Free Speech

The ancient Athenians promoted democracy and free speech.

The ancient world wasn’t a bastion of free speech. Hittite laws, for example, held that people who judged their king would have their houses destroyed. The Bible asserts that people who deride “God and King” should be stoned to death. The ancient Egyptians and Chinese weren’t much more liberal, and limits on speech for enslaved people and women were strict everywhere.

The legendary Greek orator Demosthenes regarded free speech as the foundation of freedom and democracy, and stridently defended it. A coup in 411 BC ended Athenian democracy and led to the violent suppression of free speech.

While Athenian democracy was direct and populist, Roman democracy was “hierarchical and elitist.” Roman thinkers regarded Athenian democracy as chaotic and prone to hijacking by the vulgar and ignorant. The philosopher and orator Cicero argued that only the political elite should enjoy free speech.

The printing press – and Martin Luther’s Reformation – opened new possibilities for free speech.

By the 12th century, philosophical inquiry and scholarship thrived in Islamic regions and...