Part 13 - The appearance and construction of Democracy - childhood to maturity in Greece

The most apparent result of the democratic reforms was that for the first time, a wide-ranging, clear, updated, and definitive code of written laws was created.  This covered both content and procedures and encompassed private, criminal, and constitutional law.   And, importantly, this was not ratified by a group of lawgivers but by a new and complex set of processes designed to maximize the participation of the full citizenry in the approval process. 

“The posting of the laws in the Agora for public inspection; the right of any citizen to appear before the council to make recommendations; the involvement of every deme(town) in the state along with the council, which was also representative of every deme, in scrutinizing every law and in the final validation - all of these illustrate the special importance attached to the exercise.”(Mitchell)

Further, laws and decrees were clearly separated for the first time with laws given more authority.  And, it was required to use statutory law, not customary law additionally enhanced the place of law in the democracy. 

The depth of the new and stronger commitment to the rule of law was perhaps most strongly demonstrated through the processes for making law: “The three new features of the procedures - the requirement that proposal would be posted to allow the public to have direct input into the framing of legislation, that they be discussed at two well spaced meetings of the Assembly and that those approved should be subject to a final verdict by, in effect, a jury of as many as 1000 citizens  - gave layers of protection against hasty, poorly judged legislation, and ensured that whatever passed into law had full and well-informed popular sanction.”(Mitchell)

This emphatic support for the rule of law, however new in many ways, was also a reaffirmation of the importance the role of law as first outlined by Solon, the author of the initial constitution.  Solon’s laws still stood and were key to the new code. 

With law now fully established as the highest authority in the state, Athens had made a clear move “away from the waywardness that marked popular rule in the later stages of the war and that refused to accept any constraint on the right of the demos to do as it pleased.”(Mitchell) There was no longer any support for an oligarchic approach or sensibility.

While the fifth century has attracted more notice due to its extreme highs and lows, the fourth century was an era of both stability and maturity and a more confident and clear focus on its merits and principles.  In addition, it is the most well documented period in the development of democracy thus providing the most detail about the operation of the system.   

The remainder of this post will begin a summary of the components and operation of democracy in the fourth century.  

The Council of Five Hundred

The Council remained the pivotal organizational unit of Athenian democracy.  It remained as the organizational support for the Assembly and continued as the governments full-time administrative body and mechanism to fulfill the will of the Assembly.   There were some parts of the Council’s work that did take on greater importance in the fourth century.  It had become fully ensconced in essentially every area of public administration.  This included the “Public finances, preparedness of the Armed Forces, care of the Navy and the dockyards, relations with other states, the religious festivals, public works, fair trading practices…and…it was the ubiquitous watchdog on behalf of the Assembly, working in collaboration with most of the boards of magistrates to ensure efficiency and integrity in the performance of public officials.”(Mitchell).  

The Council also carried out a number of judicial functions regarding accountability of magistrates and prosecution of magistrates who were accused of improper behavior or actions that was seen as of injury to the state.  This role assumed more importance in the fourth century mainly due to the memory of the disruptive effect of oligarchic and dictator control periods - concentrated power was a source of great concern for the Athenians.  The were determined to sustain their tradition of strong political equality, collective decision-making, and direct control of the course of public affairs.  Having seen its very damaging effects, the Athenians had a significant fear of tyranny.  Let us hope that in the present day, we will not have to experience tyranny to then become on guard against it.  

Accountability was felt to be a crucial aspect of uncovering and preventing both corruption and movements towards tyranny.  It is worth outlining three key interrelated systems of accountability that were in place during the fourth century.   I invite the reader to consider the applicability (with adaptation as needed) of any of these to the present day with tyranny on the rise throughout the world.

As a reminder, Magistrates (office holders) in Athens were public, administrators, responsible for implementing decisions made by the Assembly. Also, recall that excluding the military and financial areas, under the auspices and control of the Assembly, Magistrates “were chosen by lot from eligible candidates who put their names forward, held office for a year and could not be reappointed to the same post, though they could hold a variety of posts.”(Mitchell)  It is clear that this selection method alone, worked against the concentration of power in particular due to the selection by lot. There were in the  order of 700 Magistrates in the Fourth Century.  They were the managers of the affairs of the State. 

First, the performance of Magistrates was more tightly monitored than previously.  Magistrates were monitored ongoingly by a group of ten Councillors (legistai) chosen by the Council each year to audit the accounts of magistrates.  

Second, all public officials (magistrates or not) were subject to a comprehensive performance review at the end of their terms. This review had two components: 1) “A national committee of ten auditors, one from each tribe, selected by lot from all citizens of the tribe, had the task of examining financial accounts.” (Mitchell) Another group, also chosen by lot, led any prosecutions resulting from the audit.  Finally whether any problems were found in the audits, they had to be sent to a jury court for a final decision.  2) Under the control of the Council, any citizen could charge a retiring magistrate with any type of unlawful behavior. As with the first component, ten councillors, one from each tribe and selected by lot, were in charge of the process. 

Third, and most importantly, the Council had the responsibility for prosecution of crimes agains the state - a procedure called eisangelia.  This was originally introduced by Solon many years earlier but it was not widely used until the clarification and systematization of laws that took place in the 4th century. The range of offenses covered under this procedure included treason, impiety, bribery, giving bad advice to the people, lying, and betrayal of a city, fleet, or army. An eisangelia could be initiated by a Councillor, by the Council, or private citizens. 

“It is clear that eisangelia was developed in the fourth century as a powerful weapon of popular vigilance against subversion and abuse of power. It was used with great regularity throughout the period… The many opportunities that were now placed in the hands of the mass of citizens to sound alarms and initiate prosecutions of major figures marked an extension of direction involvement by the people in surveillance and criminal jurisdiction. It represented a greater democratization of the constitution, the trend also visible in other aspects of the operation of government in the fourth century….. the restored democracy was leaving little scope for any threats to its stability.”(Mitchell)

In summary, the Council’s membership changed frequently with new members coming in from diverse backgrounds who all learned how government worked. It was the most significant basis for an informed citizenry - a key foundation for both stability and success of democracy as government by the people. 

I submit that this is just as true today.  Certainly, it is many orders of magnitude more difficult to create a modern day Council of 500 given the complexity and size of modern societies. Still, we could upgrade our societies and defend democracy with real effect, if we made civic participation much more widespread. We see some of this in community volunteers who serve on local municipality committees, boards, and commissions.  However beneficial these are, they are mainly local in focus so how to connect more of us with the workings of our state and federal governments is a significant challenge.   And, while the Athenians did not have political parties per se, which is the mechanism of today that can enable extreme partisanship and instability, they did have tribes.  It was intentional on the part of the Athenians to build a participation structure that was based on required and changing representation from each tribe. They knew that this was crucial to building societal cohesion through insisting that the tribes did not just stay in their own “bubbles” to use a term of today.  I hope to devote a future post to the notion of bringing our modern-day tribes together through shared participation.