The following is the text of a talk I gave in the fall for our Tuesday Lunch Series (the iTunes U podcast with the slideshow can be found here, #35).
Today I want to talk about the role of elections in a democracy through the lens of the ancient Athenian democracy. Modern Americans tend, despite their low rates of participation, to think that elections are a fundamental part of a democracy. Whenever we speak of a country opening itself to democracy, the first thing we talk of is open elections. If a newly formed government manages to hold fair elections, we call it a triumph for democracy. But why is this? What does an election symbolize for us that give it such status?
Thankfully, the US is in a perpetual election cycle, so one needs simply to turn on the TV or radio or read an article to find the answer. A couple of examples should suffice:
QUESTIONS: But, today I want to investigate with you whether elections are really democratic at all, let alone function as expressions of the will of the people and as a form of accountability? To get at this problem, I want to look back to the first democracy, the democracy of ancient Athens and to think about the nature of Athens’ democracy, what were its ideals, what were some of its practical manifestations and, finally, what a fuller understanding of the Athenian model might offer us as Americans when considering our own assessments of democracy and its mechanisms. Specifically, did the Athenians conceive of elections as fundamental to their democracy? Were elections an expression of the DEMOS? And, finally, were they a measure of accountability for officials?
To start, I should highlight some of the major components of Athenian democracy for you to put some of the differences between our two systems into perspective:
One thing that sticks out from even a very rough sketch of the development of Athenian democracy over that period is the lack of prominence given elections. In fact, with exception for highly specialized offices, there is a distinct move away from them. As the democracy became more radical (i.e. based on the broadest citizen base), fewer posts were elected or even restricted to the upper classes, but were instead drawn by lot.
We Americans love elections so much, we even vote for positions like county coroner. In ancient Athens, however, they only had two categories of elected posts: military leadership and accountants; both highly specialized positions where you might want someone with certain skill sets—and incidentally, military leaders were the only individuals who could be elected to office consecutively and for more than 2 years total. Every other office, including the highest, the archon, was appointed by lottery drawn from all eligible citizens. The restriction on elected offices suggests that election was not considered the best way to put people into office. The Athenians preferred the whimsy of the lottery gods. Why? Our best sources on answering this question are actually the critics of Athenian democracy (most of our sources about the democracy are from those who were hostile to it—it is often said that political theory originated to try to show how democracy can’t work).
ANCIENT CRITIQUES. One of the greatest criticisms from antiquity leveled at the Athenian democracy was that it preferred to give power to the lower-class, under-educated, morally degenerate masses. Aristophanes’ Knights parodies demagogues (in this instance a Sausage-seller and a tanner named Paphlagon) pandering to the Demos instead of acting in the city’s best interest. In the world of the comedy (a political satire), the quality of the leadership and the quality of the democracy itself were intimately linked: as one went downhill, so did the other. The so-called Old Oligarch (who was likely not as old as his curmudgeonly moniker suggests), another fifth-century Athenian, tells that the Athenians were well aware of the moral questionability of their leaders, but saw this as the best way to guarantee the survival of democracy. He writes:
Democracy, in this context, according to opponents of the system, is not interested in good government per se, but rather in preserving the rights and privileges of the ordinary and lower class citizens. Lack of elections, for the Old Oligarch, falls under the penumbra of ways in which the lower classes preserve the democracy at the expense of good government. We’ll consider why in a moment. But the lottery works for those whose interests seem to be most tied to the democracy. The lower classes. They provided Athens with its strength because Athens was a naval power with an empire that depended on a strong fleet. The lower classes manned the fleet, built the ships, provide the helmsmen etc. In other words, as the Old Oligarch goes on to tell us, since Athens’ power in the international community was based on naval strength and the lower classes were the bulwark of the navy, they rightly held power.
Of course, concerning the only elected offices, the Old Oligarch points out:
What does the Old Oligarch’s position tell us about the role of elections in democratic Athens taken in combination with the actual development of the democracy itself? It tells us a number of things. First, it assumes that elections were advantageous to the “noble and respectable” citizens: namely, the aristocrats, also known as “the capable”. Second, it tells us that elections were not perceived of as in the best interest of democracy. Elections, in fact, are a threat to democracy since, as the Old Oligarch tells us later, if the so-called respectable citizens made the laws, they would not allow anyone they deemed ‘mad’ (i.e. from the mob; hoi polloi) to take part in city affairs.
So, one of the major components of our modern conception of democracy, elections, was conceived of in democratic Athens as un-democratic. Why? Because elections implied that some citizens were more capable, and therefore, perhaps, more equal than others. And the Athenians, while they did not believe that all humans were equal in all ways, had a political system that was premised absolutely on the equality of all citizens before and under the law, isonomia the fundamental principle of Athenian democracy.
Perhaps this is why Pericles, whom we will see more of shortly, in his great Funeral Oration as recounted by the historian Thucydides, is so keen to point out that Athenians were advanced in public through merit, not class (Thuc. 2.37). Athenians were suspicious of those who sought elected office because only the wealthy and aristocratic citizens tended to run. Why, we might ask ourselves? Again, because the aristocracy themselves conceived of popular elections as a badge of honor, a mark of their superiority, not only to other aristocrats, but rather to the people in general.
