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Nova - Season 53 Episode 8 - Athens: Birth of Democracy
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00:13Athens, Greece.
00:15Here, 2,500 years ago, a bold political experiment took place.
00:22For more than a century, archaeologists and historians have been investigating this crucial period.
00:30When, for the first time in recorded history, elite rulers shared power with humble citizens.
00:38Inventing a new form of government, democracy.
00:43The ancient Greek word, democratiates, two words put together, demos, kratos.
00:50Demos is the people. Kratos meant power, strength, force.
00:56What led to it? How did it work? And why did those in power allow it?
01:03Today, researchers are finding new clues to answer these questions and more.
01:08That's a smoking gun.
01:10Conducting hands-on experiments to decode ancient texts.
01:14Understand evidence from the ancient ruins.
01:19And learn how this first democracy protected itself from tyranny, civil war, and corruption.
01:26It's a black one.
01:29Piecing together the epic story that laid the foundation for today's democratic societies.
01:37Athens, birth of democracy.
01:40Right now, on NOVA.
02:03In the heart of Athens, the capital of Greece, rises the Acropolis.
02:10A rocky outcrop where the Parthenon stands, built 2,500 years ago, during a time of cultural and political upheaval.
02:23That gave birth to the first democracy of Western civilization.
02:29For more than a century, archaeologists have been excavating at the foot of the Acropolis.
02:36Because this is where many historians believe the Athenians invented a form of democracy that would help inspire the authors
02:44of the American Constitution.
02:47And in this park are the remains of the Agora, an ancient open plaza, where citizens gathered to decide their
02:56own fates.
02:58So it is essentially the center of town where democracy was first practiced and was in use for 200 years.
03:06There's a legislative branch for the people making the laws.
03:11There's an executive branch for the magistrates running the city.
03:17There were also courts making major decisions about the future of Athens.
03:23And all of these branches were run mainly by ordinary citizens, who were not elected by popular vote, but chosen
03:31at random, by lottery, and held their posts for just one year each.
03:37This revolutionary experiment happened at a time when many other societies were ruled by kings, pharaohs, or small groups of
03:46rich and powerful people.
03:48While commoners had no say in public affairs.
03:53What sparked this revolutionary experiment?
04:17One clue might be a recent disturbing discovery in the southwest of the city, at a place called Faleron.
04:27Here, during excavation at a construction site, builders uncovered a vast ancient cemetery.
04:37Dated between the 8th and 5th centuries BCE, the burial ground contained the remains of Athenian men and women of
04:44all social classes.
04:50And in 2016, archaeologists found something gruesome.
04:59About 80 skeletons, mostly young men in chains.
05:04All violently killed, placed side by side in three trenches.
05:13Director of excavations, Stella Krasulaki, led the investigation into what looked like an ancient mass execution.
05:28It was something we had never seen before.
05:35Why were they handcuffed?
05:38Why were there fractures at this specific spot on the skull, on most of the individuals in this mass grave?
05:46The September collective.
05:51The high salt content of the sandy soil destroyed any chemical traces that would allow the remains to be precisely
06:00dated.
06:05But the designs of two small vases found next to them made it possible to determine when they were buried.
06:14The second half of the 7th century BCE.
06:21The find was so unusual, archaeologists and historians immediately wanted to know, what happened here?
06:31For their research, they turned to a vast body of text copied by hand over the centuries.
06:37At first by the Greeks and Romans, then later by Arab scholars and Christian scribes.
06:47By studying these ancient texts, Stella made a connection with accounts of an attempted coup d'etat that took place
06:55in that very period.
06:59In the late 7th century BCE, an Olympic champion named Cylon became intoxicated by his own popularity.
07:08He dreamed of becoming the all-powerful ruler, or tyrant, of Athens.
07:15Encouraged by supporters, he decided to seize power by force.
07:22At the time, the city was ruled by an oligarchy, a few wealthy families, each represented by an archon, a
07:31magistrate responsible for managing political affairs.
