Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, and focusing on supporting liberty, equality, and security.
Although Athens is the most familiar of the democratic city-states in ancient Greece, it was not the only one, nor was it the first; multiple other city-states adopted similar democratic constitutions before Athens. By the late 4th century BC, as many as half of the over one thousand existing Greek cities might have been democracies.
Athens practiced a political system of legislation and executive bills. Participation was open to adult, free male citizens (i.e., not minors, metics, women or slaves). Adult male citizens probably constituted no more than 30 percent of the total adult population.
Solon (in 594 BC), Cleisthenes (in 508–07 BC), and Ephialtes (in 462 BC) contributed to the development of Athenian democracy. Cleisthenes broke up the unlimited power of the nobility by organizing citizens into ten groups based on where they lived, rather than on their wealth.
The longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles. After his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolutions in 411 and 404 BC, towards the end of the Peloponnesian War.
It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides; the most detailed accounts of the system are of this fourth-century modification, rather than the Periclean system.
Played with your browser's voice. Studio-quality audio can be added with a text-to-speech service.
Ask about this article
📝 Quick Quiz1 / 2
What is "Athenian democracy" primarily known for?
Vocix Daily — In Your Inbox
Top stories, deep-dive articles, and "On This Day" history — one crisp digest delivered every morning.
Sources & references
Reference material for this entry is drawn from the open encyclopedic record, including Wikipedia , available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. Images are credited individually beside each photo.
Democracy was suppressed by the Spartans in 404 BC after the end of the Peloponnesian War, and then by the Macedonians in 322 BC after the end of the Lamian War. The Athenian institutions were later revived, but how close they were to the original forms of democracy is debated.
Etymology
The word "democracy" (Greek: dēmokratia, δημοκρατία) combines the elements dêmos (δῆμος, traditionally interpreted "people" or "towns") and krátos (κράτος, which means "force" or "power"), and thus means literally "people power". In the words "monarchy" and "oligarchy", the second element comes from archē (ἀρχή), meaning "beginning (that which comes first)", and hence also "first place or power", "sovereignty". One might expect, by analogy, that the term "demarchy" would have been adopted for the new form of government introduced by Athenian democrats. However, the word "demarchy" (δημαρχία) had already been taken and meant "mayoralty", the office or rank of a high municipal magistrate. (In present-day use, the term "demarchy" has acquired a new meaning.)
It is unknown whether the word "democracy" was in existence when systems that came to be called democratic were first instituted. The first conceptual articulation of the term is generally accepted to be c. 470 The Suppliants (l. 604) with the line sung by the Chorus: dēmou kratousa cheir (δήμου κρατούσα χειρ). This approximately translates as the "people's hand of power", and in the context of the play it acts as a representation of the popular requirement that the king needed to get approval from the Demos in a public assembly before taking any large decision (in this case of allowing the suppliant daughters of Danaos to take refuge in the city-state of Argos), i.e. that authority as implemented by the people in the Assembly has veto power over a king. The word is then attested in the works of Herodotus (Histories 6.43.3) in both a verbal and nominal sense with the terms dēmokrateomai (δημοκρατέομαι) meaning "I participate in a democracy" and dēmokratia (δημοκρατία) meaning "democracy." The earlier word used for the concept is isonomia, which is indicated also in Herodotus's discussion. Around 460 BC an individual is known with the name of Democrates, a name possibly coined as a gesture of democratic loyalty; the name can also be found in Aeolian Temnos.
Athens was not the only polis in Ancient Greece that instituted a democratic resume. Aristotle points out other cities that adopted democratic governments. Most general accounts of the rise of democratic institutions refer mainly to Athens, since this Greek city-state's system provides a fuller historical record, including having the only complete extant "constitution" as compiled by Aristotle and his students in the 4th century BCE – part of a collection called Constitutions (Politeiai) .
