Democracy In Greek Democracy

Today, much of the world’s governments have converted to democracies. In the Ancient World, there was only one truly notable example of a democratic society: The City-State of Athens. This is actually the birthplace of democracy, where instead of the rich or powerful ruling, it was the citizens of the city-state that held the power. This advanced way of government was so effective and well structured, it even laid the foundations for the development of our own democracy, right here in the United States, over 2,000 years in the future. Prior to Athens’s collapse during the Peloponnesian War, it truly had an efficient and very organized system of government.

The Greeks where the first democracy in the world. There government was made up of six thousand members all of witch where male citizens. They voted on problems that needed to be solved and if a law was to pass a majority vote was needed. Now in the United States also has a democracy. Instead of having six thousand people voting and making the decisions all the people vote on a representative that makes the decisions in the country.

When evaluating the government of ancient Athens, some might say that it was a democracy, however, it can be better described as an oligarchy: a form of government in which a small group of people has the power and control (Doc. D by Mogens Herman Hansen). A democracy takes all the citizens’ opinions and thoughts into account, unlike an oligarchy that only takes the male citizens’ opinions and thoughts into account. Thus, Athens is more similar to an oligarchy than a democracy. The people of Athens also decide as a whole what the best government for their city-state was, as opposed to a democracy where the people elect representatives to make decisions for them and their city-state. Athens could be seen as not a true democracy because of the lack of basic democratic rules and methods such as what they define democracy as, who is able to vote, and how they vote.

When Athens first started, it was a Monarchy or ruled by a king. The king would rule Athens with the aristocrat’s money. When the aristocrats realized they were stronger together than the king they overthrew him. The aristocats soon corrupted the government by making the laws only to benefit the rich. Athenians kept making new types of governments to make everything fair and not corrupt, resulting in a Direct Democracy (Everyone votes on everything).

In ancient Greek life one of their trademarks was the polis, or city state. “The city-states were small, independent communities which were male-dominated and bound together by race.”(Steven Kreis 2000) Membership in the polis was important and was only passed down to someone within the citizen family, being male. In a polis, citizens are part of a selected part of a group that is superior to the rest of society. The members that are not part of the body of citizens are woman, slaves, and peasants. Men held the power in any given polis.

An aristocracy existed before its democratic reform in the archaic period (Brand, n.d.). Athens was ruled by the wealthy landowners, which was the cause of slavery due to the growing debt of the less privileged (Brand, n.d.). Athens even experienced a Tyranny, by Pesisistratos, at a time when democracy first appeared in the archaic period of Greece (Cartwright, 2018). While he did not murder the prior ruler, he convinced the Athenian citizen that he should hold the sole power through the direct, of course false, approval of the goddess Athena (Greek Boston, 2018). Since he received his power from Athens’ citizen, the attention shifted further from the aristocrats to the poorer citizen (Greek Boston, 2018). Athens’ democracy developed thereafter and ensured all citizens had equal rights and political involvement if they chose to, particularly through the people’s assembly (Brand, n.d.). Finally, after the Peloponnesian War, Athens’ democracy was disrupted by a weakened economy, which caused an oligarchy enforced by the Spartans (Planeaux,

Greek democracy was best developed in the city-state of Athens from where the very word “democracy”, meaning “the rule of the people” stems. People ‘ruled’ by electing officials through lot and making important decisions by majority rule. Democracy was direct, meaning that the Athenians “allowed the whole citizenry to assemble in the central eklisia, or the equivalent today of the main city hall, to vote on important issues” (Makedon 1995). In this sense, Athenian democracy differed from representative democracy that is currently prevalent in most states, in which officials are elected through democratic vote and then given authority to make decisions for the people. In Athens, elected officials were paid, but the pay was very low so that it compared with the wages of the poorest citizens and only covered the compensation of their time and effort.

