Athenian citizens had to be descended from citizens — after the reforms of Pericles and Cimon in 450 BC on both sides of the family, excluding the children of Athenian men and foreign women.

At Sparta women competed in public exercise — so in Aristophanes ' Lysistrata the Athenian women admire the tanned, muscular bodies of their Spartan counterparts — and women could own property in their own right, as they could not at Athens.

Even with respect to slavery the new citizen law of 450 BC may have had effect: it is speculated that originally Athenian fathers had been able to register for citizenship offspring had with slave women ( Hansen 1987: 53 ).

Proponents ( especially of majoritarianism ) deny these accusations, and argue that any faults in Athenian democracy were because the franchise was quite limited ( only male citizens could vote — women, slaves and non-citizens were excluded ).

However, Athenian citizenship excluded women, slaves, foreigners ( μέτοικοι metoikoi ), and males under 20 years old.

In contrast to populations conquered by other Greek cities ( e. g. the Athenian treatment of Melos ), the male population was not exterminated and the women and children turned into chattel slaves.

These sayings purporting to be from Spartan women were far more likely to be of Athenian origin and designed to portray Spartan women as unnatural and so undeserving of pity.

Unlike Athenian women who wore heavy, concealing clothes and were rarely seen outside the house, Spartan women wore dresses ( peplos ) slit up the side to allow freer movement and moved freely about the city, either walking or driving chariots.

They were fairly cosmopolitan by Athenian standards, including women and slaves, and were probably vegetarians ( Stevenson 2005 ).

Only women who were the spouses of Athenian citizens could attend the festival ; no unmarried women were present, and no men, who were expected to send their wives and to meet the festival's costs, but who might be severely treated if they attempted to spy on the proceedings.

" In this situation she can be called Demeter Thesmophoros, for the Athenian women imitated her when they sat on the ground and fasted at the Thesmophoria ".

Category: Roman-era Athenian women

The earliest known direct democracy is said to be the Athenian Democracy in the 5th century BC, although it was not an inclusive democracy ; women, foreigners and slaves were excluded from it.

Athenian women could enter into a contract worth less than the value of a “ medimnos of barley ” ( a measure of grain ), allowing women to engage in petty trading.

No women ever acquired citizenship in ancient Athens, and therefore women were excluded in principle and practice from ancient Athenian democracy.

Spartan women rarely married before the age of 20, and unlike Athenian women who wore heavy, concealing clothes and were rarely seen outside the house, Spartan women wore short dresses and went where they pleased.

The identification of Ajax with the family of Aeacus was chiefly a matter which concerned the Athenians, after Salamis had come into their possession, on which occasion Solon is said to have inserted a line in the Iliad ( 2. 557 – 558 ), for the purpose of supporting the Athenian claim to the island.

Kotys had already married his daughter to the Athenian general Iphicrates.

Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens.

Running the courts was one of the major expenses of the Athenian state and there were moments of financial crisis in the 4th century when the courts, at least for private suits, had to be suspended.

Another interesting insight into Athenian democracy comes from the law that excluded from decisions of war those citizens who had property close to the city walls-on the basis that they had a personal interest in the outcome of such debates because the practice of an invading army at the time was to destroy the land outside the walls.

Athenian democracy had many critics, both ancient and modern.

Xanthippus, the Athenian commander at Mycale, had furiously rejected this ; the Ionian cities were originally Athenian colonies, and the Athenians, if no-one else, would protect the Ionians.

The Epidaurians had been accustomed to make annual offerings to the Athenian deities Athena and Erechtheus in payment for the Athenian olive-wood of which the statues were made.

The plot failed owing to the late arrival of the Athenian force, when Nicodromus had already fled the island.

Herodotus had no Athenian victories to record after the initial success, and the fact that Themistocles was able to carry his proposal to devote the surplus funds of the state to the building of so large a fleet seems to imply that the Athenians were themselves convinced that a supreme effort was necessary.

In 510 BC, with the aid of Cleomenes I, King of Sparta, the Athenian people had expelled Hippias, the tyrant ruler of Athens.

The Persians sailed down the coast of Attica, and landed at the bay of Marathon, roughly from Athens, on the advice of the exiled Athenian tyrant Hippias ( who had accompanied the expedition ).

Furthermore, raising such a large army had denuded Athens of defenders, and thus any secondary attack in the Athenian rear would cut the army off from the city ; and any direct attack on the city could not be defended against.

The Athenians had honed their style of fighting in combat with other phalanxes, wooden shields smashing against wooden shields, iron spear tips clattering against breastplates of bronze ... in those first terrible seconds of collision, there was nothing but a pulverizing crash of metal into flesh and bone ; then the rolling of the Athenian tide over men wearing, at most, quilted jerkins for protection, and armed, perhaps, with nothing more than bows or slings.

