Death to Tyrants! by David Teegarden Page A

significant consequences. Simply put, the pro-democrats acquired a much firmer control of their polis. There no doubt would be future exogenous events that threatened to undermine the democratic equilibrium. But perhaps the single most significant exogenous threat had been royal intervention on behalf of the anti-democrats. And now it was reasonably certain that the kings’ policies in that regard would be predictably benign; they had been “endogenized” (i.e., made part of the known variables of the interior game). It thus follows that, if the democrats had a clearly credible and capable threat, it would be quite unlikely that anti-democrats would defect: to do so would be irrational.
    This decree (text 6) thus records the dēmos ’s attempt to demonstrate—one last time—the credibility of their threat against tyrants, thereby securing as permanent the basis of the “new game” established by Alexander a generation earlier. The means toward that end, predictably, was the generation of common knowledge of credible commitment via discussion and subsequent vote in an assembly of citizens. The same dynamic as described in the first and second sections of this chapter was in play; thus there is no need to articulate its generic characteristics again. But it is important to appreciate how impressive that assembly meeting must have been. Each text was (most likely) brought before the audience, read out loud, discussed, and then deemed by majority vote to be kurios . The meeting was an opportunity, then, for the Eresians to affirm the past thirty years of democratic rule and thus the dēmos ’s control of the polis. Nobody would doubt the anti-tyranny stance of the Eresian dēmos .
    Soon after the assembly adjourned, the Eresians had their decree inscribed on the same stones that recorded the original trial against the tyrants and each of the subsequent “anti-tyranny episodes” that transpired during the subsequent thirty years. But this would be the final installment, the last action against tyrants. The dēmos ’s threat was clearly credible, and thus defection was clearly irrational. After one generation, the new game was secure. 32
    Conclusion
    The events analyzed in this chapter underscore the importance for pro-democrats to maintain their threat credibility. A dramatic, foundational “moment”—such as a public trial or oath against tyrants—certainly was essential: it established the initial credible commitment. But, due to the passage of time and changing circumstances, individuals may begin to doubt whether or not their fellow citizens remain committed. As a consequence, individual pro-democrats might lack the confidence to potentially risk their life in the defense of their democracy; thus they raise their revolutionary threshold. If anti-democrats detected that dynamic, they would conclude that the pro-democrats could not respond adequately to a coup. That is, they would conclude that the pro-democrats’ threat was not credible. Those anti-democrats would thus defect and try to establish a nondemocratic regime. To fight against that, pro-democrats had to continually generate common knowledge of widespread credible commitment to defend their democracy.
    The need to maintain threat credibility would be particularly important for new democracies. The citizens of older, more established democracies benefit from the accumulated effect of past commitment demonstrations—by word or, most effectively, by deed. That is not to say that established democracies did not have to ensure that their threat remained credible. It is just that the regime likely would receive the benefit of the doubt: individuals, pro-democrats and anti-democrats alike, would more likely assume that the citizen population is defined by a “pro-mobilization” threshold sequence. Defending the democracy would thus be rational; staging a coup would be irrational. The