Arsenal of Democracy II

After a recent post, I'm still pondering Orwell's ideas about weapons and democracy, namely that simple weapons are inherently democratic, whilst complex and expensive ones are typically used by tyrannies.

I think I've come up with another counter-example. Go back to the very first democracy, Athens. With all the reservations about the tiny size of the franchise and the exclusion of women and slaves, it still gave a voice to more of its citizens than contemporary states like the Persian Empire or Sparta. Up to the battle of Marathon, the city's chief defence was a citizen army of sorts - but one dominated by the aristocratic hoplite class who, like medieval knights, had to be wealthy to afford their weapons and bronze armour. After Marathon, at the instigation of Themistocles, the Athenians responded to the continuing Persian threat with a great naval ship-building programme, constructing a fleet which would go on to defeat the Persians at Salamis and for a time give Athens undisputed mastery of the Aegean.

A trireme must count as about the most complex and expensive piece of weaponry in the ancient world; a whole fleet of them was built to defend the first democracy against the autocratic might of the Persian Empire. Other counter-examples to follow, probably.