Democracy: The First Democracy In Ancient Greece

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.

Ancient Athens was not truly democratic because the middle class was in charge of politics. The upper and lower classes were not in politics at all. It was not democratic because the only people that could vote were men who are of citizen birth by both parents. People whose parent is a slave could not become a citizen so they could not vote. Democracy was excluding women, free foreigners and slaves.

The principal of Democracy is something that we often fail to appreciate. Democracy means a government that allows the public to be heard by having periodically held elections.

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.

Both Greek Democracy and the Roman Republic contributed greatly to the development of the modern world, bringing into it the notions of democracy and republic. The evolution of these concepts took them to a level much higher than one present in Ancient Greece and Rome respectively. However, modern society continues to draw on somewhat idealized accounts of the ancient world for inspiration in improving today’s governing procedures.

The Ekklesia was the assembly in Athens. It consisted only of men, they were able to make laws. The ordinary citizen in Athens was allowed to voice their views on certain matters. This allowed them to engage in debates around the laws of Athens and was a very different set up to how things were done in Sparta. The minimum number needed for a meeting to be viewed as valid was 6000 members. If the members were absent from the meeting with no legitimate reason for their absence, then they would be fined severely for not attending. The Thetes (serfs), the Zeugitai (ordinary soldiers), the Hippeis (horsemen) and Pentakosiomedimnoi (500-bushel men) were all members of the Ekklesia and most were part of the Boule. The Thetes were the only ones that were not part of the Boule but were part of the Ekklesia.

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.

When analyzing the rise of Western civilizations in early settlements, Ancient Greece and Roman are at the forefront of the conversation. Greece and Roman established the foundation of Western tradition with the introduction of democracy into the world. Both the Ancient Romans and Greeks founded there republics for different reasons, but each one had a huge impact on the Western World. Through civil unrest, and governmental transitions the foundation of democracy was established on a large scale. Ancient Greece was a huge place consisting of over 200 independent poleis, which each had their own governments.

Democracy is the rule of the whole of the people not just the males. The word demos means the adult male citizens in assembly. When Kratia means having the power to rule.”Demokratia was a rule by men citizens only, excluding women, free foreigners ( metics) and slaves.Thus, by our standards it was oligarchy, not democracy.”

Monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy all have had their time and place in form of government in Ancient Greek city-state. Each concentrated on a very different mix between individual leader and group voting on every decision a city-states took.

Due to the prosecution of the Chalcis decree, the power Athens held over the rest of the League was undoubtedly clear.

America has been known as the land of the free and the home of the brave for about 276 years now ,and that is due heavily to our functioning democracy. But exactly where did Our democracy come from and how did we get. What if I told you that our democratic government doesen’t come from america but insted was primarly invented by other governments and teachings. The base of American’s government system was produced from the Greek republic, England’s feudal system and judeo/christian teachings.The Greek developed the first democracy which America used as a platform.The Greek republic gave them a rough draft of what they wanted for their government.The Judeo/Christians taught america individual and soical morality.It also play major part

In ancient Greece, they didn't see themselves as one country. They saw themselves as individual city-states. Each city-state had its own laws, army, money and its own form of government. There were 5 types of government in ancient Greece within the city state. There was Monarchy, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Tyranny, and Democracy.

Democracy in Greece did slowly die, however one of the main hits Greek democracy took was from the rise of Macedonia (large Greek region) run by Philip, then his son Alexander (also known as Alexander the Great). Philip led his army against Athens and Thebes army, and won, which made Athens join the “League of Corinth”, which gave Philip power of Athens and it’s government. When Alexander began his rule, the Athenians didn’t fight back against the Macedonians (Alexanders army), which made them an easy government to keep rule over. Sparta tried to fight back around 330 BCE to keep what control they had left over Greece, but sadly they did not succeed at the battle of Megapolis. Since the Spartans and Athenians were not under their own control,

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.