brought the vote to many ordinary men in the country, such as the classical historian George Grote, rejected the then standard idea that democratic Athens was a dreadful warning of the dangers of mob rule and saw in it instead a model for the extension of the vote and electoral change.

But is it a model for us now? To be fair, very few people still imagine that we can draw directly on the Athenian

experience – except a few crackpots who would like to have the members of the House of Lords selected, Athenian style, by lottery. The danger of Athens’ example is more insidious than that.

By choosing – or clinging to – a tiny community with a narrowly restrictive idea of citizen rights and of nationality as our founding democratic myth, we are in a sense turning our back on the central political issues that face us now.

Not so much “democratic myth,” more “head in the sand.”

The big problem for the 21st century is surely how to redefine the notion of “people power” (Greek demokratia) so that it can work for vast political conglomerates from which almost everyone feels alienated, and in which power has moved decidedly away from the “people” in any meaningful sense.

There is also the need to reconfigure ideas of the rights and obligations of citizenship in the new context of a global political economy that transcends the boundaries of the nation state.

In projects of this kind, the founding myth of a small city, the size of a large student union – and with a decidedly unglobal and unmulticultural agenda – is more of a hindrance than a help.

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THE TE S T OF TIME

Direct Democracy: Truth and Fiction Excessive involvement in public affairs means that citizens serve democracy, not the other way round.

BY S o t i T r i a n ta f y l l o u

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olitical life in ancient Greece revolved around the polis, the city that constituted the community. There was no state in the modern sense and the territory was small. In Athens, decisions were taken partly by acclamation in an assembly of all citizens (male of course), partly by a council of 500 and partly by a number of magistrates elected by lot for a fixed term. As such, it was a horizontal, not a vertical, polity. This democratic city flourished and declined, but was ultimately unable to develop further because of the limited space in which it had been established.

However, over the course of 2,000 years, this democracy “in miniature” evolved into the democratic state. In the meantime, the optimum regime, the political ideal, was res publica, literally the “public thing” which was very different from democracy. There is some nostalgia for the Athenian demos; a sense of lost of purity. Nevertheless, the current reality is better than we are willing to admit.

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THE TE S T OF TIME

If the history of words and their meanings reflects the history of mankind, the controversy surrounding the word democracy in the 19th century testifies to the final collapse of ancient democracy. When the term re-emerged, it meant something new. Our modern democracies are, by default, liberal democracies; representative, not direct: they involve multiple mediations. These representative democracies require a public (an electorate) that is adequately autonomous and sufficiently informed to be able to choose those who will make decisions on its behalf. Conversely, when we talk about participatory democracy, we are referring to a system in which citizens decide for themselves; they do not delegate decisions to representatives. But is this possible? And if it is, to what extent?

Participation means active and voluntary decision-making; if people are forced to take part, if they are mobilized through social unrest and propaganda, participation is meaningless. The proponents of participatory democracy believe that participation is a step forward, a step toward the real, the “authentic” democracy. They assert that participatory democracy must be converted to direct democracy through successive referendums. In the name of mass decision-making, representative democracy is bypassed and replaced by direct democracy – by a mirage of it.

In the late 1960s, the idea of participatory democracy was part of the zeitgeist and many such fads are still attractive today, especially in the ivory towers of academia. Not that the call for more participation is, by definition, unwelcome. However, if it becomes too inflated, if democracy is equated with inclusive participation, it may metamorphose into something that is not only unmanageable but also conceptually dangerous. In other words, excessive involvement in the public sphere means that citizens serve democracy, not the other way round. In their daily functioning, democracies are boring; and that’s how they should be. In most cases, the everyday grind denotes stability and social peace. Seen in this context, citizens 124

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should not waste their time constantly deliberating, voting and deliberating all over again; they should go about their business and live their lives as best they can in pursuit of happiness.

Some criticisms of democracy are legitimate. But the stigmatization that emanates from relentless perfectionism is unfair. The ingratitude of the modern-day citizen is often due to excessive expectations that democratic experiments cannot satisfy. However, the real threat to democracy is not an anti-ideal; it is the assertion that there can be a true democracy that rejects the existing one.

tees the right of an absolute majority, but this is unacceptable in a democracy.

In a democracy, the majority respects minority rights; hence, it requires the aforementioned positive sum of power.

The term majority has two basic senses: majority as the will of the many and majority as a numerical entity (hoi polloi). Public opinion and electoral democracy refer to the horizontal dimension of the polity: the base of the structure. But then, the structure refers to the vertical dimension, of the above and the below, the givers of orders and the receivers of orders. Vertical democracy is, therefore, a hierarchical sys-

A prerequisite for a shift from an electoral democracy to one in which the public decides on all issues, is a new public, equipped with experience and knowledge. When power is entrusted to political illiterates, when we decide on matters we know nothing about, the system becomes suicidal.

Thus, we are gravitating toward a democracy of referendums, in which citizens claim power without the mediation of representatives. But a prerequisite for a shift from an electoral democracy to one in which the public decides on all issues, is a new public, equipped with experience and knowledge. When power is assigned to political illiterates, when we decide on matters we know nothing about, the system becomes suicidal. There are intrinsic limitations to the referendum as a democratic tool. In a representative democracy, everybody can gain something (a positive sum, so to speak) because decisions are negotiated and taken in such a way that everybody gets a share. In direct democracy there is no negotiation, no sharing: whoever prevails, prevails completely. Direct democracy guaran-

tem of governance, infuriating for the followers of direct democracy who believe not only in equal opportunity and isonomy, but in equality, in evenness.

And they fail to see that a democracy of referendums imposes the will of the many, even of a marginal majority, on a sometimes sizeable minority.

There are three levels in elections.

First, electoral majorities elect their candidates, while minorities, if they fail to gain the required percentage, do not elect theirs. Fair enough. Second, the number of elected are necessarily very few, a tiny minority compared to the number of voters (e.g. one person elected for every 50,000 voters). Again, fair enough. Third, the elected form a government, comprising a very small number of people relative to the parliament or to other representative bodies.

This too may be considered fair; yet misunderstandings and counter-arguments abound.

In any event, at the top of the hierarchy, a prime minister or a president is a minority of one who concludes the entire process that involved millions of voters. Does this mean that democracy is distorted and diluted? Certainly not.

In the process described above, one can see that majority rule converts the substantial majority into a smaller number. There is no contradiction in this. In a democracy, the processes do not hand total power to anyone in particular; they distribute it among majorities and minorities which overlap and interact.

Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill believed that majority rule led to the so-called “tyranny of the majority” (1). And the writers of the American Constitution feared that majority rule ideal could function in government as a bulldozer, resulting in a tyranny. Nevertheless, electoral majorities rarely transmogrify into tyrants; their ephemerality prevents them from doing so. In contrast, these days specific majorities can act as tyrants through communitarianism, victimology and the inculpation of the majority.

Modern electoral techniques have not been handed down to us from the Greeks, but rather from religious orders, the medieval monks who, secluded in monasteries, elected their superiors through secret ballot (2). However, the prevalent precept throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was major pars, not melior pars: in the end, the election had to be unanimous; dissenters, if any, had to comply – even if “persuasion” took the form of a good flogging. Up to the 17th century, consensus was not only desirable but coercible. One can discern a trace of this in Greece today: opponents of the popu-

list government are vilified, ostracized, even accused of high treason (but not flogged, so far). The transition from unanimity to majority rule – which we largely owe to John Locke – now appears to be threatened by populism: governments – especially radical ones – aspire to “perfect” representativity, to their equation with the masses, to the

disavowal of leadership, vanguard, excellence and expertise. The glorification of direct democracy revives the Jacobin spirit (3); translated in contemporary terms, it complements the ideology of populism, fosters hatred of elites and creates an illusion of inclusiveness – the resurgence, in truth, not of the Athenian but of the Spartan ideal (4).

FOOTNOT E S (1) In “On Liberty” (1859), John Stuart Mill cites Alexis de Tocqueville who used the term in “Democracy in America” (1835) but did not coin it.

John Adams did (“A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America”, Vol 3, p 291, London, 1788) (2) See Giovanni Sartori, “La democrazia in trenta lezioni,” Mondadori, 2009. (3) On the Jacobin tradition, see Edouard Balladur, “La fin de l’illusion jacobine”, Fayard, Paris, 2005 (4) “Sparta shines like a flash of lightning amid immense darkness,” said Robespierre in his speech to the National Assembly (May 7, 1794)

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The Transition With so much emphasis on the origins of democracy in ancient Greece, it can be easy to overlook how early, quickly and smoothly democratic institutions were adopted in modern Greece.

