Archaeology and Text: the Birth of Democracy: an Exhibition Celebrating the 2500Th Anniversary

Archaeology and Text: The Birth of Democracy: An Exhibition Celebrating the 2500th Anniversary of Democracy

The exhibition The Birth of Democracy: An Exhibition Celebrating the 2500th Anniversary of Democracy was held at the National Archives in Washington DC from 15 June 1993 to 2 January 1994. The show had previously been on display from 9 March to 9 May 1993 at the Gennadius Library in Athens. Like The Greek Miracle exhibition, it marked the 2,500th anniversary of Kleisthenes’ reforms of the Athenian constitution in 507/8 BCE, which, it is argued, marked a change in political practice and led to democracy in Athens. The Birth of Democracy displayed archaeological artefacts from the time of Solon’s reforms through to Kleisthenes’ reforms and then through to the late fourth century BCE to illustrate the practice and development of Athenian democracy. The exhibition was organised by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens’ ‘Democracy 2,500’ project in co-operation with the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States, as well as with the support of the Ministry of Culture in Greece. Many of the objects came from American led excavations in the Agora in Athens and had not been on display in the US before, but were usually exhibited in the Agora Museum in Athens. The exhibition, though prominent and exhibiting many objects previously unseen in the US, did not attract the same kind of media attention as The Greek Miracle. However, in many ways it was more relevant to the actual practice of participatory democracy in Athens and utilised a similar theme of America and Greece sharing a democratic heritage.

The Lenders and the Objects

The objects on display in The Birth of Democracy: An Exhibition Celebrating the 2500th Anniversary of Democracy comprised small items such as ostraca shards to Greek vases and busts, as well as models of buildings in ancient Athens and photographs of past and present excavations. The items were lent by a number of museums in Greece, America and elsewhere in Europe. The complete list is: the National Archaeological Museum, Athens; Acropolis Museum, Athens; Agora Museum, Athens; Antiken Sammlung Kunst Historisches Museum, Vienna; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; John Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Department of the History of Art, Cornell University; Museum of Art and Archaeology at University of Missouri, Columbia; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; University Museum, University of Pennsylvania; and the Art Museum, Princeton University. The range of museums – small university museums as well as large institutions – gives a sense of the wide-ranging nature of the exhibition and the wealth of objects on display.

The majority of the objects were small in size and grouped together in display cabinets by theme. The catalogue to the exhibition has been put on-line.[1] The themes of the exhibition chronologically illustrated the development of Athenian democracy and its aftermath. The themes were Athens Before Democracy, The Kleisthenic Reforms: Creation of the Democracy, Athenian Democracy: Legislature, Athenian Democracy: Judiciary, The Protection of Democracy and Criticism of Democracy. Objects were displayed in sub-headings or groupings under these themes. In order to give a sense of the type of objects exhibited and the range of the material, twelve objects will be highlighted here.

The first catalogue number 00.01 is a plaster cast after a bust of Pericles (ca. 500 - 429 B.C.) that is in the British Museum (the cast comes from Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri, Columbia). Pericles is highlighted as one of the ‘great statesman of classical Athens’ who was responsible for building the Parthenon and other monuments on the Acropolis (illustration 1). Pericles is presented as one of the heroes of democracy. The cast of Pericles illustrates that this exhibition had no qualms about using replicas and also used reconstructions of public buildings in Athens. An example of a reconstructed model on display is catalogue number 00.03B The Athenian Agora c. 400 by Fetros Demetriades and Kostas Papoulias (Agora Museum, Athens). This model shows one of the most important public buildings in the function of democracy in Athens (illustration 2).

Unlike The Greek Miracle exhibition, there was no actual sculpture on display but a photograph of a Greek Kouros was used instead, such as Catalogue number 1.5 (illustration 3). This photograph of a statue of a youth (kouros) ‘Kroisos’ is from the collection of the National Archaeological Museum (no. 3851). Rather than illustrating the development of a naturalistic style of art from the sixth to the fifth centuries, this photograph of a sculpture is used to illustrate the aristocratic commemoration of the dead. This statue had an inscription at the base reading: ‘Stay and mourn at the monument of dead Kroisos whom furious Ares destroyed one day as he fought in the front ranks.’

