Athenian Democracy: Red Rope, Kleroterion Lotteries and Water-Clock Trials

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In ancient Athens an idiotes was simply a private citizen who stayed out of politics, and that was no compliment. This episode traces how Athenian democracy grew out of crisis: Draco's harsh code of 621 BC, Solon's debt cancellations and four property classes in 594 BC, topped by the 500-bushel men, and Cleisthenes' 508 BC redrawing of Attica into 10 mixed tribes. Only 10 to 20 percent of residents could take part. Women, enslaved people and resident foreigners were excluded, and Pericles' law around 450 BC required an Athenian father and mother.

Laws were made by an assembly on the Pnyx needing a quorum of 6,000, voting by show of hands, while almost all of roughly 1,100 offices were filled by lot through stone kleroteria. Elected posts were kept for generals and treasurers. Juries of 200 to 6,000 could annul laws, and Pericles paid jurors a daily wage. Critics from Thucydides to Plato and the Old Oligarch condemned mob rule, pointing to the illegal group trial of the Arginusae generals in 406 BC and the execution of Socrates in 399 BC. The American founders, wary of Athens, looked to Rome instead.

Scythian archers swept the agora with a rope wet with red paint, and stained citizens were fined.
Ostracism exiled a citizen for 10 years by names scratched on pottery shards.
Citizens could serve on the Council of 500 only twice in their lives and faced a public audit when their term ended.
A clepsydra water clock limited each side's speaking time, and trials ended in a single day.
Socrates, chosen by lot to preside, refused to put the Arginusae motion to a vote.

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