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The night of September 3, 1843: painting by an unknown artist.

At the head of a group of soldiers and a large number of civilians, Colonel Dimitrios Kallergis, on horseback, submits the demand for a constitution to King Otto (Museum of the City of Athens – Lambros Eutaxias Collection).

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eferences to Greece are commonly accompanied by statements reminding us of the fact that it is the birthplace of democracy. Yet, self-consciously or not, such statements effectively amplify the contrast between ancient and modern Greece, to the obvious disadvantage of the latter; for the unstated assumption among many is that the political history of modern Greece can hardly be described as democratic.

Indeed, observers and pundits often mention several episodes in modern Greek history that highlight its thorny relationship with democracy. For example, Greece’s history of frequent military coups, culminating in the Colonels’ coup in April 1967, Europe’s last such instance; or its civil war in the 1940s which was followed by a political regime that severely restricted civil liberties and repressed opponents, as vividly depicted in Costa-Gavras’ famous 1969 film, “Z”.

These instances are real, but they overlook much longer stretches of democratic rule and parliamentary life that are essential for understanding Greece’s modern historical trajectory. And the striking fact about this trajectory is how early democracy emerged in modern Greece. Like most of its European contemporaries, the Greek state began life under a regime of absolute monarchy. It is, therefore, surprising to see how quickly and smoothly democratic institutions were adopted in Greece.

Undoubtedly, these institutions made their appearance under less than ideal conditions. When it gained independence in the late 1820s, Greece lacked a properly functioning state. In fact, the state was so weak that it was unable to establish a “legitimate” monopoly of violence on its territory.

For instance, it took a long time for the state to eradicate rural banditry. Greece was also a peasant country, lacking a sizeable bourgeoisie and a tradition of aristocratic representative institutions (such as a parliament), both of which are considered to be essential prerequisites for the emergence of democratic institutions during the 19th century. Given the tiny size of Greece’s industry, there was also no sizeable industrial working class to mobilize in support of labor rights and civil liberties. Lastly, the country’s liberal intelligentsia was also minuscule. Given these shortcomings, it is quite surprising that democracy not only emerged in 19th century Greece, but also flourished.

The explanation to this puzzle is that Greece did enjoy one important advantage that has been linked by recent research to the rise of democracy: it had a relatively egalitarian social structure due to the absence of a large landowning class. The reason for this is that Greece’s landowning class had been primarily composed of Ottoman overlords who fled the country when it became independent.

Greece’s first workable constitution emerged as a result of a military coup that took place in September 1843. The coup had been planned and executed by military units in Athens which were unhappy about military spending cuts, in conjunction with political factions that had been marginalized by the absolutist rule of Greece’s first king, Otto.

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July 1913: The protagonists of the “National Schism,” Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and King Constantine, commander-in-chief of the Hellenic Army, at the railway station of Vyroneia, Serres (Stefanos Tamvakis Archive).

The antagonism between the two men was marked by a number of disputes in the period 1914-1917, primarily over Greece’s participation in the World War I.

the French constitution of 1830. It fell short of fully fledged parliamentary rule, but did introduce robust parliamentary institutions, including an assembly whose members were to be directly elected by the people triennially and a senate whose members were chosen by the king and had life tenure. An important law that was passed immediately afterwards introduced nearly universal male suffrage. Voting rights were granted to all males above the age of 25 who were citizens and could show that they either owned property or had a profession or trade in the area in which they were registered. In practice, this provision excluded only a very small proportion of the adult male population, mainly servants and apprentices. And so it was in 1847, one year before a wave of revolutions led to franchise extensions in many European states, that Greece became one of very few countries in the world with near-universal male suffrage. France followed suit in 1875, Belgium in 1893, Norway in 1898, Austria in 1907, Sweden in 1909 and the United Kingdom only in 1918 (Greek women, on the other hand, gained the right to vote much later, in 1952).

This surprising turn of events is best explained by the fact

led to a military coup that ushered in a period of political instability peppered by short-lived autocracies, the most signficant of which was the one led by Ioannis Metaxas between 1936 and 1940. Indeed, the period between the two world wars was Greece’s most unstable, even though it remained – for the most part – a democratic period.

The 1940s was arguably the worst decade in Greek history, marred as it was by dramatic events such as the World War II, the devastating occupation of Greece by the Axis powers and an ensuing bloody civil war. Yet, the Greek Civil War, one that pitted the Communist Party against pretty much everyone else, did not coincide with the rise of an autocratic regime. Most certainly, the regime that emerged from the ashes of the occupation and, later, the Civil War, did repress its enemies and outlaw the Greek Communist Party, but it always left space for the political left to operate and compete in elections. Gradually, the regime liberalized itself, until the 1967 military coup put an end to that process.

In 1974, the military regime, facing the twin challenge of public opposition and economic stagnation, orchestrated a military coup in Cyprus to bolster its sagging fortunes. The undertaking backfired monumentally, triggering military intervention by Turkey and leading to the regime’s collapse and its replacement by a new non-military government led by seasoned politician Konstantinos Karamanlis. This is how, on 24 July 1974, democracy was restored in Greece.

The sudden and non-violent manner in which democracy was restored in Greece foreshadowed the transformation of the world from a largely autocratic collection of nations to a largely democratic one.

already mentioned, that Greece lacked a landed aristocracy.

Hence, existing elites did not face the threat of expropriation entailed by the extension of the democratic franchise. This also explains why they did not oppose the introduction of democratic institutions, but doesn’t explain why they pushed for them. Furthermore, the absence of a dominant, cohesive elite, coupled with the presence of evenly balanced elite factions, all with privileged access to the rural population, made democratic institutions a good system for adjudicating their rivalries, while at the same time limiting the power of the king. The fact that the monarchy lacked deep roots also made this institutional transformation much smoother than it would have been otherwise.

After 1844, Greece enjoyed uninterrupted parliamentary rule until roughly the World War I, when a dispute between King Constantine and Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos led to a territorial division of the country, in what became known as the “National Schism.” Nevertheless, elections remained the only game in town until the collapse of the Greek army in an ill-fated military expedition deep inside Anatolia

The sudden and non-violent manner in which democracy was restored in Greece foreshadowed the third wave of democracy, which transformed the world from a largely autocratic collection of nations to a largely democratic one. In its non-violence, the Greek transition also prefigured the “velvet” revolutions that toppled communist regimes in the late 1980s.

The Greek transition brought with it a modern constitution along with liberal and democratic institutions that anchored Greece within the group of the world’s freest and most democratic countries, where it remains to this day.

Without a doubt, democracy is never a finished project but a work in progress. Greece’s democracy has not been without flaws, foremost among which are its clientelistic dimension (whereby parties and the electorate exchange favors for votes) and its populist tendencies (leading to the outsize deficits that caused the country’s 2009 crisis).

In sum, when speaking of Greece, one should keep in mind that democracy is not only a concept that harks back to classical Greece, but also an institution with a long tradition in modern Greece.

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THE TE S T OF TIME

A Democracy that Lives on

BY THANOS M. VEREMIS

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he first constitutional regime in Greece coincides with the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. It was not, however, until 1844, when King Otto granted his Greek subjects the first constitution that allowed an elected parliament to operate unhindered by subsequent political disturbances, at least until 1936 and the Axis occupation of Greece (1941-44). If we exclude the eight years of the Metaxas dictatorship and the years of the Axis occupation and finally the seven years of military dictatorship (1967-74), Greece has had 166 years of constitutional parliamentary democracy. What 130

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conclusions can be drawn by such longevity that challenges many European regimes of the 19th and 20th centuries?

Before we come to that it would be useful to take a look at the landmark political developments in Greece in its 166 years of democratic history.

Many will wonder how it was that 19th century Greek politics were conducted in a parliament that deserves the highest marks of excellence. Such outstanding leaders as Ioannis Capodistrias, Alexandros Koumoundouros and Harilaos Trikoupis, were the products of an electorate that consisted mainly of uneducated peasants. One

explanation of this paradox might be the structure of a society that allowed an educated elite to exert extraordinary influence from the pinnacle of competing pyramids of authority in a segmentary community. As democratization of society progressed, the popular base of these pyramids abandoned their loyalty to their patrons and transferred it to political parties.