So, elections were not considered “democratic,” but rather a holdover from Athens’ pre-democratic days, but perhaps, like certain other aspects of Athens’ system, a way to harness the wealth of the aristocracy to its own needs. This brings us to the second issue at hand: accountability. Even if elections weren’t democratic, were they at least an accountability measure? There was one election in Athens—an important one—that no one wanted to win and that might have been a clear accountability measure: OSTRACISM.
OSTRACISM was a sort of reverse election. Every year, the Athenians would gather and vote on a single individual whom they would like to see exiled from the city. If a quorum of 6000 citizens voted and one individual got a majority, then he would be required to leave Attica for the 10-year period. He would not lose his property rights or his citizen status, but he could not return for the 10 years (unless recalled: a rare occasion). Although ostracism was supposedly created as a part of Cleisthenes’ reforms in 508 BC (the modern date for the founding of the democracy) and was aimed at keeping would-be tyrants at bay, it was not actually used until two decades after the reforms when in 487BC a number of men formerly associated with the Peisistratid family, who had ruled Athens from 547-514BC, were ostracized (an event likely tied to the appearance of one of the Peisistratids with the Persian army at the battle of Marathon in 490 BC).
Could such an election be considered a measure for accountability? It seems unlikely actually. Men who had performed great services for Athens, like Miltiades the leading general at the battle of Marathon in 490BC and Themistocles, the architect of Athenian naval policy during the 480s and the hero of Salamis, or Cimon, the leading general in the expansion of Athens’ empire in the 460s, could find themselves out of Athens very soon after their triumphs. This “election” was apparently targeted at preventing any single individual from gaining too much authority. But, it could be rigged, as the cache (CASH) of thousands of ostraka with the name Themistocles on them attests. One need not have done anything other than be prominent or be associated with the wrong family or fall victim to political chicanery to be ostracized. Such chicanery was actually not difficult since the majority of the population was not literate. The mass of ostraka with a single name on it for Themistocles was all carved by the same hand—this suggests something like a campaign “Vote for Themistokles! Get your ostraka here!”
Being ostracized was like being elected general (especially given that many of the ostracized had been generals)—it was not so much a mark of merit but rather name recognition, thus the ostraka with a single name being passed out by the thousands. It is not a coincidence that men whose fathers had been generals (like Pericles and Cimon, or Pericles Jr.) became generals themselves without any previous command experience. And in a few cases, their own fathers had been ostracized as well (both Pericles’ and Cimon’s fathers were).
What about regular elections, not ostracism? ARE THESE ELECTIONS A VALID METHOD FOR HOLDING OFFICIALS ACCOUNTABLE IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY? According to the Athenians, they were not. An example from the Peloponnesian War will make this clearer.
During the first year of the Peloponnesian War (a war that continued off and on for about 28 years starting in 431 BC), Athens adopted a defensive strategy at the behest of its leading politician and one of the 10 generals, Pericles. This strategy entailed the following: 1. Withdrawal of all citizens from Attica into the city behind the long walls; 2. Maintain and continue strengthening of the navy by which all of Athens’ supplies could be delivered during any Spartan campaigns in Attica; 3. Maintain the status quo in the empire. Pericles thought it best to keep a firm grip on what Athens already had instead of attempting to expand further. This was a good strategy and Thucydides suggests that had the Athenians been able to effectively follow it, they may have, in fact, won the Peloponnesian War or, as was Pericles’ apparent aim, draw a stalemate.
One consequence of Pericles strategy, however, was both unexpected and devastating—the plague. The plague struck at the beginning of the second year of the war and was the result of a virus carried on a grain ship from Egypt. Under normal circumstances, it is probable that a few people and animals would have died, but because of the increased population in the city (up from 30,000 to at least 4 times that number, with people sleeping in public buildings, temples, etc.), the plague spread like wild fire. The Athenians were sorely distressed. Add to this the fact that the Athenians, who prided themselves on their courage in war, were forced to watch from the walls as the Spartans, for a second straight year, pillaged and laid waste their farms. It did not make for a good situation.
As a result, Thucydides tells us, “a change came over the spirit of the Athenians...They began to find fault with Pericles, as author of the war and the cause of all their misfortune...” (2.59). What follows this statement is a speech by Pericles (which we will come back to shortly). Thucydides goes on to tell us of the people’s reaction:
What are we to make of such a thing? The people obviously held Pericles responsible for their sufferings, and rightly so, some would say, since it was his policy which led directly to their two biggest complaints, the unchallenged ravishing of their homesteads by the Spartans and the spread of the plague. And yet they re-elected him. Why?
Thucydides is a biased observer. It is well accepted that Pericles is, for Thucydides, as close to the ideal statesman as can be. No one can compare. But even within the frame of Thucydides’ bias, there is something sincere that can be understood about the demos’s desire to reelect Pericles while still not agreeing with or endorsing his policy. And that is grounded within the rhetoric of the speech Thucydides gives Pericles to calm the people’s anger.
