Athenian Democracy: Participatory Governance and Anti-Corruption

Athens provides the best and most complete example of known government officials in ancient Greece. This is in part due to a later pamphlet, ascribed to Aristotle, entitled “The Athenian Constitution,” which described the working of the government and its officials. At the deme level, the local unit for the democracy, was the demarch, which might be akin to the mayor of a town or city. He held office for a year, and he probably was not able to hold it more than once. This was the one officer common to all demes; other offices such as accountants, treasurers, and secretaries were found in some demes, but not all. Their roles were not only to lighten the burden for the demarch, but probably to keep tabs on his authority.

The demarch was the link between the local community and the central government and the entire population. In addition to keeping the deme register, he presided over the local deme assembly, collected any special taxes, received the first fruits for the Eleusinian Festival, enforced debt collections, provided funerals when needed, and administered other local functions needed to run the local demes. The demarch’s authority and duties fell into those specifically mandated by the central government (i.e., the Assembly, which was uniform throughout all the demes), and those functions that the local demes controlled, which varied from deme to deme.

At the central level, there were a variety of state offices. Here, the selection of officers was divided into two types, those filled by lot and those elected. Those that were filled by lot could be carried out by any Athenian citizen and required no special training or knowledge. These positions typically were held only once during a citizen’s lifetime. Those officials that were elected were believed to require some special knowledge or skill, and they could be elected multiple times.

The most prominent example of this latter type of office would be commanders of the army or navy. Since the beginning of its democracy, Athens elected ten generals or strategoi, who were at least thirty years of age. Up to the Battle at Marathon in 490, one of the ten generals, the polemarch, remained in nominal command of all of the other generals, but this stopped after the battle. Each tribe had a member be elected as general by the people, although later, it became possible for more than one general to be elected from the same tribe. Later, in the fourth century, the connection between tribe membership and being a general appears to have been abandoned, and the selection of each person was based on his abilities, regardless of what tribe he came from. More important, the strategoi could be reelected year after year (one example of this is Pericles).

Originally, the generals were in command of their own tribal contingent, but by the fourth century, this task was performed by other commanders and the generals were often given control over a broader region or duty. After the Peloponnesian War, five of the ten generals had specific duties—one commanded the armies outside Athens, a second commanded the home defenses, one outfitted the fleet, and two supervised the harbors. Other elected officials included the ten commanders of the tribal regiments, two cavalry commanders, ambassadors, and the heads of special projects or plans.

Those that were selected by lot included the archons. Originally, there were nine archons, the eponymous archon used to give the year, the king-archon, the polemarch, and six thesmothetai. To this group was added a secretary to the thesmothetai, so ten individuals, one from each tribe, were selected as archons. In the democracy, the archons did not decide cases but rather prepared them for the courts.

The eponymous archon held jurisdiction over family cases; the kingarchon over religious crimes, which included homicide and arson; the polemarch over private suits involving metics and other important noncitizens; and the thesmothetai over the rest, including allocating courts to the magistrates; running impeachments against officials or prosecuting charges against those who submitted improper decrees to the assembly; and adjudicating issues of citizenship, bribery charges, adultery, and other court cases. The nine archons and the secretary were responsible for the annual selection of the 6,000 jurors, or dicasts. The three senior archons also performed religious functions.

Other officials were chosen by lot, including over 300 offices, but the 500 bouleutai, members of the boule or council, were not so chosen. These other offices included an archon who administered the island of Salamis; a demarch over the Peiraeus; and eleven police commissioners over the slaves, who kept public order and ran the prisons. In addition, there were superintendents, or masters of the agora, who were responsible for ensuring the peace of the marketplace; for overseeing the distribution and purity of grain; and supervising the production of silver coins, including procuring silver, producing the dies, and striking the coins, ensuring their purity, and preventing theft. Other superintendents included those in charge of street cleaning, to ensure that cities did not become overrun with refuse.

There were superintendents for the maintaining and repairing roads. An important office was the superintendents in charge of wells and springs who maintained the city’s water supply and potability. A superintendent was in charge for ensuring the correct and proper use of standardized measurements for commerce. Additional superintendents oversaw sacrifices and religious celebrations as well as those who provided public assistance to make sure the population remained healthy. To safeguard the city’s wealth, there were superintendents in charge of temple treasures and furniture and superintendents who oversaw the expenditures from the treasuries to fund important projects, pay for public purchases, and collect taxes and debts for the city.

In addition to these superintendents, each officer or office had secretaries and treasurers, who were also chosen by lot. While these offices were unpaid for the most part, they did not require extensive amount of time since much of the actual work was done by slaves and other paid individuals. What these officials were responsible for was to make sure that there was no issue of corruption. Since many of the superintendents were members of a board overseeing each area, there was always multiple people to do the work and check up on each other.

These nonelected offices were normally restricted to being held once in a lifetime, but a citizen could be selected to fill several different offices during his lifetime. Including the total number of officials selected by lot (not including the 6,000 jurors), the number would approach nearly 1,000 each year. For a population of 40,000 citizens, the participation rate would be extremely high, especially since a person would hold an office only once. This rate of participation was much higher than any other period or political entity.

Most of their functions were simple and straightforward, involving checking lists and inventories, allocating sums of money for payment, and making sure that tasks were done appropriately. For most of these officials, there was little initiative to be ambitious to change how the system worked, especially since they would not have time to implement new policies. Further, since each official was limited to a small sphere of duties, there was little room to move beyond it to create more wide-ranging policy.

The major area where one could make a difference and promote new policy was in the area of politics. A speaker who promoted a vision and idea persuasively enough could get a crowd to fund and back a bold venture, such as Pericles advocating a building program for the Acropolis and Alcibiades promoting the adventure to Sicily to take over the island and its resources for Athens to control all of the Mediterranean. These proposals, often made by the elected generals, went beyond the individual scope of an office and produced programs to lead Athens in new directions.

The offices of the Athenian state seem to make Athens inefficient and unprofessional; but on the other hand, the system was very participatory and efficient since all members of the state were required to be involved. It made corruption difficult since all the offices were temporary and transparent. This fit well into the idea of the Athenian government not being open to corruption. This system allowed Athens to become the most important city-state in Greece from 500 to 300 and leave behind a legacy of accomplishments and influence.