'History repeats itself, it's cyclical.' Hellenic Museum to consider voter suppression

The Illinois primary election is Tuesday. With November’s pivotal moment in American history looming beyond that. So now might be an apt time to pause and ask ourselves: this whole voting business, where did it come from?

Partial credit for citing the American Revolution, 1776 and all that. A major step away from being ruled by kings.

But where did American revolutionaries get the idea? Voting initially sprang from a very specific time and place — Greece 2500 years ago — and like any new tool, it had a specific purpose: to create a new form of power.

Elections in ancient Greece represented “the new weapon of the popular vote against the old power of family politics” according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Being in charge because you were the son of the ruler was fine, if you were the son of the ruler. But those non-relatives had begun to chafe. Shouldn’t their views count? An idea sprang up — ask people to give or withhold their consent, aka democracy.

Then the question became: who votes? Could foreigners earn the right? About 451 BC, Greek general Pericles changed the Athenian constitution to require that to be a citizen, you had to have Athenian parentage on both sides.

In April, Chicago’s National Hellenic Museum is putting Pericles on trial for fiddling with the constitution.

Wikicommons

“Hero or tyrant?” is how the museum presents the issue. “Audience members will cast their votes to decide the final verdict.”

Raising the subject of voter suppression and xenophobia can’t have been an accident.

“No accident,” confessed retired Circuit Court Judge Anna Demacopoulos, a trustee of the museum and co-chair of the event. “This year’s presentation is so relevant. You can actually see the first time somebody was accused of voter suppression. Do you protect your citizens or do you do what it takes to retain your power? Which is exactly what leaders might be grappling with right now.”

As if voting rights and treatment of foreigners were not relevance aplenty, there is also the matter of the status of women.

“Part of Pericles argument was, ‘I’m giving more power to the Athenian women; they are the vessel to citizenship,’ said Demacopoulos. “Before he changed the law, if a foreign woman married an Athenian she would automatically be able to become a citizen along with her children. After the change of law, both parents had to be of Athenian bloodlines. Athenian women who had pure bloodlines became more desirable. But 25 percent of Athenian citizens lost the right to vote.”

I should probably say that since the museum began these mock trials, with Socrates in 2013, I’ve participated as a juror in several. They’re a lot of fun, and you get to rub elbows with the city’s top legal talent. Where else could you chat with Judge Richard Posner then watch Dan Webb and Bob Clifford argue a case?

“It’s a great night out,” agreed Demacopoulos. “You can’t get into a courtroom to see them, and here you’re getting to see them live.”

As to the future of arguing important issues in a free society, I asked Demacopoulos what next year’s topic might be. Perhaps Catiline, I suggested, the high born tyrant who betrayed his country in a blatant conspiracy? But that is Roman, not Greek. Pity.

The trial of Pericles takes place Wednesday, April 17 at the Harris Theater, 205 Randolph St. Tickets are pricey — $100, $50 for students, but benefit the museum, and lawyers can get CLE credit for attending. For more information, visit nationalhellenicmuseum.org/trial-pericles.

“History repeats itself; it’s cyclical,” Demacopoulos said. “The things people struggled with back then are the same issues we’re struggling with now.”

I pulled down my The Landmark Thucydides — the definitive history of the Peloponnesian war; the war against the Spartans that Pericles led as an elected general. Once you choose tyranny, as Athens had, you’re kinda stuck.

“For what you hold is, to speak somewhat plainly, a tyranny,” Pericles said in the summer of 430 BC. “To take it perhaps was wrong, but to let it go is unsafe.”

He appealed to those caring only about their own narrow interests to instead think of their nation’s welfare.

“A man may be personally ever so well off, and yet if his country be ruined, he must be ruined with it,” Pericles said. “Cease then to grieve for your private afflictions and address yourself instead to the safety of the commonwealth.”

It didn’t work. Athens, I feel obligated to point out, lost the war.