07:38These archons fought back against Cylon and his supporters, driving the coup-plotters into the Temple of Athena at the
07:46top of the Acropolis, where they sought refuge.
07:51They went inside. They shut the doors.
07:58They remained trapped inside.
08:02Greek religious practice forbade violence against anyone who placed themselves under the protection of a god or goddess.
08:12But they were held for many days.
08:17They began to suffer and starve without food or water.
08:23The archons promised to keep them alive if they surrendered.
08:28They did not want the men to die within the temple walls, a terrible sacrilege.
08:34To maintain the goddess's protection, Cylon's supporters attached a rope to the statue of Athena and to each other.
08:42What happened as they emerged is debated, but Stella thinks.
08:50One of the archons cut the rope, and then they were killed.
08:56It was an early form of civil war.
09:03Some archaeologists think these skeletons could be the remains of those insurrectionists.
09:11Evidence of potential for violence in Athenian society during a time when tyranny was always a threat to the existing
09:19oligarchy.
09:22No matter how secure the oligarchs hold on power, the archons always feared that one of their own or another
09:30charismatic leader from the elite would rise up as a tyrant and oppose them, seizing power for himself.
09:40Which eventually did happen, about 70 years later in 560 BCE, when a tyrant named Pisistratus seized power.
09:50He ruled absolutely, eventually passing power to his sons, Hipparchus and Hippias, in a family reign that lasted for decades
10:01and ended in violence.
10:04It's a story that's been brought to light thanks to some recent discoveries.
10:17A few hundred yards from the Acropolis, the clearing of some old buildings has given archaeologists expanded access to an
10:27important historical site.
10:37John Camp was the director of excavations here in the ancient Agora for almost three decades.
10:45In the most recently cleared area, he thinks he found traces of a place described in ancient texts, where a
10:54bloody murder changed the destiny of Athens.
10:58So you think you really find the sanctity of Laos?
11:04I'm interested in your opinion.
11:07He is eager to share this discovery with historian Vincent Azoulay.
11:11That's quite emotional for me.
11:13I'm glad you're here.
11:16Vincent studies Athenian democracy.
11:19How it emerged and how it managed to control the elites, who never fully accepted a political system that gave
11:26so much power to commoners.
11:28These are original walls and those are original walls.
11:32According to John, they're close to the place where one of the tyrants of Athens was assassinated.
11:42On this day in 514 BCE, Athens' largest festival was in full swing.
11:50The entire city celebrated the goddess Athena and marched in a grand procession to the top of the Acropolis.
11:59Horsemen and infantrymen, musicians and water carriers, priestesses and young girls with offerings, paraded behind several hundred heads of cattle,
12:09destined to be sacrificed and shared in honor of the goddess.
12:18But during the excitement, the tyrant Hipparchus was attacked by two armed men and stabbed to death.
12:30Ancient historians reported that the murder took place next to a small sanctuary called the Lyocorian.
12:38John thinks they've discovered the remains of this historic building.
12:43And this is the best one here because it's got every letter, it's clear as a bell.
12:55And so here you can see the Epimeletai to Laos dedicated this.
13:04That's quite convincing.
13:06That's a smocking gun.
13:08The Lyocorian was a sanctuary dedicated to the legendary hero Leos and his three daughters who agreed to be sacrificed
13:16to save Athens from a plague.
13:18The side here is another inscription.
13:21I'm really convinced.
13:24Really, for me, it's an emotional moment after working so many years on the subject.
13:32It seems that John has found where it all started.
13:38Because this assassination triggered a series of events that led to the first democracy.
13:48But what was that first experiment like?
13:53In search of clues, another team of researchers is investigating some mysterious stone fragments.
14:00They're arranged like this.
14:03For a long time, archaeologists have wondered what these ancient pieces of marble were.
