1.2 Athens

At the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431, only a third of the Athenian citizens were living in the urban area. Non-citizens are free, excluded by law from land ownership, were concentrated in the city and the port, as well as most of the slaves. The consequence was that both Athens and Piraeus had a larger population than the overall majority of the Greek states. The urban character of Greek life was a necessary condition for the military power. The urban population included a large number of people whose economic interests were still tied to the campaign. At the end of the fifth century three-quarters of the families of citizens possessed certain plot of land, not always enough to live. As farmers real, they were gathered within the walls, nell'estate the 431, in anticipation of the first foray Spartan. Families lived in the city of considerable wealth: citizens who lived in the income of their possessions and in some cases the investments made into slaves, and non-citizens whose economic base was trade, manufacturing or loans. According to Aristotle (Constitution of Athens), Nicia, the commander of the Athenian army destroyed in Sicily, possessed 1000 schiavi; still another, of which is given the name, personal contributions enumerated in court that he had given for the fleet and for the expenses of the public holidays in the last seven years of the Peloponnesian War, reaching a total of eleven talents, that were equivalent to the annual salary of more than 200 skilled workers. They lived mainly annuity, free to devote himself to politics, study or just laziness. This applied to Nicias as for the large landowners urbanized. Nicia, particularly, not directly employed his slaves but brolly in the day to entrepreneurs who had concessions in the silver mines of Laurium. Even those who, come Cleone, who employed their slaves in their factories, were free from economic occupations, it volevano, because demandavano care of their own affairs, such as large landowners, care administrators and factors. The number of slaves in Athens is uncertain, in the absence of periodic censuses. The number of conjectural 60-80 thousand is probably closer to the true. The use of slaves was concentrated chiefly in the mines and in domestic service in which they were employed thousands of men and women. Plato, for example, speaks of five servants in his service, Aristotle mentions more than fourteen, Teofrasto sette. The economical use of slaves was therefore crucial in agriculture and manufacturing, because they liberated from all economic concern, and also from any economic activity, the men who were engaged in the political leadership of the state and, in larga misura, also the intellectual.

The vast majority of the Athenians, owners of a slave or two, or non-existence of slaves, was largely occupied with making a living, and many non-towered never above a minimum level. In the classical period, however, Athens even the poor were the time to participate in the public life of the community, both in the government (in a broad sense) that in the solemnities associated with the cults of the state.

A central part of Athenian history concerns the distribution of burdens and obligations of military. In 431, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides tells of the great demonstration that Pericles led invasion in the territories of Megara, with 13 mila opliti, 10 thousand of whom were citizens and other metics. At that time, the total number of adult male citizens was 40-45 thousand; So about a third of the citizens, excluding the metics, had sufficient resources to be included among the hoplites. Every citizen or Metic was subject to military service and the number of those called was decided by. Most of the time they were only called hoplites and cavalry, they belonged to the wealthier areas of the police. They were required to provide and maintain their own equipment, receiving state only a daily allowance during service. Although the occasion were also armed units called "lightly", Athens, the conscript army and not professional in the modern sense, was an institution reserved for the upper and middle classes.

The fleet had a different organization . The command of the ships was distributed among the wealthiest citizens that provided their own to a substantial part of the operating costs, while the crews were made up of paid professionals. It seems likely that some 12 thousand men were engaged for eight months of the year. In the fleet citizens were numerous enough. For the poor of the city's fleet was a very important source of livelihood, lasted at least until the Athenian empire. A chronicler of the time, better known as the Old Oligarch, wrote that 'the demos that guide the ships and gives the state its strength.

The oral demos has a complicated history. The Old Oligarch uses it in the sense of "little people", of the lower classes, with the nuances pejorative own ideas of who has the right, since the time of 'Iliad. But demos also meant "people as a whole"; in a democracy, the body of citizens who worked through their assembly. Quindi and decrees dell'assemblea ateniese, language in official documents, were approved by the demos rather than by ' Church (which is the greek word to indicate the assembly). Assembly could intervene every male citizen who has completed 18 age, and when he wanted to take the floor. They were not those who had lost their civil rights for a crime. Obviously attended the meeting only a fraction of 40 thousand citizens, but participants were the demos and their acts were recognized as issued by all the people. By extension of this principle, it was believed that juries, chosen at random from a list of 6 thousand men, volunteers drawn from the set of citizens, were equal to the entire demos in matters that fell within their jurisdiction.

