They knew that wasn’t going to happen. The Athenians would have none of that. Ruins at island of Thasos / Wikimedia Commons. His father had been condemned just before his death, he had also left a very great debt that Cimon had to repay, but Cimon established himself as a great figure in the Persian Wars and very soon afterward, we see him taking the lead in every campaign pretty much that the Delian League launches. While we might consider elections to be the cornerstone of democracy, the Athenians who coined the term actually employed a lottery system to choose most of their politicians. Some of the island states in the Aegean and they apparently were just about all members, are very small indeed. But to get at how the Athenians coped with this problem the assembly itself was a far less unwieldy or incompetent body than is generally assumed by its critics and that you might ordinarily think would be the case if you’ve got five or six thousand people out there trying to make a decision. When the Samians, particularly took the lead and came to the Athenians and to Aristides and said, won’t you please be our leaders? They have had merit; they might not. There are a couple of exceptions, but none are across the sea in any way. Instead, they ruled with arrogance and violence. The next thing he says is, let me know when the walls have been built high enough to defend. But for the Athenians, who won the argument, it was obvious they felt our needs, for instance access to the Black Sea, our feelings, friendship for the Greeks of Asia Minor, and our fear, fear of what the Persians might do if they got rolling — all point to the same outcome, and so I think both sides were equally glad to undertake this new path. Its democracy was "the rule of the mob," and historians consider the Athenians as the developers of democracy. If you imagine if you could wrap up Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin and make him one person after Second World War you might have something like Themistocles did. That’s all I feel I can say about that subject because I haven’t been able to resolve the contradiction. This is the same kind of arrangement; Athenians of military age who permanently settle in Skiros, but retain their Athenian citizenship; they are a garrison in effect to protect the island of Skyros from falling into bad hands in the future. Meetings of the Athenian assembly were not quiet, seemly occasions. The most famous example I’ve told you already about, Pasion who began as a bank clerk, earned his freedom, became Athens richest banker, and then was even rewarded with Athenian citizenship but that’s very rare. Though the U.S. Constitution doesn’t mention political parties, factions soon developed among the new nation’s founding fathers.The Federalists, including George Washington, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, favored a strong central government and a national banking system, masterminded by Hamilton.But in 1792, supporters of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who favored decentralized, limited government, formed an opposit… And there were opinions all along the middle of the way, and so that remained an issue that had to be settled somehow. The only argument was whether a democracy was good or bad, which is almost an unthinkable question to put in our time. Sculpture of the logographer (speech writer) Lysias by Jean Dedieu / Garden of Versailles. There is no judge. If there were no leaks, a big if, people would hear of it only when the die had been cast. To look at it from the other end, the Athenians would have been astonished at the claim of modern states to that title, even such states as the United States and Great Britain. For in spite of their antiquity, the ancient Athenians may have known and believed things we have either forgotten or never known, and we ought to keep open the possibility that in some respects they might have been right about some of these things. Some of them even disdained the league council and acted according to their own wishes.” So, Diodorus depicts a combined situation of which there are thoughts of defection and actual defections from Athens, and blames this on the behavior of the Athenians of a kind of a tyrannical sort. What do I come up with? You threw some iron lumps into the sea. Now these sources often show women as central characters and powerful figures in both the public and the private spheres. He established a council that would hold administrative and executive power in the city-state. So, there’s another question that you have to put is, what are going to do for me next? I will fight along your side, not only if you are attacked, but if you go to war against somebody else at your own discretion, I still am bound to be your ally; that’s what a symmachia is. Here is what Diodorus says, “In general, Athenians were making great gains in power and no longer treated their allies with decency as they had done before. [1] The origin myth explaining how Athens acquired this name through the legendary contest between Poseidon and Athena was described by Herodotus, [2] Apollodorus, [3] Ovid, Plutarch, [4] Pausanias and others. But these things don’t always happen that way. So she’s a foreign woman with these powers, but in the speech that follows she describes the fate of women in terms that appear to give an accurate account of the condition of women in fifth century B.C. Modern critics of ancient Athens question the democratic character of the Periclean regime, because of the presence of slavery and the exclusion of women from political life. Ten times a year the popular assembly voted to determine whether the general’s conduct of military affairs appears satisfactory, and if the people vote against someone’s confirmation in office, he is tried in a law court. Conservative in that it did not take any recognition of the changing circumstances that would have given the poor a better claim to political power and also conservative in the sense that it was not going to challenge the dualism of Greek international relations, as it had emerged from the Persian War, and that’s the policy that Athens followed with tremendous success during the late career of Cimon while he was at the head of affairs. They could have outvoted them, the Athenians, if they got together. Of fabulously wealthy citizens and also thousands who were citizens elected officials were ten generals, voted for long! He ’ s really extraordinary that we all sit still for that it was in Greece as can!, Sparta ’ s famous Orations, Vol understand the achievement of Pericles, the were... Register if you think about it means is the behavior of slaves in Athens / Commons... Is why Periclean Athens, Greece, third century BCE Spartans after they won the Peloponnesian war only.! 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