Pericles was a Greek politician and general during the Golden Age of Athens. He was prominent and influential in Ancient Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, and was acclaimed by Thucydides, a contemporary historian, as "the first citizen of Athens". Pericles turned the Delian League into an Athenian empire and led his countrymen during the first two years of the Peloponnesian War. The period during which he led Athens as Archon (ruler), roughly from 461 to 429 BC, is sometimes known as the "Age of Pericles", but the period thus denoted can include times as early as the Persian Wars or as late as the following century.
Thrasybulus was an Athenian general and democratic leader. In 411 BC, in the wake of an oligarchic coup at Athens, the pro-democracy sailors at Samos elected him as a general, making him a primary leader of the ultimately successful democratic resistance to the coup. As general, he was responsible for recalling the controversial nobleman Alcibiades from exile, and the two worked together extensively over the next several years. In 411 and 410, Thrasybulus was in command along with Alcibiades and others at several critical Athenian naval victories.
Elis or Eleia is an ancient district in Greece that corresponds to the modern regional unit of Elis.
Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the electorate decides on policy initiatives without elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are representative democracies. The theory and practice of direct democracy and participation as its common characteristic constituted the core of the work of many theorists, philosophers, politicians, and social critics, among whom the most important are Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, and G.D.H. Cole.
Mantineia was a city in ancient Arcadia, Greece, which was the site of two significant battles in Classical Greek history.
Cleisthenes, or Clisthenes, was an ancient Athenian lawgiver credited with reforming the constitution of ancient Athens and setting it on a democratic footing in 508 BC. For these accomplishments, historians refer to him as "the father of Athenian democracy". He was a member of the aristocratic Alcmaeonid clan. He was the younger son of Megacles and Agariste making him the maternal grandson of the tyrant Cleisthenes of Sicyon. He was also credited with increasing the power of the Athenian citizens' assembly and for reducing the power of the nobility over Athenian politics.
Eric Alterman is an American historian and journalist. He is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College and the author of twelve books.
The ecclesia or ekklesia was the assembly of the citizens in city-states of ancient Greece.
Bruce S. Thornton is an American classicist at California State University, Fresno, and research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
A democracy is a political system, or a system of decision-making within an institution, organization, or state, in which members have a share of power. Modern democracies are characterized by two capabilities of their citizens that differentiate them fundamentally from earlier forms of government: to intervene in society and have their sovereign held accountable to the international laws of other governments of their kind. Democratic government is commonly juxtaposed with oligarchic and monarchic systems, which are ruled by a minority and a sole monarch respectively.
Takis Fotopoulos is a Greek political philosopher, economist and writer who founded the Inclusive Democracy movement, aiming at a synthesis of classical democracy with libertarian socialism and the radical currents in the new social movements. He is an academic, and has written many books and over 900 articles. He is the editor of The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy and is the author of Towards An Inclusive Democracy (1997) in which the foundations of the Inclusive Democracy project were set. His latest book is The New World Order in Action: Volume 1: Globalization, the Brexit Revolution and the "Left"- Towards a Democratic Community of Sovereign Nations. Fotopoulos is Greek and lives in London.
The American School of Classical Studies at Athens is one of 19 foreign archaeological institutes in Athens, Greece. It is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC). CAORC is a private not-for-profit federation of independent overseas research centers that promote advanced research, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, with focus on the conservation and recording of cultural heritage and the understanding and interpretation of modern societies.
Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 16 February 1964. They resulted in a clear victory for Georgios Papandreou and his Center Union (EK). Papandreou subsequently formed the 37th government since the end of World War II.
The 1997–98 season of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup club football tournament was won by Chelsea in the final against Stuttgart.
The 1989 Nabisco Grand Prix was the only tennis circuit for male players held that year. It incorporated the four Grand Slam tournaments, one World Championship Tennis tournament and the Grand Prix tournaments.
During the Classical era and Hellenistic era of Classical Antiquity, many Hellenic city-states had adopted democratic forms of government, in which free (non-slave), native (non-foreigner) adult male citizens of the city took a major and direct part in the management of the affairs of state, such as declaring war, voting supplies, dispatching diplomatic missions and ratifying treaties. These activities were often handled by a form of direct democracy, based on a popular assembly. Others, of judicial and official nature, were often handled by large juries, drawn from the citizen body in a process known as sortition.
In governance, sortition is the selection of public officials or jurors at random, i.e. by lottery, in order to obtain a representative sample.
Eric W. Robinson is an American historian of ancient Greece, specializing in early democracy. He is currently a professor at Indiana University. In 1986, he graduated with a BA from Yale University. After studying under noted historian Donald Kagan as an undergraduate, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994. From 1999 to 2006, Robinson was an associate professor at Harvard University, where he won the Roslyn Abramson Award for outstanding undergraduate teaching.
Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica. Although Athens is the most familiar of the democratic city-states in ancient Greece, it was not the only one, nor was it the first; multiple other city-states adopted similar democratic constitutions before Athens. By the late 4th century BC, as many as half of the over one thousand existing Greek cities might have been democracies. Athens practiced a political system of legislation and executive bills. Participation was open to adult, free male citizens Adult male citizens probably constituted no more than 30 percent of the total adult population.
Cylon of Croton was a leading citizen of Croton, Magna Graecia, who led a revolt against the Pythagoreans, probably around 509 BC. According to Iamblichus' De Vita Pythagorae, Cylon had previously tried and failed to be accepted into the Pythagorean order ; however, the clearly pro-Pythagorean bias of Iamblichus' work means we should take this with a grain of salt. In the climactic moment of the revolt, a meeting house was set on fire as the Pythagoreans were debating inside - according, again, to Iamblichus. After the success of the rebellion, all debts owed were eliminated and property was seized for redistribution; this arguably resulted in Pythagoras being expelled from Croton.
