A Great Mistake Of The Athenians

Democracy means a government ruled by the people. Athens were not a democracy because they only allowed 12% of citizen men to vote nobody else could unless they were citizen men. (Doc C) In a true democracy people would have equal say, but the athens did not let women vote or people that weren’t citizens. In ancient athens people couldn’t express their thoughts, if a majority of others disagreed with the idea they could banish the person.

Themistocles was aware that the only way to defeat the Persians was to cut of their naval power, so he devised a plan. He sent a slave to the Persians with a message that they were escaping, and the Persians sent ships to meet there escapees. The Athenian ships were prepared to face them. Their specialty in sea battles, along with the narrowness and swirls of the sea gave the Athenians an advantage. This strategy is what ultimately brought victory to the Greeks, as it left the Persians without a supply line and weakened their forces. The two events, the battle at Marathon and the battle at Salamis, showed that Athens was a great contributor to the war, both land and sea.

Athens did not like it when king Minos attacked, for they knew he had more power than they did. As the ships came from Crete, king Aegean of Athens was trying to come up with a plan to have the Cretan’s stop attacking them. Meanwhile, Crete’s ships were gaining fast on Athens and they were just in sight. Back on land it was a buzz with everyone hurriedly getting on armor and getting to battle stations.

It is vital that we keep our strongest men safe so that we can train several upcoming foot soldiers. Who would we have to protect Athens if our strongest were directed on an expedition and perished? Instead of allowing Athens to become corrupt or even worse weakened under attack we would like to see our great state become self-sustaining. In this we would like Athenian’s to depend on our own resources. We can learn to make what we don’t have and the things that are insurmountable we can learn to live without. This may not be easy but, in time we will become a much stronger Greek unit. Socrates states on page 295 559b “But the desire for a more varied and luxurious diet is one which, with discipline and training from an early age, can normally be got rid of, and which is physically damaging to intelligence and self-discipline. May it therefore rightly be called unnecessary?” We will learn to be happy with our own resources and man-made items. This will make us nondependent on any other city-state. With our hoplite divisions trained, enlarged and, with sufficient equipment we should be less fearful of potential invasions. If by chance an assault on Athens was to transpire we now have many trained and equipped foot soldiers to protect us.

In the past week I have read different documents about the Ancient Athens and whether or not it was a true democracy. To sum up all the documents my hypothesis was true. I believed they weren't a true democracy. Athens wasn’t a true Democracy because Demokratia was ruled by male citizens only which made up 12% of the population. Women, slaves, and foreigners weren't allowed to vote.

Democracy is defined as the the rule by the people which Athens did not show in their government. The Athenian Democracy was ruled by The Ekklesia, The Boule, and The Dikasteria. The Ekklesia, Boule, and Dikasteria were made of the assemblies, council of 500, and courts, which does not include all the people of Athens. Demokratia exemplifies that all the people have the right to power/rule the government.

Despite having a Limited Democracy, Athens enjoyed many freedoms. An example of these freedoms would be people voting, the Athenians could vote. Athens had a democracy with a very high citizen participation. Athens had a democracy where there was large amounts of participation in it. An example of this would be the Vase in Document 1, it shows multiple Athenian people that are working together on a project.

His force further had innumerable archers. It was with this in mind that the Athenians made the “fateful” decision to train 40,000 men for 200 ships in 481BCE. This force was relatively inexperienced compared to the Persian contingent, which included skilled Phoenician sailors (D.S 11.18.1). The Persians had light, fast boarding ships compared to the Greeks who had stout, strongly built ramming ships (8.10,60). This would prove critical later at the crowded straits of Salamis in 480BCE. If it were not for this fleet, the “Persian conquest of Greece would have been assured.” (7.139). If Persia had control of the sea, defeat by land would quickly have followed due to the inability of the city-states to hold a united front. The halt in city-state squabbles and the creation of the Hellenic League was “no small achievement” and was to the great disadvantage of Xerxes. This clearly was a factor in the overall demise of the campaign. The construction of the Athenian fleet, advocated by Themistocles, was a precursor to this.

I believe that Athens truly was a democracy. There are pieces of evidence and proof supporting that Athens ran on a Democratic Government.

their high standards and they were not going to change it. Athenian was most criticized for being

There are multiple reasons why ancient Athens was not a Democracy in its truest sense. In Document A of the Athenian constitution, it clearly states.. “ Our constitution favors the many instead of the few,’’ however, if that were accurate, why could only twelve percent of the population vote (Document C).The Philosopher, Plato, concluded that women should have the same education and hold all positions in society (Guided Reading Activity 1-2 question 10); this is the very same conundrum that the American government had to face back in the 1920’s (Amendment 19), and it still has not been completely addressed to this day. If the Athenian constitution had favored the many as it claimed than 100 percent of the population should been allowed to vote.

Have you ever heard of Athens and the first democracy, well I have been studying it for a few months. After studying Athens widespread forms of government and it’s so called democracy, I have come to a conclusion that Athens wasn’t truly democratic for many textual reasons. Here's why

Due to the fact that the Athens were given most credit for the Greek victory, and because the Athens had the strongest navy, they were chosen to lead the alliance in its continued naval (counter) aggression and continue on pressuring the already-shattered Persian forces.

Everything leading up to them going into battle is what caused the Athenians to go thoughtlessly into the encounter. One of the most influential parts of the agreement was that they were supposed to get paid and were told that it was an easy battle, but that led them to believe that there was nothing to care about. The information they were told however, was not entirely true and their hope of reclaiming land was exceedingly high, that they concluded that this idea for war was a good thing. Unfortunately, the Athenians were, “ignorant of the size of the island and the number of its inhabitants” (Bagnall 201). Also, in addition to them being ignorant of the size of the island, “they did not realize that they were taking on a war of the same magnitude as their war against the Peloponnesians” (Bagnall 201). Furthermore, their generals were not able to agree on what to do, and the soldiers rushed onto shore without any directions or strategies to guide them. Their generals had a great deal to do with the fact of their soldiers failing to invade and win this battle. They did not think to plan any well thought out strategies before sending their troops into battle. Nobody did anything to help guide them along the way. The fact that they mindlessly went into battle was the most catastrophic part of the war. All of these factors went hand in hand and is what brought the destruction of this city upon

The Sicilian Expedition is the decisive event in the Peloponnesian war. In fact that is what motivated Thucydide's to record it in his historical records. Thucydides prophesized that it would be `the greatest in all Greek history' and "it was a major turning point for Athens',moreover, it was the `most glorious victory for the winners, and the worst calamity for the loosers.' The outcome was that Athens lost the war which lead to the eventual collapse of her empire and dignity. The Athenians lost the war due to their ill preparedness for the expedition, illogical and hasty decisions, and poor leadership during the expedition.