Pericles will appeal to three sentiments of the Athenians: Patriotism, self-responsibility and resolve in time of war. And it is the arousal of these sentiments that will convince the Athenians, despite their misgivings, to re-elect Pericles as the most capable man of carrying them through to the end of the war. Let’s look at a bit of the rhetoric:
Pericles’ rhetoric works on many levels. First, he co-opts the people into responsibility repeatedly by reminding them that, though war was his recommendation, they did vote for it in the Assembly. How can they now be angry when the war does not go as easily as they had hoped? Secondly, he reminds them that uncontrollable emergencies, like the plague, happen. The best citizens know how to deal with these setbacks and prevail. Next, Pericles emphasizes that the fate of a single individual is truly nothing when compared to the greater good. In fact, the true sign of a great patriot is to submerge his own identity beneath that of the city and be prepared to sacrifice for its sake. If an individual falls, the state will survive. If the state falls, the individual cannot survive. Lastly, and most importantly, Pericles plays on the greatness of the city and the vast benefits the citizens receive as a result of being citizens at Athens and he reminds them of how they were first invaded by the enemy and yet did not buckle. They showed great fortitude, worthy of their great name, worthy of their great city, and should continue to do so even as the war turns unpleasant. That the Athenians reelect Pericles despite their disagreement with his particular policy should not be surprising in the face of such a rhetorical onslaught. He has pressed all the right buttons. But is the reelection an endorsement of Pericles’ policy as such? Is it an accountability moment? Absolutely not. When Pericles dies that same year, the Athenians immediately resolve upon an aggressive offensive policy that is in direct conflict with Pericles’ defensive strategy (Five major expeditions in 2 years, in fact).
Consider also that Pericles’ position is one of the few elected positions, that of general. The people are obviously unhappy with his performance in the course of the war, but he is re-elected because he is a known entity having been general every year for the last decade and his father had been general before him. Pericles’ rhetorical strategy emphasizes his steadfastness, his experience and the idea of responsibility—the qualities almost always viewed as favorable in times of instability. Pericles was no flip-flopper. Regardless of how positive Thucydides presents Pericles and his re-election, Thucydides’ statement that the people re-elected him because they recognized that he was the best man, the most capable, reinforces the Old Oligarch’s contention that elections favor the aristocracy, not the demos because name recognition trumps agreement or disagreement with actual policy.
Thus, when Thucydides gives his encomium of Pericles (Pericles’ death is mentioned right after the people fine him and reelect him) and tells us that, while Pericles lived, Athens was a democracy in name only but in truth a rule by its first citizen, we understand what?
So, if elections weren’t democratic nor measures of accountability, what was a democratic accountability measure in ancient Athens? The EUTHUNA, which is probably the process by which Pericles was removed from office and fined in the situation just discussed and which has no parallel in American system. The euthuna, in fact, is, in some ways, in direct opposition, to the American way of thinking. We seem to prefer to hear all the juicy tidbits of an administration in best-seller form some time after that magistrate’s tenure has ended, preferably at a safe distance in time from the actual events. Any sort of accountability procedures initiated during an officials’ tenure or shortly thereafter is often considered, at least in Washington, as political shenanigans. The Athenians demanded an accounting on the spot.
EUTHUNAI: The euthuna was a powerful tool for keeping check on officials, especially elected officials like the board of generals, though it applied to all officials, elected or lottery. Its purpose seems to have been to intimidate officials from taking bribes and from extorting funds: they had to give a reckoning of all money spent at the end of term as part of the process. A downside to this may have been, especially in the case of military officials, a hindrance to aggressive and sometimes necessary but unpleasant actions in war. One very prominent example of this is the fate of the generals at the battle of Arginusae in 406BC, with which I will end my talk today. It is an extreme account of accountability of public officials, but that was its purpose. It was meant to underscore the absolute power of the people over their elected officials.
Our main source for the events surrounding the battle of Arginusae is Xenophon’s Hellenica:
The primary defense speech on behalf of the generals’ right to individual trials is likely the key to understanding the centrality of accountability for the democracy. One Athenian, Euryptolemus asks of the Assembly:
Euryptolemus’ question is on a point of law, but it hits at the heart of the matter, the people’s fears that they will wake up one day and their authority over their officials would disappear and along with it, their democracy. This is exactly, I might add, what had happened only 5 years earlier when a group of aristocratic citizens, known as the 400 Oligarchs, convinced the Assembly to vote itself out of existence for the sake of state security. It would also happen again, only 3 years later, when a group of 30 aristocrats became tyrants of Athens and disbanded the courts, disenfranchised 90% of the citizen- body and executed without trial 1000s of residents and confiscated their property. Perhaps their fears weren’t so irrational?
What, then, can we conclude about the relationship between elections, accountability of public officials and democracy in Athens?
Does this mean that our democracy has no method for holding officials accountable since we don’t have a public reckoning upon the completion of a term in office? Not necessarily. But it does mean that maybe we should be a little more cautious when touting the upcoming elections as a true measure of accountability on the policies of a party or administration, or of thinking that any radical change could be affected by simply electing new members of the American governing class into the White House.
