Cleisthenes founds Athenian democracy
After the expulsion of the tyrant Hippias in 510 BC, Cleisthenes restructured Athenian citizenship. He broke up the four old tribal blocs — which were controlled by aristocratic families — and replaced them with ten new tribes drawn from geographically mixed demes. The Council of 500 was selected by lot from these demes. The Assembly (ekklesia) of all citizens voted directly on laws, war, and budgets. Sortition, not election, filled most offices. For the first time, a state's operating system was: citizens decide by counting votes.
Athenian democracy excluded women, slaves, and foreigners — about 80 percent of the population. But among the 20 percent who qualified as citizens, participation was radically equal: any citizen could speak in the Assembly and any citizen could be chosen by lot for the Council. No property requirement, no office requirement, no training.
03 · The Civic Experiment
For a thousand years across the Mediterranean, a radical experiment ran: the citizens themselves decided, by vote, in person, in public. Athens invented demokratia in 508 BC. Rome ran a republic from 509 BC with elected consuls and a formal senate. Both collapsed — Athens to Macedon, Rome to its own emperors — and the experiment was shelved. Europe then spent the next 1,300 years pretending it had never happened.
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