Athens and Democracy Term Papers

Ancient Athens could afford to be a democracy.  They city was small, and the class of people who were “citizens” was a smaller percentage of the total population.  It was easy for each of these men to gather together and decide upon the laws that would govern their city.  The war dead that Pericles honored were killed in the Peloponnesian War, which had begun in 431 BC because “Athens and Sparta…stood for opposing ideals of government and social organization”.  It did not end until 404 BC, with Sparta defeating Athens.  One direct result of Athens’ defeat was the overthrow of democracy by Critias, who set up a brutal tyranny.

The war, which dragged on for decades, raised the ire of many of Athens’ leading writers. Sophocles was a friend of Pericles and several of Sophocles’ characters and scenes mirror the battles of his friend Pericles as he helped lead Athens into the Peloponnesian War who gave their lives for the glory of Athens.  For example, in Sophocles’ famous Theban tragedies, the rule of law is adhered to despite the often tragic consequences that befall the leader.  Also, in Antigone, Creon’s policies force him into a tyrannical position against the heroine, who has broken the law.  Pericles was the accepted leader until the plague broke out, when he was then driven out of power because the disease was seen as divine retribution for war. Aristophanes, “the great comic poet,” wrote plays that satirized the Athenian democracy of his day.  Aristophanes even ridiculed the reign of Cleon, calling the successor to Pericles a demagogue.  Euripides’ plays, especially The Women of Troy and The Bacchae, read like anti-war sentiments.  In The Bacchae, a madness takes over the main characters, which can be read as the insanity of war supporters: “Soon the whole land will dance/When the god with ecstatic shout/Leads his companies out/…/Swarming with riotous bands…stung with the maddening trance/Of Dionysus”.

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