Hansen, Athenian Democracy [Part 5]
Liberty [eleutheria], as conceived by 4th century Athenians [10 mins.]
In his book The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles and Ideology, published in 1991, Mogens Herman Hansen wrote:
Chapter 4 [continued from part 4]
Liberty
The fundamental democratic ideal [in Athens] was eleutheria, liberty, which had two aspects: political liberty to participate in the democratic institutions, and private liberty to live as one pleased. The dual nature of eleutheria is most clearly described by Aristotle in the Politics:
[Quote] A basic principle of the democratic constitution is liberty. That is commonly said, and those who say it imply that only in this constitution do men share in liberty; for that, they say, is what every democracy aims at. Now, one aspect of liberty is being ruled and ruling in turn.... Another element is to live as you like. For this, they say, is what being free is about, since its opposite, living not as you like, is the condition of a slave. So this is the second defining principle of democracy, and from it has come the ideal of not being ruled, not by anybody at all if possible, or at least only in turn. [end quote]
[Another translation of this passage is in Jonathan Barnes (editor), The Complete Works of Aristotle, Princeton Press, 6th edition 1995]
[Quote] The basis of a democratic state is liberty; which, according to the common opinion of men, can only be enjoyed in such a state—this they affirm to be the great end of every democracy. One principle of liberty is for all to rule and be ruled in turn … Another is that a man should live as he likes. This, they say, is the mark of liberty, since, on the other hand, not to live as a man likes is the mark of a slave. This is the second characteristic of democracy, whence has arisen the claim of men to be ruled by none, if possible, or, if this is impossible, to rule and be ruled in turns; and so it contributes to the freedom based upon equality. [end quote]
Aristotle's description of democratic liberty is stated in general terms and there is no explicit reference to Athens, but all the sources show that in this respect the Athenians conformed to the norm. The ideal ‘to live as one pleases’ is praised as a fundamental democratic value by Otanes in the Constitutional Debate in Herodotos, by Athenian statesmen in Thucydides’ speeches, and by the orators in the speeches they delivered before the People's Court. And ‘to rule in turn’ is singled out by King Theseus in Euripides’ Suppliant Women as an essential feature of Athenian democracy.
For almost two centuries historians and philosophers have debated what relation, if any, there is between the Athenian ideal ‘to live as one pleases’ and the modern concept of individual freedom. Strangely enough, the emphasis has been on the differences rather than on the similarities.
It is often said that eleutheria was basically different from modern liberty because the principal aspect of being eleutheros was to be free as opposed to being a slave. That is true, and modern studies confirm that eleutheria in the sense of self-determination was rooted in the opposition free/slave, whereas the modern concept of liberty does not have slavery as its antonym (except in a metaphorical sense).
But eleutheria had different shades of meaning according to context; at least three different meanings are attested in the sources in three different contexts, social, political and constitutional.
Eleutheros in the sense of being free as opposed to being a slave applied both to citizens and to foreigners, and it applied to all types of city-state, since slaves existed in all poleis independent of their constitutions.
Eleutheros in the sense of autonomous as against being dominated by others was of course esteemed in both oligarchies and democracies. Of the thirty-one poleis that fought for freedom against the barbarians in the Persian Wars, most were oligarchies; and a century later, when Demosthenes advocated eleutheria in his political speeches, he was defending the freedom of all Greek states, not just the democracies, from Macedonian domination. Eleutheria in the sense of autonomia was the freedom of the polis, which is different from freedom within the polis.
As a constitutional concept, however, eleutheria was associated both with political participation in the public sphere and with personal freedom in the private sphere. Two considerations will suffice to show that eleutheria in the constitutional sense was different from eleutheria in the social sense (free versus slave) and in the political sense (city autonomy). FIRST, as a constitutional ideal eleutheria was specifically democratic and not a value praised in oligarchies or monarchies; the oligarchs (and the philosophers) did not have an alternative interpretation of eleutheria, as we shall see they had of equality; they simply rejected eleutheria as a mistaken ideal. SECOND, as a democratic ideal eleutheria (in the sense of personal freedom) applied not only to citizens, but also to metics and sometimes even to slaves. Thus, a slave, who in the social sphere was deprived of eleutheria, might well, in a democratic polis, be allowed a share in, for example, freedom of speech, though only privately and of course not in the political assemblies.
To sum up, the social, political and constitutional meanings of eleutheros were interconnected and the idea of self-determination lies behind them all, but the sources show that Greek democrats distinguished constitutional liberty from liberty in the two other senses and imposed the distinction on the rest, by inducing aristocrats and oligarchs to hate eleutheria as a mistaken democratic value.
