David Butterfield

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739 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 20 May

David Butterfield’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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TRIGGERnometry · How Civilisations Die - Ancient Greece Expert David Butterfield · 20 May 2026 podcast

The word's the same, but the way they practiced democracy was not exactly the same as we do today.

Can you talk about what the roots of democracy, what it looked like on the ground, et cetera?

Of course.

So as we know, democracy, demokratia, is giving the power, the strength, the kratos, to the demos, the people.

The people have the power.

And by the people, we don't just mean people in general.

We mean the people beneath the typical ranks of the aristocracy.

So it's not an oligarchy.

It's not a meritocracy.

It's actually allowing all people to have power.

Big caveat here, which is a big one, but actually it's not an interesting one.

And I can explain why.

The big caveat is when we say the people have power, we mean citizens in Athens.

That means males over the age of 20 who've done their two years military service and people who have Athenian parents, initially just fathers, but then father and mothers, citizenship was restricted.

And therefore it doesn't mean children, doesn't mean slaves.

It doesn't mean visiting foreigners.

So when we talk about the people in classical Athens, we mean all Athenians.

of the males over 20 who are full Athenian citizens.

However, not allowing slaves, not allowing women, not allowing children to have political power is the norm cross-culturally in almost all of the world and all of world history.

It is sixth century BC.

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