The fragment of an inscription from a statue base possibly from the statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton in c.475 BCE is catalogue number 4.1 (Agora Museum, Athens 13872). This fragment is important, as these figures were known as the ‘tyrannicides’ who were revered in ancient Athens (and in modern times) for assassinating the tyrant Hipparchos (illustration 4). A bronze sculpture of the pair was commissioned by the Athenians and then taken by the Persians in 480 BCE. Although a replacement was made and the original returned to Athens after Alexander the Great sacked Persepolis in the fourth century (both stood together in the Agora), the originals have been lost and so a photograph of a Roman copy in Naples is displayed with the inscription. A profile of the ‘tyrannicides’ from a fragment of a red figure oinochoe (jug) c. 400 BCE is also displayed to illustrate the pair’s mythic importance as well as that of the sculpture.

Each of the major democratic institutions of ancient Athens were represented by a group of objects. Lead tokens used as payment for attending the Assembly of ancient Athens – one of the main forums in which Athenian male citizens participated in democracy – were on display from 4th century BCE (Agora Museum, Athens IL 656, 819, 893, 944, 1146, 1173, 1233). ‘These small tokens were turned in for pay, allowing poor citizens to participate without losing a day’s wages’, and so were crucial to participatory democracy (illustration 5). The Boule, or Council of 500, and a product of the reforms of Kleisthenes was represented by among other objects, catalogue number 8.1 a fragment of a marble basin c. 500 BCE (Agora Museum, Athens 14869) that preserves part of an inscription around the rim which reads ‘of the Bouleuterion’ (illustration 6). The Judiciary of Athens was represented by (among other items) catalogue number 12.1 a fragmentary waterclock (or klepsydra) with various inscriptions from late 5th century BCE that was used to time the speakers at trials (Agora Museum, Athens P 2084) (illustration 7). Pericles may have been a hero of Athenian democracy but he was also a frequent candidate for ostracism as catalogue number 14.6 Ostrakon of Perikles from the mid-5th century BCE illustrates (Agora Museum, Athens P 16755). Although Perikles was never ostracised, this example illustrates how the Athenian citizens protected their rights against men considered to grow too powerful and become potential threats to democracy (illustration 8).

Photographs of excavations and reconstructions made up the material of the exhibition as catalogue number 17.4 a photograph of a trireme under sail illustrates (Paul Lipke, The Trireme Trust). The reconstructed trireme was built under the supervision of John Morrison, a classical scholar, and John Coates, a naval architect and was used to illustrate evidence for the Athenian navy in the exhibition (illustration 9).

Female Athenian citizens, could not vote and did not directly participate in Athenian democracy had representation in this exhibition. Catalogue no. 22.3 a terracotta statuette of a woman kneading bread, early 5th century BCE (National Archaeological Museum, Athens 6006) shows a woman in a daily domestic occupation, but one which was crucial to the households of Athenian citizens (illustration 10). Slaves and slavery were also represented in the exhibition through the depiction of them on vases. This Athenian (Attic) vase in the form of the head of an African from late 6th century BCE (National Archaeological Museum, Athens 11725) shows a non-Athenian and is here used to represent a slave, though it could simply have represented the features of a different race (illustration 11).

Continuity between Athens and America was provided by documents from eighteenth century and contemporary America at the end of the exhibition, though the difference between the participatory democracy of Athens and representative democratic system of America is stressed. Catalogue number 26.1 (illustration 12) is a copy of Rights of Man by Thomas Paine from the collection of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC: ‘Written in 1792 in defence of the French Revolution, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man is a statement of republican ideals. Paine believed that America had adapted the virtues of ancient Greek democracy to the modern world.’