It's ironic that the country that would be recognized as the birthplace of democratic values contained within it a dynamic mix of government types including the entire spectrum from tyranny to democracy and everything in between. A common quote that comes to mind is that "history is written by the victors", to which Ancient Greek might be the exception. To explain this: the loosely grouped collection of city-states were actually dominated by towards the end of it's free existence by the oligarchic government of the militarly superior Spartans., however, it is the ideas of the Athenians that would primarly be carried far and wide by the concerning Macedonians and live on through the millennia. Nevertheless, we'll examine the different forms of government that existed throughout the empire of Ancient Greece.

Democracy, when we find "democracy" from the dictionary, it shows us "late 16th century: from French démocratie, via late Latin from Greek dēmokratia". Around B.C 508, Cleisthenes returned to Athens. He projected an idea which had never had no one did that in history. Everyone had a chance to vote what they want. That's how democracy was. He's the first one who proposed democracy.

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

Athenian democracy did not evolve over night; it was the product of need for change. During the 6th century BC Athens was recovering from a dark period of internal class conflicts after being subject to tyrannical rulers for over half a century. This was a time when farmers and merchants were faced with paying excessive taxes, had no representation or power at governing level and at times sold themselves in order to pay back their depts. Democracy came about because of an outcry for political freedom and it is precisely this inequality that sparked the first reforms in Ancient Athens. Solon introduced certain reforms in Athens that paved the way for the development of democracy.

Greece was split into to different parts which were Athens and Sparta. Neither one of those two sides got along. Supposedly the Greeks had a democracy. Or did they? In their so called democracy women didn’t have democratic rights, men were held to a higher standard than women, and slaves were not allowed part in it. The Greek democracy mainly depended on the athenian side of Greece. The Greek democracy developed around the 5th century B.C. . In the athenian part of Greece people had certain rules. There were rules that had to do with voting. They vote with pottery and scratch the person’s name they voted for onto it. The person who had the most votes, the person that won the election, was taken away for up to 10 years at a time. We found out they do that just because that person wants power and thinks that they are the top dog. Mr. or Mrs. super important. Another thing that takes place in Athens is social classes. No matter what your social class or social status was you had a job. Everyone had a part so everyone has to play a role. The poor men had important jobs like rowing the warships, farmers, and laborers. But the wealthy had more say so than the poor did. Even if you were an Athens citizen. Women didn’t have political rights. Slaves had no rights at all even though they worked. They worked in homes, shops, and mines. They were often seen as prisoners of war. Athens and Sparta always fought. The athenian people had a special ceremony for the people that died in the war.

During the Golden Age in Greece, many things changed. Things that changed were the diversity of political views and the social doings of the Athenians and the organization of the Athenians economy. With the Golden Age, many groups worked together that wouldn’t normally interact. The biggest example of that is the relationship between Athenians and their democracy.

Ancient Greece and specifically Athens is the birth place of the democracy that we know today. Cleisthenes reformed the previous aristocracy into a democracy. Democracy is a form of government simply defined as “a government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.” (Dictionary, n.d.) It all started in the polis of Athens. Democracy allowed Athenians to attend and speak at assembly if you were a citizen; which during Ancient Greece did not include

Athenian democracy is extremely important to the world today, Athenian democracy is ancestor of the modern system of government of the united states and other nations, Athenian democracy is the first instance of the government by the populace, and all the art of athens is a testament to his to HS free non oppressive style of government. Democracy comes from demos “people” and kratos “power” which is simply means “ rule of the people.” The ecclesia was the principal assembly of the democracy of ancient athens. It was the popular assembly, open to make citizens as soon as they qualified for citizenship. In 594 BCE, solon allowed all athenian citizens to participate, regardless if class, even the thetes popular assembly met every 10 days. All decrees were ratified by the Ekklesia before becoming law. As a rule , Ekklesia met at its own special meeting palace known as the pnyx , large theater shaped area set into the long ridge west of the acropolis. Ancient Greece democracy was an elite style of government. In ancient Greece democracy athens was a sort of elite political system only wealthy men who served in the military were allowed a part of however later on right to vote comes to