Pseudo‑Xenophon Critiques Demokratia and Acknowledges Naval Basis (mid‑5th c.)
In the mid‑5th century, the ‘Old Oligarch’ condemned Athens’ democracy yet admitted the poor who rowed “impart strength to the city” and thus held power [6]. Written within earshot of the Agora’s noise and the Peiraieus’ rigging creak, his critique doubles as analysis.
What Happened
The pamphlet is short, sharp, and grudgingly insightful. Pseudo‑Xenophon’s Constitution of the Athenians—composed by an elitist critic later nicknamed the Old Oligarch—dissects the democracy he despises. He opens by saying he does “not think well” of their choice of constitution, then, in the next breath, concedes that the people are right to have more because they man the ships [6]. Few texts capture a system’s logic through a hostile eye so cleanly.
The city he describes is concrete. The Assembly on the Pnyx; the courts in and around the Agora; the Council of 500 turning probouleumata into debates; the Peiraieus humming with hulls and the smell of pitch. The sounds are civic and maritime: a herald’s cry on bare rock, a boatswain’s whistle over blue water. In that soundscape, the thetes—poorer citizens—become decisive, because fleets need rowers and rowers are many.
He catalogues consequences. With the people in charge, juries are large and paid; officials are chosen by lot; the polished and wealthy must flatter the crowd. He detests it. But he won’t deny its coherence. In recognizing that naval power underwrites popular power, he explains why tribute lists in the Agora matter to law in the Stoa Basileios and to votes on the Pnyx [11], [14]. Money becomes ships; ships become leverage; leverage becomes law and office.
This analysis reaches beyond complaint. It helps explain the demography of attendance—how thousands could gather forty times a year [17]—and the psychology of policy—why leaders like Pericles shaped arguments to audiences who could also crew triremes [5]. It also foreshadows crisis. A city that leans on fleets for strength leans on cash. Interrupt revenue, and the system shakes.
In the immediate mid-century years, the pamphlet circulated as Athens widened its imperial net. While critics whispered under colonnades, the democracy’s machinery clicked on: kleroteria clattered, water-clocks dripped, and the scarlet rope nudged bodies up the hill to vote. The Old Oligarch disliked the tune. He heard it clearly nonetheless.
Why This Matters
The Old Oligarch’s critique supplies an outsider’s confirmation of a central mechanism: naval manpower empowers the poor and, through them, democratic institutions [6]. His text connects revenue (tribute), mobilization (fleets), and procedure (juries, sortition) in a way sympathetic sources rarely do.
This directly advances the theme of naval power funding democracy. The pamphlet makes explicit the conversion channels—cash into ships, ships into leverage, leverage into policy—that tie IG I³ 259’s figures to the roar of the Assembly and the clatter of kleroteria [11], [17]. It shows why the people’s power had a material base, not just a moral one.
More broadly, the piece becomes a touchstone for debates about democratic quality. Critics then and now worry that mass empowerment distorts justice or competence. The text’s grudging respect underscores a fact of Athenian life: as long as the Peiraieus crowded with hulls, elites needed the poor. When empire faltered and Macedon rose, that bargain frayed.
Historians use the Old Oligarch to triangulate between Pericles’ idealism and the Agora’s archaeology—matching rhetoric, revenue, and the lived mechanics of mass rule.
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