The dichotomy between an elite generated by the state and its civil servants on the one hand and the multitude of heirs of the Ottoman segmentary tradition at the base, on the other, persisted until the eve of the Second

The longevity of Greece’s constitutional parliamentary democracy is quite impressive in the context of European regimes of the past two centuries. How can this be explained and what conclusions can be drawn?

World War. And what did a segmentary community imply in a pre-modern society? In a word, the primary loyalty that most voters felt to the family unit (along with relatives, friends and clients) of their origin. Each such fragment of society competed with all the others for political benefits or indeed the possession of power.

The acid test of the country’s path to modernity is to be found in the avatars of democracy in Greece. A society with an Ottoman (not indigenous) aristocracy had only the Church as a remnant of an ancien regime after independence in 1830. A huge stratum of landless peas-

“Blue” and “Green,” part of the series “Default Landscapes” (2007)

by Yorgis Gerolymbos.

ants and a small merchant middle class left the future of parliamentary democracy hanging in the balance. The state created an elite of civil servants which produced many an important politician. The distribution of public lands to those who worked on them and the deeds of ownership to squatters, helped to integrate the masses into the system by 1873.

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ers did not destroy the rule of law and parliamentary democracy in Greece.

With the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey in 1923, around 1.4 million refugees descended on a country of 5 million. The dispossessed multitude that filled the open spaces and public buildings in cities and on the outskirts of towns, constituted a major prop for the first class-based party in Greek history. The communists, without property and connections in their new home defied the segmentary model of politics but failed to play a major role in Greek affairs until the axis occupation of Greece (1941-44). Throughout these years a radical break with the past occurred as the traditional middle class paid the highest price for the economic collapse of the urban centers.

Many working class people fled to their villages, where life was less affected by the severe shortage of foodstuff.

The communist party dominated resistance activities and emerged as a formidable military force at the end of the war. The civil war that followed (1946-49) undermined the consensual basis of politics that has always been a precondition for the operation of democracy. The communists were outlawed from 1947 to 1974 and operated as a minority party under an assumed name. Their political isolation did not permit them to evolve into a socialist or social democratic force in politics while the conservatives and the liberals continued to alternate in parliamentary majorities. The 1965 clash between the royal head of state and the popular head of government, Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou, allowed a junta of right wing officers to grab power and hold it for seven years. This military dictatorship took place in a period of liberalization of the state and an economic boom in Western Europe that trickled into Greece. However the entire affair amounted to a triumph of dead ideas and a return to a past clientelism and its networks of ultra conservatives.

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manlis, who returned from self-exile in France, assumed the reins of government once more and tried to make amends for the damage caused by a military regime that had, after all, been the extreme offspring of the right. Although Karamanlis legalized the communist party and steered his own New Democracy party towards the center of politics by guiding Greece into the European Economic Community, the political pendulum was swinging left.

In the elections of October 18 1981, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) won an absolute majority and became the first socialist party in Greek history to form a government. The peaceful transition from a conservative to a socialist government constituted the acid test of a mature democracy.

Most European states appraise their parliamentary arrangements in accordance with the French Revolution division of left and right. Marx used the same classification for his revolutionary arguments. It was Mussolini who confused the taxonomy of left and right in the spectrum of politics. The initial left and then right orientation of his fascist-corporatist radicalism remains a contentious matter. Be that as it may, any form of radicalism is by definition contrary to liberal democracy and the rule of law upon which it is based; democracy can only work when a basic consensus on certain societal values has been achieved.

Both fascism and Stalinist communism subjected basic individual rights to the supposed interest of society. The exclusion of basic civil rights from any polity will result in a regime that draws its authority from the unbridled power of the state or the individuals that run it.

There is, however, another taxonomy that classifies political regimes according to their pure or adulterated form. Aristotle considered aristocracy in its pure form as the meritocratic regime that will benefit the state. Its debased version is an oligarchy of cronies that profit from their privileges. In this sense, if democracy in its pure form best represents the will of the people, in its debased condition it becomes an

ochlocracy or mob rule. It is the nature of regimes to alternate between all the above. Aristotle believed that the only way to stabilize the more desirable polities is by educating the demos, the people.

The object of such education is to groom the youth to become virtuous citizens instead of a depraved mob. Are such views possible in an open society such as our own, in which educational choices are not the preserve of the state but individuals? In more traditional societies, such as Greece, it is in fact the family unit that makes all the vital decisions. It was by appealing to that institution that Constantine Karamanlis was able to convince the people that entering and remaining in the European community was beneficial for their progeny.

This reality is still valid for the average Greek. Any exclusion of the country from the EU project would be tantamount to abandoning the efforts of all those who championed 166 years of liberal democracy. A Grexit would constitute a primary threat to Greece because democracy has become inextricably linked to the community of like-minded Europeans.

Any form of radicalism is by definition contrary to liberal democracy and the rule of law upon which it is based; democracy can only work when a basic consensus on certain societal values has been achieved.

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VOTING is not enough

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“For generations to come, the abiding image of a patient citizenry in long voting queues on 27 April 1994 will remain deeply etched in the collective memory of the nation.”

(Nelson Mandela, address at Freedom Day celebrations, April 27, 1996).

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Democracies demand constant attention, inspired intervention and flexible institutions to cope with a world that is difficult to control.

BY N i ko s Ko n s ta n da r a s

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Beginner’s guide: Poster explaining the voting procedure to Tunisian voters, ahead of 2011 general elections.

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uly 2015: the Greeks – no strangers to the art of “extreme politics” in their long history – took part in an experiment which tested the limits of democracy in their own country and the functioning of European Union institutions. The then radical leftist government, in a bid to evade a difficult compromise with Athens’ partners and creditors, in which Greece would continue to receive assistance in exchange for austerity and reform, urged the people to reject a deal in a referendum.

Exercising their democratic right, the people voted overwhelmingly against the deal. And then, at the moment of this political triumph, with the people giving him the support he wanted, the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, realized that if he honored the people’s will, he would be acquiescing in the country’s ruin: without a deal, there would be no money to pay state loans, wages or pensions. Greece would have gone straight into a disorderly bankruptcy, social upheaval and, as our partners made abundantly clear in an ultimatum, an exit from the eurozone and possibly even from the Union itself. This was the greatest challenge that the EU has faced – and it forced a weak member state to remember that democracies are neither all-powerful nor infallible.

They are practices and methods for survival, liberty and prosperity; they demand constant attention, inspired intervention and flexible institutions to cope with a world that is difficult to control. The Greek people’s democratic will collided with the will of voters in creditor countries and with the rules and interests of collective institutions such as the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Most significant, perhaps, was the fact that direct democracy as expressed in the referendum had pushed Greece into a dead end. The prime minister was forced

into the sudden and belated realization that democratic government entails a lot more than counting votes – it is the institutions which safeguard against folly and excess, against the dictatorship of the majority, which impose the accountability that allows democracy to function. The prime minister had a responsibility to change course in order to protect the national interest, even if that meant clashing with voters and with much of his own party.

Institutions – from the Constitution and laws to free news media – try to control the brute power of the mass will; they absorb tension between society’s groups and their often conflicting interests; they are the quiet rooms in which change is fashioned so that the country and its political system can adapt to challenges that never stop coming. From ancient Athens to today, institutions are established, or adapted, to protect the interests both of the many and the few, creating systems of checks and balances that produce the best results, contributing not only to the smooth functioning of the state and the economy, but to a nation’s very survival. Amartya Sen noted in a revelatory study that no famine has occurred in a country with democracy and a free press. “Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence... they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and a free press,” Sen wrote in Democracy as a Universal Value in 1999 (1). It is worth noting, also, that India is one of the countries which successfully adapted to democracy after being freed from British rule because it had

credible state institutions that allowed it to function as a democracy, when countless other countries (right up to the recent “Arab Spring”) have seen the old regime replaced by another which undermines constitutionalism and an independent judiciary, while exploiting power to consolidate its position.

