Democracy first appeared in Ancient Greece, in the political hive known as Athens. It soon caught on and was widely used by the whole Greek country. Granted, there were some opposers, such as Plato. Plato thought that everything about the idea of Democracy was just complete HE THOROUGHLY DISLIKED DEMOCRACY BECAUSE IT WAS HIS OWN OPINION. The reasoning behind that thinking? He thought that letting the Citizens decide would be giving the power to the masses and they’d use it for personal matters other than the general good. He also attacked Athenian Democracies for being Libertarian societies where anarchy is mistaken for freedom. Democracy WAS UNUSED AND NOT INCREDIBLY POPULAR until the 1600’s. Even still, in the 1600’s only 10~ societies
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.
The idea of democracy came from the Ancient Greek civilization. The power was in the hands of the eligible people who had the right to decide or vote what was right or wrong for themselves. The Ancient
These Greek poleis operated under many forms of government. Whenever there was violent political upheaval, it almost always ended up with tyranny. Not all tyrants were oppressive though. In fact, some used their total power to help the common citizen. Democracy in greece applied to citizens.
The city-states of Ancient Greek provide examples of different types of government structures that, even
Democracy has been around for almost 2500 years since Athens, Greece became the first democracy. The Romans also experimented with democracy, however it was more a republic, and not a democracy. Around 1200 England laid the groundwork to become a republic. Later, in the 1700's,
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.
Was Ancient Athens truly democratic? Ancient Athens was not democratic, only male citizens were able to vote, excluding women, free foreigners and slaves, it was oligarchy, not democracy only 12% of the population are able to vote and they're all men, all military officers are elected by vote. All the magistrates that are responsible for the ordinary routine of administration are elected by lot in the assembly and the superintendent of the water supply is elected by vote, if a majority of people voted yes then they dispersed and resembled two months later. Second rule was exercised directly by the people, whereas democracy today means government by representatives of the people but today it’s more democratic by being government by the people
Ancient Greece was a vast area of an elaborate variety of isolated city-states. However, there was only one that strayed from the violence of war. Athens, instead of instructing their people on how to fight, and kill, taught of music and literature. Their focus was not of which other city-states were at the time, but of what they valued most: a strong government, reliable economy, and balanced education. To begin, Athens’ powerful government was a huge contributing factor to their success.
Ancient Athens could be defined as a period of time roughly around 330 BC where democracy and its meaning and purpose were called into question. Democracy, otherwise known in Greek as demokratia, is defined per root as “rule by the people”. Struggling to find a fair and civil way to rule the government, many rules were called into question as to whether they were truly lawful and fair. In the end, the Athenian constitution was written in a way where the rich and privileged were favored over the poor despite morals and character. As will be further explained, the Athenian community of 330 BCE was not truly a democracy.
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.
The rise of democracy in Athens started when a man named Solon overturned something that was named the Draconian law. Draconian law was mainly focused its punishment on debtors, and even forced them to become basically slaves, but with its annulment, the debts were gone and slaves were set free. Solon presented a board of 400 hand-picked proprietors, which introduced policy, but these policies could be prevented by the citizens. After Solon’s restructuring, the oppressor Pisistratus governed over the Athenians. While he did as he wanted, he managed to keep the peace between the three main groups of citizens under his rule. He was particularly supported by the farmers because his main focus was agricultural advancement. After this, Pisistratus’
Democracy became a significant way of life from 700 B.C. to the present. Around this time, the Athenians from Greece dispersed around the world and carried their way of life with them. It is a government ruled by the citizens. Cleisthenes, who was a greek ruler, incorporated the first democracy in history. Democracy developed with the ethical principles in ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy, Judeo/Christians teaching, and the England feudal system.
Athens is believed to be the start of democracy but did It really start there? Democracy being the rights to all its people being built by and for the people. The birthplace of Democracy is Athens but Democracy in Athens was not what it was promised to be, it was more of a incomplete or flawed Democracy. Athens was a city-state which had limited voting rights to some people/citizens.
In the 5th century B.C.E, the Persian empire fought the city-states of Greece in one of the most profoundly symbolic struggles in history. Their wars would determine the viability of a new direction in Western culture, for even as Greece stood poised to embark on an unprecedented voyage of the mind, Persia threatened to prevent the Hellenes from ever achieving their destiny. Persia represented the old ways — a world of magi and god-kings, where priests stood guard over knowledge and emperors treated even their highest subjects as slaves. The Greeks had cast off their own god-kings and were just beginning to test a limited concept of political freedom, to innovate in art, literature and religion, to develop new ways of thinking, unfettered by
Greek democracy was able to coexist with military needs and divisions in social classes by Greek warfare. For a long time the Greek city-states were at war with each other. Warfare was mainly wealthy people that had enough money to own houses. Greeks realized that the way to keep things in order was to fight in organized formations. The men that were poor were only able to fight with a sword, a shield, and a helmet. Foreigners in Athens and Greece had little to no freedom. The next thing is slavery and is was a pretty big part of Greek city-states but it only took place in the very early civilizations. Sometimes even if you belonged to the state you will still would not have freedom but the women have more freedom. Even though most people had