TRANSGRESSING PIECEMEAL SUCCESSFULLY AGAINST DEMOCRACY LEADS TO ITS EVENTUAL TOTAL ELIMINATION
My attempt at “quotilazation” and a short look at Ancient Greek government
TRANSGRESSING PIECEMEAL SUCCESSFULLY AGAINST DEMOCRACY LEADS TO ITS EVENTUAL TOTAL ELIMINATION
Today I could not find a quote to satisfy my idea which is on my mind,
Really it might mean I’m all wet but I certainly don’t think so,
As I have learned about the chipping away at our democracy by others,
Now that I think much of this erosion has already taken place,
Somehow I wish to express it to all others who might take me seriously,
Governments of the world have had their paroxysms through time,
Realize with wide open eyes that that time is now upon us here,
Each day that goes by we see the scythes mowing steadily against us,
So perhaps it’s the time for this to truly be more than relevant,
Something is making me to peck away at my iPhone diligently,
I think the word transgressing fits the situation quite correctly,
Nothing can be gained by holding back in this hour of what I think,
Given the growing assault witnessed and justified by too many.
Pecking away at our democracy by these many assorted birds of prey,
It seems political scientists call this process backsliding of democracy,
Every inch this glacier moves puts us closer to calving into the ocean,
Can we realize that partisanship can take the front seat to democracy,
Each citizen not well versed in recognition of democracy is a factor,
Most likely some are more prone due to an authoritarian personality,
Each citizen lacking general trust in representation is the third,
And the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden should set off alarms,
Levels of polarization are high here, that too is a bellwether to problems.
So is our democratic glacier moving faster toward its instability,
Understand that perhaps it’s only a small alpine glacier in reality,
Certainly they get my attention - but others may quickly forget,
Counting upon spoiled citizens to retain democracy might be foolhardy,
Each person may become more competent in recognizing democracy,
So to perhaps some trust can be improved - but really with the right wing,
Such is constant that the authoritarian personality is always present,
Forging ahead in a status quo manner is not really an option,
Useless consternation about partisanship seems counterproductive,
Little do we have the luxury of in fighting within the Democratic Party,
Little can we allow for more Republican anti democracy,
Yes we have to be ultra vigilant with Trump and his MAGA around.
And the preponderance of valuing the Republican Party over all,
Given that so many have been mesmerized by the Trump sales job,
And we wish that the people we know weren’t part of a cult but they are,
In such a condition how can we expect them to differentiate democracy,
Now lip service toward democracy is the norm among almost all of us,
So we wait to watch actions as that is the real nitty-gritty,
Trump’s such a clear fascist but we’ve taken our time on his labeling.
Doesn’t it seem that Trump always used a jackhammer in his chipping,
Elicit, he has so befouled a political party already debased from big money,
Maliciousness has only spread and now seems rather impregnable,
Oh, I confess that I give his supporters the benefit of the doubt too much,
Certainly some still imagine themselves in 1980s Reagan-land,
Really, I suppose they can’t see the box they’re hunkered down in,
And it seems America is hamstrung in that there are only two parties,
Certainly democracy can’t compete against viral hatred and scapegoating,
Yes we’re the home of the brave but we’re ruled by cowardice.
Let’s just talk earnestly about the anti-democratic act of choosing voters,
Every year we witness Republicans further this crap in front of us,
And we’ve let them get away with it much too long now,
Democracy, if living, would spit out this vile practice in a heartbeat,
Somehow we’ve ceded this territory - it’s time to stop it dead.
Trump of course is only a fellow living for “by hook or by crook,”
Oh, but he’s only one of the most brazen of a whole lot of Republicans.
It is impossible to remember when Roger Stone wasn’t among the gaggle,
There is no doubt that George Washington is not tattooed on his back,
So many deviants, little time to name, our democracy against termites.
Each salami-slice cut from our democracy only puts us back a few yards,
Victory by the popular vote means nothing in our antiquated system,
Even the senate filibuster runs after democracy with a battle ax,
Now I expect such built in slave owner inequities to only remain,
Trump only plots to find more weaknesses to exploit against democracy,
Understand that the Trump Republicans are experts in charades,
And some Democrats aren’t too great too, but at a magnitude less,
Let me say that equal ethical comparisons between parties drives me nuts.