The Athenian wings quickly routed the inferior Persian levies on the flanks, before turning inwards to surround the Persian centre, which had been more successful against the thin Greek centre.

The two tribes which had been in the centre of the Athenian line stayed to guard the battlefield under the command of Aristides.

Despite this limited franchise, Athenian democracy was certainly the first — and perhaps the best — example of a working direct democracy.

Images depicting many of the Greek myths are only known from South Italian vases, since Athenian ones seem to have had more limited repertoires of depiction.

Opportunities for trade even within the Athenian borders were limited.

The primary evidence used to suggest this theory is the Dipolieia, which is an Athenian festival, in limited circulation, during which an ox was sacrificed.

At Sparta, with representatives of all of Sparta's allies present, Theramenes and his colleagues negotiated the terms of the peace that ended the Peloponnesian War ; the long walls and the walls of Piraeus were pulled down, the size of the Athenian fleet was sharply limited, and Athenian foreign policy was subordinated to that of Sparta ; the treaty also stipulated that the Athenians were to use " the constitution of their ancestors ".

For example, Athenian democracy limited the vote to male citizens, while slaves, foreigners, and women of any status were excluded.

A third possibility is that his reforms were limited to hoplites serving as marines on board ships of the Athenian navy.

A third possibility is that his reforms were limited to hoplites serving as marines on board ships of the Athenian navy.

On the earlier such vases, he looks like a rough, unkempt Athenian seaman dressed in reddish-brown, holding his ferryman's pole in his right hand and using his left hand to receive the deceased.

Diodorus says that the Athenian cavalry on the Mantinean right wing, although not inferior in quality, could not withstand the missiles from the light-troops that Epaminondas had placed among the Theban cavalry.

Laying out the market stalls into regularized rows at right angles solved this problem and was later built into the Athenian Agora and copied ever since.

And one must marvel at the open-minded examination of controversial and critical topics that took place right in the political heart of Athenian society, allowing a courageous self-examination of the first democracy trying to develop and refine itself further

Delian League (" Athenian Empire "), right before the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC

Gorgidas and the Sacred Band occupied the front ranks of the Theban forces on the right, while Chabrias and an experienced force of mercenary hoplites occupied the front ranks of the Athenian forces on the left.

At Marathon, Callimachus commanded the right wing of the Athenian army.

* Athenian: " For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretenses — either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us — and make a long speech which would not be believed ; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Spartans, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both ; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must " ( Strassler 352 / 5. 89 ).

The Athenian troops landed outside Syracuse, and lined up eight men deep with the Argives and Mantineans on the right, the rest of the allies on the left, and the Athenians themselves in the centre.

The Athenians attempted to flee, but only the eleven leading ships were able to slip around the Peloponnesian right wing and flee towards Naupactus ; the remaining nine were cornered, driven ashore, and captured, while the twenty elite Peloponnesian ships from the right wing set out after the fleeing Athenian eleven.

Demosthenes formed the right wing of the Athenian-led army with Athenian and Messenian troops, with the centre and left wing formed by the Acarnanians and Amphilochians.

Because of the asymmetry in deployment the Theban right wing would almost certainly be victorious, but also because of their deployment the Athenian hoplite line was longer and would outflank the Boetian left line.

Meanwhile, the Boeotian right wing was also victorious, and the Athenians fighting there fled ; when the Athenian centre saw that their two wings had been defeated they also fled.

When the Athenian left had rounded the point of Cynossema, the Spartans attacked, planning to outflank the Athenian right and trap the fleet in the Hellespont while driving the center aground on Cynossema.

After routing these ships, the Athenian right bore down on the Peloponnesian center, and, catching them in a state of disorganization, quickly routed them as well.

The Syracusans on the right, seeing the rest of their fleet in flight, abandoned their attack on the Athenian left and fled as well.

Every male Athenian citizen, irrespective to birth, occupation, and with a few exceptions, economic status, had the right to wield power as an official or Council member and actively participate in the decision-making process at the Assembly whether or not he currently held any official position.

The left continued to resist for longer, but was unable to stand up to the entire Athenian fleet and soon joined the right wing in flight.

The building is a full-scale replica of the Athenian original ; and the statue of Athena Parthenos within is a reconstruction of the long lost original to careful scholarly standards: she is cuirassed and helmeted, carries a shield on her left arm and a small ( 6 ft ) statue of Nike ( Victory ) in her right palm, and stands high, gilt with more than eight pounds of gold leaf ; an equally colossal serpent rears its head between her and her shield.