On Plato's criticism against Athenian direct democracy

Democracy developed in the context of and with the Greek polis. The term polis refers to the political order that imposes itself in ancient Greece, since the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. In many cases, poleis organized themselves politically according to the famous principles of isonomia, isegoria, parresìa and eleutherìa. From the 7th century, some poleis began to organize themselves with protodemocratic forms of government. In this article, we will examine the democracy in Athens in its phase of decline, and we will attempt to reconstruct Plato’s idea of democracy, retracing the main criticisms that Plato moves to democracy, from the The Republic to the The Statesman and the The Laws. In conclusion, we will emphasise Plato’s criticisms against the Sophists and their use of rhetoric, both on a moral and an ontological perspective