Institutions can contribute towards untold good, just as they can cause immense damage when undermined by specific interests or destroyed. In 2003, in the American-led invasion of Iraq, the world witnessed an experiment that combined imperial hubris with political primitivism. The thoughtless scrapping of the authoritarian Baath Party’s state apparatus and military, without anything taking its place to provide a functioning state and basic security, prompted the chaos that still threatens the whole region. Instead of adapting, co-opting or replacing institutions, the American governor dismantled every semblance of order as if expecting credible new institutions to spring up automatically. Instead, we saw collapse and seemingly perpetual war. Going by Sen’s observation on famine, we can see how short of democracy the new Iraq fell.

Institutions – from the Constitution and laws to free news media – are the quiet rooms in which change is fashioned so that the country and its political system can adapt to challenges that never stop coming.

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In Greece, if either the politicians, the judiciary or the journalists had done their job well, we would have avoided economic collapse and continuing crisis.

South Africa presents a striking lesson in the beneficial power of democratic institutions when combined with people of bright mind and good will.

The country made a miraculous transition from a white-dominated, racist, authoritarian state to a multiparty democracy. Part of this was the doing of Nelson Mandela, a rare kind of leader who combined the credibility of a martyr and freedom fighter with the wisdom of a statesman who wanted to see his country succeed without revenge and bloodshed. Credit goes also to the many men and women who worked to create a remarkable constitution (adopted in 1996), who established and ran the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (in which amnesty was provided in return for revelations and admission of involvement in Apartheid-era crimes) and to those who held high the flag of justice both during the Apartheid years and afterwards. In February 1995, Mandela, the country’s first freely-elected president, said that the Constitutional Court was a “court on which hinges the future of our democracy.”

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confirms that our democracy is taking firm root and that nobody is above the law. This is something of which we should be proud and which the whole of our country must welcome.” This, noted South African Constitutional Court Justice Albie Sachs, was “the moment when South Africa’s new democracy was baptized in the font of constitutionalism” (2).

In South Africa, institutions managed to maintain the credibility that allowed both blacks and whites to believe that their interests were being protected. As George Bizos, the great Greek-South African human rights lawyer and friend of Mandela noted, it was partially thanks to efforts within the Apartheid-era legal system that this difficult task was accomplished.

“We in South Africa, by opposing the laws of the Apartheid regime, defending those accused of offences against those laws, and exposing the excesses of their security forces, were accused even by some of our friends of doing nothing more than lending legitimacy to an illegitimate regime. Our answer was that... it was for the accused and their loved ones to decide whether they wanted to be defended or not,” he wrote in his autobiography, “Odyssey to Freedom” (2007).

This policy not only saved some defendants but also saved the honor of the legal profession, allowing it to play a role in the smooth transition to democracy. “It has been authoritatively stated that the survival of the system assisted in bringing about the transition... and the settlement between the adversaries who did not trust one another. This was achieved by the establishment of a Constitutional Court to guarantee the freedom of the fundamental rights of every individual, even against a majority of the voters and the members of the Parliament,” Bizos wrote. “The Constitutional Court is now generally accepted among the vast majority of the South African people of whatever race, color or creed, as the upper guardian of the rights of all of us.”

In South Africa, as in India and

other recent democracies, strong democratic institutions opened the way to democracy and it is through maintaining the credibility of institutions, the rule of law and civil society that democracy will survive. In Greece, where democracy has prevailed for most of nearly 200 years of independence, and where it remains robust, we can argue that the undermining of crucial institutions by political clientelism, cronyism, a general slackening of discipline and the devaluation of gravitas in public life, contributed to the current crisis.

In a word: if either the politicians, the judiciary or the journalists had done their job well, we would have avoided economic collapse and continuing crisis. Today, all democracies face challenges from populism and extremism; from the uncontrolled use of technology to violate privacy, even as the fear of international terrorism drives a need for greater surveillance; from economic inequality and the social strains that this causes; from economic constraints on social spending even as a global economy makes competition ever more difficult. Clearly our economic models are no longer adequate.

Our political systems, however, also demand a radical rethink, a reformation focused on the understanding that personal freedom and prosperity can be provided only by laws and institutions that work for the good of the many as well as the few, within each country and between every group of nations.

Thinking and working toward this goal must never stop.

(1) www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files/ Democracy_as_a_Universal_Value.pdf (2) Both quoted in Kende, M. (2006) “President Nelson Mandela’s Constitutional Law Legacy,” in Human Rights, International Relations and Globalization, Grupo Editorial Ibanez www.law.drake.edu/ clinicsCenters/conLaw/docs/recentMaterials-mandelaLegacy.pdf

our partners G R EE C E I S

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Hellas Gold

A vision is becoming reality

A DV E R TO R I A L

Greece’s largest private investment in the mineral sector Hellas Gold S.A. is a mining company established in Greece in December 2003 to run and operate mines as well as process and trade in ores. In January 2004 Hellas Gold signed a contract with the Greek State acquiring mining rights for the Kassandra Mines.

One of the largest investments in northern Greece, our mining project in NE Halkidiki is a project that integrates the principles of sustainable development, promoting social, environmental and economic responsibility.

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It includes parallel exploitation of the Olympias, Skouries and Stratoni deposits, under a single plan to vertically integrate production over a 5-year period.

It entails a net investment of USD 1 billion, directly contributing 30% of its turnover to the Greek State via social security contributions and taxes. To date, around 2,000 direct jobs have been created and there are plans for 5,000 direct and indirect positions when the investment is fully rolled out.

Examples of the policy and philoso-

phy underscoring the company’s project are our deliberate choices relating to working conditions at the Kassandra Mines, environmental management and social policy.

These are choices for which we have regularly received awards from international certification bodies and independent organisations. • In January 2011, the company obtained OHSAS 18001:2007 certification for its occupational health and safety management system.

• The right choice of environmental policy was confirmed last year when we received ISO 14001 certification.

• In November 2014 as part of the Hellenic Value Awards, the Federation of Industries of Northern Greece awarded us a prize for our performance in the corporate social responsibility sector.

• A few months later in March 2015 Hellas Gold’s Corporate Social Responsibility Report received a Materiality Disclosure rating from the Global Reporting Initiative, the most important body laying

down rules on corporate responsibility report worldwide.

• More recently, we received a Bronze Award from the Corporate Social Responsibility Institute about corporate responsibility actions we have implemented so far.

All relevant indicators show that our projects are being operated safely for the environment, employees and community.

Hellas Gold was acquired by Eldorado Gold Corporation in February 2012.

Eldorado Gold is a Canadian low-

cost gold producer with over 20 years of experience building and operating gold mines in Europe, Asia and South America. The Company is dedicated to responsible operations, the highest safety and environmental standards and working with stakeholders to enhance the communities where it operates.

Eldorado’s common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange

(TSX: ELD) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: EGO).

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The Internet

Α contemporary stronghold of democracy We are living in the Digital Age,

a period in human history characterized by the shift to information and computerization.

The Internet holds a fundamental role; it has transformed our everyday lives and economy; it changes the relationship between governments and citizens; it allows for greater freedom of expression, nurturing an “e-agora”.

This age of “digital democracy” needs access to high-speed broadband to flourish and Greece has the fixed and mobile networks that can do the job.

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Information defines us Progress in information technologies and communication is changing the way we live; we educate and train ourselves, how we do business and how we entertain ourselves. Our society is characterized by an increasingly higher level of information intensity in the everyday life of most people; by the use of common or compatible technology for a wide range of personal, social, educational and business activities; and by the ability to transmit, receive and exchange digital data rapidly around the world.

“Democracy 2.0”

ADV ERTOR I AL

The dissemination of information through the Internet has encouraged the prevalence of knowledge, human development and thus transformed democracy. The Web is being widely used to promote human rights and improve the accountability of governments. The right of knowledge and understanding for all citizens underpins our democratic polity, advancing people’s power and thus the level of democracy. The Internet, affordable and widely available to the public, provides a sense of relevancy in participation by allowing everyone’s voice to be heard.

In ancient Greek cities, the Agora was the political, intellectual, and economic center, a site of commerce and debate, a space where people assembled. The contemporary agora, the gathering place of today’s world, is not located in great cities but online. Social media, forums, social networking sites are the contemporary space where people share ideas, distribute and/or receive information and shape opinions.

Internet: A unique democratic tool Inclusive access to the Internet and all other communication channels has become a fundamental e-democracy issue. If the Internet is to become a unique democratic tool, through which people are enabled to participate in and influence the democratic processes, it is vital that everyone who wishes, irrespective of age, gender, profession or geographical location, has the physical access to it plus the skills and confidence to use it.

