History of political thought/Addendum

Pericles on democracy

"We have a form of government that...favours the many instead of the few, this is why it is called a democracy. If we look at the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences ...if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive even though they inflict no positive penalty."

(extract from Pericles' funeral oration, as reported in Thucydides' History of the Peloponesian War, written 431 BCE, translated by Richard Crawley, published by Random House, 1982)