Athenian Democracy: Rise, Fall, and Philosophers
He lived during the fourth century BC in Athens, a period marked by the development and decline of Athenian democracy, shortly after the death of Pericles. During the Age of Pericles, Athens experienced an artistic, commercial, and philosophical splendor, at the cost of taxes collected from allied city-states. These city-states asked for help from Sparta. As a result of this and the differences between the Spartan polis and the Athenian polis, in the year 431 BC, the Peloponnesian Wars broke out, resulting in Athens’ defeat in 404 BC. During this period of wars, Pericles died of a fever epidemic that invaded Athens, and his death led to the “demagogues”, a group of politicians raised by the Sophists, rising to power. These politicians altered the Greek tradition and used the Assembly for their own interests, apart from not being able to prevent wars.
With the fall of Athens, the Thirty Tyrants took over the Athenian government, persecuting anyone in favor of democracy, but later a new model of it was established. The Thirty Tyrants lasted in power until the arrival of King Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, who united Macedonia when he came to the throne.
Athenian Society
The Athenian social division was very marked between aristocrats and citizens, excluding women, slaves, and metics (foreigners), who had no rights. Athenian democracy was based on equality between the public good and individual good, but became more individualistic, drifting into demagoguery after Athens suffered an economic crisis in the 4th century BC.
Cultural Life
Cultural life had its heyday in the fields of architecture, sculpture, and theater during the reign of Pericles. The theater was seen as both entertainment and education for the masses, highlighting three dramatists: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Great importance was given to the pursuit of perfection through “paideia” (education) based on music, gymnastics, rhythm, and Homeric poems. Plato proposed a new “paideia” that dealt with stable and solid knowledge.
Philosophical Influences
Plato’s work was influenced by events and philosophers of his time and earlier times, in addition to his great teacher Socrates. The Pythagoreans helped him understand the world as a harmonious whole, and the connection between knowledge of what a soul is, necessarily immortal, through his theories about the souls and the introduction of the concept of number, for which everything was formed.
Thanks to the debate between Heraclitus and Parmenides, Plato asserted the impossibility of thinking about the world that is part of the sensory and the need to propose another reality different from the world of the senses, starting the theory of Ideas. He saw Socrates as the great teacher who could answer all questions on the duties of man, asserting that if we do not know what goodness and justice are, we cannot act in accordance with them. He also defended the moral education of citizens to bring them in the right direction.
When Socrates died, Plato became more pessimistic and suspicious and suggested a change to the city-states: that those who knew were the ones who had to rule. Finally, Plato took the Sophists as the target of all criticism because he said that the violence of the polis was the fruit of their relativism, which was against hegemony. For him, reason prevails over the strongest and best-known persuader. His strategy was to demonstrate the failure of opinion as a path to the truth and seek the true meaning of being somewhere else, where the framework of credibility was not the violent man.