Before the first attempt at democratic government, Athens was ruled by a series of archons, or magistrates, and the council of the Areopagus, made up of ex-archons. The members of these institutions were generally aristocrats. In 621 BC, Draco replaced the prevailing system of oral law by a written code to be enforced only by a court of law. While the laws, later come to be known as the Draconian Constitution, were largely harsh and restrictive, with nearly all of them later being repealed, the written legal code was one of the first of its kind and considered to be one of the earliest developments of Athenian democracy. In 594 BC, Solon was appointed premier archon and began issuing economic and constitutional reforms in an attempt to alleviate some of the conflict that was beginning to arise from the inequities that permeated throughout Athenian society. His reforms ultimately redefined citizenship in a way that gave each free resident of Attica a political function: Athenian citizens had the right to participate in assembly meetings. Solon sought to break away at the strong influence noble families had on the government by broadening the government's structure to include a wider range of property classes rather than just the aristocracy. His constitutional reforms included establishing four property classes: the pentakosiomedimnoi, the hippeis, the zeugitai, and the thetes. The classifications were based on how many medimnoi a man's estate made per year with the pentakosiomedimnoi making at least 500 medimnoi, the hippeis making 300–500 medimnoi, the zeugitai making 200–300 medimnoi, and the thetes making under 200 medimnoi. By granting the formerly aristocratic role to every free citizen of Athens who owned property, Solon reshaped the social framework of the city-state. Under these reforms, the boule (a council of 400 members, with 100 citizens from each of Athens's four tribes) ran daily affairs and set the political agenda. The Areopagus, which formerly took on this role, remained but thereafter carried on the role of "guardianship of the laws". Another major contribution to democracy was Solon's setting up of an Ecclesia or Assembly, which was open to all the male citizens. Solon also made significant economic reforms including cancelling existing debts, freeing debtors, and no longer allowing borrowing on the security of one's own person as a means of restructuring enslavement and debt in Athenian society.
In 561 BC, the nascent democracy was overthrown by the tyrant Peisistratos but was reinstated after the expulsion of his son, Hippias, in 510. Cleisthenes issued reforms in 508 and 507 BC that undermined the domination of the aristocratic families and connected every Athenian to the city's rule. Cleisthenes formally identified free inhabitants of Attica as citizens of Athens, which gave them power and a role in a sense of civic solidarity. He did this by making the traditional tribes politically irrelevant and instituting ten new tribes, each made up of about three trittyes (geographical divisions), each consisting of several demes (further subdivisions). Every male citizen over 18 had to be registered in his deme.
The third set of reforms was instigated by Ephialtes in 462/1. While Ephialtes's opponents were away attempting to assist the Spartans, he persuaded the Assembly to reduce the powers of the Areopagus to a criminal court for cases of homicide and sacrilege. At the same time or soon afterward, the membership of the Areopagus was extended to the lower level of the propertied citizenship.
In the wake of Athens's disastrous defeat in the Sicilian campaign in 413 BC, a group of citizens took steps to limit the radical democracy they thought was leading the city to ruin. Their efforts, initially conducted through constitutional channels, culminated in the establishment of an oligarchy, the Council of 400, in the Athenian coup of 411 BC. The oligarchy endured for only four months before it was replaced by a more democratic government. Democratic regimes governed until Athens surrendered to Sparta in 404 BC, when the government was placed in the hands of the so-called Thirty Tyrants, who were pro-Spartan oligarchs. After a year, pro-democracy elements regained control, and democratic forms persisted until the Macedonian army of Phillip II conquered Athens in 338 BC.
Related to modern democracy
Despite having its roots in the principles of classical Athens, modern democracy has developed to meet the challenges of modern administration. Direct participation was a hallmark of Athens's democracy, but it frequently encountered obstacles like the influence of mob mentality and hurried decision-making. Modern democratic regimes, on the other hand, place a strong emphasis on the necessity of checks and balances between the several departments of government. By ensuring that decisions are based on thoughtful discussion and careful consideration, these organizations aim to reduce rash decisions influenced by public opinion. Modern democracies have also created systems to include a wider variety of viewpoints, which lowers the dangers of a small number of people holding all the power and promotes an informed voter.
Philip II had led a coalition of the Greek states to war with Persia in 336 BC, but his Greek soldiers were hostages for the behavior of their states as much as allies. Alexander the Great's relations with Athens later strained when he returned to Babylon in 324 BC; after his death, Athens and Sparta led several states to war with Macedonia and lost.
This led to the Hellenistic control of Athens, with the Macedonian king appointing a local agent as political governor in Athens. However, the governors, like Demetrius of Phalerum, appointed by Cassander, kept some of the traditional institutions in formal existence, although the Athenian public would consider them to be nothing more than Macedonian puppet dictators. Once Demetrius Poliorcetes ended Cassander's rule over Athens, Demetrius of Phalerum went into exile and the democracy was restored in 307 BC. However, by now Athens had become "politically impotent". An example of this was that, in 307, in order to curry favour with Macedonia and Egypt, three new tribes were created, two in honour of the Macedonian king and his son, and the other in honour of the Egyptian king.
