CMS150 - Winter 2001

Trials of Conscience: Litigation

and the Rhetoric of Identity

 The critics of Athenian democracy

• Despite the modern tendency to idealize Athenian democracy, many ancient Greeks, both within and without Athens, were quite critical of it as a system of government. Thucydides, Plato, Xenophon and the Old Oligarch (all aristocrats), for example, all offer spirited critiques of the Athenian system of radical government. Much of Plato's critique is put in the mouth of his teacher Socrates (who was not an aristocrat) in Plato's dialogues, written after the death of Socrates. How much the Socrates of Plato's dialogues corresponds to the "historical" Socrates is a question scholars have shed much ink on, and about which you will have to think as you read the Apologies of Plato and Xenophon.
  
• The aristocrats had a number of reasons to be critical of Athenian democracy. One of these reasons was economic. Athens, rather than directly tax its citizens, required citizens of wealthy means to perform (expensive) services on behalf of the city. These services were called liturgies. The services a citizen might be required to provide could range from the cost of building and outfitting a warship for the fleet to producing a play at the city's dramatic festival. Citizens who performed liturgies were greatly honored for having done so. For wealthy Athenians who wanted to be active in politics, performing liturgies was a way to demonstrate to ordinary citizens that you cared deeply about the city and its welfare. Since there were few elections in Athens, but many lawsuits between political rivals which were judged by ordinary citizens, members of the political elite relied on their liturgies as a way of demonstrating their good character in their own defense at trial.
  
  
• For wealthy Athenians who did not want to participate in politics, however, liturgies were simply taxes, and were as popular then as they are now. When the city was unified, liturgies were not too divisive an issue. But when the ordinary and wealthy were in opposition on political questions (or questions about foreign policy or the conduct of the war), Athenian aristocrats complained that they had no say in policy (since they were outnumbered in the Assembly) and furthermore, were compelled to pay for policy that they thought was stupid.
  
  
• In the aristocrat authors, moreover, one can read a kind of intellectual and cultural disdain for ordinary Athenians. At its most blatant level, we find wealthy young aristocrats getting drunk in the afternoon and brawling through the shops of ordinary citizens. The next day, they would send a slave around with money to pay the shopkeeper for the damage and some extra so he wouldn't sue them in court. The shopkeepers couldn't afford to say no, and although they were made whole financially, the contempt the young aristo had shown no doubt rankled.
  
  
• At a more theoretical level, a number of aristocrats felt (and this feeling was comon in the ancient world) that people who were so poor that they had to work for a living, were inherently less fit than wealthy people to run a government. Shopkeepers needed to keep shop, and thus did not have the time study up on foreign policy questions. A system of government that gave shopkeepers a say in policy was inherently weaker than one that relied solely on aristocrats, because the shopkeepers were inherently less well informed and thus inevitably made poor decisions. The aristocratic political philosophers, in fact, believed that the Athenian Assembly was little better than a "mob," easily manipulated by politicians, and prone to make quick, unreasoned decisions in anger. When Athens was blessed with great leaders (e.g. Pericles), whom the mob followed like a king, Athens flourished. But most politicians pandered to the mob, which led to horrible policy decisions (which the rich inevitably would pay).
  
  
• Some aristocrats went as far as to idealize the Spartan constitution in their writings and to affect a "Persian" lifestyle. This kind of behavior would have been viewed as extraordinarily bizarre by most Athenians, since their greatest enemies in the 5th century bce had been the Persians and the Spartans. It would not have been particularly threatening, however. The aristocratic critique of Athenian democracy was a minority opinion. It is an irony of history that it is so well represented in the writings that have survived to us from ancient Athens, while the writings of "pro-democratic" thinkers (if they existed - the democracy was so popular, few would have bothered to respond to the aristocrats) have been lost.
  
  
• more info at:
  • Birgitta Kurtén Lindberg, "Problems of Democracy in Classical Athens: Ours As Well?"

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• Plato and Xenophon
  • Plato (429-347 BCE) was the son of an aristorcratic Athenian family. He was a student and associate of Socrates in his youth and profoundly influenced by Socrates' teaching. Disgusted by the excesses of both the oligarchs and democrats in Athenian politics he went into voluntary exile after Socrates death and travelled extensively throughout the Mediterranean world for the next dozen years or so. He returned to Athens and founded the Academy (the first college), where he taught and wrote for the rest of his life.
    
    
  • All of Plato's published writings have been preserved (an unbelievable boon for modern scholars). His early writings portray Socrates and his life and set forth the philosophical argument that virtue is knowledge. His "middle" works tend to describe a conversation in which Socrates is a participant, and are probably less less concerned with biography as such than with using Socrates as a character to develop a philosophical theory (e.g., the theory of the forms). By Plato's "later" period, he uses the "dialogue" form less and less and Socrates becomes an increasingly subordinate character. How historically accurates the different Socrates of Plato's different periods was, is a question scholars argue about fiercely to this day. Generally speaking, people believe the Socrates of the early dialogues (e.g. Apology, Crito, Euthyphro) and perhaps the Phaedo (a middle period dialogue set on the last day of Socrates life) are reasonably accurate. However, even for these dialogues, you should remember that Plato was a great writer and philosopher as well as a passionately devoted student of Socrates, and it is virtually impossible to which motivations account for which details in Plato's description of Socrates.
    
    
  • It is impossible to underestimate the importance of Plato to the history of western philosophy (Whitehead, a great modern philosopher in his own right, wrote, "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1929 ). It is also impossible to describe the extraordinary beauty and wit of Plato's prose style. That is why you should study Greek.
    
    
  • Xenophon (428/7 - 354 BCE) was the son of an aristocratic Athenian family who served in the Athenian cavalry and was a passionately devoted (if not particularly brilliant) student of Socrates. He left Athens after the restoration of the democracy in 401 and served as a mercenary for various kings in Asia Minor and eventually (396 BCE ), for Sparta. The Athenians had formally exiled him in 399 (the year of Socrates death). A generation later (368 BCE), when relations between Sparta and Athens had much improved, Athens revoked the exile, and Xenophon returned home where he lived until his death.
    
    
  • Xenophon wrote a number of different types of works. The Anabasis is an exciting memoire of his service as the general of a mercenary troop of Greek soldiers which had been abandoned by its Persian employers in the middle of enemy territory. Xenophon got his boys safely home and the book has been a classic war story since it was written. He also wrote works on the Spartan and Athenian constitution, dialogues and treatises on political philosophy, military treatises, a history of Greece and several works devoted to Socrates: the Apology - an account of the trial and explanation for Socrates' conduct at it; the Memorabilia - memoires of his association with Socrates; and the Symposium, the recollection of an imaginary party at which Socrates was a guest.
    
    
    
  • Unlike Plato, Xenophon is rather underrated today. His prose style is delightful (even exciting in the Anabasis) and for that reason alone you should learn Greek. Moderns tend to compare him to Plato as a philosopher and Thucydides as a historian and conclude that he was a an amiable, well-read rich man, who had the good fortune to keep company with the brilliant and happened to like to write a lot. In the ancient world, in contrast, he was greatly admired for his practicality, his accessible prose style, and his aristocratic politics. Unlike a lot of philosophers, Xenophon had muchh practical experience of the world and in his writings, was often happy to acknowlede when his theories failed (his comments on Sparta and tyranny, e.g.).
    
    
  • more info at:
    • Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander (Perseus Project): Socrates
    • Encyclopaedia Britannica, Plato
    • Encyclopaedia Britannica, Xenophon