Part 18 - The appearance and construction of Democracy - childhood to maturity in Greece

Due to its weakened state as outlined in Part 17, Athens stayed away from military involvements during the last half of the 350s.  At the same time, Philip of Macedonia continued to expand his reach and aspirations, conquering Thessaly and appearing ready to move into Central Greece and thus closer to Athens. Philip also moved east across the northern Aegean, into Thrace and Chersonese (the one remaining Athenian colony that was crucial to its food supply coming down from the Black sea). This caused increasing concern in Athens and despite a professed interest in peace, Philip continued to expand towards Athens and quickly gained control of Thermopylae and Phocis, dealing very harshly with the latter. 

The appetite for war was returning to Athens and for once understandably reached a boiling point when Philip attacked additional Greek states getting closer still to Athens.  Athens declared war and with eight other smaller Greek state met Philip in battle, and were decisively defeated. By this time, Philip had become focused on a much larger target - the conquest of all of Asia Minor and to break the power of Persia.   To assist with this, Philip did not attack Athens or its allies and worked to create a “peace”, subordinate to him, that would allow for his grander design to proceed. Due to his dominant position, he received agreement from all Greek states to create a league of states (the League of Corinth) that were to be partners in peace. Each state was guaranteed autonomy and agreed not to interfere in other states.  All of this would be under the hegemony of Macedonia. One of the initial actions of the Greek league was to declare war on Persia and appoint Philip as the commander of all Greek forces. 

Ironically, Philip did not want to end Democracy or destroy Athens.  What he did want was an end to the intra-states warfare that had characterized the Greek states for time immemorial.  To fulfill his large ambitions he needed to eliminate threats to Macedonia from adjoining states and hoped to curry the goodwill of Greece, particularly Athens who had one thing he did not - naval power. Athens continued to resist and 340 again declared war against by now the much larger Macedonian empire.  After a predictable defeat by Philip, Athens was again provided favored treatment. Soon after the League’s development, Philip was assassinated by a member of his bodyguard.  His son, Alexander took his place.  Alexander had the skills and abilities of his father and then some. Alexander was named hegemon of the League of Corinth, successfully defeated various rebellious Greek states and turned his attention to Asia. “In 334 Alexander led an Army into Asian and begin the war with Persia. His legendary conquest of the following 12 years transformed the history of the eastern Mediterranean and Asia, and relations between East and West. But in June 323, after his return to Babylon from India he felt ill and died.  He was 32.” (Mitchell).  With Alexander’s death, Athens hoped that it would become possible to challenge Macedonia.  Alexander had no heir to take his place and the stability of Macedonia as well as his entire empire was threatened.   

By the Fall of 323, Athens declared war and invited other Greek states to join them. While Athens had experienced peace and prosperity for the prior 15 years, they still yearned to be fully free.  Antipater, one of Alexander’s leading commanders took control of the Macedonian empire and led the war against Athens and its allies. Surprisingly, the Athenians suffered successive defeats in the naval part of the war and less surprising were also defeated in a decisive land battle. Along with paying a war indemnity, accepting a nearby Macedonian garrison, and surrendering key anti-Macedonian leaders, Athens was required to vastly change its constitution and restrict political rights to a small number of the wealthy class. Political equality and majority rule had ended. The Athenian democracy, developed to its fullest form in the fourth century, was permanently extinguished in 322 BC.

Although this was the end of Athenian democracy, it was not the end of democracy. While the practice of democracy would disappear for more than 2,000 years, the ideals and vision of democracy including the purpose and structure of the state and the meaning of citizenship was not eradicated. Clearly, this is a directly cautionary tale about not taking democracy for granted but it is also a reminder of of its resilience in reappearing a long age later. 

I will address Athenian democracy’s complicated philosophical and political legacy in the next post.  In closing though, I do want to reiterate a clearer additional legacy of democracy.  The cultural, artistic, and philosophical developments and achievements of the period were enormous and continue to echo down through the history of Europe and the Western world to this day.