14:11But French archaeologist Liliane Lopez-Rabatel and architect Nicolas Breche have an idea.
14:19These fragments have remained a mystery for almost a century.
14:22The first archaeologist who found it in 1830 made a replica with a small caption indicating that he did not
14:29know what it was used for, that it might be a clock.
14:34A century later, an American researcher spotted the word Klerotarian engraved on one side.
14:40In Greek, Klerotarian means lottery machine.
14:45This is what it looks like.
14:49No intact example of this kind of lottery machine has ever been found.
14:54Only broken fragments.
14:57So they have enlisted the help of sculptor Paniotis Zestanakis to recreate the original object and test their theory.
15:07What we are going to do is experimental archaeology, actually.
15:11We are going to use only ancient techniques.
15:13So this might lead to interesting conclusions.
15:17So I'll take another photo of it.
15:20According to ancient texts, lottery machines played an essential role in Athenian democracy.
15:271,200 annual positions were drawn by lottery.
15:31In fact, a considerable number of people were drawn by lot every day, every month, every year.
15:38Unlike modern representative democracies, where citizens elect officials to govern,
15:45Athens was a more direct democracy, where representatives were chosen from the citizenry by drawing lots.
15:55Lillianne and her team want to recreate this early lottery machine and test it with 150 participants,
16:01to see how it worked in Athens 2,500 years ago.
16:07When citizens needed a way to guarantee randomized selection to prevent fraud and corruption,
16:15and allow any citizen to participate in public affairs and decision-making.
16:24But the road to this form of democracy was not smooth.
16:28A tyrant had been killed.
16:32But what happened next?
16:34What became of the two tyrant slayers?
16:40One was killed just after assassinating Hipparchus,
16:43and the other was tortured and then executed.
16:46So tyranny didn't collapse.
16:48Quite the contrary.
16:49It became even stronger because the brother of the man who had been assassinated, Hipparchus, had survived.
16:57As a result, this second tyrant, Hipparchus, became completely paranoid and ruled Athens through terror.
17:07Opponents of his regime were tortured, were executed without warning, thrown from a cliff.
17:16To finally end the tyranny and change the destiny of Athens would take a foreign intervention and the arrival of
17:24a charismatic reformer.
17:28In 510 BCE, the warrior city of Sparta, Athens' great rival, invaded and caused the tyrant Hipparchus to flee to
17:38Persia.
17:40A vast empire stretching from Turkey to Egypt and as far as Afghanistan.
17:46And a major threat to the Greek world.
17:51So, when the deposed tyrant Hipparchus entered the service of the Persian king Darius I,
17:56he became one of Greece's greatest traitors and is still remembered that way today.
18:06Meanwhile, in Athens, the king of Sparta sought to install a new tyrant.
18:12But the Athenians revolted.
18:15And instead, they demanded the return of a respected aristocrat who had been exiled by Hippias.
18:24A visionary named Cleisthenes.
18:29Cleisthenes was the great reformer of classical Athens.
18:31With the support of the people and the people leaning on him, he truly laid the foundations of the democratic
18:37system.
18:40Some of the most crucial evidence of Cleisthenes' profound influence comes from a papyrus found at the end of the
18:4719th century in Egypt.
18:52It features a copy of a text written by the philosopher Aristotle and his students at the end of the
18:594th century BCE.
19:01The Athenian Constitution.
19:05This precious ancient document is now at the British Library in London.
19:12Historian Paul Cartledge has come here to examine this one surviving copy of Aristotle's survey of the constitutions of dozens
19:21of Greek and Mediterranean cities.
19:26Only one survives. This is the one. We don't have it all. The bits missing at the beginning and at
19:33the end.
19:35Paul studies the different forms of democracy that have existed throughout history, from Athens to the present day.
19:44For him, this document reveals Cleisthenes as one of the main founders of Athenian democracy.
19:51He had the authority of having always resisted the tyrants and therefore he comes back and he's allowed back and
20:00he has the aura.