However, when Rome fought Macedonia in 200, the Athenians abolished the first two new tribes and created a twelfth tribe in honour of the Pergamene king. The Athenians declared for Rome, and in 146 BC Athens became an autonomous civitas foederata, able to manage internal affairs. This allowed Athens to practice the forms of democracy, though Rome ensured that the constitution strengthened the city's aristocracy.
Under Roman rule, the archons ranked as the highest officials. They were elected, and even foreigners such as Domitian and Hadrian held the office as a mark of honour. Four presided over the judicial administration. The council (whose numbers varied at different times from 300 to 750) was appointed by lot. It was superseded in importance by the Areopagus, which, recruited from the elected archons, had an aristocratic character and was entrusted with wide powers. From the time of Hadrian, an imperial curator superintended the finances. The shadow of the old constitution lingered on and archons and Areopagus survived the fall of the Roman Empire.
In 88 BC, there was a revolution under the philosopher Athenion, who, as tyrant, forced the Assembly to agree to elect whomever he might ask to office. Athenion allied with Mithridates of Pontus and went to war with Rome; he was killed during the war and was replaced by Aristion. The victorious Roman general, Publius Cornelius Sulla, left the Athenians their lives and did not sell them into slavery; he also restored the previous government, in 86 BC.
After Rome became an Empire under Augustus, the nominal independence of Athens dissolved and its government converged to the normal type for a Roman municipality, with a Senate of decuriones.
Participation and exclusion
Size and make-up of the Athenian population
Estimates of the population of ancient Athens vary. During the 4th century BC, there might well have been some 250,000–300,000 people in Attica. Citizen families could have amounted to 100,000 people, and out of these some 30,000 would have been adult male citizens entitled to vote in the assembly. In the mid-5th century, the number of adult male citizens was perhaps as high as 60,000, but this number fell precipitously during the Peloponnesian War. This slump was permanent, due to the introduction of a stricter definition of citizen described below. From a modern perspective, these figures may seem small, but among Greek city-states Athens was huge: most of the thousand or so Greek cities could only muster 1,000–1,500 adult male citizens each; and Corinth, a major power, had at most 15,000.
The non-citizen component of the population was made up of resident foreigners (metics) and slaves, with the latter perhaps somewhat more numerous. Around 338 BC the orator Hyperides (fragment 13) claimed that there were 150,000 slaves in Attica, but this figure is probably no more than an impression: slaves outnumbered those of citizen stock but did not swamp them.
Citizenship in Athens
Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens. The percentage of the population that actually participated in the government was 10% to 20% of the total number of inhabitants, but this varied from the fifth to the fourth century BC. This excluded a majority of the population: slaves, freed slaves, children, women and metics (foreign residents in Athens). The women had limited rights and privileges, had restricted movement in public, and were very segregated from the men. Given the exclusive and ancestral concept of citizenship held by Greek city-states, a relatively large portion of the population took part in the government of Athens and of other radical democracies like it, compared to oligarchies and aristocracies.
For the most part, Athens followed a citizenship-through-birth criterion. This criterion could be further divided into three categories: free birth from an Athenian father, free and legitimate birth from an Athenian father, and free and legitimate birth from an Athenian father and an Athenian mother. Athenians considered circumstances of one's birth to be relevant to the type of political identity and positions they could hold as citizens.
Citizenry in ancient Athens is speculated to have not simply been a legal obligation to the state, but also a form of ethnic-nationality. The title of "Athenian" was given to free residents deeming them citizens and granted them special privileges and protections over other residents in the city who were considered "non-citizens". In the timeline of Athenian laws, Solon's laws outlined a clear boundary between the protections that exist between citizens, Athenians, who were considered free and non-citizens, non-Athenians, who legally could be subjected to slavery.
Also excluded from voting were citizens whose rights were under suspension (typically for failure to pay a debt to the city: see atimia); for some Athenians, this amounted to permanent (and in fact inheritable) disqualification.
Some Athenian citizens were far more active than others, but the vast numbers required for the system to work testify to a breadth of direct participation among those eligible that greatly surpassed any present-day democracy. Athenian citizens had to be descended from citizens; after the reforms of Pericles and Cimon in 450 BC, only those descended from two Athenian parents could claim citizenship. Although the legislation was not retrospective, five years later, when a free gift of grain had arrived from the Egyptian king to be distributed among all citizens, many "illegitimate" citizens were removed from the registers.
