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Diogenes on How Democracies Die

Kenneth Canatsey

There is no honest face in Athens. Many
a day and night I’ve walked its streets until
my feet blistered—and when the blisters burst,
and sandals became unbearable, I wrapped my feet
in rags and kept on searching. I met smirking
hucksters on every corner. I stuffed my ears
with beeswax to escape their lies
that ran like sewage through the streets.

The Demos has become polluted. Every man
looks only to his own advantage, his own
party, and each strives to outdo the other
in goading the fawning fickle mob.
They love their games and festivals, their bacchanals;
they excel in hot rhetoric, and neglect
the duties of state.

They say Philip of Macedon and his army
are marching toward the city. An army of our own
has gone out to meet them on the plains
to the north. But those I talk to are tired of the endless
palaver of politicians who have forgotten
how to pass good laws. They say
they are weary of this thing called Democracy.
They crave a Tyrant: it is power they worship.

No, there are no longer any honest men—
not one—in this city that I love.

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