The legacy of Greek democracy—reflected in history, mythology, theater, and even the Olympic Games—offers timeless lessons for America. These stories resonate deeply because Greek influence is woven into the very fabric of our culture.
By Evaggelos Vallianatos
After centuries of clerical and monarchical authoritarianism, Europeans turned to modest forms of indirect democratic governance, giving rights to citizens to speak without fear and, otherwise, allowing the rule of law (primarily for the benefit of rich people) to govern their states.
This was the harvest of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and political revolutions in America, France and Greece. This period of renewal lasted for some 400 years, during which scholars translated and studied Greek political works like those of Plato, Aristotle and Plutarch. The result inspired European movements towards the Greek virtues of freedom and democracy.
The Europeans who made the United States borrowed Greek-inspired political institutions from Europe and learned their Greek lessons from the very texts that established Europe as the center of Western civilization.
Both European and American political institutions – courts, parliaments, Congress, and the Presidency- supported free speech, but only for citizens who owned property. Slavery lasted until the nineteenth century, and women in America had no right to vote before 1920.
With the reelection of Donald Trump to the presidency in the United States in January 2025, many fear, including myself, that democracy is under threat and there is a trend towards authoritarianism.
Repairing democracy in America will take patience, study, and determination to learn from the innovations and mistakes of the Greeks. I highlighted the lessons of Greek history in my 2025 book, Freedom: Clear Thinking and Inspiration from 5,000 Years of Greek History.
The greatest hero of the Greeks, Herakles, was the shining example of serving the public interest. Herakles was the son of Zeus. He served the public good and freedom all his life. He founded the Olympics “for the greater glory of Zeus” and for the victory of the best athletes, winning by the speed of their feet and the strength of their bodies. (Pausanias, Guide to Greece 5.8. 1-11; 5.21.2-14.)
Herakles also freed the Titan Prometheus, who had given humanity the fire of knowledge and all crafts and technologies (Aeschylos, Prometheus Bound 1-260).
Other political lessons from the Greeks include the invention of democracy and the democratic governance of Athens. For example, the stories of tragic poets like Aeschylus include clues and insights how ancient Greeks faced the complex challenge of living together for protection, justice and eudaimonia/flourishing.
Aeschylus fought in the Persian wars in early fifth century BC. The Persians attacked Greece twice, 490 and 480 BC. The Greeks united and faced their enemy as an existential threat, taking oaths to fight to the last man. Freedom of death became their vision and policy. Aeschylus came out of that heroic tradition. His trilogy, The Oresteia (Agamemnon, the Libation Bearers, and the Eumenides), is a series of tragedies with a beautiful ending, the creation of the first legal and democratic way of judging conflicts/crimes.
Goddess Athena, with the support of Apollo and the Furies, “dread divinities among the deathless gods,” helps the Athenians to create a superior court, Areios Pagos, with a jury of citizens to judge Orestes, son of Agamemnon, and killer of his mother, Clytemnestra. Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae in the Peloponnese and commander-in-chief of the Greek troops in the Trojan War.
Athena’s great diplomatic skills changed the Furies from enemies of Orestes and Athens to friends. Orestes had killed his mother Clytemnestra because she had murdered her husband, his father, Agamemnon. Thanks to Apollo and Athena, the high court of Athens had found Orestes innocent.
Athena had convinced the Furies to work with her and become the protectors of Athens. So, Aeschylus shows how intelligence and patriotism and love overcame dangerous conditions and built a stronger future. He wrote the Oresteia trilogy in the fifth century BC. But the events about Orestes and his trial in Athens might have taken place in late thirteenth century BC. However, democracy was extremely ancient. Even the gods, Homer and Aeschylus tell us, took decisions in an assembly.
The next important step in establishing democracy in Athens took place in the early sixth century BC. A few rich farmers enslaved several small farmers who could not repay their debt. To avoid civil war, Athenian politicians invited Solon, a former politician and great legislator, to hold power for a year and resolve the debt crisis. That way, he started setting the foundations for democracy in Athens.
Solon did away with slavery and serfdom, debts, and mortgages. He said he removed all boundary stones of bondage from the black Earth. He brought back to Athens those farmers who had been sold to slavers outside of Athens and helped those who had been victims of shameful servitude in Athens.
