Peter Jones

Ancient Athens would have been horrified by Trump’s impeachment

issue 15 February 2020

An impeachment trial is overseen by Congress and Senate, who both make the law and (in this case) sit in judgment on it, ignoring the modern legal principle of the separation of powers. Athenians would have been shocked, not because they believed in the separation of powers (their citizens too made the law in assembly and sat in judgment in the law courts) but because in democratic Athens it was citizens that decided verdicts, and in randomly selected and therefore unpredictable juries.

By contrast, two elected oligarchic cabals decide impeachment trials, usually making acquittal a foregone conclusion. Athenians would have been appalled: what was even remotely democratic about that?

Statistics make the point about Athenian citizen control over the performance of their leaders. The top ten political positions were the annually appointed military leaders, who also had other, e.g.

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