—
At the age of thirty-three Pericles picked up the baton that had been seized from Ephialtes. For year after year during most of the next three decades, he was elected one of the city’s ten generals. Although he was by no means a despot, he was by far the most influential political figure in the ecclesia as well as being an able and aggressive military commander. In the last analysis, though, he operated in a direct democracy and advised rather than governed.
Pericles immediately proceeded to further reforms. There were three areas where he was sure improvements could be made.
First, he introduced a citizenship law. The franchise was restricted to those both of whose parents were Athenians. Previously a foreign mother had been no bar to civic status; Cleisthenes, Themistocles, and Cimon had all had foreign mothers. The polis was home to a large number of resident foreigners and Pericles’ aim was to limit access to the benefits of citizenship. Athens was internationally influential and there were practical advantages in turning citizens into a more exclusive closed group. It is also possible that immigration was unpopular (foreigners stealing jobs is a familiar complaint down the ages).
Henceforward, most public officials were appointed annually by lot rather than by election. This had the huge advantage of ensuring equal opportunity for all and of discouraging the creation of political factions or pressure groups. But when Solon introduced sortition for the Archons (see this page and this page), it was only applied to a directly elected long-list. He wanted to ensure the quality of candidates and a willingness to serve, but for Pericles these factors were less important than ensuring that all citizens had the chance of playing a part in public life. Loyalty outdid competence by a long chalk. So preliminary elections were abolished and appointments to the boulē and of Archons were made purely by lot.
This new arrangement would only work smoothly if office holders were paid, for otherwise the working poor would be unable to find the time required to fulfill their public duties. So Pericles brought in pay for those serving as Archons and boulē members.
Any male citizen above thirty years of age could offer to sit as a juror in the courts. Six thousand of these volunteers were appointed by lot at the beginning of a year (six hundred from each tribe), from which jurors were enrolled for individual cases. Juries were large—1,501 for the most important trials and between 201 and 401 for private suits. Pericles introduced jury pay at the living wage of two obols a day (later in the fifth century this was raised to three obols).
Numerous other officials, who received state salaries or sat on committees, were appointed by lot. These included the Treasurers of Athena, who were responsible for the imperial exchequer with its vast income flows; the Vendors, who farmed out public contracts to work the silver mines at Laurium; the Receivers, who collected public revenues and distributed them to the appropriate officials; the Accountants, who checked all the public accounts; the Examiners, who sat in the agora to receive complaints against office holders; and the Commissioners, who maintained the public sanctuaries. The polis also employed market inspectors who monitored the quality of goods on sale, commissioners of weights and measures, and grain inspectors. Only military and some technical financial responsibilities, where competence was absolutely essential, were not subject to appointment by lot.
The Greek alphabet first came into use during the eighth century when reading and writing were relatively novel skills. The Spartans used written records as little as possible to the amused scorn of other Greeks. But without high levels of literacy it would not have been possible for the Athenian democracy to function. A complicated constitution that prioritized openness, participation, accountability, and a busy economy dependent on international trade required reliable systems of reporting and documentation. Citizens had to be able to add and subtract, and understand script. We must assume that even many poor Athenians were, or under force of circumstance became, basically literate.
The democracy was very expensive to run. It has been estimated that by 440 up to twenty thousand citizens, about one third of the total or more, were in receipt of some form or other of state pay. This made a change of constitution unlikely, for there were so many citizens who had a vested interest in the democratic system. The point did not escape a caustic critic of the new order of things. “The poor, the men of the people, and the working class are doing very well and in large numbers, and so will increase support for the democracy.”
This was important, for Athenian democrats felt embattled. They went in constant fear that their constitution would be overthrown. The “best people” thought that the democracy was a completely unnecessary innovation; it was unfair, incompetent, and open to the worst kind of demagogue. It was a rogues’ charter. The same commentator, attributed (probably wrongly) to Xenophon, puts the argument:
…everywhere on earth the best element in society is opposed to democracy. For among the best people there is minimal wantonness and injustice but a maximum of scrupulous attention to what is good. However, among the people there is a maximum of ignorance, disorder, and wickedness. This is because poverty leads them to disgraceful behavior, and thanks to a lack of money some men are uneducated and ignorant.
The once dominant noble clans would have liked to see a return to oligarchy, to government by a well-bred minority, but they mostly kept their opinions to themselves and, like the lordly Cimon, served the state uncomplainingly.
—
A broken inscription survives that catalogues the dead from one of the ten Athenian tribes, the Erechtheis, in the year 460 or 459. Usually the fallen of all the ten tribes were recorded onto one stone slab or stele, but the large number of casualties probably explains the use of separate stelae. The inscription opens with a list of the various campaigns, which Athens was fighting simultaneously; the final phrase was in spaced-out capital letters for astonished emphasis.
Of [the tribe] Erechtheis
Those died in the war: in Cyprus, in Egy-
pt, in Phoenicia, at Halieis, on Aegina, at Megara
I N T H E S A M E Y E A R.
There then followed the names of eight generals and 179 soldiers in three columns. Halieis refers to an unsuccessful foray into the territory of Argos in the Peloponnese. In the mid-fifth century the number of adult male citizens may have totaled as many as sixty thousand, but the polis had no hesitation in risking overextension.
Of about the same date is a small, beautifully carved marble relief that shows the goddess Athena, melancholy and in mourning (see the illustration). She may be reading a casualty list on a stele or contemplating a hoplite’s gravestone. Either way the image seems to embody the pity of war.
But, for all their grief for the fallen, as the Delian League gradually morphed into an empire, the Athenians became extraordinarily self-confident and aggressive. There was no question of fighting only on a single front, but on as many fronts as cared to present themselves.
An irresistible opportunity for cutting the Persians down to size arose almost by chance. The Egyptians always resented being a colony of the Achaemenids and, when they heard of the assassination of Xerxes in the summer of 465 and the confusion this was likely to cause at Susa, raised the standard of revolt under the leadership of Inaros, a young Libyan prince. The decision to do so was taken in the autumn of 464 and the winter was given over to careful planning and raising a preliminary military force. The Persian administration in Egypt was removed in the summer or autumn of the following year.
A large allied fleet of two hundred triremes happened to be campaigning off Cyprus and, when they learned of the revolt, abandoned what they were doing and sailed to Egypt to support the rebels. This was not altogether an opportunistic decision. To poke a finger in the Great King’s eye was always a pleasure. But the growing population of Athens depended on imported grain and Egypt was a breadbasket of the ancient world. If it could be pried from Persia’s grasp the land of the pharaohs could become a valuable supplier and supplement the Black Sea trade.