The Athenian Constitution

About the book

The work moves from an account of constitutional change in Athens to a detailed description of the offices and procedures through which its government operated. Figures such as Solon and Cleisthenes appear within a history of competing social interests, while later sections examine citizenship, magistracies, councils, and courts. The change in emphasis is valuable: political history becomes connected with the everyday machinery of selection, supervision, payment, and decision. Rather than presenting democracy simply as an abstract ideal, the text gives readers arrangements that can be compared and questioned. Its ancient perspective and unevenly preserved opening also make it a historical document requiring interpretation. The volume offers a compact way to examine how a community's accounts of its past relate to the institutional practices through which authority is exercised.

• Constitutional change
• Democratic institutions
• Political history

Why read it

For an unusually concrete ancient account of political institutions, joining their development to the details of how they functioned.

English translation by Frederic G. Kenyon