Abstract
The debate on Athenian democratic ideology has long been polarised around two extremes. A Marxist tradition has propounded a negative view of ideology as a cover-up for Athens’ internal divisions. Another tradition, sometimes referred to as culturalist, has provided a neutral interpretation of ideology as the fixed set of ideas shared by the members of the Athenian community. This book draws from the New Institutionalism in political science to remedy this dichotomy and provide a unitary and comprehensive approach to Athenian democratic ideology. Through four case studies that compare different versions of selected myths in Athenian social memory, it demonstrates that Athenian democratic ideology was a fluid set of ideas, values, and beliefs shared by the Athenians as a result of a constant ideological practice influenced by the institutions of the democracy. This process entailed the active participation of both the mass and the elite, and enabled the Athenians to produce multiple and compatible ideas about their community and its mythical past.
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