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Demos: The Men Who Made and Perfected Ancient Athenian Democracy

Khalid Elhassan January 13, 2025 16 min

Democracy - Ancient Athens — Ancient Athens. Imgur

1. The Last Great Athenian

In 431 BC, the drawn out Peloponnesian War (431 – 404 BC) between Athens and Sparta began. Pericles ably led his city in the first two years. He successfully neutralized Sparta’s advantages as the Greek world’s most formidable land power, and leveraged Athens’ sea power to take the war to Sparta and her allies. However, a plague struck Athens in 429 BC, and Pericles was one of its victims. Athens failed to produce another leader of Pericles’ caliber. The city, led by a series of lesser men during the prolonged conflict, lurched from mistake to mistake, until the war ended in catastrophic Athenian defeat and collapse in 404 BC.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Arid, Hamis – Pericles: The Rise and Fall of Athenian Democracy (2004)

Aristotle – Athenian Constitution

Classical Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 1 (1999) – Pisistratus’ Leadership and the Establishment of the Tyranny

Ehrenberg, Victor – From Solon to Socrates: Greek History and Civilization During the 6^th and 5^th Centuries BC (2010)

Encyclopedia Britannica – Solon

Encyclopedia Britannica – Peisistratos

Fine, John Van Antwerp – The Ancient Greeks: A Critical History (1983)

Gonick, Larry – The Cartoon History of the Universe, Volumes 1 – 7: From the Big Bang to Alexander the Great (1990)

Grant, Michael – The Rise of the Greeks (1987)

Herodotus – The Histories

Hignett, Charles – A History of the Athenian Constitution to the End of the Fifth Century BC (1962)

Laertius, Diogenes – Lives of the Eminent Philosophers: The Seven Sages

O’Neil, James L. – The Origins and Development of Ancient Greek Democracy (1995)

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.