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So Athens came to flourish, and to make manifest how important it is, not just on one level,

but on all, for everyone in a city to have an equal voice. For the Athenians, while subjects

of a tyrant had been no more proficient in battle than any of their neighbours. But then,

once liberated from tyranny, they emerged a supreme by far. Proof enough that the downtrodden,

their neighbours are all in the service of a master, will never willingly pull their weight,

whereas free men, because they have a stake in their own exertions, will set to them with relish.

So that is the father of history, or the father of lies, depending on whom you believe,

Herodotus, talking about how in 506 BC, the Athenians fought off and attempt by the Spartans and

the Thebans, their rivals, to throttle a radical new system of government in its cradle. And that

radical new system of government, Tom, was democracy, something that we all now think is splendid,

but the Spartans thought it was an absolute waste of space. And the Thebans too. I mean, basically

everyone did. And the association of Athens with democracy, I guess it's probably, I mean,

it's probably, if you talk to people about ancient Athens, most people would think of it as the

birthplace of democracy, and they would see it as a kind of democratic system. And Athens is

basically the place where the notion of democracy is born. But I think that it's a treacherous word,

because the question is, to what extent does what we mean by democracy map on to what the

Athenians meant by democracy? And I think that there is a huge temptation on our part

to assume that they're basically the same things. And so we judge the Athenians by our standards,

...