Open AccessThe Five Ancient Criteria of Democracy: The Apotheosis of Equality
Author(s) -
Gregory Papanikos
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
athens journal of humanities and arts
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2241-7702
DOI - 10.30958/ajha.9-2-1
Subject(s) - apotheosis , democracy , ancient greek , ancient greece , representative democracy , direct democracy , classics , history , political science , law , archaeology , politics
Democracy in ancient Athens was different from what is implemented today even in the most advanced democracies. To evaluate this difference, this paper presents five criteria of democracy and then applies them to ancient Athens and modern advanced democracies. In comparison and according to five criteria, modern democracies are inferior to what the eligible citizens of Ancient Athens enjoyed. The ancient Greek literature on the subject has identified five criteria of democracy which neither today nor in ancient times were fully satisfied. The democracy today satisfies some but not all five criteria. This was also true for the ancient (Athenian) democracy. They differ in which criteria they satisfied. Of course, each criterion is fulfilled to a certain extent and this may differentiate modern from ancient democracy. These issues are discussed in this paper.