The mess we are in with this age of Trump and MAGA is only dire,
Only winning is important to Republicans - the same with Democrats,
That’s that Democrats must defeat the Republicans for national survival,
And somehow the poles shows it’s alarmingly close - how could that be,
Likely we will win to fight only for another day and that’s about it.
Elan vital - that moral nature of America - how off kilter is it really,
Liberal policies enacted seem almost an impossibility in this knife fight,
Each hunk chopped off the democracy tree trunk makes us hang fire,
Maybe that deepening notch cut will only hold a little longer,
It seems that the whittling of our democracy might raise more alarm,
Nation of my childhood has only degraded in life’s possibilities,
And I can’t but feel guilty it all happened on my citizen’s watch,
Trump was probably inevitable as too the country’s trajectory,
I guess all things change - and primarily for the detriment of most of us,
Only homage to many of the past probably makes it worth the struggle,
Now I certainly hope that a more perfect union is formed, fingers crossed.
To transgress against democracy in a subtle manner and be successful in such leads eventually to a propitious opportunity to completely eliminate all democracy.
— Me
I wished to educate myself a little on Ancient Greek democracy. I am certainly far from an authority on such. I’ve tried to find information most pertinent to twenty first century America. It seems that some problems between the wealth classes has only stayed the same. I’ve included some writing from John Dalberg, Lord Acton. He seemed an interesting fellow worthy of knowing about on his own. I’ve included quotes from many mentioned by Lord Acton which seem relevant to us now. It’s sort of “the weave” in writing, I hope you can follow. Ride along if you wish.
Title: The History of Freedom, and Other Essays
Author: Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton Acton
First Edition 1907
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John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, 13th Marquess of Groppoli, KCVO, DL (10 January 1834 – 19 June 1902), better known as Lord Acton, was an English Catholic historian, politician, and writer. A strong advocate for individual liberty, Acton is best known for his timeless observation on the dangers of concentrated authority. In an 1887 letter to an Anglican bishop, he famously wrote, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," underscoring his belief that unchecked power poses the greatest threat to human freedom. His works consistently emphasized the importance of limiting governmental and institutional power in favor of individual rights and personal liberty.
I have a litmus test of those who lived around the time of our civil war on their ideas about slavery. Lord Acton didn’t fair too well it might seem.
Lord Acton on American Slavery
Yet Acton’s later fervent argumentation posited that the loss of slaves by the white man as tragedy surpassing any moral reprehensibility of slavery itself. His alignment to centralized power of a Confederate tyranny, inherently grounded in the dehumanization of individuals as property, reveals his paradoxical affinity for a system fundamentally antithetical to individual liberty.
Despite abolition of slavery in England preceding Acton’s birth, his life-long struggle to acknowledge humanity of Black individuals underscores entrenched biases and ideological complexities within his worldview.
Acton’s perspective seems incredulous today given an inherent injustice of slavery, a very obvious failure in his morality. It’s even more starkly put in contrast when you consider the man claimed he was someone who could rise up and oppose prevailing beliefs of his day.
While claiming to deplore slavery, as everyone should have after the early 1800s, Acton instead promoted an extremely toxic idea that individual freedoms were dangerous and could not be allowed where the centralized authority of a slave-holding tyrant might face ruin and destitution. And he held on to such willfully wrong concepts well into the late 1800s long after Civil War had ended.
This is how Acton was exactly backwards on the actual facts of the Civil War. Once he had dismissed Kansas exercising its rights as a state, he bemoaned the effects individual freedoms had on rights of centralized tyrants (e.g. the very concept of plantations, unjust mass incarceration, which the British had tried to ban in the colony of Georgia). Acton in fact argued on behalf of those who Confederated to preserve slavery, which manifested as a military campaign by slaveholders to deny any future states from choosing abolition (prevent another Kansas).
Acton claimed the abolitionists were deeply unsettling because he saw a drastic departure from existing systems of racial oppression that kept power in the hands of a elites, specifically white men. He viewed those advocating for the rights of Black Americans, nearly a century after the global abolitionist movement had gained momentum, as some kind of radical and dangerous version of individual rights.
Acton even went so far as to argue the Union’s efforts to defend itself against attack by slaveholders eroded control over the concept of self-governance… because Blacks being set free from tyranny meant white men would “lose” their cause of “property” accumulation (power and wealth).
