Historian Bettany Hughes explores the 'Golden Age' of ancient Athens at the dawn of democracy. Can Athenian democracy live up to its reputation as the place that we in the West cherish as the birthplace of freedom, equality and free speech? By looking behind the myth Bettany Hughes discovers what was really going on in Golden Age Athens. This series uncovers brand new research about Athens, and the tensions between new ideas and traditional beliefs, and asks how it was that the city that championed democracy could also put to death its most famous thinker, the philosopher Socrates. In the sixth century BC, Athens was run by tyrants, rulers who governed with absolute power, but when one young aristocrat decided to use 'the power of the people' on his side to defeat a rival, the genie was out of the bottle. Democracy was born. Voting was restricted to male citizens born in Athens. Slaves and foreigners could not vote, and women not only could not vote, but also had to be veiled outside the home. The most famous of all the generals, Pericles, built the Parthenon to celebrate Athens power, but he also took the city into a disastrous conflict, the Peloponnesian War, which was to be their ultimate undoing. Dewey: 938 ATH.