In fixed telephony, OTE’s broadband services are available to every far-flung corner of the mainland as well as of the numerous Greek islands, whilst a new fiber optic network, allowing speeds up to 50Mbps, already covers 40% of the population and continues to expand at a rapid pace.

In mobile telephony, COSMOTE provides almost 100% population coverage with its 3G network and was the first to introduce 4G network services in Greece. Thanks to significant investments, COSMOTE’s 4G network is No1 in population coverage with almost 80%.

Continuing the upgrade of its network and services, the company is expanding a 4G+ network, which will allow superfast data transmission speeds up to 375Mbps. Combined with excellent roaming services, it should come as no surprise that COSMOTE is the first choice not only of Greeks, but of foreign visitors too.

Greece embraces “Democracy 2.0” with country-wide super-fast broadband The term “Democracy” first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity. But is Greece ready for “Democracy 2.0”? The Europe 2020 strategy has included the priority of the Digital Agenda for Europe for fast and ultra-fast Internet access. In Greece, the realization of the Digital Agenda for Europe is in essence assured by the OTE Group, the predominant telecommunications provider.

To this end, OTE & COSMOTE, the Group’s mobile arm, have been building the national telecommunications infrastructure, investing widely in next generation broadband services and networks and high-speed data communications.

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Cultivating Philhellenes For more than 50 years, College Year in Athens has been offering University-level courses to expand students’ knowledge and understanding of Greece’s pivotal contribution to Western civilization.

Many come to Greece for the sunshine and fun-filled nights at island beach bars. But there are also thousands of young people who have sought a deeper connection. These are American university students who came to study in Greece for a few months, and whose lives and careers have been deeply affected by the experience. College Year in Athens, an educational organization that offers study abroad programs in Greece through its Greek affiliate, DIKEMES, has had a catalytic influence on the lives of more than 8,000 who came to study “things Greek” in the past 53 years.

For me, Greece is so much more than the sunkissed, picture-perfect postcard of blue-and-white.

Greece is a wake-up call: to live more slowly, more generously and more appreciatively. One piece of advice I’d offer to future participants of CYA is to do what Socrates did: examine your life and ask lots of questions. Learn as much as possible, not only about Greece’s impressive history and culture, but also about its lifestyle, particularly people’s remarkable optimism, generosity and resilience in the face of the current economic crisis.

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What I value most about my CYA experience is that I was given the opportunity to study the classics as well as Greek history under the guidance of such knowledgeable and passionate professors. The many onsite field trips made the learning experience even more stimulating. The best advice I can give to future participants is to immerse themselves as much as possible in the culture of Greece and to take advantage of all travel opportunities.

Nicholas T. Kondoprias (full year 1987-88) Executive Director, Herakleidon Museum, Athens, Greece

Almost 45 years ago, I arrived in Greece with 50 other students to attend College Year in Athens. Many of us formed such close friendships from the ensuing nine-month experience that we eagerly look forward to annual CYA reunions.

We all continue to travel to Greece as schedules and finances allow, but what CYA has given each of us is a common bond and an awareness of the world we live in that far transcends a geographical journey. More than a country and even more than the expression of its wonderful people, Greece is a compelling and exhilarating idea.

Jack Hermansen (full year 1970-71)

A DV E R TO R I A L

Founder and former CEO, Language Analysis Systems, Inc (acq.); IBM Distinguished Engineer (ret.)

I have the honor of holding the Nicholas Family Endowed Chair of Modern Greek History at the University of California, San Diego, and if it were not for my experience studying at CYA in 1975 that would never have happened. My time at CYA started a personal and professional odyssey that continues after 40 years.

On a personal level, coming to Greece for the first time allowed me to visit the village in Epirus where my mother was born and to meet all of my relatives there and in Athens. Professionally, as well as introducing me to Greek history and archaeology, CYA was also where I met the professor who would become my doctoral supervisor at Cambridge University. CYA encourages students to engage with Greece across the span of time from antiquity to the present. In my case, the result of that broad-ranging approach is that I have now published close to a dozen books on ancient and modern Greek history. In no small measure, my professional success was built on the intellectual foundations laid during my year at CYA.

Prof. Thomas W. Gallant (full year 1975-76) Historian

College Year in Athens strikes a perfect balance between fascinating courses and time to discover the country for yourself. For me, Greece is multi-layered; it is the ancient civilization I studied, the old country my great-grandparents left behind, and the new world I was exposed to through College Year in Athens that carried me to a Fulbright Fellowship, journalism and now diplomacy.

George Mesthos (spring 2008) Foreign Service Officer at the US Department of State

The courses I took there ignited my passion for Greek culture, both ancient and modern, and all the ways they intersect. It is truly wonderful to see this same passion in my students when they return from their own studies and adventures with CYA. For me, Greece is a second home.

Many speak of the impending decline, if not collapse, of Greece; I will leave such predictions to others, but what I do know is this: No matter what happens, the sun will continue to shine on Kalamata, which will always produce the finest olive oil and honey. There will still be the coffee shop where old men play with their worry beads, sip Greek coffee and debate politics. The sea will remain blue. Ancient and Byzantine ruins will stand. Villages will be as picturesque as ever. And Greek virtues of hospitality, loyalty and family will endure. In other words, despite its seemingly endless tribulations, this corner of the Aegean will always serve as a vivid reminder of truth, beauty and goodness. Even the present crisis, with all its hardships, has inspired some positive changes. Perhaps the most important one is the development of numerous non-profit organizations and community projects I’d highly recommend to future participants of CYA to discover this network of charities and groups; you will not only gain a deeper understanding of the economic crisis, but you will come to know heroic and extraordinary individuals.

David E. Jimenez (full year 2014-15) Rising Senior at Bowdoin College

Zoe Kontes Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Classics, Kenyon College, Ohio, USA

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WHI LE I N A TH EN S

E S SEN TIAL ATH EN S

Chalking up memorable experiences is really what exploring Athens is all about. In the following pages you will find all the information you ‘ll need on not-to-be-missed archaeological sites, scenic historic spots and museums, plus selected restaurants, cafes and bars.

And if you have an extra day to spend, remember that the beautiful islands of the Saronic Gulf are a stone’s throw away.

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Even if you have only a few days, there are certain not-to-be-missed places worth exploring before departing Planet Greece.

BY John Leonard

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isitors to Athens seeking to whet an appetite for Greece’s fascinating, universally influential ancient past have much to choose from these days, given all the unique archaeological sites, scenic historic spots and impressively refreshed museum galleries now available around the city.

Chalking up memorable experiences is really what exploring Athens is all about and the city holds many surprises, even in places where you thought you already knew what to expect— ranging from hilltop ruins, to towering, 148

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Redwood-like columns, to a major ancient shipwreck in the midst of Athens’ bustling modern cityscape.

At the top of the list is the Acropolis: one always begins with a pilgrimage to the greatest marble temple ever built or to have survived the turbulent centuries since antiquity. But don’t make a beeline for the Parthenon and miss all the other intriguing details to be noted during your ascent or hilltop walkabout. The Theater of Dionysus and the stone arches of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus lie along your path,

as you tread up the south slopes in the footsteps of likely every famous ancient Athenian to have left their mark on the city’s cultural and political history.

Beginning some 2,500 years ago, this was an area of Athens frequented by playwrights, city leaders, social critics, would-be brides and many other local inhabitants or visitors seeking musical entertainment, drama, hilarity, religious fulfillment or medical relief.

The small Sanctuary of Asclepius, once something of a hospice or health clinic, reminds us of the terrible plague

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that swept through the walled-in, wartorn city and claimed the life of its great leader Pericles in 429 BC. As you climb higher, catch a second glimpse of the Odeon from above, with its tiers of marble seats: a benefaction to the city made in the name of Regilla, Herodes’ wife — herself a great public benefactress and the head priestess of Tyche’s temple, whose ruins lie hidden on the wooded knoll beside the horseshoe-shaped Panathenaic Stadium, easily distinguishable from the Acropolis.

