Although it may be that the democracy determined the military affairs and the way Athens fought its wars, may I suggest an alternative thought – that the way Athens fought its wars determined and delivered the democracy.

I find it a stretch to consider the Athenian ‘constitution’ post Cleisthenes to be a democracy. To be sure, it was more democratic than its predecessor and more democratic that any other Greek state at the time. But it lacked many features of democracy that would come in the following century. (Not for nothing did the Romans date their republic – which we wouldn’t call a democracy – as starting one year earlier than Cleisthenes’ reforms).

The flowering of the Athenian democracy came after 480BC and I’d suggest 483BC being a more important date than 508BC. This was when the Athenians became a maritime power.

It is hardly co-incidental that the first democracy in Europe was also the first maritime empire in Europe. In Sparta, the state’s power came from the Spartiate hoplite. In Athens (after 483BC) the state’s power came from the rowers. For the first time ever, the state’s safety went beyond those who could afford to buy a breast-plate and hoplon and rested in the hands of those without wealth.

For that reason, it seems to me, the Athenian man-in-the-street, had the power to seek political power. In those places where the military consisted of the wealthiest stratas, those were the people who ran the state. In Athens, the military was the people and the people ran the state.

In our own times we see similar advances. The rise of democracy in the 19th and 20th centuries walks hand in hand with the opening of the military to the masses and the growth of total war where the entire population is involved in the war effort. Again, it was a sea power that was at the forefront of the modern democratic movement. Even in our own time we saw claims for 18 year olds, forced to fight in the paddy-fields to also get the vote.

I don’t particularly quibble with the view that Athens revolutionised warfare. But I wonder whether enough emphasis has been given to the idea that, by opening up the military and the leadership to so many ‘new-men’, this was the revolutionary move and the reason the Athenians changed warfare. The outsider who makes good often sees things from a new and clearer viewpoint than those raised within the culture. (Think Marius). Pylos was a devastating defeat for the old ways and a pointer to the new and it was orchestrated by new-men – Cleon and Demosthenes.

The democracy was young and vibrant and all things were possible. Phormio takes on an armada with a handful of ships because he could. Invade Egypt - why not? Take on the Mede - no problem. According to Alkibiades, the plan included conquering not just Sicily but Carthage as well. Boundless optimism, suppressed for a time by Perikles but the reason why democracy works.