One reason why studying the ancient world can be useful and interesting is because it provides us with models through which to consider the contemporary world. The ancients are at once alien and familiar to us. No, of course, ancient Athenian democracy is different from the modern American version. But many of the institutions we have, the ideals upon which they are founded and the rhetoric to which we turn in discussing them do have their roots in Ancient Athens (as well as, of course, Rome).
The Athenian evidence at the very least should lead us to question whether elections such as ours are really cut out for doing the democratic work we ask of them. The Athenian evidence also gives us a license to do something becoming almost completely forbidden in our modern Democracy – criticize it. Could there be a better way of holding our officials to account? What would a modern euthuna look like? What would it do? What about introducing a lottery for officials? Think about what that would mean for us? When our own democracy seems to many ineffective, or dysfunctional, a look at the earliest attempts to open up government to the whole community can be a remarkably powerful tool, even a dangerous one. Thinking about Athens was certainly beneficial a few centuries ago for a certain group of men considering establishing a new form of democratic government in their newly liberated community. But, they were elites and they rejected the Athenian model as too radical with too much power in the hands of the “people”. Maybe we should rethink Athens and reconsider whether the Founding Fathers were right about that.
Today I want to talk about the role of elections in a democracy through the lens of the ancient Athenian democracy. Modern Americans tend, despite their low rates of participation, to think that elections are a fundamental part of a democracy. Whenever we speak of a country opening itself to democracy, the first thing we talk of is open elections. If a newly formed government manages to hold fair elections, we call it a triumph for democracy. But why is this? What does an election symbolize for us that give it such status?
Thankfully, the US is in a perpetual election cycle, so one needs simply to turn on the TV or radio or read an article to find the answer. A couple of examples should suffice:
- For example, when the democrats took control of both the House and Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, politicians, journalist and pundits alike referred to the victory as a “rebuke of” or “referendum on” the former President Bush’s war policy. One journalist referred to the Democrats as “riding a powerful wave of public anger over the war in Iraq and scandal at home.” We have now heard the same message repeatedly during the Tea Party “wave” that took back the House—it was a referendum on President Obama’s health care or other policies. The next election will supposedly be a referendum on someone’s economic policy, be it the President, the Democrats, or the House Republicans—take your pick.
- I want to get into the Way-back machine for this one and go to the 2004 elections: In a Washington Post article after the elections, journalists summed up former President Bush’s understanding of the election results. According to the article, the then president said that: ...the public’s decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath. “We had an accountability moment, and that’s called the 2004 election”. When the Obama administration took over in 2008, there was a push to investigate the Bush administration on issues relating to the war in Iraq, among other things. But no investigation materialized. Perhaps Bush was right and the accountability moment had passed (despite the 2006 midterm “rebuke”).
QUESTIONS: But, today I want to investigate with you whether elections are really democratic at all, let alone function as expressions of the will of the people and as a form of accountability? To get at this problem, I want to look back to the first democracy, the democracy of ancient Athens and to think about the nature of Athens’ democracy, what were its ideals, what were some of its practical manifestations and, finally, what a fuller understanding of the Athenian model might offer us as Americans when considering our own assessments of democracy and its mechanisms. Specifically, did the Athenians conceive of elections as fundamental to their democracy? Were elections an expression of the DEMOS? And, finally, were they a measure of accountability for officials?
To start, I should highlight some of the major components of Athenian democracy for you to put some of the differences between our two systems into perspective:
- Direct participation by all members of the citizen body. All citizens had the right to sit in the Assembly and vote on legislations directly. After a certain age, they were also able to speak on and propose legislation of their own. Also, pretty much every citizen would at one point in their life serve as one of the members of the Council that was in charge of running the Assembly meetings and setting the daily agendas.
- Eleutheria: freedom as a political value. It is rather abstract but in practice was manifested through things like parrhesia—freedom of speech in the assembly and in the courts.
- Isonomia: equality before the law—not social or economic equality, but political. This is actually the word used, it seems, for the system of government the Athenians had; demokratia came into use only late in the fifth century BC and was originally a slur used by opponents of the system.
- Lottery: The majority of offices were chosen by lottery.
- 5. Access to Courts: The Athenians themselves, considered the courts as the defining institution of democracy. One of the earliest democratic reforms, it originally gave all citizens the right to appeal a magistrate’s sentence to a jury of their peers. By the fifth century BC, it was a regular cottage industry with nearly 1/5 of the citizen population sitting on juries every day (the first 6000 citizens to arrive would be included in the jury pool); nearly every building in the town center itself functioned as a courthouse and their public and private art was filled with depictions of jury votes and court hearings. POLYPRAGMOSUNE (Being a Busy-Body)
- Euthuna: The essence of the euthuna was that all magistrates, regardless of whether they were elected by vote or appointed by lottery, were required at the end of their term to undergo a reckoning of their tenure in office. Citizens had a designated three-day period to lodge a complaint against an outgoing official. If the board (drawn by lot, one from each of the 10 tribes) decided there was evidence enough, a trial would be held in the Assembly and the magistrate would have to answer the charges.