Another alleged difference between individual liberty in ancient Athens and in modern liberal thought lies in the principles and arguments used to justify it. In modern democratic thought liberty is about the protection of individual rights against infringements by the state or by other people, whereas, it is held, Athenian liberty was not based on a clear notion of individual rights. Again, the sources support a rather different view.
Several of the orators state with approval the rule that no citizen could be executed without due process of law. Admittedly, thieves and robbers were not included: they could be put to death immediately if they were caught in the act and had to confess. But that limitation, though important, does not seriously alter the fact that ‘no execution without a trial’ was felt to be a right which all citizens enjoyed.
Another rule forbade torture of Athenian citizens. It was warranted by a decree (psephisma) probably passed immediately after the expulsion of the tyrants in 510/9 before the introduction of the democracy. It was nevertheless adopted by the democrats and, like the expulsion of the tyrants, was later associated with democracy. The principle that free men are exempt from corporal punishment is closely connected with democracy in Demosthenes' speech against Androtion.
The Athenian democracy further provided some protection of a citizen's home. Demosthenes was severely criticized by Aischines for breaking into a house and arresting the alleged traitor, Antiphon, without a warrant, i.e. a psephisma of the people, and in the Assembly Aeschines got his way and secured the man's release. Demosthenes, in his turn, accuses Androtion of having surpassed the Thirty in brutality: they had people arrested in the market-place, but, when exacting arrears of eisphora [property tax], Androtion conducted the Eleven to the debtors' houses and had them arrested there.
Finally in Aristotle's Constitution of Athens we are told that, [quote] ‘as soon as the archon enters upon his office, he proclaims through the public herald that whatever a person possessed before he entered upon his archonship he will have and possess until the end of his term’ [end quote]. Like the ban on torture of citizens, this is probably a survival from the sixth century. It may even go back to Solon and have been a measure to reassure the Athenians that, after the seisachtheia [Solon’s cancellation of obligations to overlords], no further infringements of private property would take place. But, even if the origin and original purpose of the proclamation are obscure, what we know for sure is that it was still made in the fourth century and understood as a guarantee that no redistribution of property would take place in Athens, as happened in other Greek poleis.
In addition to the protection of person, home and property, the most treasured of individual rights is freedom of speech, cherished by democrats but suppressed by supporters of authoritarian rule.
Once more we find the same ideal in democratic Athens, as in Demosthenes' remark that a basic difference between Spartan oligarchy and Athenian democracy is that in Athens you are free to praise the Spartan constitution and way of life, if you so wish, whereas in Sparta it is prohibited to praise any other constitution than the Spartan. The trial of Sokrates is evidence that the Athenians, for once, did not live up to their owns ideals, but the sentence passed on Sokrates is unparalleled in the history of Athenian democracy. A decree prohibiting the ridiculing of individuals in comedies was passed in 440 but abrogated four years later, and the decree of Diopeithes, of about the same date, which laid down that there should be a criminal prosecution of ‘atheists or astronomers’ may have led to a trial of Anaxagoras. The evidence for the other public prosecutions of philosophers for impiety — the trial of Protagoras, for instance — is anecdotal and dangerous to rely on without confirmation, and even the trial of Anaxagoras is not above suspicion: after Sokrates it was an accolade for a philosopher to be charged with impiety, and the Hellenistic biographers were eager to bestow the honour on quite a few of Sokrates' contemporaries.
It is not enough, however, to have laws and regulations protecting the citizens: there must also be ways of enforcing them when infringed by the democratic polis itself and its officials.
Consequently the Athenians provided for both public and private prosecution of magistrates. For example, at the end of their term of office, any citizen could bring a private suit against a magistrate for having infringed his rights, and every summer thirty officials sat three entire days in the Agora to receive written complaints handed in by the citizens. Since the magistrate was held to embody the polis, private euthynai and other similar types of prosecution were litigation between a citizen and the polis, in which the citizen might defeat the polis.
[Euthynai was the rendering of accounts. Public prosecution which all officials (magistrates, envoys, liturgists and others) had to undergo on the expiration of their term of office.] …
… The champions of Athenian democracy emphasized that citizens were protected by the rule of law, and preferred to blame cases of violation on the magistrates and political leaders rather than the demos or the polis itself. An obvious example is Aischines' praise of the rule of law in democratic Athens quoted above, where legal protection of the citizens is singled out as the hallmark of democracy. The comparison between the three constitutions in that passage leaves no doubt that the laws Aischines has in mind are laws binding the rulers, not the ruled.
In oligarchies and tyrannies citizens are exposed to the whims of their rulers; in democracies the laws protect the citizens. Against whom? Obviously against the political leaders and the magistrates, who must respect the democratic laws in their dealings with the citizens.
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The Source has been:
Mogens Herman Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles and Ideology, translated by J. A. Crook, Blackwell Publishers 1991
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