20:01But he comes back apparently with a plan.
20:06Right away, Cleisthenes dramatically expands political participation, giving power to the majority of citizens.
20:15Though the idea of citizenship was limited to adult males with Athenian parents,
20:20it was a major shift to expand power beyond those who were born rich.
20:26The majority are poor and the majority are farmers. It's a revolutionary situation.
20:34And opponents of Cleisthenes, oligarchs, people who don't like democracy, thought he was much too permissive.
20:43So the notion that the demos, the people, is the power holder, that's new, completely new.
20:52So how did this Athenian democratic experiment work?
21:00On the site of the Agora, archaeologists have found traces of Cleisthenes' major reforms,
21:07including the remains of a very special monument.
21:13Here, ten statues of legendary Athenian heroes served as a gathering place for citizens
21:19who wanted to learn about the laws being proposed.
21:24All important information concerning the life of the city was posted here.
21:30And you as an Athenian citizen could stand out here and you could read these notices,
21:38but you couldn't quite touch them.
21:42In the days before radio, television, telephones, newspapers,
21:46this is where public information started dissemination.
21:52Were they being prescribed for the army and how many days rations were they supposed to bring?
21:57Were they involved in upcoming lawsuits?
22:00Were they the subject of public honors?
22:04The ten statues represented ten tribes.
22:07And their makeup was a key part of Cleisthenes' plan to ensure fair and effective representation.
22:14Cleisthenes understood that democracy would only work if he could bring citizens together in new ways.
22:22First, he divided the Athenian territory into three zones.
22:26The city, the countryside, and the coast.
22:30Each zone was divided into ten districts.
22:34Each tribe included members from all three zones, with the different districts chosen by lot.
22:43As a result, each tribe would include a mix of citizens who were geographically or socially distant from each other.
22:52It was an absolutely extraordinary mixing of people, which had the effect of breaking up the aristocratic bloc.
23:02Before, members of the elite could influence political life by relying on a whole clique of people who were dependent
23:10on them, especially economically.
23:13But that was no longer possible, because people were now distributed, and distributed randomly.
23:22How did Cleisthenes manage to enact such revolutionary reform?
23:30The answer lies 75 miles from Athens, in a legendary sanctuary built on the side of a mountain.
23:40A place the ancient Greeks considered to be the center of the world.
23:48The sanctuary of Delphi, dedicated to the god Apollo.
23:59Rich and poor all recognized the authority of Apollo, and came to consult his oracle.
24:08The Pythia of Delphi.
24:11This woman was the intermediary for the god.
24:16And so, Cleisthenes came to visit her.
24:19Asking her to randomly choose ten names among a hundred of Athens' founding heroes.
24:28It was the Pythia of Delphi who, in a certain way, gave her endorsement to this distribution of citizens into
24:35ten new tribes, which legitimized what was a true revolution.
24:43For more than two centuries, the ten tribes of Cleisthenes were at the heart of Greek democracy.
24:51As was the use of random selection, which became one of the main political tools in Athens.
25:00In this direct democracy, there were almost no elections, no career politicians running to represent the people.
25:09Most of the civic offices and positions, more than 1,200 in total, were chosen at random each year from
25:17a large pool of citizens.
25:19Only a few positions were elected, such as military officers, treasurers, and water supply managers.
25:28And each was elected for a limited term.
25:33Democracy for the ancients was not defined by election.
25:38The ancients would laugh at us if we said that's a democratic society.
25:42The election, according to the ideas of Democrats, was oligarchy because it favored the well-known, who would therefore be
25:52wealthy, well-born, politically active.
25:55Whereas the lottery randomizes the process and it doesn't advantage anybody on grounds of their birth or their wealth.
26:07The drawing of lots was an obsession and became a kind of democratic technology.
26:13But how did they do it?
26:16At first, beans of different colors were used for drawing lots.