Yes, Acton very seriously believed that “self-governance” was consistent with the idea that a few white men could operate a tyranny where self-governance was only allowed for a tiny select few (e.g. how Mussolini later described his plan for fascism). He complained about abolitionism as though it could only be a pretext for subjugating the noble white slaveholder. Acton did not agree with a “radical” end to human trafficking. It was through this corrupt and polluted lens that Acton thought he could characterize the emancipation of people living within the Union as a movement against the Union itself.
—
The History of Freedom, and Other Essays
Lord Acton
THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM IN ANTIQUITY
When the Persian wars, which converted aristocratic Athens into a maritime state, had developed new sources of wealth and a new description of interests, the class which had supplied many of the ships and most of the men that had saved the national independence and founded an empire, could not be excluded from power. Solon's principle, that political influence should be commensurate with political service, broke through the forms in which he had confined it, and the spirit of his constitution was too strong for the letter. The fourth estate was admitted to office, and in order that its candidates might obtain their share, and no more than their share, and that neither interest nor numbers might prevail, many public functionaries were appointed by lot. The Athenian idea of a Republic was to substitute the impersonal supremacy of law for the government of men. Mediocrity was a safeguard against the pretensions of superior capacity, for the established order was in danger, not from the average citizens, but from men, like Miltiades, of exceptional renown. The people of Athens venerated their constitution as a gift of the gods, the source and title of their power, a thing too sacred for wanton change. They had demanded a code, that the unwritten law might no longer be interpreted at will by Archons and Areopagites; and a well-defined and authoritative legislation was a triumph of the democracy.
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“He only is fit to govern others that can govern himself.”
— Solon.
“Miltideas was a Greek general who, flush with victory against the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC, led a punitive mission against an ally of Persia, a small island nation that was supposed to be a pushover. The mission was a fiasco and Miltiades was defeated and disgraced; he died of his wounds in prison.”
— Evan Thomas
Evan Welling Thomas III (born April 25, 1951) is an American journalist, historian, lawyer, and author. He is the author of 11 books, including two New York Times bestsellers.
Archon is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem αρχ-, meaning "to be first, to rule", derived from the same root as words such as monarch and hierarchy.
The Areopagus is a prominent rock outcropping located northwest of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. The name Areopagus also referred, in classical times, to the Athenian governing council, later restricted to the Athenian judicial council or court that tried cases of deliberate homicide, wounding, and religious matters, as well as cases involving arson of olive trees, because they convened in this location.
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So well was this conservative spirit understood, that the revolution which abolished the privileges of the aristocracy was promoted by Aristides and completed by Pericles, men free from the reproach of flattering the multitude. They associated all the free Athenians with the interest of the State, and called them, without distinction of class, to administer the powers that belonged to them. Solon had threatened with the loss of citizenship all who showed themselves indifferent in party conflicts, and Pericles declared that every man who neglected his share of public duty was a useless member of the community. That wealth might confer no unfair advantage, that the poor might not take bribes from the rich, he took them into the pay of the State during their attendance as jurors. That their numbers might give them no unjust superiority, he restricted the right of citizenship to those who came from Athenian parents on both sides; and thus he expelled more than 4000 men of mixed descent from the Assembly. This bold measure, which was made acceptable by a distribution of grain from Egypt among those who proved their full Athenian parentage, reduced the fourth class to an equality with the owners of real property. For Pericles, or Ephialtes—for it would appear that all their reforms had been carried in the year 460, when Ephialtes died—is the first democratic statesman who grasped the notion of political equality. The measures which made all citizens equal might have created a new inequality between classes, and the artificial privilege of land might have been succeeded by the more crushing preponderance of numbers. But Pericles held it to be intolerable that one portion of the people should be required to obey laws which others have the exclusive right of making; and he was able, during thirty years, to preserve the equipoise, governing by the general consent of the community, formed by free debate. He made the undivided people sovereign; but he subjected the popular initiative to a court of revision, and assigned a penalty to the proposer of any measure which should be found to be unconstitutional. Athens, under Pericles, was the most successful Republic that existed before the system of representation; but its splendour ended with his life.
—-
“A just judge knows no kin.”
— Aristides.
“The hypocrite is good in nothing but sight.”
— Pericles.
“His name, Ephialtes, has gone down in infamy: ephialtis is today the modern Greek word for ‘nightmare’.”