One thing that sticks out from even a very rough sketch of the development of Athenian democracy over that period is the lack of prominence given elections. In fact, with exception for highly specialized offices, there is a distinct move away from them. As the democracy became more radical (i.e. based on the broadest citizen base), fewer posts were elected or even restricted to the upper classes, but were instead drawn by lot.
We Americans love elections so much, we even vote for positions like county coroner. In ancient Athens, however, they only had two categories of elected posts: military leadership and accountants; both highly specialized positions where you might want someone with certain skill sets—and incidentally, military leaders were the only individuals who could be elected to office consecutively and for more than 2 years total. Every other office, including the highest, the archon, was appointed by lottery drawn from all eligible citizens. The restriction on elected offices suggests that election was not considered the best way to put people into office. The Athenians preferred the whimsy of the lottery gods. Why? Our best sources on answering this question are actually the critics of Athenian democracy (most of our sources about the democracy are from those who were hostile to it—it is often said that political theory originated to try to show how democracy can’t work).
ANCIENT CRITIQUES. One of the greatest criticisms from antiquity leveled at the Athenian democracy was that it preferred to give power to the lower-class, under-educated, morally degenerate masses. Aristophanes’ Knights parodies demagogues (in this instance a Sausage-seller and a tanner named Paphlagon) pandering to the Demos instead of acting in the city’s best interest. In the world of the comedy (a political satire), the quality of the leadership and the quality of the democracy itself were intimately linked: as one went downhill, so did the other. The so-called Old Oligarch (who was likely not as old as his curmudgeonly moniker suggests), another fifth-century Athenian, tells that the Athenians were well aware of the moral questionability of their leaders, but saw this as the best way to guarantee the survival of democracy. He writes:
When the poor, the ordinary people and the lower classes flourish and increase in numbers, then the power of the democracy will be increased; if however, the rich and the respectable flourish, the democrats increase the strength of their opponents (1.4).
Democracy, in this context, according to opponents of the system, is not interested in good government per se, but rather in preserving the rights and privileges of the ordinary and lower class citizens. Lack of elections, for the Old Oligarch, falls under the penumbra of ways in which the lower classes preserve the democracy at the expense of good government. We’ll consider why in a moment. But the lottery works for those whose interests seem to be most tied to the democracy. The lower classes. They provided Athens with its strength because Athens was a naval power with an empire that depended on a strong fleet. The lower classes manned the fleet, built the ships, provide the helmsmen etc. In other words, as the Old Oligarch goes on to tell us, since Athens’ power in the international community was based on naval strength and the lower classes were the bulwark of the navy, they rightly held power.
Of course, concerning the only elected offices, the Old Oligarch points out:
They (the demos) do not suppose that they ought to be able to cast lots for the post of general or commander of the cavalry, for they realize that they gain greater advantage from not holding these offices themselves but allowing the most capable to hold them (1.3).
What does the Old Oligarch’s position tell us about the role of elections in democratic Athens taken in combination with the actual development of the democracy itself? It tells us a number of things. First, it assumes that elections were advantageous to the “noble and respectable” citizens: namely, the aristocrats, also known as “the capable”. Second, it tells us that elections were not perceived of as in the best interest of democracy. Elections, in fact, are a threat to democracy since, as the Old Oligarch tells us later, if the so-called respectable citizens made the laws, they would not allow anyone they deemed ‘mad’ (i.e. from the mob; hoi polloi) to take part in city affairs.
So, one of the major components of our modern conception of democracy, elections, was conceived of in democratic Athens as un-democratic. Why? Because elections implied that some citizens were more capable, and therefore, perhaps, more equal than others. And the Athenians, while they did not believe that all humans were equal in all ways, had a political system that was premised absolutely on the equality of all citizens before and under the law, isonomia the fundamental principle of Athenian democracy.
Perhaps this is why Pericles, whom we will see more of shortly, in his great Funeral Oration as recounted by the historian Thucydides, is so keen to point out that Athenians were advanced in public through merit, not class (Thuc. 2.37). Athenians were suspicious of those who sought elected office because only the wealthy and aristocratic citizens tended to run. Why, we might ask ourselves? Again, because the aristocracy themselves conceived of popular elections as a badge of honor, a mark of their superiority, not only to other aristocrats, but rather to the people in general.
So, elections were not considered “democratic,” but rather a holdover from Athens’ pre-democratic days, but perhaps, like certain other aspects of Athens’ system, a way to harness the wealth of the aristocracy to its own needs. This brings us to the second issue at hand: accountability. Even if elections weren’t democratic, were they at least an accountability measure? There was one election in Athens—an important one—that no one wanted to win and that might have been a clear accountability measure: OSTRACISM.
