Re: The Athenian Democracy Illusion


"Agamemnon" <agamemnon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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>
> "Raktizer Omheit" <cequka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:43508455_1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> The ancient Athenian democracy in practise was not that democractic for
>> the poorer classes of the ancient Athenian adult male citizen population.
>> The ancient Athenian assembly, known as the ecclesia, met on average
>> about forty days per year. An adult Athenian male citizen who left his
>> employment to attend the assembly would probably have been sacked and
>> replaced with a slave or a metic. Metics in ancient Athens were resident,
>> non-voting
>
> Nonsense.
>
> Why is it nonsense Agamemnon?
>
> Most people were self-employed, and most of these were farmers so they had
> lots of spare time on their hands to earn a few bob. It was considered
> shameful to work for another person.
>
> Yes, but many poor adult male Athenian citizens were forced to work for
> others as sharecroppers, tenant farmers, rowers, unskilled labourers,
> apprentices, or as journeymen or ex-apprentices, even if it was considered
> shameful. They also had to compete in the wages or non-wages paid to
> slaves and resident, non-voting foreigners called metics. In addition, not
> all farmers werre middle-class farmers known as yeomen, or minor
> upper-class farmers known as squires or marginal gentry. Most farmers were
> probably small tenant farmers, who had to find other sources of revenue,
> and since the Athenian assembly met only about forty days a year, in
> addition to the unpredictable lottery method used in determining the
> members of a jury, and the failure of jury service pay to keep up with
> inflation, earning a livelihood by participation in the Athenian democracy
> was foolish unless the participant already had a well-to-do private source
> of revenue.
>
>> foreigners, many of whom were born in other Greek city-states or poleis.
>> The Athenian jury courts, known as the dikasteries or dikasterias, were
>> an unreliable source of income, because the jurors were selected by
>> lottery. There were 10 dikasteries, each of which had 600 adult male
>> Athenian citizens. The 10 dikasteries represented the 10 tribes of
>> Cleisthenic Athens. Usually, there were about five dikasteries in
>> attendance on any given day. Civil law suits of minor monetary
>> significance had 201 jurors out of 600 jurors per tribe selected by means
>> of a lottery. Minor civil law suits usually outnumbered major civil law
>> suits and criminal courts. Civil law suits of major monetary importance
>> had 401 jurors out of 600 jurors per tribe selected by lottery. Criminal
>> cases saw 501 jurors out of 600 selected by lottery. Therefore, the
>> people who formed the usual majority in the Athenian eclclesia or
>> ekklesia assembly meetings and jury courts were of moderate means,
>> neither rich or poor, those who belonged to the middle class as the
>> ancient world of pagan Greece would have known the middle class to be. Of
>> course, in times of war and invasion, many Athenian middle class citizens
>> would have become impoverished, especially those whose lands were
>> occupied by a hostile army from another Greek city-state, or whose
>> prosperity depended on maritime commerce with the various overseas
>> subject territories of the Athenian Empire and the overseas colonies of
>> Athenian citizens, and who would have suffered tremendously if the
>> Athenian navy and marines suffered a disastrous defeat, and was as a
>> result subjected to a simultaneous naval blockade and land siege of the
>> Piraeus, the port city of ancient Athens.
>>
>> This is what Raphael Sealey wrote on page 298 of his history book called
>> "A History of the Greek City States: 700-338 B.C.," in the revised 1985
>> version of the book published by the University of California Press,
>> Berkeley and Los Angeles: "It should be added that payment for jury
>> service was introduced on the proposal of Pericles. The original rate was
>> two obols; later it was raised to three obols. Fourth-century ( i.e.
>> B.C. ) writers, such as Theopompus and Aristotle, gave this measure a
>> partisan background; they said that Pericles could not compete from his
>> private resources with the largesse of Cimon, and so by introducing jury
>> pay he sought to bribe the populace with public money. The story is
>> patently tendentious. Moreover, judging from the way Athenian orators
>> address juries, pay for jury service was not a bribe for the very poor
>> but compensation paid to people of moderate substance for absence from
>> their gainful activities. The
>
> You mean like sitting around all day waiting for crops to grow.
