Athenian Direct Democracy AND Its Exclusions — Demokratia Honestly

THREE PROMISES recite (MG-8 Living-Descendant + MG-9 Humanity-FIRST + MG-10 Resilience-FIRST); turn-and-talk on yesterday's exit-ticket or I-STILL-WONDER

• Display Three Promises posters
• Lead recite intentionally
• I-STILL-WONDER chart quick scan

Athenian direct democracy was a revolutionary political invention AND deeply exclusionary. Both facts are true. INSTITUTIONS (under Cleisthenes 508 BCE, deepened under Pericles c. 460-429 BCE): (1) EKKLESIA (Assembly) — open to all adult male Athenian citizens, met ~40 times a year on the Pnyx hill, voted directly on laws and policies; (2) BOULE (Council of 500) — 500 citizens chosen by lot from 10 tribes each year to set the Assembly's agenda; (3) HELIAIA (popular courts) — juries of 200-500 citizens chosen by lot to decide legal cases; (4) OSTRACISM — annual vote to exile one citizen for 10 years if 6,000 voted against him. CITIZENSHIP-EXCLUSION RATIO per MG-14 (Mogens Herman Hansen 'The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes' 1991): total Attic population c. 430 BCE ≈ 300,000-350,000. Adult male citizens (could vote) ≈ 30,000-40,000 = ~10-13%. EXCLUDED: ~80,000-100,000 ENSLAVED people (~25-30%); ~30,000-50,000 METICS (resident foreigners, ~10-15%); ~75,000-100,000 adult women (citizens daughters and wives but could not vote — ~25-30%); ~75,000-90,000 children (~25%). The DEMOS — 'the people' — in 'DEMOKRATIA' was defined to exclude the majority. MATH G6-FALL INTEGRATION: calculate exclusion-ratio percentages with provided population numbers. PERICLES' FUNERAL ORATION (Thucydides Book II 34-46, 431 BCE) is the famous defense of Athenian democracy: 'Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands of the many and not the few.' Apply MG-7 Source Card 6th move TRANSLATION/SILENCES: Pericles is speaking publicly + Thucydides is recording from memory + the speech makes the case for Athens at the start of the Peloponnesian War. The 'many' in the speech are the adult male citizens — the rhetoric idealizes the ~10-13%. ASPASIA — Pericles's partner — was famously intellectual; Plato's dialogue Menexenus suggests she may have helped compose this very funeral oration. Aspasia was a metic and could not have spoken in the Assembly herself. COMPARE with US Constitution: US is REPRESENTATIVE democracy (citizens elect representatives who vote); Athens was DIRECT democracy (citizens voted directly). US Constitution from G5-Spring had its own exclusion ratio (women + Black Americans + Indigenous + many propertyless white men excluded at founding) — pattern across founding documents: ideals AND exclusions co-exist.

• Math G6-Fall ratio skill integration: calculate the exclusion ratio.

  model ~10-13% (adult male citizens, ~30,000-40,000 out of total Attic population ~300,000-350,000) per Hansen 1991.

  prompt What % of Athenian population could vote?
• Both facts. Refuse euphemism (don't say 'women weren't citizens' — they were); refuse erasure (don't omit the exclusion).

  model Adult women born to Athenian-citizen parents were CITIZENS legally (could marry citizens, their sons were citizens) BUT could not vote, could not hold office, could not own significant property independently, had limited public-life roles. Citizen daughters were citizens AND excluded from political participation.

  prompt Were women in Athens citizens?
• Continuity from G5-Spring Constitutional Contradiction lens.

  model Both invented revolutionary forms of popular sovereignty for their time. Both also embedded exclusions. Athens: direct democracy with ~10-13% citizenship. US founding 1789: representative democracy with women + Black Americans + Indigenous + many propertyless white men excluded.

  prompt Athenian democracy AND US representative democracy — compare

• What % of Athenian population could vote?
• Name 2 groups excluded from Athenian voting.
• Was Athenian democracy REPRESENTATIVE or DIRECT?

Apply MG-7 Source Card to Pericles' Funeral Oration (Thucydides II.37 selected: 'Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands of the many and not the few...'). Particular attention to 5th move LIVING DESCENDANTS (modern Greeks) and 6th move SILENCES (who is NOT speaking — women, enslaved, metics, children make ~87-90% of Attica and are silent in the source-record).