OSTRACISM was a sort of reverse election. Every year, the Athenians would gather and vote on a single individual whom they would like to see exiled from the city. If a quorum of 6000 citizens voted and one individual got a majority, then he would be required to leave Attica for the 10-year period. He would not lose his property rights or his citizen status, but he could not return for the 10 years (unless recalled: a rare occasion). Although ostracism was supposedly created as a part of Cleisthenes’ reforms in 508 BC (the modern date for the founding of the democracy) and was aimed at keeping would-be tyrants at bay, it was not actually used until two decades after the reforms when in 487BC a number of men formerly associated with the Peisistratid family, who had ruled Athens from 547-514BC, were ostracized (an event likely tied to the appearance of one of the Peisistratids with the Persian army at the battle of Marathon in 490 BC).
Could such an election be considered a measure for accountability? It seems unlikely actually. Men who had performed great services for Athens, like Miltiades the leading general at the battle of Marathon in 490BC and Themistocles, the architect of Athenian naval policy during the 480s and the hero of Salamis, or Cimon, the leading general in the expansion of Athens’ empire in the 460s, could find themselves out of Athens very soon after their triumphs. This “election” was apparently targeted at preventing any single individual from gaining too much authority. But, it could be rigged, as the cache (CASH) of thousands of ostraka with the name Themistocles on them attests. One need not have done anything other than be prominent or be associated with the wrong family or fall victim to political chicanery to be ostracized. Such chicanery was actually not difficult since the majority of the population was not literate. The mass of ostraka with a single name on it for Themistocles was all carved by the same hand—this suggests something like a campaign “Vote for Themistokles! Get your ostraka here!”
Being ostracized was like being elected general (especially given that many of the ostracized had been generals)—it was not so much a mark of merit but rather name recognition, thus the ostraka with a single name being passed out by the thousands. It is not a coincidence that men whose fathers had been generals (like Pericles and Cimon, or Pericles Jr.) became generals themselves without any previous command experience. And in a few cases, their own fathers had been ostracized as well (both Pericles’ and Cimon’s fathers were).
What about regular elections, not ostracism? ARE THESE ELECTIONS A VALID METHOD FOR HOLDING OFFICIALS ACCOUNTABLE IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY? According to the Athenians, they were not. An example from the Peloponnesian War will make this clearer.
During the first year of the Peloponnesian War (a war that continued off and on for about 28 years starting in 431 BC), Athens adopted a defensive strategy at the behest of its leading politician and one of the 10 generals, Pericles. This strategy entailed the following: 1. Withdrawal of all citizens from Attica into the city behind the long walls; 2. Maintain and continue strengthening of the navy by which all of Athens’ supplies could be delivered during any Spartan campaigns in Attica; 3. Maintain the status quo in the empire. Pericles thought it best to keep a firm grip on what Athens already had instead of attempting to expand further. This was a good strategy and Thucydides suggests that had the Athenians been able to effectively follow it, they may have, in fact, won the Peloponnesian War or, as was Pericles’ apparent aim, draw a stalemate.
One consequence of Pericles strategy, however, was both unexpected and devastating—the plague. The plague struck at the beginning of the second year of the war and was the result of a virus carried on a grain ship from Egypt. Under normal circumstances, it is probable that a few people and animals would have died, but because of the increased population in the city (up from 30,000 to at least 4 times that number, with people sleeping in public buildings, temples, etc.), the plague spread like wild fire. The Athenians were sorely distressed. Add to this the fact that the Athenians, who prided themselves on their courage in war, were forced to watch from the walls as the Spartans, for a second straight year, pillaged and laid waste their farms. It did not make for a good situation.
As a result, Thucydides tells us, “a change came over the spirit of the Athenians...They began to find fault with Pericles, as author of the war and the cause of all their misfortune...” (2.59). What follows this statement is a speech by Pericles (which we will come back to shortly). Thucydides goes on to tell us of the people’s reaction:
Such were the arguments by which Pericles tried to cure the Athenians of their anger against him and to divert their thoughts from the immediate afflictions. As a community he succeeded in convincing them; they not only gave up all idea of sending to Sparta for peace, but applied themselves with increased energy to the war; still, as private individuals they could not help smarting under their sufferings...In fact, public feeling against him did not subside until he had been fined. Not long afterwards, however, according to the way of the multitude, they again elected him general and again committed all their affairs to his hands, having now become less sensitive to their private and domestic afflictions, and understanding that he was the best man of all for the needs of the state (Thuc. 2.65.2-4).
What are we to make of such a thing? The people obviously held Pericles responsible for their sufferings, and rightly so, some would say, since it was his policy which led directly to their two biggest complaints, the unchallenged ravishing of their homesteads by the Spartans and the spread of the plague. And yet they re-elected him. Why?
Thucydides is a biased observer. It is well accepted that Pericles is, for Thucydides, as close to the ideal statesman as can be. No one can compare. But even within the frame of Thucydides’ bias, there is something sincere that can be understood about the demos’s desire to reelect Pericles while still not agreeing with or endorsing his policy. And that is grounded within the rhetoric of the speech Thucydides gives Pericles to calm the people’s anger.
