The Athenian Political Factions

Political parties, in the modern sense, did not exist in ancient Greece. Instead, political leaders formed informal circles of friends and followers to support their ambitions. Students amongst these ambitious leaders often stemmed more from competition for election to the highest public offices than from disagreements over pure matters of policy. In this period, it just so happened, that those factional divides actually did correspond to a disagreement over foreign policy. And so we will use these two terms as unofficial names for the two Athenian political factions.