— Paul Anthony Cartledge
Paul Anthony Cartledge (born 24 March 1947) is a British ancient historian and academic. From 2008 to 2014 he was the A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge. He had previously held a personal chair in Greek History at Cambridge.
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The danger to liberty from the predominance either of privilege or majorities was so manifest, that an idea arose that equality of fortune would be the only way to prevent the conflict of class interests. The philosophers, Phaleas, Plato, Aristotle, suggested various expedients to level the difference between rich and poor. Solon had endeavoured to check the increase of estates; and Pericles had not only strengthened the public resources by bringing the rich under the control of an assembly in which they were not supreme, but he had employed those resources in improving the condition and the capacity of the masses. The grievance of those who were taxed for the benefit of others was easily borne so long as the tribute of the confederates filled the treasury. But the Peloponnesian war increased the strain on the revenue and deprived Athens of its dependencies. The balance was upset; and the policy of making one class give, that another might receive, was recommended not only by the interest of the poor, but by a growing theory, that wealth and poverty make bad citizens, that the middle class is the one most easily led by reason, and that the way to make it predominate is to depress whatever rises above the common level, and to raise whatever falls below it. This theory, which became inseparable from democracy, and contained a force which alone seems able to destroy it, was fatal to Athens, for it drove the minority to treason. The glory of the Athenian democrats is, not that they escaped the worst consequences of their principle, but that, having twice cast out the usurping oligarchy, they set bounds to their own power. They forgave their vanquished enemies; they abolished pay for attendance in the assembly; they established the supremacy of law by making the code superior to the people; they distinguished things that were constitutional from things that were legal, and resolved that no legislative act should pass until it had been pronounced consistent with the constitution.
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A contemporary of Plato, Phaleas was one of the utopian thinkers who flourished during a turbulent period of Athenian democracy. Like Hippodamus of Miletus, he called for an equal division of land holdings and education. He saw it as a solution to the serious economic crisis that the Greek society was experiencing after the destruction caused by the Persian Wars. According to Aristotle, Phaleas argued that an equal division of land and equal education for all citizens would eliminate civil strife. Although Phaleas recognized that such a radical constitution would be difficult to implement in established cities, he believed it would be practicable in newly founded cities. In established cities, Phaleas recommended setting up dowries for the rich to give to the poor in order to level property ownership over time. In addition to equality of land and education, Phaleas proposed that all artisans be publicly owned slaves.
According to Aristotle’s description in Politics, “Some people thought he [Phaleas] carried things too far, indeed, with his long hair, expensive ornaments, and the same cheap warm clothing worn winter and summer."
Hippodamus of Miletus (c. 480-408 BC) was an Ancient Greek architect, urban planner, physician, mathematician, meteorologist and philosopher, who is considered to be "the father of European urban planning”, and the namesake of the "Hippodamian plan" (grid plan) of city layout, although rectangular city plans were in use by the ancient Greeks as early as the 8th c. BC.
From Aristotle we learn that Hippodamus was "… a strange man, whose fondness for [personal recognition] led him into … eccentricity …" Hippodamus wouldn't be the first or last creative person to be described as "eccentric." According to Aristotle, Hippodamus was "the first [non-statesman] who made inquiries about the best form of government."
Aristotle took issue with most of Hippodamus's ideas about government. But he praised Hippodamus for his attention to the urban environment of an ideal city-state. Aristotle went so far as to say that Hippodamus "invented the art of planning cities."
“Nearly all the blunders committed by man arise from continued adoration of one's self.”
— Plato.
“The most perfect community is that which is administered by the middle classes; but where some possess too much, and others nothing at all, the government must be either an extreme democracy, or else a pure oligarchy.”
— Aristotle.
—
The causes which ruined the Republic of Athens illustrate the connection of ethics with politics rather than the vices inherent to democracy. A State which has only 30,000 full citizens in a population of 500,000, and is governed, practically, by about 3000 people at a public meeting, is scarcely democratic. The short triumph of Athenian liberty, and its quick decline, belong to an age which possessed no fixed standard of right and wrong. An unparalleled activity of intellect was shaking the credit of the gods, and the gods were the givers of the law. It was a very short step from the suspicion of Protagoras, that there were no gods, to the assertion of Critias that there is no sanction for laws. If nothing was certain in theology, there was no certainty in ethics and no moral obligation. The will of man, not the will of God, was the rule of life, and every man and body of men had the right to do what they had the means of doing. Tyranny was no wrong, and it was hypocrisy to deny oneself the enjoyment it affords. The doctrine of the Sophists gave no limits to power and no security to freedom; it inspired that cry of the Athenians, that they must not be hindered from doing what they pleased, and the speeches of men like Athenagoras and Euphemus, that the democracy may punish men who have done no wrong, and that nothing that is profitable is amiss. And Socrates perished by the reaction which they provoked.