Pericles will appeal to three sentiments of the Athenians: Patriotism, self-responsibility and resolve in time of war. And it is the arousal of these sentiments that will convince the Athenians, despite their misgivings, to re-elect Pericles as the most capable man of carrying them through to the end of the war. Let’s look at a bit of the rhetoric:
Thuc. 2.60.2-4: I am of opinion that national greatness is more for the advantage of private citizens, than any individual well being coupled with public humiliation. A man may be personally ever so well off, and yet if his country be ruined he must be ruined with it; whereas a flourishing commonwealth always affords chances of salvation to unfortunate individuals. Since then a state can support the misfortunes of private citizens, while they cannot support hers, it is surely the duty of every one to be forward in her defense, and not like you to be so confounded with your domestic afflictions as to give up all thoughts of the common safety, and to blame me for having counseled war and yourselves for having voted it.
Thuc. 2.61.4: Born, however, as you are, citizens of a great state, and brought up, as you have been, with habits equal to your birth, you should be ready to face the greatest disasters and still to keep unimpaired the luster of your name. For the judgment of mankind is as relentless to the weakness that falls short of a recognized renown, as it is jealous of the arrogance that aspires higher than its due. Cease then to grieve for your private afflictions, and address yourselves instead to the safety of the commonwealth.
Thuc. 2.64.1-3: But you must not be seduced by citizens like these nor be angry with me—who, if I voted for war, only did as you did yourselves—in spite of the enemy having invaded your country and done what you could be certain that he would do, if you refused to comply with his demands... Remember, too, that if your country has the greatest name in all the world, it is because she never bent before disaster; because she has expended more life and effort in war than any other city, and has won for herself a power greater than any hitherto known, the memory of which will descend to the latest posterity; even if now, in obedience to the general law of decay, we should ever be forced to yield, still it will be remembered that we held rule over more Hellenes than any other Hellenic state, that we sustained the greatest wars against their united or separate powers, and inhabited a city unrivalled by any other in resources or magnitude.
Pericles’ rhetoric works on many levels. First, he co-opts the people into responsibility repeatedly by reminding them that, though war was his recommendation, they did vote for it in the Assembly. How can they now be angry when the war does not go as easily as they had hoped? Secondly, he reminds them that uncontrollable emergencies, like the plague, happen. The best citizens know how to deal with these setbacks and prevail. Next, Pericles emphasizes that the fate of a single individual is truly nothing when compared to the greater good. In fact, the true sign of a great patriot is to submerge his own identity beneath that of the city and be prepared to sacrifice for its sake. If an individual falls, the state will survive. If the state falls, the individual cannot survive. Lastly, and most importantly, Pericles plays on the greatness of the city and the vast benefits the citizens receive as a result of being citizens at Athens and he reminds them of how they were first invaded by the enemy and yet did not buckle. They showed great fortitude, worthy of their great name, worthy of their great city, and should continue to do so even as the war turns unpleasant. That the Athenians reelect Pericles despite their disagreement with his particular policy should not be surprising in the face of such a rhetorical onslaught. He has pressed all the right buttons. But is the reelection an endorsement of Pericles’ policy as such? Is it an accountability moment? Absolutely not. When Pericles dies that same year, the Athenians immediately resolve upon an aggressive offensive policy that is in direct conflict with Pericles’ defensive strategy (Five major expeditions in 2 years, in fact).
Consider also that Pericles’ position is one of the few elected positions, that of general. The people are obviously unhappy with his performance in the course of the war, but he is re-elected because he is a known entity having been general every year for the last decade and his father had been general before him. Pericles’ rhetorical strategy emphasizes his steadfastness, his experience and the idea of responsibility—the qualities almost always viewed as favorable in times of instability. Pericles was no flip-flopper. Regardless of how positive Thucydides presents Pericles and his re-election, Thucydides’ statement that the people re-elected him because they recognized that he was the best man, the most capable, reinforces the Old Oligarch’s contention that elections favor the aristocracy, not the demos because name recognition trumps agreement or disagreement with actual policy.
Thus, when Thucydides gives his encomium of Pericles (Pericles’ death is mentioned right after the people fine him and reelect him) and tells us that, while Pericles lived, Athens was a democracy in name only but in truth a rule by its first citizen, we understand what?
- The interests of the many have been overshadowed by the will of an individual who has been granted extraordinary authority. But this authority is hidden under the guise of elections, thus somehow the people are voluntarily relinquishing this authority. There is a paternalism inherent in the elective process—the “best” men take care of the city on behalf of the less capable Demos (liturgies, benefactors, etc).
- The fact that his elected office is one that can be held year after year without restriction (unlike most lottery positions which can only be held twice ever and at 10 year intervals) suggests that their policies are not what is being voted on but only the power of the name.
- The re-election of Pericles in particular should not be viewed as an endorsement of his policies nor an act of accountability—they fined him just previous to re-electing him as a mark of their dissatisfaction. This, not the election, was the accountability moment. The complete reversal of his policies almost immediately upon his death suggests strongly that they did not agree with them and had little intention of continuing with them.
