ATHENS — Archaeologists excavating two mass graves in an ancient cemetery at the site of Athens’s new opera house suggested in April that the skeletons of 80 men — 36 of whom they found buried in iron shackles — may have been supporters of an ancient Athenian sports hero who tried to grab power around 632 B.C. The would-be tyrant, Cylon, thought that his glory as an Olympic Games champion would ensure popular support in his bid to replace his fellow aristocrats with himself. It seems the people were not sufficiently unhappy to join his revolt and it was crushed by the city’s leaders.



This coup attempt, early in Athens’s political development, is indicative of the timeless quarrel between an elite few and the masses, which, in this case, resulted in the world’s first democracy over a century later, around 508 B.C.

Whether the skeletons are those of Cylon’s supporters is yet to be confirmed, but the conjecture is a reminder that politics is a set of variations of the war between personal ambition and collective need, often at odds with each other but also with the potential for creative coexistence. The stakes are always high — national survival or destruction, personal happiness or misery.

Strongmen exploiting their celebrity, projecting uncompromising bravado, harnessing popular discontent with promises to overturn the current order, have always been a basic ingredient of politics. From prehistory to modern elections, through military dictatorships or palace coups or by riding the power of the masses, ambitious individuals shake up their nations and change history. We should not be surprised to see this happening today, in developing nations and mature democracies. But it does not mean we should not worry.