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Compare And Contrast Ancient Greek And Roman Democracy

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3. Compare and contrast the idea of democracy in Ancient Greece and Rome. Which system was more democratic and why?

Democracy is the modern day standard for governmental systems. However up until 500 BCE, the concept of Democracy was a foreign concept, and the great civilizations of that era were run by monarchs, aristocrats, and religious leaders of sorts. The term, Democracy, stems from the Greek word ‘demokratia’ which means rule by the people and it wasn’t until around 500 BCE in Athens where the first examples of democracy originated. While Athens is widely regarded as the first historical example of a democratic system, some scholars believe that the Roman Empire’s republic system was more democratic than that of the Greek. As I will come to …show more content…

The Romans had a system of indirect democracy where the people had the power to vote for representatives who would advocate for them on the state level. The Greeks had a government in which the people directly were involved in the governmental and legislative process. In addition, both systems were flawed in their representation of their people in their respective governments through neglecting a large portion of their population. Both societies did well to create term lengths to decrease the likelihood of corruption and abuse of power through creating accountability. However, the Greek democracy was a caliber above its counterpart. Every portion of the government directly represented its people - from the Council of 500 to the Ecclesia and the Court and Jury System - and citizens were payed and thus incentivized to participate in the system. They did their best to make an equitable system with the allocation of members through the 10 tribe system, the potential for scrutinization for any member of the government, and the randomization of jury members for trials. The Greeks were a tier above their Roman counterparts when it came to

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Athenians Democracy Ancient Athens has two documents that discuss democracy. The first one is “Document A: Pericles” and the other one is “Document B: The The Athenian Constitution”. In document A, I found that is truly democratic because your social class is not allowed the interfere with someone 's merit. For example, if you’re poor you’re still able to serve the state or be part of the government. In document A it also states that “you get equal justice.”

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When in Rome Rome has a better system than Athens in my opinion. Athens citizens have more responsibility and rights then Rome. Rome has more of a family oriented style of citizenship. Athens and rome both honored citizenship in their own ways equally.

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The basic and most important element of democracy is to understand that a democracy guarantees all humans rights. Not only that, but a democracy allows the citizens of that country to decide who will lead their country. Athenian Democracy: The Athenian Democracy is the first known democracy in the world. Athenian democracy was discovered in 508 BC by Cleisthenes.

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In a representative democracy, citizens choose representatives to vote on laws and make political choices.   In ancient Rome, many political leaders and historians claimed that the government was a democracy. However, Rome was never truly a democracy, due to their unfair government organization, and lack of democratic citizenship. In terms of government career holders, and as regular citizens, some groups of people were more powerful and privileged than others.       To start off, the government of ancient Rome was far from democratic.

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Based on information provided in Document E all of Athens citizens were eligible to attend The Assembly. Athenians chose their officials and had an executive committee that oversaw the Assembly in contrast to the Roman Senate that passed down through heredity of the oldest Roman families. Athenians had opportunities to speak out and voice their opinion for a better way of life however the Romans did not. In addition, Document C states that in the Roman Republic not all citizens received the same rights or political participation, whereas in Athens all citizens had full rights and political participation. In Rome, citizenship was given out freely but was unfair and in measured amounts.

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Was ancient Athens truly democratic? Democracy is a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state. I do not believe that in the 4th to 5th century BCE ancient Athen were democratic for many reasons.

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Democracy is a system of government based on the idea that a region’s management is controlled by the people or by elected representatives. Democracies can be direct or representative. In a direct democracy, citizens are directly chosen to fulfill tasks such as executing the laws by becoming a part of the political party. In contrast, representative democracy elects officials or administration in the political organization to stand for citizens and exemplify the change that the people want to society. Democracies should also establish a sense of liberty to everyone and many states believed to have accomplished that goal.

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When you look at the literal definition of democracy in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there is a decently large explanation. When looking at this definition and trying to decide whether the Athenian democratic system was truly democratic, one would have to go with the answer no. While it has been stated that Athens is the “cradle of democracy”, and that it was better than any of the other governments in the world, it was still a work in progress. The Athenian democracy, while it did give more power to the people, still left a lot of citizens out. The current American democracy may have steamed from Athens, but they do not really have that much in common.

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As various studies suggested, ancient Athens pursued permissiveness and democracy, which its form of government was the antecedent of nowadays 'rule by the people '. After toppling the dictator Hippias in 510 BC, Athenian demos not only took power, but also introduced electoral system that "with no single ruler. A public assembly of male citizens met 40 times a year to vote on state decisions. The agenda was set and decrees carried out by a 500 strong council, chosen by lot to serve one year each"(Finley, 1983). In my view, the authority was no longer centralized in the hands of one administrator, more ordinary people got a say in running the

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2). The style in which these governments were set is called a democracy (doc. 2). In this form of government the people have a voice and cast votes for their laws ( O.I.). However in Athens there was a direct democracy where every indval voted on everything (doc. 2). This called a direct democracy ( doc. 2.).

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Additionally, the reliability affected by the emotive language being employed in this article as the author utilises this language it demonstrates that bias is present. This article was useful to my essay as it provided detailed information on the gaps in Athenian democracy. Moreover, the article provided a perspective that highlighted the differences in Athenian democracy such as that Athens was a direct democracy and that only some of the population was eligible, it mainly created a feeling that Athens was advanced for its time however the system had discrepancies. This information provided significantly when comparing modern societies to ancient Greece and also in justify as to why democracy was significant to Greece. A source that shares this view is the Ted-Ed video this also similarly to historian Paul Cartledge states that Athens was a direct democracy and also that not all of the population had the right to

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Democracy- the best form of governance; is evidently disputed in modern day politics. The disagreement has been carried on for centuries, as seen in Plato 's Republic and Pericles Speeches. According to The Republic, democracy cannot be implemented as the common man lacks the in-depth knowledge of vital spheres of bureaucracy such as economics, military stratagem, international conditions, and the niceties of law. However, this form of governance is viewed in a much more favorable light by Pericles in Thucydides ' History of the Peloponnesian Wars. He believes democracy is all beneficial to every sector of society and should be run for the general well-being, serving the ultimate goal of equality in justice.

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Introduction Monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy were all forms of government found at different times and in different city-states in Ancient Greece. Elements of more than one of these forms also co-existed, however, and the modern connotations of labels such as these are not necessarily the same as those that prevailed in Ancient Greece. In this paper I firstly describe these various forms of government and provide examples of their use in Ancient Greece. I then compare and contrast the models.

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The Greeks displayed their humanistic values through government by they utilizing an effective system of self governing. This system was a direct democracy, defined as “government by the people” or “rule of the majority.” In the Athenian Democracy, the Assembly was the regular

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Democracy, a form of government, allows the people in their own nationality to vote for people in order for them to become representatives as a result to vote on new laws that would affect their own nationality. One of the many states of Greece, ancient Athens was indeed not truly democratic as a result of not inclusive, other than male citizens, to gain authority in ancient Athens, ¨Demokratia was ruled by male citizens only, excluding women, free foreigners(Metics) and slaves.¨(Document D), therefore ruling Athens was only accessible to male citizen since since women, free foreigners(Metics), and slaves were not allowed to rule as a result of not being male citizens. One of the many states of Greece, ancient Athens, was indeed not truly democratic as a result of not even using the essentials of democracy that is used today, “Thus, by our standards, it was oligarchy, not democracy.¨(Document D), therefore ancient Athens was not using democracy as their form of government, they were using oligarchy,another form of government in which a small group of people has power and control, as their form of government instead of democracy.

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