Passing upward through the Propylaia, be sure to check out its coffered ceiling and the exquisite Ionic styling of the Athena Nike temple on the right, both newly restored by the Acropolis’ modern team of cutting-edge architects, engineers, conservators and traditional stonemasons. On emerging from the colonnaded gateway, you have before you the jewels of the Sacred Rock: the Parthenon with its highly refined Doric architecture; the Erechtheion with its elegant Caryatids and moldings; and, from the Belvedere, one of the best panoramic views of age-old

Athens and its surrounding hills.

Equally impressive experiences can be had at lower altitudes all around the Acropolis, especially at the new Acropolis Museum. Here also the small details hold the key, from scenes of women’s rituals and everyday life painted on Classical vases, to traces of once-bright paint on Archaic Kore (maiden) statues, to the remarkably intricate carving of the Parthenon’s frieze and metopes — in a top-floor gallery whose northern all-glass walls frame the Acropolis as an added bonus to the museum’s already superb exhibits.

West of the Acropolis is the Hill of the Muses, whose summit offers another inspiring view of the Rock with its temples and especially of the blue Saronic Gulf and Piraeus, home to ancient Athens’ triple-basined military-commercial port. Adjacent is the Pnyx Hill that still retains the speakers’ rostrum and hillside auditorium of the popular assembly (Ekklesia), once echoing with the speeches of Pericles and Demosthenes.

On the north side of the Acropolis,

1. The award-winning architecture of the Acropolis Museum, a dramatic centerpiece to Athens’ rich collection of diverse museums.

2. The towering Corinthian columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus (Olympieion), with the Acropolis in the background.

3. “The Artemision Jockey,” ca. 140 BC, a rare bronze discovery now displayed in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

4. The Theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus, one of the earliest preserved open-air theaters in Athens 5. The Byzantine & Christian Museum, another of Athens’ “don’t miss” museums, which includes a display of traditional Greek attire.

6. The Herodeion, an Roman-era music hall (AD 161), now partly restored to accommodate modern performances. Bring your own cushion.

7. The Erechtheion’s Caryatid Porch, possibly depicting temple maidens bearing libations for the legendary Athenian king Cecrops.

8. The Roman Agora, an added extension to the original Athenian Agora, was once frequented by peddlers, prostitutes and politicians.

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Info Τhe Acropolis Tel.: (+30) 210-321.4172 • Opening hours: Daily 8 a.m.-8 p.m.

• Admission: Full €12, Reduced €6

This ticket allows admission to all main archaeological sites, seven days a week.

Acropolis Museum 15 Dionysiou Areopagitou • Tel.: (+30) 210-900.0900 • www.theacropolismuseum.gr Admission: €5 • Opening hours: April 1 – October 31: The temple of Hephaestus and Athena (Hephaisteion), overlooking the political nerve centers of ancient Athens, the Boule (Council House) and Tholos (Executive Committee chamber), in the Athenian Agora.

Monday 8 a.m.-4 p.m.; Tuesday-Sunday 8 a.m.-8 p.m.; Friday 8 a.m.-10 p.m. | November 1 – March 31: Monday-Thursday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday 9 a.m.-10 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday 9 a.m.-8 p.m.

Last admission is half an hour before closing.

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beside which one feels dwarfed in the shadow of such an enormous, ambitious building project. As recently as the mid19th century, a seclusion-seeking monk carrying on the ancient stylite tradition made his home atop the columns and had his daily sustenance raised to him in a basket.

Among Athens’ most notable museums, including the Byzantine and Christian Museum with its 30,000 works of art that compose an impressive panorama of the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine cultural heritage in the Hellenic territory, is the crowning National Archaeological Museum, where you can have a personal audience with such prototypical works of art as the handsome Zeus/Poseidon, the “Boxing Boys of Akrotiri,” the bemused Aphrodite slapping at Pan and the gleaming “Antikythera Youth” with his arresting inlaid eyes. This last figure stands within the unparalleled “Antikythera Wreck” exhibition, where you’ll also find strangely encrusted statuary; remains of the wooden ship itself and its equipment; and the strikingly sophisticated Antikythera Mechanism, the world’s oldest computer.

At h e n i a n A g o r a a n d M u s e u m 24 Adrianou Tel.: (+30) 210-321.0185 • Opening hours: Daily 8 a.m.-8 p.m.

• Admission: Full €4, Reduced €2

Includes admission to all the main archaeological sites in the historical center.

O ly m p i e i o n Entrance from Vassileos Olgas Av. Tel.: (+30) 210-922.6330 • Opening hours: Daily 8 a.m.-8 p.m.

• Admission: Full €2, Reduced €1

Byzantine and Christian Museum 22 Vassileos Sofias Tel.: (+30) 213-213.9572, 213-213.9500 • Opening hours: Daily 8 a.m.-8 p.m.

• Admission: €4

Nat i o n a l A r c h a e o l o g i c a l M u s e u m 44 Patission Tel.: (+30) 213-214.4800 • Opening hours from April 1, 2015: Daily 8 a.m.-8 p.m.

• Admission: 7€

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in the Athenian Agora, the ancient city’s main public square, one can almost feel the presence of Socrates, philosophizing to the city’s youth in the House of Simon the Shoemaker, or of Thespis, the world’s first award-winning actor who performed along the Agora’s lanes. The temple of Hephaestus and Athena (Hephaisteion), the best-preserved temple of ancient Greece, also deserves a look, while the Stoa of Attalos and its museum packed with objects evoking daily life and the ways of democracy in ancient Athens should not be missed.

To the east of the Acropolis, as you wander through Plaka, the solitary marble Lysicrates Monument stands sentinel not only to the past tradition of wealthy sponsors (choregoi) displaying their victory prize from a theatrical contest, but also calls to mind Lord Byron, who once used this diminutive monument’s internal space as a study — in the early 19th century when a Capuchin convent had grown up around the 4th century BC structure and rented rooms to visitors.

Further east stand the massive Corinthian columns of the Olympieion,

WHILE IN ATHENS

AUTUMN ART Highlights on the city’s cultural calendar From 10/9 to 8/11

tony cragg

Raw materials

p r i ma d o n n a

s am o t h r a c e e x h i b i t i o n

ama z i n g i n v e n t i o n s deste prize exhibition

In the late 1980s, the prospect of working with Tony Cragg appeared to be the dream of every art curator, according to an article in The Guardian in 2011. From early in his career, the Turner Prize-winning artist had challenged the traditional notions of sculpture, securing a place among the most influential creators of his generation. In his latest exhibition at the Benaki Museum, he presents a series of works in wood, bronze, stainless steel and stone, through which he pursues a more abstract perception of form. This is an approach that reflects Cragg’s view of sculpture as a study in how materials and material forms shape our ideas and emotions. Benaki Museum: Pireos Street Building, 138 Pireos & Andronikou, www.benaki.gr

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Prima Donna Singer-songwriter and composer Rufus Wainwright has enlisted the talent of artist and filmmaker Francesco Vezzoli and renowned photographer Cindy Sherman to put a new visual spin on his 2009 opera “Prima Donna.” Drawing inspiration from a series of Maria Callas interviews, the artistic venture sparked Sherman’s interest particularly, as she herself has stated, with regard to the fear experienced by the heroine. “She’s old now. Can she live up to her audience’s expectations?” Excerpts from “Prima Donna” will be performed by three opera singers, as the film directed by Vezzoli is screened, with images of the legendary Greek diva. In French with Greek surtitles. Under the aegis of the Athens Democracy Forum. Odeon of Herodes Atticus: Dionysiou Areopagitou, www.greekfestival.gr

To 10/1/2016

Mystical meetings With “Samothrace. The mysteries of the Great Gods,” the Acropolis Museum inaugurates a series of exhibitions with fascinating topics and significant ancient artifacts unearthed at major sites in Greece’s provinces. From very early times,

mystery cults began to emerge alongside the worship of the Olympian gods, whose rites were accessible only to those who had been initiated after a series of rituals.

