Democracy In Ancient Greece Essay

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.

The city-states of Ancient Greek provide examples of different types of government structures that, even

In Greece, monarchies were found when the Mycenaeans ruled Greece during the period 2000 to 1100 BC. Monarchy is defined as a system of government where a single ruler has supreme power. The word “monarchy” comes from the Greek words “monos” meaning “single” and “archo” meaning “rule”. This single ruler, known as a king, ruled for life and passed the rule on to his heir when he died. The most famous monarchy was that of King Alexandra of Macedonia who ruled all of Greece from 336 BC.

Swiss-French writer Benjamin Constant and ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle offer conflicting viewpoints concerning the merits and possibilities of ancient Greek democracy. Aristotle’s political theory attempts to justify his city-state’s political structure by providing a model of the common good, or Chief Aim, his end goal for Athenian democracy. He believed Athenians could reach the Chief Aim as a society by individually learning to be virtuous and then instilling laws and morals based on these ideals. In his lecture, The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns, Constant highlights that the individual liberties protected in a modern representative democracy are much more important than the political liberties that one was given in antiquity. Constant illustrates that while some ideas of ancient Greek democracy are precious, Aristotle’s political theory is not an obtainable reality and it was beneficial that modern democracies transitioned to a system that protects individual liberty.

In doc A paragraph two, I think that The Ancient Athens Democracy is democratic because it claims in the document that the Athens leader clearly respects his soldiers. This is noticed because he made a speech at a funeral for all of them that had died in the first year against Sparta’s soldiers.The leader did this to respectfully show his appreciation about how they fight for their democracy.

What is democracy? Historians have, for a long time, kept this question in mind as they studied the methods and laws of the Ancient Athenians. After studying the given evidence it can be determined that Ancient Athens was not truly democratic.

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

A democracy is a type of government in which each eligible member of a state can vote. But this was not the case in the Athenian way of democracy, this is because rights were only given to adult male citizens making it was very limited for Athens population. Here are the reasons as to why the Athenian way of democracy was not truly a real democracy.

The Greeks created first democracy in the world. People voted for their leaders, and were involved in public life. Greeks philosopher provided the origin of western philosophy, medicine, and natural sciences. Greek architecture is evident in every court in the U.S. Greeks invented drama. Drama is the form of tragedy and comedy. Minoan culture around (2000 B.C.E. - 1400 B.C.E.) was earliest civilization in the Aegean region emerged on the large island of Crete. By 2800 B.C.E., to make weapons they used metals, especially bronze. Minoan had many trade networks. The peasant paid high taxes. Mycenaean culture around (1600 B.C.E- 1100 B.C.E.) was highly militaristic society. The king collected taxes and controlled bronze and wooden production. The

Classical education is arguably one of the most influential educations in American history. Not only does it allow the student to study great literature of Ancient Greek and Roman writers, but allows them to develop both written and spoken language while learning of great men and their achievements. Without the knowledge of the past, it is impossible to look forward toward the future. To be considered an educated person in today’s society, it is imperative that one possesses an understanding of ancient Greek and Roman civilization. The Founding Fathers of our nation believed this and used their knowledge acquired through classical education when developing the system of government we have in place today. This essay will look at the

The decline of the Greek democracy, or to be more specific the Athenian democracy was a rather gradual process, caused primarily by overextension of the Athenian resources, and the failure in the Peloponnesian War from which the Athens emerged weak and divided. The Athenian social experiment in democracy brought prosperity and power to its leaders and citizens, but also brought imperial ambitions that lead to a spreading too thin its military forces, and the Athenian economy. What was possible in Solon’s times was not achievable anymore at the time of the rising Macedon hegemony.

In the fifth-century BC, Athens emerged as one of the most advanced state or polis in all of Greece. This formation of Athenian ‘democracy’ holds the main principle that citizens should enjoy political equality in order to be free to rule and be ruled in turn. The word ‘democracy’ originates from the Greek words demos (meaning people) and kratos (meaning power) therefore demokratia means “the power of the people.” The famous funeral speech of Pericles states that “Our constitution is called democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people.” However, only citizens (free adult men of Athenian descent) could participate in political matters. Women and slaves held no political rights, although they were

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

Democracy comes from two Greek words: a noun demos which means, "people" and a verb, kratein, which means "to rule" (Ober 120). Democracy first appeared in Athens towards the beginning of the fifth century B.C. The biggest difference between Athenian democracy and almost all other democracies is that the Athenian version was a direct democracy rather than being representative. Democracy came about in Athens as a result of the growing navel power and the reforms made by leaders such as Cleisthenes and Pericles.

The first example of the relationship between the Athenians and their democracy during the golden age was the diversity of political views that the Athenians followed. Too start in document 3 written by Isocrates an Athenian political statesman, orator, and writer and made in the year 346 BCE and the point they are trying to get across is that back then they did not have a political system/government which in turn made the people do whatever they wanted which was bad. Then in document 4 written by Aeschines an Athenian political statesmen, orator, and writer, and made in the year 330 BCE. The author's point of view from this document is that how the three forms of government, autocracy, oligarchy, and democracy work and the principles of them are. Also in document 5 written by Thucydides an Athenian warrior, statesmen, and historian wrote in the year 410 BCE, what the author is trying to say it all the reason why democracies are good and the outcomes of it. Finally, in document 9 written by Aristotle in Aristotle’s Politics published in the year 326 BCE this document is about the author's hatred towards tyranny.