Democracy and Freedom Speech in the Ancient World

Despite aristophane's satire of plato, were democracy and freedom speech intimately linked in the ancient world? Can you for very long have one without the other? An a, there was this idea that a person had the freedom to get up in front of the assembly and say whatever they pleased. And we should also remember there's 15 hundred city states, and we don't hear about all the racies at mantinea and other places.