nued to leave the exercise of power to the few--whose competence and knowledge could gain them a hearing" (Grant 65). This practical resolution of some of the problems of direct democracy was later to appeal to Aristotle in his analysis of types of constitutional government in the Politics. Many conservative Athenians, however, did not favor democracy at all. The "Old Oligarch" (Pseudo-Xenophon), for example, condemned the Athenian democracy "because it favored the interests of the poorer (inferior) sections of the community too much" (Grant 65). But he, like other conservatives, allowed that "it is pardonable for any man to help himself" and also admitted that since the common people manned the city's warships, there was nothing to be done about it (quoted in Grant 65). The Old Oligarch was not unlike Socrates in the sense that, while he despised democracy, he accepted the legitimacy of the democratic state. And, again like Socrates, he did not feel that this meant he should not speak out against the idea.
Although democracy lasted only a relatively brief time, and was based on the political equality of only a small portion of the population, it was the subject of debate for a long time. The Greek philosophers often considered the question of the best type of state and the best way to live and democratic states were among the possibilities they included in their thinking. These ideas were very unusual in the ancient world, and it is the philosophers' inclusion of democracy as a possible form of social organization, rather than any personal commitment to principles of equality or democracy, that makes the ancient Greeks, including Socrates and Aristotle, the true progenitors of ideas that would not bear fruit for another 2,000 years. Socrates participated in the Athenian democracy as a citizen and held that one must obey the just laws of the state even if they did not serve the individual's particular interests. Yet he des...