Ancient Greek Democracy

Whether Socrates is portrayed correctly or not, he certainly was a great man. His contribution to western thought cannot be denied. For even if his teachings were different from what they are known to be at present, his influence on Plato is immense. And so, it is no small matter to describe the tragic passing of such a man as Socrates was and remains for philosophy today. Yet in all the indignation which is expected to arise at the death of Socrates, the panache with which he departs is captured excellently in Plato's “Apology.” Specifically, at the end of the "Apology," Socrates makes a very important statement that has had great impact on philosophy ever since its original proclamation. The

Socrates was a great philosopher of the Greek world. He was quite an atypical and distinctive person. Being different from all the other philosophers of the land, Socrates was teaching his students ideas totally out of the ordinary from what the society believed was right. As a result, he displeased many people so much that they decided to get rid of him. Socrates was put to trial, accused of spoiling the youth of Athens, tried and sentenced to death. His personal defense is described in works two of his students: Xenophon and Plato. Both of them wrote papers called Apology, which is the Greek word for “defense”. In this essay I used Apology by Plato as the main resource, since it contents a more full account of the trial of Socrates and

Because Greek city-states were largely independent of each other, multiple forms of power were able to

Socrates was a pompous man who believed that he was wiser than most, if not all, Athenian men of his time. He is also credited as one of the fathers of western philosophy, his own philosophy revolving around the welfare of one’s soul and reflecting on what the good life was. He was told by an oracle that he was the wisest of men and spent a great deal of time trying to prove it false, he decided that he was considered wise for accepting that he knew nothing, and never claimed to know anything that he questioned. In Plato’s text “Apology” Socrates is depicted as a man who was arrogant, hypercritical of others, and fixed on his ways no matter the consequences. He had the qualities of a man who saw no error in what he was doing because he

oligarchy, and democracy. I will discuss what type of governments each refers to and finally

The legacy of democracies from Ancient Greece and Rome helped officially establish the United States’ current government. In early Greece, each polis had its own type of government, including monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, and democracy. Democracy, which is a government ruled by the people, started in the polis of Athens. Early Athens established the basis of democracy, where only free male adults were considered citizens and could vote. The United States’ government today has expanded to allow women to vote instead of only men. In both early Athens’ and today’s United States governments, citizens have power, so in order to receive most people’s opinions on a topic, they increased the amount of people voting in the population of the polis.

Ancient Greece was comprised of over 1500 city-states, their sizes varying from 200,000 to barely a town (in modern times). Each city-state had its own type of government; there wasn’t one to rule them all. The majority of governments were an oligarchy. This is defined as “a small group of people having control of a country, organization or institution.” Sparta was the most famous and powerful Greek oligarchy. It was made up of a council with their two kings, 28 members who were elected for 1-year terms by the citizens, and 5 officials who served their whole life. This council made every decision for the city-state and wrote the laws. They were also the ones making sure people followed them. Another part of Sparta’s government was the Assembly, a group of citizens that approved laws. They were expected to do this without debate.

On account of Athens, the idea of a democracy, or as it was called then Demokratia, ensued. The idea of a rule of the people/eligible citizens that we now have today, in example America, was originated from this. This idea concocted by this ancient civilization, provides a sound foundation in which the current government called democracy in the world today.

Democracy in modern terms is “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.” This common definition differs in a few ways to that of Athenian democracy. For example, today the law comes before the person. Meaning that the law is upheld no matter who it is or the circumstances under which a person committed an offense. In Athens the people came before the law. Who the person was and why they did what they did was though of before a decision on their guilt and punishment was conceived. Another example is the focus on one ruler versus many. In today’s democracy people are under the

Greek government lays the foundation for many different types of government we see today. Across the world, people are still using systems that the Greeks used over 2000 years ago. Starting as early 2000 BCE, and spanning four types of government systems, Greek government was always trying answer one question: who should rule and how.

This history of Democracy starts in Athens Greece in the 5th century. This was widely immitated at

My essay will be about the Greek civilization about 4000 years ago. I will be explaining the government and how it affects the modern day. These paragraphs will be involving the explanation of the three organization to make the Greek government. The three will be including Ekklesia, Boule, and Dikasteria. All three will have their own paragraph explaining how they work on their own and how they work with each other to make a democracy.

Socrates, painted as a humble man who never had any of his own writings, and often speculated to be illiterate, is considered one of the major partisans of Western philosophy. Western philosophy is the philosophical thought of the western world. This idea proves to be quite accurate when considering Plato’s Apology, the apology of Socrates which is not really considered an apology but a defense. In the ancient Greek era, the word apology meant to defend one’s actions and explain why they were done, rather than apology and take ownership of the actions done. In Plato’s account of Socrates’ apology, Socrates appears to be an innocent old man who is full of unrecognized wisdom, a man who is victimized by the society, the court, and the politicians of that time. This victimization stems from the insecurities of the attackers. Socrates was an advocate of tending to the needs of the soul, above all else, and this idea was despised by the people who criticized him because the idea itself convicted them, caused them to appear as wrong. Socrates’ actions, in which he sat in the center of Athens speaking to the youth and cross-examining the arrogant, and these ideas which he displayed to the public are what initially got him into the mess of being on trial. Socrates is eventually sentenced to death, and in this happening is considered a martyr, similar to Jesus Christ. As the ideas above portray, Socrates was a

Ancient Greece is the place where modern democracy and government originated from. Democracy is a word that has Greek origin and is defined as the government by the people to rule. Greece’s form of government was a direct democracy where the citizens voted for their decision rather than electing people to make the decision. Athens a Greek city-state established the earliest form of democracy. Three ruling bodies known as the Assembly, council and the Courts separated Greek democracy. The Assembly elected certain officials and made laws. Majority rules a system in which a group with the most votes has power was used to make decisions in the Assembly. Currently, in the United States, the government system they use is a democracy because of Greece. A key difference between the Greek and US democracy is that the US uses an indirect democracy, in which the citizens vote on who should represent them. The essence of the US voting system is implemented because Ancient Greece conducted the motion of allowing people to vote on essential matters. When The founding fathers of the United States wrote the Constitution much impact derived from the Athenian legislator, Draco who created the code of law for Athens. An important attribute of Western civilization is the democratic system. Without the

Undoubtedly, the Apology of Socrates is one of the most significant work among all the classics. It is an account of the speech of Socrates makes at the trial in defence for the accusations of not recognizing Gods recognised by the Greek and corrupting the adolescents of Athens. Throughout the speech, Socrates speaks in a very plain manner to attempt to defend himself and his conduct. Though Socrates was sentenced to death as even his eloquent argument could not persuade all the juries, his final speech provides tremendous philosophical insights that help us to examine ourselves. At such, I believe the Apology of Socrates teaches us quite a few important ideas, that include the necessity for one to be humble withstanding one knows a lot