Ancient Greek Government

In reality, however, Greek democracy meant the rule of citizens, not the people as a whole, and citizenship was limited to free adult men who had lived in the polis a long time. The remaining free men, resident foreigners, slaves, and all women were not citizens and had no political voice. In other words, none of the Greek democracies reflected the modern concept that all people are created equal. Still, democracy was attractive because it permitted male citizens to share equally in determining the diplomatic and military policies of the polis.MCKAY 119) While democracy was ran by the citizens they believed that not all citizens should take time from their day to day operations and work so in turn they formed offices to represent the people. . The most prestigious of these offices was the board of ten archons, whose members, elected for one year, handled legal and military affairs. After leaving office, they entered a select council of former archons who handled cases involving homicide, wounding, and arson.(MCKAY 122)In athens almost everyrone was given a chance to rise to power. Also, politics in Athens was almost like a religion, they believed "that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all" (Davis 92). They had a strong belief that

The Athenians governmental system was a direct democracy. Five hundred individuals would be elected to lead the nation in everyone year. However, it is pointed out that the democracy at that time was not the same with the

The word democracy comes from the Greek terms demos (people) and kratos (power). Democracy developed in ancient Greece around 500 B.C.E. in the city-state of Athens, where many people began to oppose the rule of tyrants. The main governing body of the Athenian democracy was the Citizens Assembly. An important aspect of Athenian democracy was the fact that its public officials did not have much individual power. There was no such office as president of Athens. In wartime, a group of 10 generals made decisions about military matters. These generals were elected annually and could be reelected several times.

Demokratia, is a greek word meaning “rule of the people.” This meant that every citizen, excluding slaves, immigrants, and women, could vote and serve in a jury. This is the final government of ancient Greece.

According to a report that was published in ‘Ancient History Encyclopaedia’ by Cartwright. M. (March, 2013) about the ancient Greek government, there was a general concern in the ancient Greek about who should rule them and how they should be ruled, and based on this uncertainty, the ancient Greek ended up using different forms of government to rule its people in different city states. This paper is going to compare the five forms of government that were used during the ancient Greek era, namely, monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy in the different city states.

The Greeks had many different styles of government. There were three main types of government, an oligarchy, a monarchy, and a direct democracy. The other types of government were a dyarchy, satrapy, aristocracy, tyranny, and what scientists think was a type of feudalism. Every city-state had its own government.

The government in Athens was a direct democracy, where any citizen, which was usually an adult male, could vote on or create laws. They could also vote on the state’s daily issues. This meant that the Athenians had a say in government, which made them less likely to rebel against Athens.

It’s 507 B.C. there are 500 men in a council meeting and discussing, trying to figure out what to do about the rules that need to be made and the guidelines that need to be set in order to oversee the people of Greece. The fact of having a set idea of government is a big deal and has followed us up to today. It decides whether a system or society fails or prospers, the more stable the government the better and longer the society lasts. Greek has been an up and down roller coaster of good government and bad. Greek government had and still does have a huge influence on modern government systems in format, procedure, and policy.

Ancient Greece was built by its city-states, each varying in its form of government. These

The history of the ancient Greece might be possibly the most studied and researched period in human history. The Greeks left behind a lavish legacy; whole cities built of marble and granite, written records of own history in the form of poems, and in prose, the alphabet we use today, they have invented and refined, the set of laws we fallow, they first tested, but by far the greatest contribution they have left for posterity would be the invention of democracy. (Pomeroy, 2011: xiii)

In general, we can think of and consider democracy as a system or a structure of government made up of four key pillars. First, as a political system involved in choosing and interchanging the leadership through free and fair voting. The second pillar would be the active involvement of the citizens both in civic life and politics. Third is the safeguarding of the human rights of every citizen. Then finally as rule of law, which apply equally in the society. However, for the purpose of this paper, we focus on discussions of ancient Greeks on the practice and theory of democracy as a system of government.

In ancient Greece city-states dominated. Each city-state was independent and had its own laws and political system. However that changed as life conditions in each state changed as well. Sometimes each constitution succeeded one another due to the continuous warfare.

The political system of democracy did not officially start until 510 B.C.E, this is a way for our world to start the foundation of a country (Carr 2013). Athens , Greece was the first recording of the use of any of a democratic system around the world to this day. Our political systems have come a long way from ancient Greece’s political systems, we have taken the idea of democracy , autocracy, and oligarchy and formed them into a modern way of constitutionally ruling the country.

The city-states of Athens and Greece were ruled by a diverse range of governments. Under these were the monarchy, the aristocracy, the tyranny, the oligarchy and the democracy. In this paper we will compare and contrast these 5 forms of governments in ancient Greek city-states.

The Greece has tried various types of government, they know how to reform the systems and how to corrupt, grow, decline. The rule forms in the ancient Greek took extraordinarily diverse forms. This article will briefly describe the fifth forms of government in ancient Greece. That are monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy.