Profs & Pints Baltimore: How Ancient Athens Restored Democracy

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “How Ancient Athens Restored Democracy,” on lessons to be learned from an overthrow of tyrants in 403 B.C., with Nicholas D. Cross, assistant professor of history at the United States Naval Academy and author of The Roots of Cooperation: Constructing Interstate Alliances in Ancient Greece.

[Doors open at 3. The talk starts at 4:30. The room is open seating. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-athens-democracy ]

The defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War led to its democracy being replaced by the Thirty Tyrants, an oligarchic regime that consolidated power through executions and political repression. Democratic exiles managed to organize resistance, defeat the oligarchic forces, and return to Athens to restore democratic government, but then faced the far more challenging task of reconciling a community torn apart by political divisions.

The restorers of Athenian democracy grappled with a question that often arises in periods of political upheaval: Can a deeply divided community ever overcome its past and build a shared future? Learn how they managed to bring about such an outcome in a talk that holds hopeful lessons for our own time.

The speaker, Dr. Nicholas Cross, teaches the history of ancient Greece and Rome and is the author of a forthcoming biography of the leader of democratic resistance to the Thirty Tyrants, Thrasybulus of Steiria: An Athenian Hero?

He’ll describe how the settlement that followed the civil war included an amnesty designed to prevent cycles of retaliation, but Athens nonetheless remained deeply divided. Among those who had to find a way to live together once more were former democrats, supporters of oligarchy, and citizens such as Socrates whose conduct during the regime was open to question.

Democracy’s return was not a straightforward triumph. It instead involved dealing with tensions and making political decisions intended to enable peaceful coexistence possible. The Athenians had to balance both accountability with reconciliation and the desire for revenge with the need for lasting political stability.

The events of 403 BC remind us that rebuilding a divided society requires not only restoring political institutions but also reviving trust and learning to coexist with former adversaries. The lessons they learned in the process remain relevant nearly 2500 years later. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: The Acropolis at Athens as painted by Leo von Klenze in 1846 (Neue Pinakothek museum / Wikimedia Commons).