—
“Show equity to all men.”
— Protagoras.
“No mercy goes unpunished by the angry gods.”
— Critias
“Fortune always fights on the side of the prudent.”
— Critias
“We have rejected such spectacles as the Coliseum. How then, when we do not even look on killing lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can we put people to death?”
— Athenagoras of Athens
Euphemus
Euphemus was archon of Athens in 417/416 BC. In Thucydides, he is given a speech which portrays Athens as a tyrannical city.
His speech rendered in Thucydides, Book 6 (72-88.2), as Athenian ambassador to Camarina gives reply to Hermocrates the Syracusan: "Euphemus responds in terms that characterize all Athenian political strategy as an assessment of imperial expediency." Athens has become a tyrant.
Hermocrates (c. 5th century – 407 BC) was an ancient Syracusan general from Greek Sicily during the Athenians’ Sicilian Expedition in the midst of the Peloponnesian War. He is also remembered as a character in the Timaeus and Critias dialogues of Plato.
“An oligarchy compels the great mass of the people to share in the danger of the state, while it not only monopolizes most of the advantages, but actually takes to itself everything on which it can lay its hands.”
— Thucydides.
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The disciples of Socrates obtained the ear of posterity. Their testimony against the government that put the best of citizens to death is enshrined in writings that compete with Christianity itself for influence on the opinions of men. Greece has governed the world by her philosophy, and the loudest note in Greek philosophy is the protest against Athenian democracy. But although Socrates derided the practice of leaving the choice of magistrates to chance, and Plato admired the bloodstained tyrant Critias, and Aristotle deemed Theramenes a greater statesman than Pericles, yet these are the men who laid the first stones of a purer system, and became the lawgivers of future commonwealths.
—-
“Malice drinketh up the greatest part of its own poison.”
— Socrates.
“Here's to the health of my beloved Critias!”
--Thefamenes
—-
The main point in the method of Socrates was essentially democratic. He urged men to bring all things to the test of incessant inquiry, and not to content themselves with the verdict of authorities, majorities, or custom; to judge of right and wrong, not by the will or sentiment of others, but by the light which God has set in each man's reason and conscience. He proclaimed that authority is often wrong, and has no warrant to silence or to impose conviction. But he gave no warrant to resistance. He emancipated men for thought, but not for action. The sublime history of his death shows that the superstition of the State was undisturbed by his contempt for its rulers.
Plato had not his master's patriotism, nor his reverence for the civil power. He believed that no State can command obedience if it does not deserve respect; and he encouraged citizens to despise their government if they were not governed by wise men. To the aristocracy of philosophers he assigned a boundless prerogative; but as no government satisfied that test, his plea for despotism was hypothetical. When the lapse of years roused him from the fantastic dream of his Republic, his belief in divine government moderated his intolerance of human freedom. Plato would not suffer a democratic polity; but he challenged all existing authorities to justify themselves before a superior tribunal; he desired that all constitutions should be thoroughly remodelled, and he supplied the greatest need of Greek democracy, the conviction that the will of the people is subject to the will of God, and that all civil authority, except that of an imaginary state, is limited and conditional. The prodigious vitality of his writings has kept the glaring perils of popular government constantly before mankind; but it has also preserved the belief in ideal politics and the notion of judging the powers of this world by a standard from heaven. There has been no fiercer enemy of democracy; but there has been no stronger advocate of revolution.
In the Ethics Aristotle condemns democracy, even with a property qualification, as the worst of governments.