So, if elections weren’t democratic nor measures of accountability, what was a democratic accountability measure in ancient Athens? The EUTHUNA, which is probably the process by which Pericles was removed from office and fined in the situation just discussed and which has no parallel in American system. The euthuna, in fact, is, in some ways, in direct opposition, to the American way of thinking. We seem to prefer to hear all the juicy tidbits of an administration in best-seller form some time after that magistrate’s tenure has ended, preferably at a safe distance in time from the actual events. Any sort of accountability procedures initiated during an officials’ tenure or shortly thereafter is often considered, at least in Washington, as political shenanigans. The Athenians demanded an accounting on the spot.
EUTHUNAI: The euthuna was a powerful tool for keeping check on officials, especially elected officials like the board of generals, though it applied to all officials, elected or lottery. Its purpose seems to have been to intimidate officials from taking bribes and from extorting funds: they had to give a reckoning of all money spent at the end of term as part of the process. A downside to this may have been, especially in the case of military officials, a hindrance to aggressive and sometimes necessary but unpleasant actions in war. One very prominent example of this is the fate of the generals at the battle of Arginusae in 406BC, with which I will end my talk today. It is an extreme account of accountability of public officials, but that was its purpose. It was meant to underscore the absolute power of the people over their elected officials.
Our main source for the events surrounding the battle of Arginusae is Xenophon’s Hellenica:
- Now there are ten generals voted every year, one from each tribe. Of the generals for the year 406BC, eight were at the battle of Arginusae. These eight generals fought a naval engagement against the Spartans and were actually victorious. After the battle, however, the eight generals assigned two men, Theramenes and Thrasybulus , 47 ships with the task of picking up the bodies of the dead Athenians for burial. A severe storm arose that prevented the retrieval from being carried out and so the bodies were lost—failure to bury the bodies was a sacrilege that put the whole city at risk.
- Afterwards, 6 of the 8 generals returned to Athens to find themselves facing a trial for misconduct as generals for failure to retrieve the bodies. Interestingly enough, one of the main accusers was Theramenes (the man actually assigned to pick up the bodies—a CYA maneuver if ever there was one). After a series of procedural wranglings, including a measure to try the generals altogether instead of separately as was their right, the 8 generals (the 6 present and the 2 who did not return to Athens) were condemned to death for betraying the Athenian people. Accountability, indeed.
The primary defense speech on behalf of the generals’ right to individual trials is likely the key to understanding the centrality of accountability for the democracy. One Athenian, Euryptolemus asks of the Assembly:
What is it, pray, that you fear, that you are in such excessive haste? Do you fear lest you will lose the right to put to death and set free anyone you please if you proceed in accordance with the law, but think that you will retain this right if you proceed in violation of the law, by the method which Callixeinus persuaded the Assembly to report to the people, that is, by a single vote? (1.7.26; Slide 15)
Euryptolemus’ question is on a point of law, but it hits at the heart of the matter, the people’s fears that they will wake up one day and their authority over their officials would disappear and along with it, their democracy. This is exactly, I might add, what had happened only 5 years earlier when a group of aristocratic citizens, known as the 400 Oligarchs, convinced the Assembly to vote itself out of existence for the sake of state security. It would also happen again, only 3 years later, when a group of 30 aristocrats became tyrants of Athens and disbanded the courts, disenfranchised 90% of the citizen- body and executed without trial 1000s of residents and confiscated their property. Perhaps their fears weren’t so irrational?
What, then, can we conclude about the relationship between elections, accountability of public officials and democracy in Athens?
- Elections were seen as favoring the aristocratic members of society and were not favorable to the democracy.
- Accountability, especially of the few offices that were chosen by popular election, was seen as a lynch pin of the power of the people, given as far back as the time of Solon and considered a necessary component for a functioning democracy.
Does this mean that our democracy has no method for holding officials accountable since we don’t have a public reckoning upon the completion of a term in office? Not necessarily. But it does mean that maybe we should be a little more cautious when touting the upcoming elections as a true measure of accountability on the policies of a party or administration, or of thinking that any radical change could be affected by simply electing new members of the American governing class into the White House.
One reason why studying the ancient world can be useful and interesting is because it provides us with models through which to consider the contemporary world. The ancients are at once alien and familiar to us. No, of course, ancient Athenian democracy is different from the modern American version. But many of the institutions we have, the ideals upon which they are founded and the rhetoric to which we turn in discussing them do have their roots in Ancient Athens (as well as, of course, Rome).
The Athenian evidence at the very least should lead us to question whether elections such as ours are really cut out for doing the democratic work we ask of them. The Athenian evidence also gives us a license to do something becoming almost completely forbidden in our modern Democracy – criticize it. Could there be a better way of holding our officials to account? What would a modern euthuna look like? What would it do? What about introducing a lottery for officials? Think about what that would mean for us? When our own democracy seems to many ineffective, or dysfunctional, a look at the earliest attempts to open up government to the whole community can be a remarkably powerful tool, even a dangerous one. Thinking about Athens was certainly beneficial a few centuries ago for a certain group of men considering establishing a new form of democratic government in their newly liberated community. But, they were elites and they rejected the Athenian model as too radical with too much power in the hands of the “people”. Maybe we should rethink Athens and reconsider whether the Founding Fathers were right about that.