Democracy and Aristocracy in Ancient Athens: Deformation or Adaptation

Valerij Gouschin ()
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Valerij Gouschin: National Research University Higher School of Economics

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: The article analyzes the role of the aristocracy in democratic Athens, i.e. in the Vth Century B.C. What happened to the aristocracy in democratic Athens? Whether the aristocrats were able to adapt themselves to new social and political realities? It is suggested that there took place their division into democratic and aristocratic piliticians, a separation of democratically-oriented leaders (prostates tou demou), who managed to adapt to democratic instituions. The political actions of prostatai had features of demagogy. Thus we can assume that such a phenomenon as demagogy appeared much earlier than previously thought. The other part of aristocracy was not alien to demagogy as well. Suffice it to mention the efforts made by Thucydides son of Melesias, who created a political hybrid, of an aristocratic hetaireia which did not shun demagogic techniques

Keywords: Athenian democracy; Vth Century B.C.; demos; aristocracy; political leadership. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Z (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-pol
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Published in WP BRP Series: Humanities / HUM, June 2015, pages-21

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