Political Thinking on Kingship in Democratic Athens

Abstract

Democratic Athens seems to have been the first place in the Greek world where there developed systematically a positive theorising of kingship. Initially this might seem surprising, since the Athenians had a strong tradition of rejecting one-man-rule. The study of kingship among the political thinkers of the fifth and fourth century has not received much scholarly attention until recent years, and particularly not the striking fact that it was democratic Athens, or at least writers directing themselves to an Athenian democratic audience, that produced a positive theorising of kingship. The aim of this essay, then, is not only to show how the political language around kingship became a way of forming definitions of what democracy was and was not, but also (more significantly), among some fourth-century intellectuals, of shaping new ideas about what it could be.

A Positive Doctrine of Tyranny? The Rule of Law Vs. The Rule of a Tyrant in Archaic and Classical Greece

“…The underlying question is why those alliances felt the need to outlaw tyranny. Mitchell (2019) claims that tyranny as a political concept became anathematised only once the Persians invaded, and the notion of one-man rule had fallen into disrepute. Greeks united twice to resist Persia because of a common loathing of tyranny.…”

“… 8 Though right to criticise the arguments of Shear (2007) and Wilson (2009), which both claim that Demophantus’ decree preserved in the text of Andocides 1 ( On the Mysteries ) and the inscribed decree honouring the killers of Phrynichus belong to a resurgent democratic culture which anathematised tyranny, Mitchell (2019) 453 n. 40 argues nevertheless from an erroneous set of assumptions. As Canevaro and Harris (2012) 119–25 have now shown, the Demophantus decree, like the other documents quoted in the MSS of Andoc.…”

“…1.13), when tyranny was commonplace and re-entered the limelight when larger power structures, like the Delian and Peloponnesian Leagues, were not available anymore to uphold democracies or oligarchies in areas of the Greek world which had once fallen within the respective orbits of Athens and Sparta. In a related way, Mitchell (2019) has argued that negative attitudes to tyranny began to develop no earlier than in the aftermath of the Persian Wars, and that a morally affirmative notion of kingship evolved at Athens in the century that followed, at a time when democracy was increasingly held up to criticism among an intellectual elite. In support, Mitchell contends that the theory that 'the best man must rule' finds its most likely origin in the great (though probably fictitious) constitutional debate at Persia , and gained momentum in intellectual circles, when democracy was being held up to scrutiny.…”

“Ostracism”, the People’s Way of Protecting Democracy From Tyrants in Ancient Athens

“…It is possible to say that the road to Athenian democracy began with the abolition of the monarchy around 700 BC. In fact, from the seventh century onwards, the Athenians showed their opposition to the monarchy with their reactions and they united to resist (Mitchell, 2019).…”