The most famous “Mysteries” in ancient times were those of Eleusis and Samothrace. Through 252 exhibits – including architectural artifacts, sculptures, vessels, figurines, inscriptions and miniature art – visitors have the opportunity to gain an understanding of the intriguing ceremonies involved. Acropolis Museum: 15 Dionysiou Areopagitou St., www.theacropolismuseum.gr

To 10/1/2016

High technology A total of 30 working models of some of the most startling ancient Greek inventions, from Philo’s “robot-servant,” Aeneas’ “hydraulic telegraph” and Hero’s “cinema” to Ctesibius’ automatic clock, Ptolemy’s astrolabe and the “analog computer” of Antikythera. The exhibition “Amazing Inventions of the Ancient Greeks,” featuring exhibits from the Museum of Ancient Greek Technology Kostas Kotsanas, reveals to visitors how technology in the ancient Greek world is strikingly similar to that at the dawn of the modern world. Herakleidon Museum: 37 Apostolou Pavlou, Thiseio, www.herakleidon-art.gr

To 30/9

Fresh Greek art The DESTE Prize, awarded biennially by the foundation of the same name with the aim of supporting and promoting an emerging generation of artists, is one of the most prestigious art awards in Greece.

The six artists from Greece and Cyprus who have been shortlisted for this year’s prize – Natali Yiaxi, Petros Moris, Yiannis Papadopoulos, Angelo Plessas, Socratis Socratous and Maria Hassabi – are presenting their work in an exhibition at the Museum of Cycladic Art, exploring a number of issues such as Internet freedom, manifestations of labor, collective memory and the relation of body to image.

Museum of Cycladic Art: Stathatos Mansion, Vassilissis Sofias & 1 Irodotou, www.cycladic.gr G R E E C E IS

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Revival of the food scene From meze to haute cuisine, our eclectic mix of restaurants will satisfy even the most discerning foodies.

BY Va s s i l i s M a s s e l o s

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espite the difficult times, over the past year Athens has seen a surprising number of refreshing new gastronomic ventures. Although the boom has had more to do with coffee shops, bars and street food eateries replacing mainly clothing and shoe stores that could not survive the crisis, the city has welcomed some notable restaurant openings.

They say that too many cooks spoil the broth but thankfully this is not the case at Cookoovaya (which means owl in Greek), where no less than five chefs seem to work together seamlessly. One of the new star entries on the Athenian gastronomic scene, this large, yet pleasant, restaurant uses carefully selected seasonal ingredients from all over the country to serve a patchwork of creative dishes. Greece has a unique terroir that affects not only the taste and aroma of its wine but also of its fruits, its vegetables and its venerated olive oil, as well as fish, game, meat and poultry. Over the past decade there have been a growing number of farms, organic or otherwise, supplying restaurants like Cookoovaya, as well as gourmands, with exceptional produce and meats.

One of these suppliers is a particularly interesting venture called Radiki (Greek for dandelion greens), which collects wild greens and cultivates vegetables naturally for chefs and private buyers who know the value of fresh ingredients. Its manifesto states that it was created to “remind people of the pure and useful [naturally available] foods,” which “must be consumed alive [thankfully they limit themselves to the plant kingdom] and in the right season.” Cookoovaya is conveniently located near the Hilton hotel and is also open for lunch. The wine aficionado will not be disappointed here as it offers a fine choice of Greek, old and new world wines, as well as its own affordable and surprisingly good house wine.

Not far from Cookoovaya is another intriguing new

restaurant named CTC, an acronym deriving from the Greek noun “σίτιση” which means “to feed.” It’s dashingly young chef, Alex Tsiotinis, has built a very impressive resume after having worked in the kitchens of such legends as Arpege, Helene Darroze and NOMA. He also came first this year in the S. Pellegrino Young Chef of the Year competition for the Mediterranean region. Alex serves two gourmet menus: “Voyage” (eight courses for €70) and “Trip” (five courses for €50) in a minimalist setting. His wine list has room for improvement but there is an adequate selection.

Although technically not a new opening, Varoulko, the quintessential fish restaurant created by Lefteris Lazarou in 1987, has moved back to the quaint port of Mikrolimano near its original location in Piraeus after a rather long sojourn in the center of Athens. In addition to its standard fare, Varoulko presents a new menu of finger-food with fine ingredients like sea urchin, avgotaracho (the exquisite Greek bottarga fish eggs that are less salty, much softer and tastier than the Italian variety) and eel paired with a selection of about 10 different Greek sparkling wines.

Another interesting and relatively new opening is Seychelles, a Greek “meze” (the equivalent of Spanish tapas) taverna located in Metaxourgeio, a historic neighborhood of Athens where you probably wouldn’t take your grandmother.

Seychelles, which has taken over an old coffee shop named Bahamas, also relies on fresh, Greek ingredients for many of its snout-to-tail dishes, and also has a selection of fine cheeses and cured meats from around the country. It offers good value as you can eat for about €20 (with copious quantities of Zeos, a superb non-pasteurized beer from Argos in a horrific plastic bottle). Its service is at times idiosyncratic so you should probably avoid Fridays and Saturdays.

Info C o o k o o v aya : 2A Hatziyianni Mexi, Ilisia, tel.: (+30) 210-723.5005, cookoovaya.gr • V a r o u l k o : 52 Akti Koumoundourou, Mikrolimano, Piraeus, tel.: (+30) 210-522.8400, varoulko.gr • C T C : 27 Dioharous, Kesariani, tel.: (+30) 210-722.8812, www.ctc-restaurant.com • S e y c h e l l e s : 49 Kerameikou, Metaxourgeio, tel.: (+30) 211-183.4789

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CTC

CTC

C o o k o o v aya

C o o k o o v aya

© VANGELIS ZAVOS, OLYMPIA ORNERAKI, CLAIRY MOUSTAFELLOU

Va roulko

Seychelles

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Coffee: Such an Athenian affair A snap guide to the capital’s most famous cafes

BY NENA DIMITRIOU

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rom Turkish-style coffee houses and old-line cafe-patisseries to modern cafe-bars, Athenians know only one way to enjoy the world’s most popular beverage: slowly and with lots of talk. Although the end of the Italian espresso craze in the late 1990s gave way to a rash of rather bland and uninviting establishments, the capital’s coffee scene has been making something of a comeback in the past few years, with the oldstyle coffee houses reclaiming ground and new businesses introducing fresh concepts.

One of the best cups of java in town can be had at Taf Cafe on Benaki Street. It is the first cafe in Greece to adopt the philosophy of specialty coffee by importing quality beans from around the world and roasting them in Athens so that the brews are always fresh and full of their signature aromas.

The coffees are prepared by award-winning baristas, while you can also buy beans to take back home.

The area around the Church of Aghia Irini on Aeolou Street has become one of Athens’ hottest hangouts and it is also home to Tailor Made. Decorated in a contemporary urban style, it serves familiar varieties that are roasted in-house, a variety of coffee-based beverages and great cocktails prepared with expertise. It is especially popular with the young crowd so finding a table on a weekend morning may be something of a challenge.

After a walk around Varvakeios Market and Evripidou Street, with all its Oriental spice shops and meat delicatessens, an ideal spot for a rest is Harvest, an espresso bar with something of a Spanish air on the bustling Aeolou Street, serving specialty coffee

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and tapas from the Iberian Peninsula. You won’t find the same coffee every day, but, rather, will taste different varieties from different countries. There is also a large selection of wines and interesting dishes made with Mediterranean ingredients to go before or after a cup of coffee.

A classic rest stop from a shopping spree in the boutiques of Kolonaki, Da Capo, located on the square, is the place to see and be seen, a hangout for the up-and-coming and for years a status symbol. Don’t expect too many frills on the service front, because here it’s always been DIY. The recently renovated cafe at the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Atrium, an artificial oasis in the city center, is another ideal spot for a breather. With soft white lighting, an abundance of greenery, a beautiful glass roof and elegant furnishings inspired by Doric simplicity, it is also the perfect spot to hold a casual business meeting. The cafe often organizes special events, while you must not pass up the chance to tour the museum’s fascinating exhibits.

The Acropolis Museum cafe is another popular spot for locals and visitors alike.

Located on the museum’s second floor, it affords an incredible view of the Sacred Rock and the picturesque neighborhood of Plaka both inside and on its vast veranda. A Greek breakfast is served every day until noon, followed by good quality Mediterranean dishes for lunch or dinner. Definitely a don’t miss.