26:20But that system could be rigged and limited the number of people who could be selected.
26:30In an effort to make the process as transparent as possible, they developed wooden and marble machines, like the one
26:38archaeologists are trying to reconstruct, called the Claritarian.
26:43So, how did these machines work?
26:48Liliane Lopez-Rabatel and Nicolas Bresch worked for years to research and design a prototype, starting with clues contained in
26:57the papyrus.
26:59According to this text, the names of citizens who were participating in a selection were inscribed on small strips of
27:07bronze or wood.
27:08And these were inserted into the grooves.
27:13Then, black and white cubes were mixed up and thrown into a funnel at the top of the machine, where
27:19they fell into a tube.
27:24Based on our studies of the remains and cross-referencing information from the text, we did some tests.
27:31The papyrus says the cubes were removed one by one.
27:36If a black cube came out, the top row of citizen name tags were eliminated.
27:45If the cube was white, then the name tags on that row were selected.
27:51The process was repeated as many times as there were rows.
27:56When the process was complete, the selected citizens became the decision-makers for whatever matters were at hand.
28:06What remains a bit mysterious is precisely how the cubes were extracted from the tube.
28:11So, we really want to work with the sculptor, Panaiotis, to see how we can continue these tests.
28:30On the island of Tinos, 90 miles from Athens, the Claretarian begins to take shape.
28:41This is where the sculptor, Panaiotis, lives, far from the hustle and bustle of the city.
28:51One of the most difficult parts of making of the Claretarian is this hole, because it is against the grain
28:57of the marble.
28:58It is easy to split the marble in this direction.
29:03You can tell that everything is all right, judging with the ear.
29:08If the sound changes, I have to be careful.
29:11But as long as the spell knowledge is the same all over the place, I am okay.
29:15There are no cracks inside.
29:17If the sound was different from one side to the other, that would be a problem.
29:26It is very dramatic.
29:29In ancient Athens, these machines could vary in size depending on how many people had to be selected.
29:41One of the biggest groups they were used for was a council of 500 citizens, 50 from each of the
29:4810 tribes.
29:50This council, made of citizens over the age of 30, was tasked with drafting new laws in preparation for a
29:58vote.
30:00They met at the Boulaterian, located in the Agora.
30:05So this is their meeting place.
30:07It held 500 people and they were here almost every single day, arguing, discussing, debating any proposed legislation that came
30:16up.
30:17We have to assume that it was fairly noisy and they presumably sat in tribal contingents.
30:26Right next door was the Tholos, a circular building that housed the executive government of Athens.
30:35This branch of government was made up of 50 councilors from one tribe.
30:41A rotating group of 17 of them lived here day and night for a month, addressing any urgent matters that
30:48came up.
30:50Then, they handed responsibility over to 50 citizens from another tribe, and so on.
30:56This ensured that all 10 tribes took part in the most important public affairs.
31:05And it is here that the democracy flourished.
31:10This was the center of government.
31:13But when it came to making policy decisions and passing new laws, how did this system actually work?
31:21That process took place just a few minutes walk from the Agora, on the other side of the Acropolis.
31:29Called the Pnyx, this is where all the citizens of Athens gathered about four times a month,
31:34to vote on laws proposed by the Athenian council.
31:41They were always afraid of tyranny.
31:44They were always afraid of a new oligarchic regime.
31:48They tried very hard to avoid it.
31:51Archaeologist Dimitris Plansos takes his students into the field,
31:55so they can get a feeling for what it was like to participate in Athenian democracy.
32:03Here, at the crack of dawn, thousands of citizens would gather.
32:09The chairman of the day, chosen by lottery, would announce the agenda, opening the floor to speakers.
32:17Next came the time for discussion.
32:20According to ancient sources, the debates were often intense.
32:25But eventually, it was time to vote, by a simple show of hands.
32:31Pnyx signifies the power of the people, the power given to the people, the power exercised by the people.