Citizenship applied to both individuals and their descendants. It could also be granted by the assembly and was sometimes given to large groups (e.g. Plateans in 427 BC and Samians in 405 BC). However, by the 4th century, citizenship was given only to individuals and by a special vote with a quorum of 6,000. This was generally done as a reward for some service to the state. In the course of a century, the number of citizenships granted was in the hundreds rather than thousands.
Xenias Graphe (ξενίας γραφή) was an action brought against any one who unlawfully exercised the rights of citizenship. If convicted, the person was sold as a slave and the property was forfeited to the state.
Women in Athens
With participation in Athenian Democracy only being available to adult male Athenian citizens, women were always excluded from government and public roles. Even in the case of citizenry, the term was rarely used in reference to women. Rather, women were often referred to as an astē, which meant "a woman belonging to the city" or Attikē gunē, which meant 'an Attic woman/wife'. Even the term Athenian was largely reserved for just male citizens. Before Pericles's law that decreed citizenship to be restricted to children of both Athenian men and women, the polis did not register women as citizens or keep any form of registration for them which resulted in many court cases of witnesses having to prove that women were wives of Athenian men.
In addition to being barred from any form of formal participation in government, women were also largely left out of public discussions and speeches, with orators going as far as leaving out the names of wives and daughters of citizens or finding roundabout ways of referring to them. Pushed out of the public sphere, women's role was confined to the private sphere of working in the home and being cast as a second-rate human, subservient to her male guardian, whether that be a father or husband.
In the realm of Athenian men's rationalization, part of the reasons for excluding women from politics came from widely held views that women were more sexually and intellectually handicapped. Athenian men believed that women had a higher sex drive and consequentially, if given free range to engage in society, would be more promiscuous. With this in mind, they feared that women might engage in affairs and have sons out of wedlock, which would jeopardize the Athenian system of property and inheritance between heirs as well as the citizenry of potential children if their parentage was called into question. In terms of intelligence, Athenian men believed that women were less intelligent than men and, therefore, similarly to barbarians and slaves of the time, were considered to be incapable of effectively participating and contributing to public discourse on political issues and affairs. These rationales, as well as the barring women from fighting in battle, another requirement of citizens, meant that in the eyes of Athenian men, by nature, women were not meant to be allowed citizenship.
Despite being barred from the right to vote and citizenship overall, women were granted the right to practice religion.
Main bodies of government
Throughout its history, Athens had many different constitutions under its different leaders. Some of the history of Athens's reforms as well as a collection of constitutions from other Ancient Greek city-states was compiled and synthesized into a large all-encompassing constitution created by either Aristotle or one of his students called the Constitution of the Athenians. The Constitution of the Athenians provides a run-down of the structure of Athens' government and its processes.
Athens had three political bodies where citizens gathered in numbers running into the hundreds or thousands. These are the assembly (in some cases with a quorum of 6,000), the council of 500 (boule), and the courts (a minimum of 200 people, on some occasions up to 6,000). Of these three bodies, the assembly and the courts were the true sites of power – although courts, unlike the assembly, were never simply called the demos ('the people'), as they were manned by just those citizens over thirty. Crucially, citizens voting in both were not subject to review and prosecution, as were council members and all other officeholders.
In the 5th century BC, there is often a record of the assembly sitting as a court of judgment itself for trials of political importance and it is not a coincidence that 6,000 is the number both for the full quorum for the assembly and for the annual pool from which jurors were picked for particular trials. By the mid-4th century, however, the assembly's judicial functions were largely curtailed, though it always kept a role in the initiation of various kinds of political trial.
Ecclesia
The central events of the Athenian democracy were the meetings of the assembly (ἐκκλησία, ekklesía). Unlike a parliament, the assembly's members were not elected, but attended by right when they chose. Greek democracy created at Athens was direct, rather than representative: any adult male citizen over the age of 20 could take part, and it was a duty to do so. The officials of the democracy were in part elected by the Assembly and in large part chosen by lottery in a process called sortition.
The assembly had four main functions: it made executive pronouncements (decrees, such as deciding to go to war or granting citizenship to a foreigner), elected some officials, legislated, and tried political crimes. As the system evolved, the last function was shifted to the law courts. The standard format was that of speakers making speeches for and against a position, followed by a general vote (usually by show of hands) of yes or no.
