The word democracy comes from demokratia (meaning ‘people-power’). It was invented in ancient Athens more than 2500 years ago, shortly before 500 BC. But it was a very different sort of democracy from anything with which we would associate that word today. Power was exercised directly by the people, not through elected representatives. Politics (like democracy, a Greek invention, the word as well as the thing) was face-to-face and in-your-face action – there was no postal voting then – and it could get messy.
The People’s jury courts were every bit as much a democratic arena (including in the competitive sense of that word) as the Assembly; likewise the theatre (yet another Greek, or rather Athenian, invention). But the People was a highly exclusive category: women (and other inferiors – as empowered Greek males saw them) need not apply, and only legitimate, adult, properly enfranchised and inducted citizen males were actually entitled to rule (themselves).
There were two main decision-making political arenas: the Assembly (ekklesia, whence comes our ‘ecclesiastical’) and the People’s jury courts (heliaea, dikasteria). The Assembly of those citizens who were ‘called out’ (ekkletoi), and chose to attend, met on the Pnyx hill below the Acropolis up to 40 times a year, or every nine days on average.
