# Classical Greece and the Polis

History I · Ancient History · https://tryals.app/learn/history-i/classical-greece-and-the-polis

## A City Is Not a Place

When Persians burned Athens in 480 BCE, Themistocles declared Athens was **on the ships**. The **polis** was never walls; it was a **citizen-community**: a club of members who fight and decide together. 

Athenian democracy was radical yet exclusive:

| Group | Roughly | Political rights |
|---|---|---|
| Adult male citizens | ~30,000 | Full: vote, speak, hold office |
| Citizen women & children | ~100,000 | None, citizenship passed through them |
| Metics (foreigners) | ~40,000 | Taxes and military, no vote |
| Slaves | ~100,000+ | Property |

**Pericles' citizenship law of 451 BCE** required _both_ parents to be citizens. Yet it handed direct power to its poorest members, the thetes. Aristocrats hated this, but the poor ruled.

## The Machinery of Not Trusting Anyone

Athens used machinery to prevent politicians: the **Assembly** for direct voting, the **Council of 500** set by **lottery**, and massive juries with no lawyers.

The Greeks held that **election is aristocratic**, selecting the rich, while **the lottery is democratic**. 

The **kleroterion** randomized jury selection so no fortune could buy it. Officials faced the **dokimasia** (entry scan) and **euthynai** (exit audit).

When a man grew too big, **ostracism** exiled him for ten years, no trial, no confiscation.

$$\text{power} = \text{rotation} + \text{audit} + \text{lottery}$$

## Practice questions

7 of this lesson's 12 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Athenian democracy paid citizens to attend the assembly and to serve on juries. What problem was the payment solving?

A. It ensured a quorum, which the assembly otherwise struggled to reach
B. It compensated citizens for the risk of making unpopular decisions
C. That rights are worthless to anyone who cannot afford the day
D. It was a form of poor relief disguised as political participation

**Answer:** C. That rights are worthless to anyone who cannot afford the day

**Why:** A right you cannot afford to exercise belongs in practice to the leisured, and the stipend removed exactly that filter. Aristotle's critics understood it perfectly, they attacked the payment as what made the democracy genuinely popular rather than formally so.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/classical-greece-and-the-polis/athenian-democracy-paid-citizens-to-attend-the-assembly-and-to-serve

### 2. Complete the description of ostracism.

**Answer:** Once a year, if at least **6,000** potsherd votes were cast, the "winner" was exiled for **10** years, with no charge, no trial, and no **confiscation** of property. Not a punishment: a fuse.

**Why:** The gentleness is the point. Ostracism removed a man who had grown too big without creating a martyr or a feud, his house and fortune waited untouched for his return.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/classical-greece-and-the-polis/complete-the-description-of-ostracism

### 3. Order the construction (and stress-testing) of the Athenian experiment.

**Answer:**

1. Solon cancels debt-slavery and grades rights by wealth, not birth
2. Cleisthenes rebuilds the tribes to break aristocratic power blocs
3. Salamis: the fleet, rowed by the poorest citizens, saves Greece
4. Pericles' law tightens citizenship as jury pay begins
5. Defeat by Sparta brings two brief oligarchic coups
6. Democracy restored, with new safeguards against rash decrees

**Why:** Each stage answers the last: Solon breaks birth-privilege, Cleisthenes breaks the clans, the fleet gives the poor their political claim, and even catastrophic defeat only interrupts the machine for months.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/classical-greece-and-the-polis/order-the-construction-and-stress-testing-of-the-athenian

### 4. Sort each feature: filled by **lottery** or by **election** in classical Athens?

**Answer:**

- Chosen by lot: Council of 500 members, Jurors for the day’s trials, Most of the ~700 administrative posts
- Elected: The ten generals (strategoi), Chief water commissioner

**Why:** The rule of thumb: if a fool in the job merely embarrasses the city, draw lots, every citizen is fit to rule in turn. If a fool in the job sinks the fleet or dries the wells, elect.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/classical-greece-and-the-polis/sort-each-feature-filled-by-lottery-or-by-election-in-classical

### 5. An ostracism only counted if enough citizens showed up to scratch a name on a potsherd. **Set the quorum.**

**Answer:** 6000 (within ±1000)

**Why:** 6,000, about a fifth of the ~30,000 citizens. The quorum guaranteed that exiling a man was the verdict of the demos, not the ambush of a faction.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/classical-greece-and-the-polis/an-ostracism-only-counted-if-enough-citizens-showed-up-to-scratch-a

### 6. Why did Aristotle call the lottery democratic and election aristocratic?

A. The lot ensured only the educated held office
B. Elections were a Persian import the Greeks distrusted
C. Lotteries were cheaper to administer than elections
D. Election selects the famous and rich; the lot treats all as fit

**Answer:** D. Election selects the famous and rich; the lot treats all as fit

**Why:** An election is a filter for fame, wealth, and connections; a lottery is no filter at all. Athens filled some 700 posts by lot and elected only the jobs where incompetence kills, the generals and the water commissioner.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/classical-greece-and-the-polis/why-did-aristotle-call-the-lottery-democratic-and-election

### 7. Most Athenian public offices were filled by lottery rather than election.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** True. Sortition filled the Council of 500, the juries and most magistracies; election was reserved for posts needing expertise, chiefly the generals. To the Athenians election looked *aristocratic*, it favours the well-known and the wealthy, which inverts the modern assumption about which method is democratic.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-i/classical-greece-and-the-polis/most-athenian-public-offices-were-filled-by-lottery-rather-than