Theatre gave birth to democracy in ancient Greece:
In 534 BCE, Pisistratus, tired of the divisions among his fellow citizens, invented the annual theatre festival. With this stroke of genius, all theatre activity came together at a single place and time. All four tribes came into a common space and shared a common experience.
The result was nothing short of revolutionary. Athenian consciousness changed. Within a generation, in 508 BCE, democracy began.
It began when Cleisthenes, an aristocrat, reformed the Athenian constitution, which had institutionalized the four tribes’ power in a way that led to tyranny in the first place. Instead, Cleisthenes created a new system that “redistricted” the city-state and instituted a legislature where the members were chosen by lottery, instead of by clan or heredity. “Demo” in “democratic” means “common people.”
The next 104 years were the “golden age” of Athens. Democracy flourished, and so did the theatre — Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides all wrote their plays during this period, and competed with each other at the annual festival.
Sophocles and Euripides both died in 406 BC. The 27-year-long Peloponnesian War ended in 404 BC with Athens’ defeat at the hands of Sparta. The great age of theatre was over. And as Athens crumbled under Spartan rule, so was Athenian democracy.
(Hat tip to Anomaly UK.)
So, wait. I’m slow and stupid, but the vaunted Athenian democracy lasted less time than our OWN?
Democracy is so rare and fragile?
USG is not a democacy.