On This Day in History: July 4

Battle of Mantinea

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Gerard Butler’s chiseled abs instilled a belief that Spartans could not be defeated. What? You thought I was gonna write about ‘murica for today? After the events of January 6, 2021, when Trump incited the storming of the Capitol Building, I decided I wanted to examine the death of a different democracy for a change.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: July 4, 362 BCE--

In addition to being racist as fuck, the film 300 was only slightly more historically accurate than Star Wars with its “long time ago” stuff. One line that irks me most comes from narrator Dilios, who proclaimed the Persians were “ready to snuff out the world’s one hope for reason and justice.” Like, if not for Greece, democracy would never exist.

The word “demos” referred to lower-class citizens, and FYI philosophers Socrates and Plato were not fans of this group’s rise to power. But etymology is not destiny. Democracy has sprung up across an expanse of areas and eras. From 460 – 430 BCE, during the time of prominent Greek statesman Pericles, the aristocracy ruled Athens in a golden age of literature, drama, and art. But Pericles died and then Athens got her ass kicked during the Peloponnesian War and people were like fuck these aristocrats and the demos took over. Socrates, via Plato’s Republic, referred to democracy as a chaos of class violence, decadence, and degradation.

Myriad examples across the ages reveal a governmental pattern of monarchy > aristocracy > democracy > dictatorship. Most of humanity’s governments have been oligarchies, where a minority rule via birthright (aristocracy), religion (theocracy), or wealth (democracy). Look at the U.S. and tell me that last one isn’t still true.

Where was I? Oh, on this fucking day. July 4, 362 BCE. There was a battle, another one of those historical turning points. It was the Battle of Mantinea, with Thebans and Arcadians etc. on one side, and Spartans, Athenians etc. on the other. The Spartan side lost, but the Theban leader (Epaminondas) was fatally wounded, so both alliances were debilitated.

Afterward, class war ran rampant. Debtors murdered creditors, poor massacred rich. Democracy was seen by upper and middle classes as empowered envy; the poor viewed it a fraud because wealth > voting.

In other words, things went to feces.

Meanwhile, this dude Phillip II in a northern Greek kingdom called Macedon looked at the chaos to the south and said, “Gonna conquer that shit.” And conquer he did, completing the circle back toward dictatorship in 338 BCE. Many wealthy Greeks welcomed him, seeing authoritarianism as preferable to revolution.

A while later, his son Alexander decided he wanted “the Great” added after his name, looked to Persia and said, “Payback time, motherfuckers.”

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