He used force and justice to reverse and end serfdom in Athens. Aristotle assures us that Solon established even-handed justice for all Athenians. Solon admitted it was not easy. He said he felt like a wolf pursued by dogs (Aristotle, Constitution of Athens 12.4).
Aristotle, the great philosopher and inventor of science, had great insights into politics as well. Aristotle said democracy relied on the idea and practice for the citizen to “rule and be ruled.” He reached this conclusion after studying the constitutions of dozens of poleis (city-states).
He said all forms of government could be successful if the rulers, one, few or many, promoted the interests of the people rather than their own. He said rulers should be chosen by all citizens from all citizens. Each citizen should be ruled by all citizens and all citizens be ruled by each one of them. Citizens should be chosen by lot to serve as jurors at the law courts and other offices of the state. No official should be offered a life-long tenure or be supreme in any office. Equality of all citizens before the law, a virtue of democracy, Aristotle said, was the purest form of democracy and demos (people).
“Equality,” Aristotle said, “does not mean that the poor rule or that they hold power. On the contrary, and according to their numerical strength, all people should share power equally. This process convinces people that they will secure equality and freedom in their government”( Politics 1317b18-1318a 10).
Other institutions of the Greeks like the Olympics and theater, were pillars of democracy. The Olympics and other Pan-Hellenic games were expressions of anti-war sentiments, while honoring the gods and promoting national consciousness. Athletic competitions were contests among naked men or naked women. Nakedness meant perfect equality. The games also gave a chance to the Greeks from all over the Mediterranean to get to know each other.
The theater of Dionysus was another powerful democratic tradition, especially in Athens which invented it. The democratic tradition that the theater strengthened was that of uninhibited political speech.
During the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian tragic poets (Sophocles and Euripides) and the comedy poet Aristophanes) wrote and performed out in the open, in the light of the day, great plays shedding light on the destructive effects of authoritarianism and civil war. Politicians / elected generals directing the war watched the dramas, which often criticized them. Athens paid poor people to attend the theater, a school of democracy.
The exercise of free speech and the political nature of the theater offer models for reviving democracy in America. Imagine authentic productions of the Greek tragic plays of Aeschylos, Sophocles, and Euripides, including the hilarious comedies of Aristophanes. Seeing these extremely sophisticated political plays would inspire clear thinking about democracy. The praise of democracy and critique of war and the biting satire of power would be decisive.
Billionaires would be defrocked of the secret threat they pose to American democracy and to the natural world that gives us life. If also television and media zeroed in on the plutocratic preferences of the Trump administration, Americans would earn a better understanding of democracy while exposing the hazardous nature of making extremely wealthy people even more wealthy and powerful.
We need to do the same thing. Moreover, we can complement the legal experts with the Greek examples of democratic inspiration from history, mythology, theater plays, and the Olympics. The Greek lessons are more appropriate for America. They are appealing because the Greek fingerprints on our culture are everywhere.
The beautiful architecture of the Supreme Court building, the White House, and Congress is Greek. The founders of the American Republic like Thomas Jefferson read Homer, Aristotle and Plutarch. The word and very idea of democracy are Greek. Americans travel to Greece and see the Parthenon and the treasures of Greek culture in the Greek museums and archaeological places, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, the Boston Museum of Art, the National Gallery, and, in California, in the fabulous Getty Villa.
In addition, The foundations of science are Greek. In fact, modern science is Aristotelean logic and Archimedean. The mathematical physics and brilliant engineering of Archimedes built our science. Archimedes was a genius of the third century BCE.
One reason I wrote the 2025 book on Freedom, had something to do with my love for Greece and America, my second Greece. America educated me and helped me become American and Greek. The dramatic decline of democracy in America and the climate emergency convinced me Americans need to be reminded of their Greek democratic traditions and civilization.
Evaggelos Vallianatos is a historian and environmental theorist. He earned his Ph.D. in history at the University of Wisconsin and did his postdoctoral studies in the history of science at Harvard. He worked on Capitol Hill, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and taught at several universities. He authored hundreds of articles and seven books, including The Antikythera Mechanism: The Story Behind the Genius of the Greek Computer and its Demise.