>
> Farms have to be weeded and watered, especially in the Greek climate
> during the spring and summer months, and animals have to be herded,
> watched, fed, and watered.
>
>> introduction of jury pay may have sought merely to provide sufficient
>> jurors for the growing amount of judicial business. Similar
>> considerations would explain why public pay was extended to the Boule (
>> Council of Five Hundred ) and most magistracies ( archons )."
>>
>> It appears that the pay for jurors was insufficient to keep pace with
>> inflation throughout the period when Athens was constitutionally a
>> democracy from 508 to 322 B.C:
>>
>> J.B.Bury and Russell Meiggs, "A History of Greece," The MacMillan Press
>> Ltd, Fourth Edition ( with revisions ), 1992, pp. 237-238:
>>
>> "Except in remote or unusually conservative regions, money had now
>> entirely displaced more primitive standards of exchange and valuation.
>> Most Greek states of any size issued their own coins, and their money at
>> this time was in almost all cases silver. Silver had become plentiful,
>> and prices had necessarily gone up. Thus the price of barley and wheat
>> had become two or three times dearer than a hundred years before. Far
>> more remarkable was the increase in the price of stock. In the days of
>> Solon a sheep could be bought for a drachma; in the days of Pericles, its
>> cost might approach fifty drachmae. As money was cheap, interest should
>> have been low; but mercantile enterprise was so active, the demand for
>> capital so great, and security so inadequate, that the usual price of a
>> loan was twelve per cent."
>>
>> And page 363 of "A History of Greece," by J.B.Bury and Russell Meiggs:
>>
>> "Money was now much more plentiful, and prices far higher, than before.
>> This was due to the large amount of the precious metals, chiefly gold,
>> which had been brought into circulation in the Greek world in the last
>> quarter of the fifth century ( i.e. B.C. ). The continuous war led to the
>> coining of the treasures which had been accumulating for many years in
>> temples; and the banking system circulated the money which would
>> otherwise have been hoarded in private houses. But, although the precious
>> metals became plentiful, the rate of interest did not fall; men could
>> still get twelve per cent for a loan of their money. This fact is highly
>> significant; it shows clearly that industries were more thriving and
>> trade more active, and consequently capital in greater demand. The high
>> rate of interest must always be remembered when we read of a Greek
>> described as wealthy with a capital which would nowadays seem small."
>> "The changed attitude of the individual to the state is shown by the
>> introduction of payment for attending the meetings of the Assembly. The
>> original obol a meeting was soon raised to two obols and then, before 391
>> ( B.C. ), to three obols. Finally the pay was raised to a drachma for
>> ordinary meetings and a drachma and a half for the sovereign meeting of
>> each prytany, which was reserved for special business, and apt to be less
>> exciting. The remuneration for serving in the law courts was not
>> increased; it was found that half a drachma was sufficient to draw
>> applicants for the judge's ticket."
>>
>> In ancient pagan Athens, this is what the currency was like:
>>
>> 6 obols = 1 drachma.
>>
>> 100 drachmae = 1 mina.
>>
>> 2 minas = 1 stater.
>>
>> 30 staters = 1 talent.
>>
>> See Aristotle, "The Athenian Constitution," translated by P.J.Rhodes,
>> Penguin Books Ltd, England, 1984, page176. Also on page 176 of the above:
>>
>> In the 300's B.C., "an invalid was entitled to a maintenance grant if his
>> property was less than 3 minas." Ibid, page 151, note 49.4: "Grants to
>> war invalids are attested from the sixth century ( i.e. B.C. ); grants to
>> all impoverished invalid citizens were probably introduced in the second
>> half of the fifth. In the early fourth century the grant was one obol a
>> day; at all times it was less than an unskilled but able-bodied man could
>> earn, and less than was paid for the performance of civic duties." Ibid,
>> page 158, note 62.2: "Assembly pay, like most other payments, was
>> increased to keep pace with inflation, but the rate of pay for jurors was
>> the same in the 320's B.C. as in the 420's B.C."
