Xenophon: A Critics View of Athenian Democracy

Essay

The document that I chose for this assignment is titled Xenophon: A Critics View of Athenian Democracy. Xenophon was a Greek historian, philosopher, soldier, memoirist, and the author of many practical treatises. He excelled in all of his fields but philosophy was the field he is most known for. In the document, he talks about how Democracy is ill superior to Oligarchy. It consists of every flaw he could find to exploit it in the defense of the Old Oligarch, an anonymous philosopher. Xenophon and the Old Oligarch believe Oligarchy is the most ideal form of government and it is very clear what they believe. Xenophon wrote the document titled A Critics View of Athenian Democracy and it was about the flaws in Democracy and how Oligarchy is more superior.

The purpose of this document was to state his opinion and criticisms on Democracy. Democracy had just started to be in full throttle in ancient Athens and Xenophon wanted to state his opinion and make his criticisms to the new form of government. The intended audience of this article is to the lower class people of Ancient Athens. The reason why is because in the article, Xenophon writes about how everything in Democracy is bad and how it is very unfair. He is trying to tell the people of Athens that they need to do something to stop Democracy from staying the main form of government. This is clear when he says "I want to say this: there the poor and the people generally are right to have more than the highborn and the wealthy, for the reason that it is the people who man the ships and impart strength to the city." This is clear because he is talking to the people of lower class and he is explicitly telling them the major flaw in democracy.

As it was briefly mentioned in the previous paragraph, he was majorly biased against democracy. The bias is clear when he states, "They have chosen to let the worst people be better of than the good.Therefore, on this account, I do not think well of their constitution." By saying "I do not think well of their constitution" it clearly shows that he does not like there way of ruling. For someone to "not think well" of something, then they clearly do not like what is being presented to them. Xenophon goes on and on about how he hates democracy and thinks that it is a very bad choice in government. He says things such as, "I pardon the people themselves for their democracy," "As for the constitution of the Athenians, I do not praise its form," and many other things that indicate he does not like democracy. When he says they have to "pardon people for their democracy" he is basically saying that he forgives them for making a horrible government. Those phrases clearly state his bias and how he strongly dislikes democracy.

This document clarified my understanding of the time period because it showed me that not everyone liked democracy. In fact, some of the most important people in the time when democracy was created did not approve of it. Xenophon was a well known philosopher at the time and