The truth is that Athens’s aristocracy had decayed into an oligarchy that preferred to retain its balance of power. Thomas R. Martin’s elegant and enlightening “Phocion” describes how one ...

Roosevelt, approached the idea of American oligarchy with a slightly more open ... could resemble the oligarchies of ancient Athens and Sparta more than they do the current government in ...

At home in Athens various factions of aristocrats began plotting to overthrow the popular assembly and replace it with an oligarchy. Prominent democrats were assassinated and the Council of Five ...