Info Ta f C a f e 7-9 Benaki & Academias, Omonia Ta i l o r M a d e 2 Aghia Irini Square, Monastiraki H AR V E S T 64 Aeolou & Evripidou, Omonia Da Capo 1 Tsakaloff, Kolonaki At r i u m C y c l a d i c C a f e Museum of Cycladic Art, 4 Neofytou Douka, Kolonaki Ac r o p o l i s M u s e u m C a f e 15 Dionysiou Areopagitou, Acropolis

Ac r o p o l i s M u s e u m C a f e

Ta f C a f e

© DIMITRIS VLAIKOS, OLYMPIA ORNERAKI, GIORGOS SFAKIANAKIS, SOFIA PAPASTRATI, DIONYSIS KOURIS

Da Capo

At r i u m C y c l a d i c C a f e

Ta i l o r M a d e

H AR V E S T

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A SIP OF NIGHTLIFE Five great bars to chill at the end of the day

BY NENA DIMITRIOU

A

thens is among the world’s cities with a highly sophisticated bar scene, and it is currently experiencing a new heyday. Even after a tiring day, it is worth visitors to the city taking the time to explore its most popular spots rather than settling for a drink in the hotel lounge or, even worse, from the sad little bottles in the mini-bar.

If you’re staying at the Hilton, just ride a few floors up to enjoy a great view over Athens, excellent service and quality drinks at the Galaxy bar. A cosmopolitan establishment, you will find well-heeled Athenians and businessmen having an aperitif or after-dinner drink on its broad veranda.

A view of the urban landscape, the Acropolis, Syntagma Square, Parliament and Zappeio is the highlight of the Grande Bretagne roof garden bar. As the city frets below, the GB Roof Garden is a haven of luxury and an all-time classic, poised just a few meters above the din of Panepistimiou Street, where you will get excellent service, elegant cocktails and a wide selection of cigars and liquor.

Back on the street and just a block over, there’s a covered arcade running on the side of the Old Parliament building that is home to 42, a low-profile bar that has succeeded in becoming a classic and a paradigm for others in just five years of operation. Wood paneling, low lighting, music with attitude and a sturdy, wooden counter that forms the bar’s centerpiece, give an unmistakably European air. Behind the counter, skilled professionals fill their shakers with hard-to-find ingredients and ice that it orders especially, shake it all up with expertise and serve in ornate 156

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glassware. Both bartenders and connoisseurs of what makes people tick, you can ask them to make a drink especially for you.

The Clumsies, located on the fringe of Klafthmonos Square, belongs to the new generation of cocktail bars. It’s an all-day bar housed in a beautiful neoclassical mansion, with an internal courtyard, homey décor, rooms on different levels and a private lounge with a pool table and a separate bar that can accommodate up to 10 guests at a time. A mixology lab is located on the same level, where the Clumsies bar tenders create their signature and award-winning cocktails, served with panache and special effects in the avant-garde yet cozy lounges. At night the music is turned up several notches, attracting an under-30s crowd.

If you don’t like bells and whistles, CV Distiller, just a short walk from the Hilton hotel, is the place for you. In has a pretty courtyard nestled between apartment buildings from the 1960s and an imposing counter in the interior, where its vast selection of choice liquors is reflected in a large mirror. Whisky is definitely the star here and you will find a selection of more than 200 labels, though other types of liquor are also very well represented with rare rums, little-known tequilas and mescals, gins, vodkas and vermouths. Every page of the menu is like a brief lesson in serious drinking and every drink is served in the appropriate glassware. Out of respect for the fine quality of its liquors, drinks are not served on the rocks but with whisky stones instead to avoid diluting. There’s a cellar with a separate bar in the basement as well as a wellstocked humidor for cigar smokers.

Info Galaxy bar Hilton Athens, 46 Vassilissis Sofias, Ilisia GB Roof Garden, H o t e l G r a n d e B r e ta g n e Syntagma Square & Panepistimiou 42 3 Kolokotroni, Syntagma T h e C l u ms i e s 30 Praxitelous, Syntagma C V D i st i l l e r 7 Hadziyianni Mexi, Ilisia

Galaxy bar

T h e C l u ms i e s

© DIMITRIS VLAIKOS, OLYMPIA ORNERAKI, GIORGOS SFAKIANAKIS, SOFIA PAPASTRATI

42

C V D i st i l l e r

GB Roof Garden, H o t e l G r a n d e B r e ta g n e

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Collecting vivid memories and capturing beautiful photographs cruising through the idyllic marina of Poros.

A Saronic Island Sojourn All aboard for a whirlwind, full day cruise of island hopping on three Saronic islands just a stone’s throw from Athens!

BY Christina Michele Rios

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or those seeking to escape the buzzing Athenian capital for a day, Olympic Cruises offers an efficient way to explore 3 charming islands in just 12 short hours. The voyage at sea contains the perfect itinerary for a day of culture, archaeology, Byzantine art, traditional live music and dance performances, revitalizing dips in the Aegean Sea and for the lucky ones, a glimpse of marine life.

The neighboring Saronic islands, popular among Athenians looking for a weekend jaunt or city break are small and distinctly unique havens from hectic city life. Their picturesque fishing ports, Neoclassical facades, raw, natural beauty and relaxed pace of life simply draw one in.

Anchors up! On a bright and sunny day, we pull away from Flisvos marina at 8:00 AM sharp. As we set sail, we are given the option of enjoying an opulent continental breakfast at the café or sitting on the deck, admiring the seem-

ingly water-colored painted scenery.

The modus operandi on board is an emphasis on Greek ‘Filoxenia,’ a term for a very generous spirit and utmost hospitality. The multilingual staff at Olympic Cruises are incredibly educated about the islands’ must-dos and history and are eager to share their knowledge.

While out at sea, professional Greek dancers, whom are enthusiastic to teach guests the regional dances of the country, perform as talented musicians play live traditional Greek music-the perfect soundtrack for a journey out at sea.

The romantic island of Hydra is the first stop, popular with bohemian artists looking for inspiration and the jet set alike. It’s easy to understand why the isle is so captivating; it boasts some of the most magnificent panoramic views of calm turquoise waters that seem to stretch endlessly into the horizon. The chora, or main town in the port, is characterized by traditional stone mansions, whitewashed build-

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ings adorned with colorful shutters and brightly hued bougainvillea growing wildly up the walls. We recommend taking a short stroll to the seafront, accessible by stairs, to have a dip in the aquamarine sea or taking a donkey ride from the port, as this is the car-free island’s only mode of transportation.

The next stop on the journey is the emerald green island of Poros, known for its pine trees that line the sandy shores and sheltered bays. The islet’s natural beauty has been a source of inspiration for many poets and writers. Gliding across the calm seas as we approach the island, the vibrantly tinted facades of the port-facing buildings couldn’t help but hold our attention.

As the pit stop on this island is short, browsing the shops and taking photos of the traditional fishing boats bordering the marina is the perfect plan.

Setting sail towards the final stop of Aegina, we nibble on a fresh Mediterranean lunch served in the dining room,

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followed by delicious, thirst-quenching cocktails on the ship deck. Approaching Aegina, we learn of its rich history and special place in Ancient Greece as it is home to the well-preserved Temple of Aphaia, which can be visited on the cruise’s organized excursion. Alternatively, there is a beach excursion to the neighboring island of Agistri, known for its clear crystalline water and powdery, sandy beaches. Aegina is famous for its pistachios, considered the best in the world; stock up on some in the port to indulge in and bring back home, you will not regret it!

Before sailing, don’t forget to bring sunscreen, a towel, a lightweight cardigan or scarf for the breezy morning hours, and an adventurous spirit as you embark on this Saronic bound odyssey!

1. A professional musician strums on the four-string bouzouki against the most majestic seafaring backdrop.

2. Embark on a cultural adventure with Olympic Cruises on board their modern, comfortable and high-speed ship.

3. Donkeys, also known as the taxis of Hydra, line the port waiting to transport customers and goods from place to place. Take a step back in time in Hydra; it is the only Greek island that does not allow motor vehicles of any type.

4. The ideal climate of Aegina yields the most delicious variety of pistachios, or fistikia in Greek.

Brought to the island several hundred years ago from Persia, Aegina is considered to produce the best pistachios in the world.

5. The Temple of Aphaia in Aegina, gradually built from 500 BC to 700 BC, was dedicated to goddess Aphaia and eventually to goddess Athena. These well-preserved Greek ruins are positioned equal distance from the Acropolis in Athens and the Temple of Poseidon in Cape Sounio. The three form a perfect equidistant triangle known as ‘Antiquity’s Perfect Triangle.’

Info Book your cruise online at www.OlympicCruises. gr or via telephone at 211.188.2220.

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