Athenian Democracy : A Democratic System

The Greek word ‘Demos’ is commonly interpreted by modern minds as meaning simply ‘people’, as ‘Kratos’ means ‘rule of’, giving us democracy, the rule of the people. This is a nice easy way to understand a word that is used commonly today but it is also an oversimplification of a word that meant something different to the Ancient Greek’s themselves.

Democracy gives people equal rights to live in the government they live in. Original thoughts and ideas came from Athens. Although citizens had the ability to participate in the government; was not a completely democratic states. Slavery is what gave others the time to contribute to the government. Those not born in Athens that lived there were not considered citizens and were not allowed to play a part in choosing how their home was governed.

The Athens law that allows every single man of Athens to share and glorifies their superiority over their peer poleis. In reality, the Democracy in Athens are made of Three Branches. The Assembly (Ekklesia) states that all male citizens over 18 met ten times a year and can make executive decisions like declaring war and create laws. The Assembly contradicts Pericles’ speech since it only allow white males (not slaves) to create laws and make executive decisions.

To understand how democracy came into power, the instigators who set up and initiated this system of government need to be further analysed. Each of them did key, significant modifications that ultimately attempted to make Athens an equal society amongst its citizens. Firstly, in the 6th century BCE Solon revoked all debts that the people of Athens owed. He allowed the poor to be involved by creating the ‘general assembly’, who now had a choice on deciding who they wanted in power (Pfingsten, n.d.). Debt slavery was also abolished by Solon, who was the first initiator towards a democratic society. Politically, Solon was believed to establish the council of 400, he also created the four class system dividing the population into separate classes

However, Solon managed with general amnesty and gave freedom enslaved people including those had been sold abroad.in other words, Solon set himself against a redeployment of the land and freed the “Hektemoroi” from the sixth parts to allowed them to hold their land free of obligations and uphold the existing distribution of property for ever after the archon on entering office had to proclaim. Moreover, Solon reformed the administration of justice besides his economic reform and also he set up peoples courts called (“Heliaia”) that operated by sworn jurors and gave every party to any lawsuit the right to appeal to the Heliaia against the award of the magistrate. However, the (Heliaia) was not only a court of appeal but also a court of new cases. Athenians in Solon time were divided into three classes (“hippies”, cavalry), “Zeugitai” (owners of a yoke of oxen) and “thetes” (day labourers). Therefore, only top class can be chosen for the people’s Assembly or in the nine archons from the top two classes and the “thetes” were excluded from all state offices. As result, Solon created the conditions in the Athenian society from the rule of aristocrats to the rule of the wealthy and election now depended on wealth instead of birth (Herman,

Democracy allows a party of political representatives to be elected by the people to rule a country or state. Democracy originated in Ancient Greece with many different reforms, and a spectrum of many different political leaders including Solon, Pisistratus, Cleisthenes, Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles. But was the democratic movement affected by revolutionary ardour or evolution?

The western democracy model was created by Athenian Greeks. Majority ruled through random selection from volunteers. Separation of powers existed, but checks and balances heavily relied on throwing lots. The Romans sought to move away from monarchial models of government and erected a Republic. Rather than an assembly, the Romans had a Senate. Unfortunately, the separation of powers lacked checks and balances. Or more accurately stated, a reputable form of checks and balances. Julius Caesar was assassinated by Senators after declaring himself as life-long dictator. They had deemed the only solution to prevent tyranny and war was to kill Caesar. As a result, the United States has enacted this principle in the Constitution, no individual – citizen,

The ancient laws were considered an oligarchy not a democracy that's what Athens. “Second,The rule was excised from people, where democracy today means government by representatives of the people.” If you were to search you would find information."The Democracy has changed from the past, and direct democracy has been made impossible by size of modern nations." Athenians enforced the public to be eligible

This transformation of Athens, from the views of Tellus to the views of Pericles, from a comparatively traditional and simple society to modern and complex, was in large part a result of both empire and democracy. Herodotus had recognized that freedom, choice, and equality, the trademarks of democracy, had resulted in a remarkable growth of Athenian military volume (5.78.1). Meanwhile, Cleisthenes’ democratic reforms resulted in a new organizational system. By interlocking local networks into a greater multi-political network, that system permitted Athens to transcend the limits of authoritative methods that are dependent upon the personal knowledge typical of a small society, such as Tellus’. As the new democratic system was put into effect,

“The democracy has made itself master of everything and administers everything by its vote in the Assembly and by the law-courts.” I think athens was democratic because they voted. The people who could vote were only men. They had to be 18 years old and a citizen.

Athenian democracy developed in the fifth century BC in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, and is the first known democracy in the world. It was a system of direct democracy in which participating citizens voted directly on legislation and executive bills. Participation was not open to all residents: to vote one had to be an adult, male citizen i.e. neither a foreign citizen, slave or a woman and the number of these "varied between 30,000 and 50,000 out

The Athenian political system in Ancient Greece was a significant and effective reform that kept them stable for many years. Firstly, the ancient Athenians had a democratic practice called ostracism; to rid Athens of anyone who may possibly become a tyrant. “For almost 100 years ostracism fulfilled its function of aborting serious civil unrest or even civil war” (BBC). This was an effective method to insure that tyranny would never take place in Athens; and also sending a message that such actions are unacceptable. Secondly, ancient Athens also had a Council of 400, who acted as a court of judgement. “One hundred citizens from each of the four traditional tribes of Athens were elected annually and met regularly to prepare legislation to be

This group had the largest gradation of social and economic differences, a combination of those who were rising to prosperity as well as those barely able to stay above the lowest class. Though upward mobility was not impossible, it was not easy. One could become wealthy enough to marry into nobility. Downward mobility was much more common as those in the middle class could easily slip into debt and therefore into the lowest class. Even though these groups were clearly visible in Greek society all enjoyed citizenship. Unfortunately that did not mean equality in this earlier period. "Citizenship, which the later Greeks defined as ‘having a share in the public life of the polis,' was perceived as a graded status, fixed at a person's social and economic condition as well as to gender. While female citizens had important roles in the religious worship of the community, they were completely barred from participation in political, judicial, and military affairs. These were exclusively the domain of adult (over age 18) male citizens. Among the men, the share of civic responsibilities and rights – to vote and speak in the assembly, hold office, serve as judges, fight in the army – was divided unequally along mainly economic lines. In the early city-states, as we have seen, only the rich and wellborn possessed the full range of citizen privileges. Non-noble citizens of moderate means were barred from holding office, and the poorest citizens had no vote

During Greece’s Golden Age, Athens became a powerful center for new ideas. Athenians developed democracy, a new form of government, which gave power to the people. Each person had a different perspective on democracy, ranging from highly supporting and recommending it to preferring other types of government. Athenians’ relationship with their democracy depended on their perspective in the matter.

As a society controlled by wealthy aristocrat landowners and the poor farmers represented the majority of its population, Athens was on the brink of social unrest and political turmoil as the farmers fell into debt and it accumulated to the extent that the majority of them had to sell themselves into slavery. The instability of the social and political situation in Athens led to the Cleisthenes’ Reforms, where democracy was first introduced to solve the social and political unrest in the early Classical Athens. Cleisthenes, the prominent aristocratic politician, introduced the concept of democracy by dividing the Athenian population into