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How Did Athens To Have A Better System Of Citizenship Dbq

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“Virtue can only flourish among equals.” - Mary Wollstonecraft. In Athens, all citizens were equal, therefore a strong community thrived. Starting in 500 BCE a new idea of citizenship was starting to form. This idea was used by Athens and Rome, and included giving citizens a balance between rights and responsibilities. This paved the way for modern day citizenship in our countries and many others. Athens had a better system of citizenship because they chose government offices by lottery, to keep a strong democracy they made sure no one had too much power, and citizens in all social classes could participate in government. In Athens, a lottery determined who filled the government offices. The poor men brought Athens its power, therefore they …show more content…

Twice a year, Athens ostracized one person (Doc. D). Ostracism is when all citizens vote on one person who they believe has the potential to gain too much power. The person with the most votes is exiled from Athens. This act kept a stable environment where all citizens shared power and the democracy was safe. Ostracism was a system of controlling citizenship in Athens. Only 10-20 people would be affected. Less people affected is good because then it would cause less problems for the community, and no one would overthrow the democracy. Rome had a census every 5 years. Citizens were counted and ranked into distinct social classes by different standards. Some of these standards included, weath, heritage, marital status, and physical and moral fitness (Doc. E). Many Roman citizens could not meet the standards and were demoted. All in all, many of the expectations from the censors were too high. Censorship also affected all the people in Rome and could hurt the whole community. Athens version of controlling their citizenship was better than Rome’s because less people were affected and it contributed to maintaining the government. This is good because that way, no one could overthrow the …show more content…

In the Athenian Assembly citizens spoke by age, not wealth or position (Doc. F). Even though Athens was exclusive about who could be a citizen, they were inclusive in who could participate. Being inclusive with government was good for Athens because the decisions would represent the whole community rather than only some of the people. Alternatively, in Rome, they were inclusive about who could be a citizen, but exclusive about how much they could participate. For example, the Roman Senate made all of the decisions for the community. The Senate was made up of all upperclassmen who inherited their seats from past generations of family (Doc. G). This made for a bad system of government because all decisions were at risk of being biased toward the elites. Also, the final decision might not represent the opinions of all the people, but only those serving in the Senate. In the Athenian Assembly, choices represented the people but in Rome, the choices in government were all at risk of being influenced by the upper

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