The best known early democracy arose in Athens, a Greek city-state, around 508 to 507 BCE, when the reformer Cleisthenes reorganized the citizens into new tribes and gave ordinary citizens a central place in government. Athenian democracy lasted, with interruptions, for nearly two centuries.

How it worked

• The Assembly (ekklesia): every adult male citizen could attend, speak and vote. It met regularly on a hillside called the Pnyx and decided war and peace, laws, treaties and public spending. This was direct democracy: citizens voted on decisions themselves rather than electing others to do it.
• The Council of 500 (boule): fifty citizens from each of ten tribes prepared the Assembly's agenda. Its members were chosen by lot, that is, by random drawing, and served for one year.
• The courts: large juries, often hundreds of citizens, also chosen by lot, decided cases. There were no professional judges.
• Elections: a few posts needing special skill, above all the ten military generals, were filled by election, and generals could be re-elected.

Athenians saw the lot as the most democratic method. Elections tend to favor the famous, the wealthy and the persuasive; a random draw gives every citizen an equal chance to serve. Pay for jury service, and later for attending the Assembly, helped poorer citizens take part.

Ostracism

Once a year the Assembly could vote on whether to hold an ostracism. If it did, citizens scratched a name on a broken piece of pottery (an ostrakon). If enough votes were cast, the man named most often was exiled for ten years. He kept his property and citizenship and could return afterward. Ostracism was a tool for removing anyone who seemed to be gaining dangerous power, without a trial.

Who was excluded

Athenian democracy was radical for its time, but its “people” was narrow. Women could not vote or hold office. Slaves, who were numerous, had no political rights. Metics, free foreigners who lived and worked in Athens, were excluded even after generations. Only a minority of the adult population were full citizens. Athens also ruled an empire over other Greek cities, which paid it tribute. Admirers and critics alike must hold both facts in view: Athens invented powerful democratic ideas and applied them to a small circle.

Plato's criticism

The philosopher Plato (about 428 to 348 BCE) watched Athens put his teacher Socrates to death in 399 BCE after a jury trial. In the Republic, he compares a city to a ship whose crew quarrel over who should steer, though none of them has learned navigation, and win control by flattering the owner. Would you choose a steersman that way, or would you want a trained navigator? Ruling well, Plato argued, requires knowledge, and most people lack it. Democracy hands power to whoever flatters the crowd best. He also warned that democracy's love of unlimited freedom could slide into disorder and then into tyranny, as a demagogue promises to restore order. His alternative was rule by philosopher-kings trained in wisdom.

Aristotle's view

Plato's student Aristotle (384 to 322 BCE) studied the constitutions of many Greek cities. He classified governments by how many rule (one, few or many) and whether they rule for the common good or for themselves. Rule by the many for the common good he called polity; its corrupt form, rule by the poor in their own interest, he called democracy. He favored a mixed constitution with a strong middle class. Yet Aristotle also offered an early argument for the wisdom of the many: a feast to which many people contribute can be better than one provided by a single person, and a crowd pooling its judgment may decide better than any one expert.

Worked example: a day in the Athenian Assembly

Picture a morning in Athens around 430 BCE. Several thousand citizens climb the Pnyx at dawn. The Council of 500, chosen by lot, has prepared the agenda: should Athens send ships to help an ally under attack?

A herald asks, “Who wishes to speak?” A general argues for sending the fleet. A farmer worries about the cost and his sons who row the ships. A wealthy merchant warns that trade routes will close if the ally falls. After the debate, citizens vote by show of hands. The majority decides, and the decision is carried out.

Now look at who is not there. The farmer's wife, whose household depends on the outcome, cannot attend. The slaves who will load the ships have no voice. A metic merchant who has lived in Athens for thirty years and pays special taxes cannot vote.

Plato would point out that the decision depended on speeches, and a skilled speaker might sway the crowd against good sense. Aristotle might reply that the farmer, the merchant and the general each brought knowledge the others lacked, and that their pooled judgment could be better than any one expert's. Both points still apply to democratic decisions today: a crowd can be swayed, and a crowd can be wise. Which happens depends partly on how the debate is organized and who is allowed in the room.