Apart from notions such as eleutheria and isegoria, two Greek concepts are widely recognised as a vital part of the identity of Athenian democrats. The first, 'parrhesia' is usually rendered in scholarship as 'freedom of speech'. The second, 'zen hos bouletai tis' (in Aristotle’s terms) is praised as the basic ideal of democracy, in which everyone can 'live as they please'. I intend to challenge these views by drawing attention to the meaning of both concepts found in the surviving Athenian forensic and symbouleutic speeches, and to its consequences for Athenian political thought.
