Democracies: The Ancient City Of Corinth

Democratic regimes have an interesting mix of features. Some of these features seem to be contradictory while others are complementary. Democracies tend to be liberal in their orientation and as a result, they tend to become more and more immoral. The ancient city of Corinth is a great example of this. The city was liberal and wealthy, but with all of that came a flood of immorality. There also tends to be an instability that is built into this regime because when the demos rule they do so through their passions. When the passions of the people and rulers vacillate there tends to be great instability. We observe this in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, where he records how the people of Athens in one moment love and adore Pericles and in the next they turn on him. Democracies tend to follow the passions of the people, one moment the people want to go in one direction or to follow after one leader and in the next moment they turn.

The equality of nature and resources. But as a strange anomaly democracies tend to make citizens greater than the city. One example might be Themistocles and another might be Pericles, who was considered by some to be the "First citizen" of Athens. But an odd byproduct of democracy, is even though it can make some citizens greater than the city and even allows for the philosopher, those who become great in a democracy will tend to be ostracized or demonized because in the end no one is allowed to be better than anyone else. This is a form or radical