You are aware that, while "Athenian democracy" was for sure a step toward more distributed political power, it was still a city where only a selected few males

You are aware that, while "Athenian democracy" was for sure a step toward more distributed political power, it was still a city where only a selected few males could pretend to be "citizen". By the way, "what happened to Athens" doesn’t mean much: it’s still a living city, although the age of city-state has long gone. So, as Churchill would quote it: "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." see: https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government