THE BEECHMONT CREST GUIDE TO ANCIENT GREECE
Athens experiences tyranny—and then more democracy
Solon’s reforms were popular in Athens, but his partial democratization of the polis left significant problems. There was still a significant divide between rich and poor; and much of the populace still clamored for land reforms. At the top of the social hierarchy the aristocrats engaged in petty struggles for advantage over the Areopagus.
In 560 B.C., one of these aristocrats raised an army and overthrew the other aristocrats, making himself tyrant. (Recall the earlier passage about the “tyranny phase” in the ancient Greek city-states.) The new tyrant of Athens, Pisistratus, was a relative of Solon.
Pisistratus preserved the institutions created by Solon’s reforms, but he manipulated them to his own advantage. He made sure that his relatives and cronies occupied key positions in the bureaucracy and the Areopagus. He also adopted various populist policies to ensure support from the masses. Pisistratus gave loans to impoverished farmers and funded various public works projects.
But Pisistratus’s son, Hippias, was a less enlightened tyrant. His misbehavior and abuses of power provoked a revolt in Athens. The Athenian masses rose up and overthrew Hippias, who saved his own neck by leaving town. With Hippias now in exile, the remnants of the old Athenian aristocracy saw an opportunity to seize control. Fortunately, though, one of them was enlightened and influential enough to prevent this.
The new reformer, Cleisthenes, enacted a series of reforms that became the basis of mature Athenian democracy.
The Reforms of Cleisthenes
Cleisthenes undermined aristocratic control where it was strongest: in the villages and townships surrounding Athens (demes). Cleisthenes’ reforms, which took effect in 508 B.C., enrolled all male citizens in political organizations at these local levels.
Voters in the demes elected members of the Council of Five Hundred, a legislative body that proposed new bills and laws for Athens. An Athenian assembly voted on these measures. Every male citizen had the right to participate in the assembly.
This was the beginning of Athenian democracy in a form that a citizen of a modern democracy might recognize. Since most of were born into democratic societies, we take democracy for granted. But Athens was truly ahead of its time. In 500 B.C., most of the world’s inhabitants had no right of participation in the governments that ruled them.