A Gresham College lecture by Professor of Rhetoric, Melissa Lane
The death of Athenian democracy is as difficult to date definitively as its birth.
Was it 338 BCE, when the battle of Chaeronea brought the city under Macedon’s thumb? Or 322 BCE, when Athens was defeated in another battle, which led to the installing of a Macedonian garrison that would remain in the city for over a century? What kinds of constitution could the Athenians institute in such circumstances, and how do they compare to the heyday of their democracy?