32:40To ensure that the poorest citizens, and those who worked or lived far from the city, could participate,
32:48the city paid them a small salary to attend.
32:55An old historian called this moment the invention of politics.
32:59Because this is when people have to come together and decide to work together to make life better for everybody.
33:12But it wasn't always a friendly gathering.
33:20These fragments tell the story of how the Athenians treated citizens who were seen to be working against the democratic
33:26system.
33:31These pottery shards bear the names of major political figures of the time.
33:36But they were not objects of celebration.
33:39These were ostraca.
33:42They are used by the Athenians to control their politicians.
33:49Ostracan just means a piece of pottery, and the process is called ostracism because of that.
33:57One of Cleisthenes' innovations made it possible for citizens to vote against someone.
34:05Once a year, the citizens' assembly voted by a show of hands on whether they thought their democracy was being
34:12threatened by someone.
34:14If a majority voted yes, then the citizens were summoned to the agora about two months later.
34:22Each citizen brought a piece of pottery, an ostracon, with the name of the person they thought was responsible, and
34:29should be banished for ten years.
34:35What's fascinating about ostracism is that 11,000 ostraca have been found to date, which is absolutely staggering.
34:43And some of the ostraca contain insults.
34:46We have Themistocles, who is called, if you'll pardon the expression, a sodomite.
34:53For this great unpopularity contest, at least 6,000 voters out of 20,000 to 40,000 citizens had to
35:02agree.
35:04An ostracized individual would then be banished from Athens' borders for ten years.
35:11The ostracized person didn't lose their citizenship or the income from their property.
35:17So there was a whole series of guarantees that limited arbitrariness and explained why the ostracized never turned against the
35:24Athenian city.
35:24And that was absolutely crucial, because ostracism ensured that the elites conformed to the expectations of the people.
35:34The Athenians were determined to find ways to keep the citizens united and protect democracy.
35:42But external threats also brought the people together.
35:47In the early 5th century BCE, a Persian invasion led Athens to build a fleet of 200 warships called Triremes.
35:57The effort to build and crew the ships united its citizens.
36:02It's a lesson that still resonates today.
36:08This replica of an ancient warship belongs to the Greek navy.
36:13It is only used on special occasions.
36:18Inside, rowers sit on three different levels.
36:21The source of the name, Trireme.
36:29This one was reconstructed by British archaeologists in the 1980s,
36:33based on ancient texts and carvings.
36:38The creation of the fleet changed the society.
36:42Up until now, Athens had been a land power and had fought with perhaps 10,000 heavily armed foot soldiers.
36:52Now they suddenly had 200 ships, each one needing 170 rowers.
36:57So we're talking about tens of thousands of Athenians who had to participate to be a success.
37:04Unlike Roman galleys, which were mainly manned by slaves,
37:09Athenian triremes were operated by citizens.
37:13The citizen rowers were organized into teams corresponding to the 10 tribes created by Cleisthenes.
37:21This was one of those places of political and social mixing that democracy brought about.
37:27People who lived together and risked their lives together.
37:32We could therefore say that essentially the Athenian democracy is a rowing democracy.
37:40But of course, there was a dark side to Athenian society.
37:46The rights of citizenry were not universal.
37:5940 miles southeast of Athens lies a maze of more than 100 miles of underground tunnels.
38:07These are the silver mines of Lavrion.
38:13Over the centuries, countless enslaved people, including children, worked in these mines.
38:21Look at this. Look here. If you crawl forward, you can rest your elbows and knees.
38:27And these are the traces left by the elbows and knees of people who came to dig these tunnels.
38:34Now we can really see it. It's extraordinary. It's visible there.
38:41To investigate these tunnels, archaeologists rely on specialists who understand the dangers here.
38:50Jackie Closet is a speleologist and also a former miner.
38:56The most difficult thing in these tunnels, we're on all fours the whole time.
39:01We move around like lizards with bellies to the ground.