But near the end of his life, when he composed his Politics, he was brought, grudgingly, to make a memorable concession. To preserve the sovereignty of law, which is the reason and the custom of generations, and to restrict the realm of choice and change, he conceived it best that no class of society should preponderate, that one man should not be subject to another, that all should command and all obey. He advised that power should be distributed to high and low; to the first according to their property, to the others according to numbers; and that it should centre in the middle class. If aristocracy and democracy were fairly combined and balanced against each other, he thought that none would be interested to disturb the serene majesty of impersonal government. To reconcile the two principles, he would admit even the poorer citizens to office and pay them for the discharge of public duties; but he would compel the rich to take their share, and would appoint magistrates by election and not by lot. In his indignation at the extravagance of Plato, and his sense of the significance of facts, he became, against his will, the prophetic exponent of a limited and regenerated democracy. But the Politics, which, to the world of living men, is the most valuable of his works, acquired no influence on antiquity, and is never quoted before the time of Cicero. Again it disappeared for many centuries; it was unknown to the Arabian commentators, and in Western Europe it was first brought to light by St. Thomas Aquinas, at the very time when an infusion of popular elements was modifying feudalism, and it helped to emancipate political philosophy from despotic theories and to confirm it in the ways of freedom.
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“A citizen ought to live on terms of equality with his fellow citizens, neither cringing nor subservient, nor haughty nor insolent; he ought to be favorable to measures in the state which lead to peace and quietness, for such we consider to be the character of a virtuous and upright citizen.
— Cicero.
“The things that we love tell us what we are.”
— Thomas Aquinas
and
“He that obstinately denieth the truth before men upon earth, wilfully refuseth his soul's health in heaven.”
— St. Aquinas.
—-
The three generations of the Socratic school did more for the future reign of the people than all the institutions of the States of Greece. They vindicated conscience against authority, and subjected both to a higher law; and they proclaimed that doctrine of a mixed constitution, which has prevailed at last over absolute monarchy, and still has to contend against extreme Republicans and Socialists, and against the masters of a hundred legions. But their views of liberty were based on expediency, not on justice. They legislated for the favoured citizens of Greece, and were conscious of no principle that extended the same rights to the stranger and the slave. That discovery, without which all political science was merely conventional, belongs to the followers of Zeno.
“Associate with the good and wise, if you would be learned and happy.”
— Zeno.
I came across the mention of a group of oligarchs in Ancient Greece who apparently were quite destructive in a very short span of time. I think study of such failures is important for us to understand as in America we have our share of such people. I wished to put forth the oligarchic system of government in its basics.
From Google AI the Thirty Tyrants
The Thirty Tyrants did not draft a new constitution for Athens, but instead ruled the city themselves in a manner similar to the Spartan Gerousia.* The Thirty Tyrants' rule was characterized by a reign of terror, and their actions included:
Limiting citizenship
The Thirty Tyrants limited citizenship to 3,000 hand-picked Athenians who were allowed to carry weapons, have jury trials, and live within the city limits.
Appointing a Council of 500
The Thirty Tyrants appointed a Council of 500 to handle judicial functions that had previously been the responsibility of all citizens.
Abolishing popular juries
The Thirty Tyrants abolished popular juries.
Removing democratic opponents
The Thirty Tyrants removed democratic opponents and other people they considered "unfriendly" to the new regime.
Seizing possessions
The Thirty Tyrants executed, murdered, and exiled hundreds of Athenians, seizing their possessions afterward. Lord
Stationing a Spartan garrison on the Acropolis
When Thrasybulus and other democrats took up arms against the Thirty Tyrants, the Thirty Tyrants responded by stationing a Spartan garrison on the Acropolis.
The Thirty Tyrants were led by Critias, a former pupil of Socrates. Critias has been described as "the first Robespierre" because of his cruelty and inhumanity.
*The Gerousia (γερουσία) was the council of elders in ancient Sparta. Sometimes called Spartan senate in the literature, it was made up of the two Spartan kings, two plus 28 men over the age of sixty, known as gerontes. The Gerousia was a prestigious body, holding extensive judicial and legislative powers, which shaped Sparta's policies.
The electoral procedure is known thanks to Plutarch, who wrote in the 2nd century AD, but whose source was a lost study on the Spartan constitution by Aristotle. There were no ballots: the gerontes were elected by shouting. The candidates passed one by one before the Spartan citizens, he who therefore shouted according to their preference. The loudness of the shouts was assessed by a jury confined into a windowless building, who then declared winner the candidate with the loudest shouts. Aristotle considered this system "childish", probably because influential people (such as the kings) could easily manipulate the elections.
My storage is slim so that I will not include my usual pseudo-sonnet. I hope that you found some gems in my slush pool to edify you. I learned quite a lot, mostly how much I don’t know. Thanks for reading.
210th posting, October 31, 2024.