Learning from Athens

Interesting article on the Athenian democracy;

“The fifth-century B.C. historian Herodotus records the key meeting of the Athenian Assembly at which the Athenians decided to build a great fleet of warships:

The revenues from the mines at Laurion [a district in southern Attica] had brought great wealth into the Athenians’ treasury, and when each man was to receive ten drachmas for his share, Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to make no such division but to use the money to build two hundred ships for the war, that is, for the war with Aegina [a small but prominent nearby island polis].

Herodotus drops us into the midst of a debate in 483 B.C. over state resources. The discovery of the Laurion silver mines had brought a windfall to the community, and a proposal had been made to divide the revenue among the citizenry on a per-capita basis. Ten drachmas was a considerable sum for a working man, perhaps roughly equivalent to a month’s wages. Yet the Athenian citizens chose to forego individual payoffs in favor of Themistocles’ proposal for building and manning a fleet of warships that would make Athens the greatest naval power of the Greek world.”

Related;
Democracy and War- Provocative questions about this relationship between war and democracy are raised by the world's first democracy - classical Athens. Guests include John Keane, Founder and Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy (Westminster University, London) and Josiah Ober Princeton University Department of Classics and the University Centre for Human Values; Constantine Mitsotakis Professsor at Stanford University. (podcast from ABC)