Taking Crucial Decisions in the Athenian Assembly and the Pivotal Role of Paideia

This chapter describes a stormy debate in the Athenian citizen’s Assembly, about continuing (or not) a new round of war with the powerful Macedonia. It presents, in a figurative way, the basic political dilemma that the Athenians were called to vote on, through direct democratic procedures: peace or war. Furthermore, it indirectly relates this discussion to issues of education, both as a process of acquiring knowledge and as a process of shaping the moral character of citizens, the so-called paideia, something on which the Athenians invested a lot in their relationships with each other.