Most people believe that it is to the Classical world that we owe Democracy and her handmaidens, Peace, Brotherhood, the Common Agricultural Policy and the IMF. Bluffers know better. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans knew anything about Democracy at all. The only occasion on which anything like it occurred in the Classical world was for 20-30 years in Athens and, apart from producing the Parthenon, that was a disaster.
Used availability for Ross Leckie's The Bluffer's Guide to the Classics