Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular RuleHow and why did the Western tradition of political theorizing arise in Athens during the late fifth and fourth centuries B. C.? By interweaving intellectual history with political philosophy and literary analysis, Josiah Ober argues that the tradition originated in a high stakes debate about democracy. Since elite Greek intellectuals tended to assume that ordinary men were incapable of ruling themselves, the longevity and resilience of Athenian