Though there might be blocs of opinion, sometimes enduring, on important matters, there were no political parties, and likewise government —or opposition—as in the Westminster system did not exist. Voting was by simple majority. In the 5th century at least, there were scarcely any limits on the power exercised by the assembly. If the assembly broke the law, the only thing that might happen is that it would punish those who had proposed that it had agreed to. If a mistake had been made, from the assembly's viewpoint it could only be because it had been misled.
As usual in ancient democracies, one had to physically attend a gathering to vote. Military service or simple distance prevented the exercise of citizenship. Voting was usually by show of hands (χειροτονία, kheirotonia, 'arm stretching') with officials judging the outcome by sight. This could cause problems when it becomes too dark to see properly. However, any member could demand that officials issue a recount. For a small category of votes, a quorum of 6,000 was required, principally grants of citizenship, and here, small colored stones were used, white for yes and black for no. At the end of the session, each voter tossed one of these into a large clay jar which was afterwards cracked open for the counting of the ballots.
Ostracism, a unique feature of Athenian democracy introduced in the early 5th century BCE, allowed the Assembly to exile citizens deemed threats to the state's stability. This annual practice, conducted through a vote, was a preventive measure against potential tyrants and factions. As noted by Starr, ostracism exemplified Athens's efforts to safeguard democracy by placing constraints on influential figures without resorting to more severe punitive actions, thereby balancing political stability with democratic freedom.
In the 5th century BC, there were 10 fixed assembly meetings per year, one in each of the ten state months, with other meetings called as needed. In the following century, the meetings were set to forty a year, with four in each state month. One of these was now called the main meeting, kyria ekklesia. Additional meetings might still be called, especially as up until 355 BC there were still political trials that were conducted in the assembly, rather than in court. The assembly meetings did not occur at fixed intervals, as they had to avoid clashing with the annual festivals that followed the lunar calendar. There was also a tendency for the four meetings to be aggregated toward the end of each state month.
Attendance at the assembly was not always voluntary. In the 5th century, public slaves forming a cordon with a red-stained rope herded citizens from the agora into the assembly meeting place (Pnyx), a fine being imposed on those who got the red on their clothes. After the restoration of democracy in 403 BC, pay for assembly attendance was introduced. This promoted a new enthusiasm for assembly meetings. Only the first 6,000 to arrive were admitted and paid, with the red rope now used to keep latecomers at bay.
The Boule
In 594 BC, Solon is said to have created a boule of 400 to guide the work of the assembly. After the reforms of Cleisthenes, the Athenian Boule was expanded to 500 and was selected by lot every year. Each of Cleisthenes's 10 tribes provided 50 councilors who were at least 30 years old. The Boule's roles in public affairs included finance, maintaining the military's cavalry and fleet of ships, advising the generals, approving of newly elected magistrates, and receiving ambassadors. Most importantly, the Boule would draft probouleumata, or deliberations for the Ecclesia to discuss and approve on. During emergencies, the Ecclesia would also grant special temporary powers to the Boule.
Cleisthenes restricted the Boule's membership to those of zeugitai status (and above), presumably because these classes' financial interests gave them an incentive towards effective governance. A member had to be approved by his deme, each of which would have an incentive to select those with experience in local politics and the greatest likelihood at effective participation in government.
The members from each of the ten tribes in the Boule took it in turns to act as a standing committee (the prytaneis) of the Boule for a period of thirty-six days. All fifty members of the prytaneis on duty were housed and fed in the tholos of the Prytaneion, a building adjacent to the bouleuterion, where the boule met. A chairman for each tribe was chosen by lot each day, who was required to stay in the tholos for the next 24 hours, presiding over meetings of the Boule and Assembly.
The boule also served as an executive committee for the assembly, and oversaw the activities of certain other magistrates. The boule coordinated the activities of the various boards and magistrates that carried out the administrative functions of Athens and provided from its own membership randomly selected boards of ten responsible for areas ranging from naval affairs to religious observances. Altogether, the boule was responsible for a great portion of the administration of the state, but was granted relatively little latitude for initiative; the boule's control over policy was executed in its probouleutic, rather than its executive function; in the former, it prepared measures for deliberation by the assembly, in the latter, it merely executed the wishes of the assembly.