39:06It's hard to advance, so how do they manage?
39:11In my opinion, there must have been many, many deaths in these galleries.
39:16It's a grueling job. Imagine in a gallery like this, for six, seven, eight hours, half-naked.
39:30An ancient painting shows that child slaves, like the ones in Lavrion, worked in mines.
39:38Often, a young worker accompanied an older one.
39:45Outside, archaeologists have discovered outlines of their undersized footprints.
39:53Could be that these two people, these co-workers, would rest after a very harsh day
39:59and make the outlines of their feet with the tools they had in hand.
40:05And this is for eternity.
40:12Archaeology allows us to approach these people of the past who are silent in written sources.
40:18But the question such as how many slaves were active in Lavrion is very, very difficult to be answered.
40:26But there is one answer to that, which is too many.
40:31And by too many, it's tens of thousands.
40:37The landscape of Lavrion was completely transformed by ancient mining.
40:44The ruins of industrial facilities that were set up to wash and clean the ore are still visible today.
40:53There are 2.5 thousand hectares of dense archaeological buildings like these in Lavrion.
41:02That's why Lavrion is unique.
41:06The slaves of the Lavrion mines powered the development of the Athenian economy.
41:14Most were prisoners of war who had been bought in markets.
41:18Or were the children of slaves.
41:21It is estimated that slaves in Athens outnumbered citizens by about 2 to 3 times.
41:29In antiquity, many societies in this region, regardless of their political structure, relied on slavery to some extent.
41:38But in Athens, a specific group of slaves was at the very heart of the democratic system.
41:47The Athenians called them the Demosioi, the public slaves.
41:50The slaves who were a property of the Demos, the people of Athens.
41:54They were not very numerous, perhaps between a thousand and two thousand, not much more.
41:59They had different functions.
42:01Among them were archers, who were Scythians who performed policing duties in the city.
42:07Even the policemen were slaves.
42:10Many positions in the bureaucracy were filled by these Demosioi.
42:15Archivists, clerks, accountants, coin inspectors, as well as assistants to the council, the citizens of the Peniques, and the courts.
42:26These public slaves were treated better than the slaves in the Laverion mines.
42:31They ensured the continuity of the state, while the citizens who served in government were temporary.
42:38Usually with only a one-year term.
42:45Those were the citizens selected with a lottery machine.
42:56Super!
43:00It's wonderful!
43:04It's very nice!
43:06I'm very happy!
43:09Panaiotis has almost completed his project.
43:13Liliane is testing the cleretarian, the dice and the funnel.
43:21As well as the mechanism designed by Panaiotis, to remove the dice one by one, using two bronze pins.
43:30Very nice!
43:31You could be doing this all day!
43:35Seems to work well!
43:39He is fine-tuning the last details.
43:43In a few days, the machine will be transported to Athens for its inauguration.
43:54It's time for the first full-scale test in the Agora of Athens.
44:01A unique archaeological experiment to test how these randomizing selection machines might have worked.
44:11Liliane and Panaiotis' team have brought together dozens of high school students.
44:17So, we are pleased now to reveal the results of this work.
44:35So, we are pleased now to reveal the results of this work.
44:47Back in those days, every morning, citizens gathered at dawn to be chosen by lot to serve as jurors for
44:55the day's trials.
44:57The random lotteries helped prevent corruption of the jury, since no one could know in advance who would sit in
45:04court that day.
45:06The procedure was visible to all, guaranteeing that there would be no cheating.
45:12This is a very important aspect of the machine. No cheating is possible.
45:18To start, each participant hands over their name tag.
45:26The boxes are shaken to thoroughly mix them.
45:31Then, they are inserted into the Claretarian.
45:37And the lottery begins.
45:41We need four light and 26 dark.
45:46In this trial, they want to choose 20 people, which means picking four rows.
45:52So, Panaiotis inserts the four shiny light dice and 26 black dice into the machine.