The direct participation of the Athenian democracy was the key: there was no representation, nor a civil service, nor a bureaucracy in the proper sense. In the Assembly, whose authority was total, every citizen not only when he wanted to participate could, but also had the right to enter into the debate, to propose amendments and vote on the proposals, on war and peace, Tax, on the regulation of worship, on referrals, finance war, public works, treaties and diplomatic negotiations, and any other matters, big or small it was, that required a government decision. Much of the preparatory work for these assemblies was done by boulè, a board of 500 citizens drawn to last in office for one year. Everyone had the right to join, if raffled, but he could only repeat its stake to a maximum of two. There was also a large number of officers of varying importance, most of which was also chosen by lot for one year: the few exceptions related to the ten general (strategoi) who were elected and could be re-elected without limitation, temporary committees and ad hoc diplomatic negotiations and at similar. Every officer, for important or insignificant that it was his place, was responsible directly and solely to the demos same, on the board or in assembly or in the courts, and not to a top official. Sometimes the Athenian Solon called the father of their democracy. But it was only the result of a myth: as though Solon Pisistratus, in different ways, had laid the foundations, weakening the archaic system and the political monopoly of the aristocratic families, neither of them had ever had in mind democracy. The change, when it was, was sharp and immediate, after the overthrow of tyranny in 510, with the help Spartan, and the two-year civil war that followed. The architect of the new type of government, the democratic, fu Clistene. He, belonging to the noble family of Alcmeonidi, became a Democrat by accident, addressing the populace when he was in urgent need of his support in the fight that was fought confused after the deposition of the tyrant Hippias, son of Pisistratus. Cleisthenes had proposed to introduce far-reaching innovations, creating institutions that he deemed necessary in view of his new goal, preserving what could be but not hesitating to demolish and boldly invent. The governance structure of Cleisthenes was not that of Pericles: It took two generations to perfect the system, a period in which took place the Persian Wars and the building of the Empire, but also many internal conflicts, because in 508 the forces opposed to democracy had been anything but annihilated.

The central mechanism of the Athenian democracy was the election by drawing lots, which allowed the equality of opportunity for all; also, was expected to pay for those he held a public office in order to allow the poor to sit on the Board and in the courts when they were appointed by lot. Thucydides reports that Pericles stated with pride that one of the peculiarities of Athens was positive that poverty is not excluded from the public service. Is if the sommano assemblea, the council, courts and numerous offices assigned in rotation, the total, of several thousand citizens, indicates that the direct participation to the work of government was widely distributed among citizens, that there was a high level of political experience shared among all classes. It must be noted that the "amateurism" was implicit in the definition of Athenian direct democracy. Every citizen was required to have the necessary qualifications to participate in government, by the mere fact of belonging to citizenship, and his chances of playing a public role were very heightened not only by the wide use of the draw, but also by the rotation required in the board and in the majority of the charges. Although the pay was sufficient to compensate for the lost wages by an artisan or a worker, it did not exceed this level and therefore no one could count on the public office as a regular source of income or as a temporary source of economic improvement. At the same time a big state like Athens, with his empire and his tax affairs, naval and diplomatic complex, demanded politicians who expend all their activities to direct and coordinate the work of the "amateur" more or less temporary. And he found them among the members of the upper class who were free to devote himself entirely to public affairs. It became increasingly popular to define these men "speakers", technical term that did not indicate any special skills in the art of the word.

However, the direction assembly of the citizens of the state was that it was the policy and kept the control, together with the courts, not only on the affairs of state, but also on all the civil and military. It gathered outdoors, on a hill near the Acropolis, called the Pnyx, where thousands of citizens gathered to discuss and decide. Namely, the assembly was a mass rally, to speak to what was necessary to have the power of oratory. Not having a fixed composition, since the participants were not chosen, the Assembly had neither political parties nor "government" nor any other principle of organization. The President of the day was chosen by lot from among the members of the Board, according to the usual pattern of rotation, presented themselves motions, we discussed, SI emendava, they voted, all in one sitting, except in rare circumstances. Who wanted to lead the congregation in its policy was to appear on the Pnyx and explain his reasons. A citizen was a leader in that, and only in so far as the shareholders accepted its program in preference to that of his opponents.

Ancient critics, with their modern followers, did not spare criticism of this system , because, they say, Pericles after the new type of leader was a demagogue who lured the demos in the assembly and the courts, at the expense of the best interests of the state. On the other hand it is certified that the acts and transactions of the assembly remained worthy of respect until the end. For all their political experience, citizens in majority, were not able to cope with the intricacies of finance or foreign affairs and tended, with right reasons, to support those men devoted entirely to politics in which they placed trust and who could in any case, check. Then, not only Pericles and Demosthenes in the fifth century in the fourth century advanced lines were able to develop long-term policies, but in the interim period, there were other less famous men, although by no means devoid of political talent, Thrasyboulos eat and Tubulo. For the leaders there was no immunity from the risks: Pericles also suffered a temporary decline and a severe fine at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. Others were impressed by the ostracism, that is sent in a sort of honorary exile for ten years, but without losing the property and no social disgrace. When ostracism was dropped, towards the end of the fifth century, Moreover, the possibility of exile for ordinary criminal charges. And very few were sent to death, or legally, the per murder.

In Athens there was no talk of oligarchy until another invader, Philip of Macedon, in 322, finally closed this chapter of Greek history.

In the middle of the fifth century, GLI oligarchici (the few) and the Democrats (many), between Athenian citizens, had established a balance that will prove satisfactory proof stasis (sedition). For "many" the State provided substantial material benefits and considerable participation in government, while for "the few", which were, however, a large class, there were the honors and rewards that were combined with the political and military leadership. In the fourth century Athens found itself the resources to maintain the political and civic organization that the empire he had helped to establish in the previous century.

Athens prospered as no other state of classical Greece. The eldest of his boast, attributed to Pericles, was to be the "school of Hellas". In two centuries produced a sublime array of writers and artists, scientists and philosophers. No one was more severe than Plato, Athenian by birth, he found much to admire in Sparta, the state that was considered the opposite of ideal Athens. Plato, however, forgot that Sparta could not even begin to think, and much less would have the freedom to teach freely as he did in Athens.