The range of material on display in the exhibition is apparent from just this short list of some of the objects. Vases, inscriptions, practical items as well as photographs and reconstructions were all used to present the evidence for the story of Athenian democracy. Photographs of items traditionally considered as ‘art objects’ were used in the exhibition but in the context of their connection with the social history of democracy rather than to tell an overarching theory of the development of art in this period. All the items, with a few exceptions, were from Athens or Attica and often from the site of the Agora (or marketplace) in Athens itself. The objects were often put in context with textual evidence from ancient Athens and texts such as The Constitution of Athens or Pericles’ ‘Funeral Oration’ from Thucydides’ Histories were used to highlight the use of these objects. The practical and literary significance of the objects on display in The Birth of Democracy was possibly due to the fact that it was essentially an exhibition of archaeological artefacts within a national library.

History Heroes and Texts

The Birth of Democracy opened with the casts of busts of two prominent exponents of democracy from the fifth and fourth centuries: Pericles and Demosthenes. References to the speeches they made in praise of democracy were included in the catalogue. The speeches of Demosthenes and the ‘Funeral Oration’ of Pericles as recorded by Thucydides in his Histories were clearly key texts. Pericles and Demosthenes were highlighted as the main players in the development of Athenian democracy. However, they were not alone. A section on the reforms of Solon in the early sixth century BCE illustrated the political tensions in Athens one hundred years before the changes made by Kleithenes. Inevitably Kleisthenes’ creation of ten new tribes and his political reorganisation of the Athenian constitution merited its own section. Other notable people considered in the exhibition included the successful general Themistocles, who was ostracised from Athens, and the philosopher Socrates, who was ultimately condemned to death by an Athenian jury.

The catalogue for The Birth of Democracy drew on a great range of texts but mainly quoted from Plutarch’s Lives (Solon, Kleisthenes, Pericles and Demosthenes in particular), Thucydides’ Histories, The Old Oligarch’s/Aristotle’s The Athenian Constitution and Politics, Xenophon’s The Constitution of the Athenians, as well as conversations of Socrates recorded by Plato and Xenophon (especially the texts in relation to Socrates’ trial). A section on theatre referred to Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Menander and quoted from the comedies of Aristophanes. A short section on ‘Sources and Documents’ stressed the importance of the treatises on the Athenian constitution by Aristotle and ‘pseudo-Xenophon’ but also points out the usefulness of evidence from inscriptions and other fragmentary documents or writings that have often been found in the Agora. The Birth of Democracy drew on texts and inscriptions as evidence in the development and history of democracy and emphasised key individuals in the story of democratic practice.

Curation of The Birth of Democracy

The exhibition was curated by Diana Buitron-Oliver and John Mck Camp II as part of the project ‘Democracy 2,500’ which was directed by Josiah Ober and Charles W. Hedrick. The exhibition was designed by Michael Graces and objects were moved by Art Services International. The Public Programs and Education team at the National Archives arranged the public programme of events and learning activities.

Diana Buitron-Oliver co-curated The Birth of Democracy. Buitron-Oliver was a classical archaeologist and lecturer at Georgetown University in Washington DC and had previously curated The Human Figure in Early Greek Art at the National Gallery of Art in 1988 (January 31 – June 12 1988). Buitron-Oliver was also guest curator of The Greek Miracle. Classical Sculpture from the Dawn of Democracy at the National Gallery of Art Washington DC and Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, which closed at New York in May 1993 shortly before The Birth of Democracy opened. Buitron-Oliver’s co-curator was Professor John Mck Camp II, Director of Excavations at the Athenian Agora, American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The exhibition was part of the ‘Democracy 2,500’ project, which was directed by Josiah Ober and Charles W. Hedrick. Josiah Ober was at that point Professor of Classics at Princeton University as well as author of a number of publications on Athenian democracy, the most notable at the time being the book Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People (Princeton, 1989). Charles W. Hedrick was professor of history at UC Santa Cruz.