The Antinomies of Politics
Aristotle's Constitution of Athens is often read as a sustained, undeviating chronicle tracing the punctuated democratisation of Athens by a succession of prominent reformers from Solon to Cleisthenes to Pericles. This reading lends itself to the view that the formal institution of Athenian democracy may largely be attributed to a few exceptional visionaries whose unrivalled status and influence permitted the dramatic transformation of the Athenian political landscape from above. And yet, interwoven with this familiar narrative, fragments of another may be extracted and assembled from Aristotle's text. This is the narrative of a vibrant, vocal and discontented demos whose persistent, often tumultuous activity played a decisive role both in the creation and preservation of the democratic institutions of their city. Let us consider but a single example.
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