Did the Greeks know democracy

TLDR: For example, the authors argued that what is defined as politics in different epochs is based upon presuppositions that escape the consciousness of the historical actors, and that they also elude a posterity that is too eager to recognise itself in its ancestors, even if this trivialises their features.

Abstract: The Greeks invented the words ‘‘city,’’ ‘‘democracy,’’ ‘‘people,’’ ‘‘oligarchy,’’ ‘‘liberty,’’ and ‘‘citizen.’’ So, if it were not for slavery, which would be the major difference between their democracy and true democracy, it is tempting to assume that they invented the eternal truth of politics, or of our politics. For then there would be an eternal politics about which we could philosophise, instead of just writing its history. Across the centuries we would find again an identical essence of the political; political regimes, despite their differences, would exhibit a functional analogy that could be represented in a number of ways: establishing justice, getting men to live together peacefully, defending the group, exercising class domination by the owners of the forces of production . . . But let’s suppose that this is all just appearance and that the words mislead us. Let’s suppose that what is defined as politics in different epochs is based upon presuppositions that escape the consciousness of the historical actors, and that they also elude a posterity that is too eager to recognise itself in its ancestors, even if this trivialises their features. Identical words and vague analogies would then conceal huge and invisible differences, like trees concealing the wood. We will try here to clarify some fragments of this hidden part of the iceberg. We will call the biggest of these fragments, which is not the only one, the ancient citizen’s ‘‘militantism’’; it roughly corresponds to what Claude Nicolet, in a fine book (1980), called the citizen’s profession. Because an ancient citizen does not have human rights or citizen’s rights, he has no freedoms or even freedom; he has duties. We won’t find the democratic semi-ideal of Western