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Athens.

What happened to Athenian democracy? As with the rise of democratic governance in Athens (described briefly in another article), its decline was a gradual process, marked by a few dramatic moments and several reversals of fortune.

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Macedonia.
Thebes.
Chaeronea.
Athens.
Corinth.
Persia.

The decline had much to do with the rise of Macedonia as a power in the Greek world, under the leadership first of Philip and then of his son, Alexander. In 338 BCE, Philip’s army defeated the allied forces of Athens and Thebes in a battle at Chaeronea. This defeat forced Athens to enter into the so-called League of Corinth, ostensibly a pan-Hellenic alliance aimed at opposing the power of Persia, but actually an organization that gave Philip unprecedented authority over Greek affairs.

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Asia.
Greece.
Sparta (in text as “Spartans”).
Megalopolis.

Upon Philip’s death, Alexander took over leadership of this League, and used it to help launch his invasion of Asia and his war with the Persian Empire. After Alexander’s departure from Greece in 335 BCE, the Athenians spent the next eleven years in an unsettled state. On the one hand, they were more-or-less entirely free from foreign interference in their domestic affairs; on the other hand, there was a powerful body of Macedonian soldiers under the command of Antipater waiting in northern Greece to put down any effort at resisting Macedonian will. During Alexander’s life, the Macedonians did not actually use force against the Athenians at any point, but this was only because the Athenians did not openly act against Macedonian wishes. The Spartans, under king Agis III, did try to assert their independence and were thoroughly, though not easily, defeated in a battle at Megalopolis in 331 or 330 BCE.

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India.
Asia.
Samos.
Athens.

Things changed in 324 BCE, when Alexander reappeared in western Asia after his march to India. In that year he issued the so-called “Exiles Decree” that commanded every Greek city to readmit any former citizens who had been disenfranchised. Alexander also announced, from Asia, that he intended to end Athenian rule over Samos and to return control of the island to the Samians. This was a heavy-handed and, to many Athenians, unacceptable interference in the sovereignty of Athens. Under the leadership of an Athenian named Leosthenes, Athens began collecting a mercenary army and forming plans (if vague ones) to do something toward regaining true freedom as an independent polis.

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Europe.
Macedonia.
Athens.

Things changed even more dramatically in 323 BCE, when news of Alexander’s death reached the Greeks of Europe. The Athenians turned on any of their fellow citizens who had spoken in favor of cooperating with Macedonia—the orator Demades, who had passed a motion in the Assembly to award divine honors to Alexander, was fined ten talents, and Aristotle, who had been tutor to the young Alexander himself, wisely moved out of Athens.

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Lamia.

And as 323 came to a close, Leosthenes, leading Athenian and allied forces, attacked the Macedonian forces under Antipater in the north. The effort was initially successful, but Leosthenes was killed while besieging the fortress of Lamia, Macedonian reinforcements arrived during the spring of 322, and the by summer of that year the Athenians had lost both on land and sea.

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Athens.
Piraeus.

The Macedonian Antipater imposed a settlement on Athens, which was in no position to resist, that brought about an end of the city’s autonomy in foreign affairs and democratic self-rule at home. The revisions to the Athenian constitution limited citizenship to those whose wealth amounted to at least 2000 drachmas; there was also to be a garrison of Macedonian forces stationed in the harbor of Piraeus.

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Athens.

Thereafter, while many of the institutions of the Athenian democracy continued to function, and the constitution underwent further changes, sometimes toward more inclusiveness and freedom, and sometimes toward less, Athens would never again be completely free in domestic and foreign policy, and would never again be ruled by the will of the Demos, meeting in its Assembly.

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Athens.

(The story of the end of Athenian democracy, which is unfortunately missing from many general descriptions of Greek history, is well told in D.L. Schneider, trans., Christan Habicht, Athens from Alexander to Antony [Harvard University Press, 1997].)

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