M-6-F-CIV-14-A Chart

MG-14 Athenian Citizenship-Exclusion Pie Chart: visual of Attic population c. 430 BCE (~300,000-350,000 total per Hansen 1991) divided into 5 wedges with color-coding and percentages: ~10-13% wedge labeled 'Adult male citizens (could vote in Assembly, hold office, serve on juries) — ~30,000-40,000' in green; ~25-30% wedge labeled 'Enslaved people (could not vote, were property) — ~80,000-100,000' in dark red; ~10-15% wedge labeled 'Metics — resident foreigners (could not vote, paid metic tax) — ~30,000-50,000' in orange; ~25-30% wedge labeled 'Adult women — citizens daughters and wives (could not vote, restricted in public life) — ~75,000-100,000' in purple; ~25% wedge labeled 'Children under 18 (could not vote) — ~75,000-90,000' in light blue. Legend at bottom: 'Athenian DEMOCRACY = government by the demos (the people) — and the demos was defined to exclude women, enslaved people, metics, and children. Both facts are true.' Style: clean pie chart with high-contrast colors, 11x14.

MG-14 Chart

Athenian Citizenship-Exclusion Pie Chart — visual of Attic population c. 430 BCE (~300,000-350,000 total per Mogens Herman Hansen 1991): ~10-13% wedge labeled 'Adult male citizens (could vote in Assembly, hold office, serve on juries) — ~30,000-40,000'; ~25-30% wedge labeled 'Enslaved people (could not vote, were property) — ~80,000-100,000'; ~10-15% wedge labeled 'Metics — resident foreigners (could not vote, paid metic tax) — ~30,000-50,000'; ~25-30% wedge labeled 'Adult women — citizens daughters and wives (could not vote, restricted in public life) — ~75,000-100,000'; ~25% wedge labeled 'Children under 18 (could not vote) — ~75,000-90,000'. Legend at bottom: 'Athenian DEMOCRACY = government by the demos (the people) — and the demos was defined to exclude women, enslaved people, metics, and children. Both facts are true.' Style: pie chart with clear color-coding, MG-14 sized 11x14.

• Calculate Athenian exclusion-ratio percentages from MG-14: total Attic population 300,000 + 80,000 enslaved + 40,000 metics + 90,000 women + 80,000 children = how many adult male citizens? What %?

  scaffold Math G6-Fall ratio-skill template
• Apply MG-7 6th-move SILENCES to Pericles' Funeral Oration — name 3 groups whose voices are NOT in the source-record

  scaffold Sentence frame: 'The source-record does not record the voices of ___ because ___.'

M-6-F-CIV-14-B Chart

Pericles' Funeral Oration excerpt from Thucydides Histories Book II.37 (Strassler Landmark Thucydides 1996 edition) — 2-page handout. Page 1 selected passage in English: 'Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands of the many and not the few. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class but the actual ability which the man possesses.' Page 2 MG-7 Source Card application with prompts focused on 5th move LIVING DESCENDANTS (modern Greeks; Athens as living city; Parthenon Marbles repatriation debate) and 6th move SILENCES (women + enslaved + metics + children silent in source-record). Style: scholarly source-handout.

MG-7 Interactive Physical / non-image

Ancient-World 6-Question Source Card — 8.5x11 laminated tool with 6 questions: (1) WHO made this source and WHEN? (sourcing); (2) WHAT was happening in this civilization at the time? (contextualization); (3) DOES this source agree or disagree with other sources from the same civilization or other civilizations? (corroboration); (4) WHAT does this source actually SAY (close reading); (5) WHO are the LIVING DESCENDANTS of this civilization today, and what do they say about this source? (NMAI-inspired 5th move); (6) WHO TRANSLATED this source from its ancient language? WHOSE INTERPRETATION are we reading? WHAT IS LIKELY MISSING from the source-record entirely (silences)? (World History Association-inspired 6th move). Scaffolded short-form for Lessons 3-7; full form for Lessons 11-21. Style: educator-tool, durable laminated card.

• What % of Athenian population could vote?
• Name 3 groups excluded from Athenian voting.

• Restate: Athenian democracy was BOTH revolutionary AND deeply exclusionary. Preview Lesson 15 (Sparta + Athenian/Spartan slavery — trauma-informed)

• Compare: who could vote at Athens 430 BCE? At the founding of the US 1789? Today in your country? Write 4 sentences.