>>
>> Many of the poorer Athenian citizens were usually absent from Athens as
>> rowers in naval patrols, or as colonists or cleruchies in overseas
>> Athenian colonies. The middle class Athenian male citizens often served
>> as marines on Athenian naval vessels, as sentry men on the walls and
>> fortifications of the city of Athens, and as garrisons in overseas
>> Athenian subject city-states. The heavy body-armored, heavily armed
>> Athenian hoplite soldier when he served as a marine on an Athenian naval
>> vessel was called an epibatae. The southern Greek Macedonian hoplite
>> phalanx infantrymen, armed with pikes and swords, along with the
>> similarly heavy body-armored southern Greek Macedonian cavalry lancer and
>> swordsmen, was for its time the best military in the world. Athenian
>> hoplites often came from the middle class known as the zeugitae, while
>> the poorer class of Athenian citizens known as the thetes usually served
>> as rowers on the top deck of Athenian navy vessels known as triremes,
>> with metics on the middle deck, and slaves on the bottom deck. The thetes
>> also served as light body-armored infantry or peltasts, often armed with
>> slings, javelins, axes, bows and arrows, and swords. The cavalry in
>> Athens came usually from the upper-class of the citizenry, although the
>> cavalry archers often were drawn from the Athenian middle-class. Most of
>> the thetes as mentioned before were absent from the city of Athens as
>> rowers on naval patrols, or as rowers in the Athenian merchant marine.
>>
>> Aristophanes, "The Wasps, The Poet and the Women, The Frogs." Translated
>> with an introduction by David Barrett, Penguin Books Ltd, England, 1964,
>> pages 35-36:
>>
>> "Membership of the Jury Corps was open only to citizens over thirty (
>> middle-age in those days, but no other qualifications were required ).
>> The
>
> Nonsense. Sophocles lived to be 90.
>
> 30 years of age in ancient Athens was considered to be the equivalent of
> 18 years of age (voting age) today.
>
>> official strength of the Corps was 6,000 members being chosen by lot at
>> the beginning of each year, 600 from each of the ten phylai ( i.e.
>> Cleisthenic tribes ). ( Whether as many volunteers as this were normally
>> forthcoming is a little doubtful ). Jurymen wore short brown cloaks and
>> carried staves. On the days when trials were being held, members of the
>> Corps who wished to serve on a jury presented themselves early in the
>> morning and the various juries were selected by lot as required.
>> Important cases were tried by a full court of 501 jurymen, and on
>> exceptional occasions a case might be
>
> Most of the time very few people turned up of jury service and passers by
> in the Agora had to be rope in. Most jurors were retired. Read
> Aristophanes Wasps.
>
> Yes, because even those who could afford to take the time off to do jury
> service were turned off by the high wartime prices existing in ancient
> Athens while the Peloponnesian War was raging on, and the failure of pay
> for jury service to keep up with inflation. When Aristophanes wrote the
> comedy called "The Wasps," many of those Athenian middle class hoplite
> members who had farms outside the city walls of Athens had lost their
> wealth to incursions by the Spartan-led armies, and many of them wished to
> compensate for their losses by seizing colonies or cleruchies in other
> Greek islands, or in Sicily, which could be more easily protected by the
> Athenian navy and hoplite marines called the epibatae. Those Athenian
> middle class adult male citizens who lived within the city walls of Athens
> and the Piraeus before the Peloponnesian War derived much of their wealth
> from selling Athenian manufactured goods to many customers in overseas
> Greek colonies or cleruchies.
>> heard by several 'courts' sitting together. Private lawsuits came before
>> smaller juries, possibly of 201 members." Aristotle, "The Athenian
>> Constituion," translated by P.J. Rhodes, Penguin Books Ltd, England,
>> 1984, pages 98, 112 and 162, note 67.2-3. Private lawsuit - 1000 drachmae
>> limit - 201 out of 600 jurors selected ( i.e. 1000 drachmae maximum in
>> damages awarded ). Over 1000 drachmae in damages awarded - 401 jurors out
>> of 600 jurors selected. page 113: - Public lawsuit - 501 jurors out of
>> 600 jurors selected. Important public suit - 1000 jurors - 2 panels
>> combined in the heliaea ( final court of appeal ). Very important public
>> lawsuit - 3 panels combined - 1500 jurors.
>


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