Ancient Greece first coined the concept of "democracy," yet almost every major ancient Greek thinker - from Plato and Aristotle onwards - was ambivalent towards or even hostile to democracy in any form. The explanation for this is quite simple: the elite perceived majority power as tantamount to
a dictatorship of the proletariat.
In ancient Greece there can be traced not only the rudiments of modern democratic society but the entire Western tradition of anti-democratic thought. In Democracy, Paul Cartledge provides a detailed history of this ancient political system. In
addition, by drawing out the salient differences between ancient and modern forms of democracy he enables a richer understanding of both.
Cartledge contends that there is no one "ancient Greek democracy" as pure and simple as is often believed. Democracy surveys the emergence and
development of Greek politics, the invention of political theory, and-intimately connected to the latter- the birth of democracy, first at Athens in c. 500 bce and then at its greatest flourishing in the Greek world 150 years later. Cartledge then traces the decline of genuinely democratic Greek
institutions at the hands of the Macedonians and - subsequently and decisively - the Romans. Throughout, he sheds light on the variety of democratic practices in the classical world as well as on their similarities to and dissimilarities from modern democratic forms, from the American and French
revolutions to contemporary political thought. Authoritative and accessible, Cartledge's book will be regarded as the best account of ancient democracy and its long afterlife for many years to come.
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Timeline
Prologue Introduction: Lost in Translation? Modern and Contemporary Appropriations of Democracy I
ACT I
1. Sources, Ancient and Modern
2. The Emergence of the Polis/Politics/the Political: Modern and Contemporary Appropriations
of Democracy II
ACT II
3. The Emergence of Greek Democracy I: Archaic Greece
4. The Emergence of Greek Democracy II: Athens 508/7
5. The Emergence of Greek Democracy III: Athens 508/7-451/0
6. Greek Democratic Theory?
7. Athenian Democracy in Practice c. 450-335
8.
Athenian Democracy: Culture and Society c. 450-335
9. Greek Democracy in Credit and Crisis I: Fifth Century
10. Athenian Democracy in Court: the Trials of Demos, Socrates and Ctesiphon
ACT III
11. Greek Democracy in Credit and Crisis II: The Golden Age of Greek Democracy (c.375-50)
and its Critics
12. Athenian Democracy at Work in the 'Age of Lycurgus'?
13. The Strange Death of Classical Greek Democracy: a Retrospect
ACT IV
14. Hellenistic 'Democracy'? Democracy in Deficit c. 323-86 BCE
15. Roman Republic: a sort of Democracy? I: Polybius's Roman
Constitution
II: the 'Millar Thesis'
16. Democracy Denied: the Roman and Early Byzantine Empire
17. Democracy Eclipsed: Late Antiquity, European Middle Ages & the Renaissance
ACT V
18. Democracy Revived I: England in the 17th Century II: France in the late 18th and early 19th
Centuries
19. Democracy Reinvented I: the United States in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries II: Tocqueville's America
20. Democracy Tamed: 19th-century Britain
Epilogue Democracy Now: Retrospect & Prospects
Endnotes: References and Further Reading
Bibliography
Index
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Paul Cartledge is A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus at the University of Cambridge. He is an honorary citizen of modern Sparta and holds the Gold Cross of the Order of Honor awarded by the President of Greece. His previous books include The Cambridge Illustrated History of
Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 1997, 2002), The Spartans (Random House, 2004), Alexander the Great (Random House, 2005), Thermopylae (Random House, 2007), Ancient Greece (OUP, 2009), and After Thermopylae: The Oath of Plataea and the End of the Graeco-Persian Wars (OUP, 2013).
