Did the Athenians come up with no-platforming?

Hardly a day goes by without another story of academics clamping down on free speech. Dons at Buckingham University are the latest to express outrage at a proposed ‘heterodox’ (i.e. not woke) social science centre.

In democratic Athens (5th century bc), free speech in the citizens’ assembly and the courts was called isêgoria, meaning ‘equality of speaking’, granting every citizen the same freedom to give his opinion as any other citizen. Free speech outside those arenas was called parrhêsia and meant literally ‘saying everything [you wanted to]’ i.e. total frankness. Some expressed surprise at this licence, shocked that even slaves and foreigners could openly speak their mind.

But Athenians did understand that licence grossly to insult and offend could not be generally exercised without disorder. They had laws against seriously violent abuse (hubris). Writs could be issued in special circumstances. But we know of very few, e.g. the trial of Socrates for offending the gods.