Isocrates, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The democracy of Solon and Cleisthenes was a better democracy than ours because it selected magistrates for fitness rather than by lot, and because it had a body that supervised conduct rather than merely counting votes. Restoring that is not the abolition of popular rule but its repair.123
T am indec btful net ld think that you are follicitous for bublic g u are fo, are struck with such a letharg ua norant into what disorders our city is pl ha ft all the cities in Thrace, {pent above a thousand talents upon strangers, we are suspected by Greece, and become enemic the Perfian.Orations and Epistles, pp. 171–173
And herein we both act and suffer as might naturally be expected; for it is impossible for any special department to turn out satisfactorily for those who do not counsel aright concerning the general management of affairs, but, if they do succeed in certain cases, either through chance or the valour of an individual,' after a brief interval they find themselves again in the same difficulties.Orations, pp. 202–203
The weakness of Athens he attributes mainly to an excess of " free- dom." Pure democracy is not to his liking—a polity in which election by lot is the last word in the _ equalization of opportunity and the levelling of all _ distinctions.Orations
Argued in old age, and read then and since as a well-mannered oligarchism.