46:00Then, he removes them one by one.
46:04It's a black one.
46:06If a black die comes out, the top row of name tags is eliminated.
46:11The first row is black. The names are not selected.
46:16The second one is a white one.
46:18If it's a shiny die, the line is selected.
46:23Calikidis Agileos.
46:25Calikidis.
46:26And five people are then called to serve as jurors.
46:30Come, come, come. Calikidis.
46:39Right in here.
46:41She's the first selected.
46:46Vita Pafsanias Lefronois.
46:49Where are you?
47:09We have completed the draw. All the lots have been drawn. We have selected 20 jurors for the People's Court
47:20of the Democratic City of Athens.
47:22Congratulations.
47:30I'm really very pleased with the outcome of this experiment. I feel relieved, tired, but truly satisfied.
47:41For the ancient Greeks, true democracy only worked through extensive use of random selection.
47:49Citizens voted on the laws that would govern them. The absolute grip of the powerful was broken.
47:59But are we really sure the democracy originated in Athens at that time? Were there other precedents?
48:08People gathering together. People legislating together. We have known this for a long time. Certainly since the Assyrian world, we
48:16also find this in other communities.
48:19For example, cuneiform tablets have been found that mention that 3800 years ago, in what is now Iraq, there were
48:27assemblies of notables who designated one of their members by lot as mayor of the city every year.
48:36But for the Greeks, democracy was not just that. It was also about controlling the elites. In other words, it
48:45was about how to prevent these elites from seizing real power.
48:51This first Greek democracy was very different from ours. But in a way, Athenians had to deal with some of
48:58the same challenges.
49:00Who is in charge? How do you select and hold people accountable?
49:05Back in that time, this experiment involved only a few hundred thousand inhabitants.
49:12But does size really matter when it comes to implementing democratic ideas and concepts?
49:20Controlling the elites is not dependent on the size of the society. It is something that can be experimented with
49:27on a large scale.
49:28And from that point of view, the Athenian democratic experiment still has a lot to teach us.
49:36Athenian democracy was a bold innovation. But it wasn't without challenges.
49:44After a century of existence, democracy almost disappeared in Athens.
49:50At the end of the 5th century BCE, after three decades of war against Sparta, the defeated Athenian government was
49:58overthrown by 30 oligarchs.
50:00They ruled through terror for a year, killing more than 1,500 opponents, often with lethal poison, sparking a full
50:10-scale civil war.
50:15Eventually, after eight months of chaos and armed confrontation, the citizens succeeded in restoring democracy.
50:24One of the Steelis discovered in the Agora describes what happened after that.
50:30This inscription here talks about violent death. Here is the Greek word for death, thanatos.
50:37And then right after that, it mentions democracy.
50:40And what this inscription is doing, it is telling us that anybody who died a violent death fighting to restore
50:48the democracy,
50:49their orphans are going to be supported by the state until they grow up.
50:54And along the side here are the names of all the Athenian Democrats who died fighting to restore the democracy,
51:03and the names of their children who will now be taken care of by the new government until they grow
51:10up.
51:10So it's a very powerful message about how hard it was to restore the democracy and what the cost was.
51:22Democracy held strong for almost another century until Athens was defeated by the Macedonians from the north,
51:30the north,anth, and the north,anth.
51:30Led by Alexander the Great and his father, King Philip II.
51:35Self-rule was finally swept away when the Roman Empire took over Greece around the middle of the 2nd century
51:42BCE.
51:45Athenian democracy was an early experiment.
51:48Today, there are many forms of democracy around the world.
51:52But they all have the same powerful ideas in common.
51:56That a healthy democracy needs to heed the voice of the people
52:00while enshrining robust checks and balances
52:03in order to defend against tyranny in all its forms.
52:21To be continued...
52:22To be continued...
52:32To be continued...
52:45To be continued...
52:59To be continued...
53:16To be continued...