The main objective of this essay is to describe and investigate the structure of the government in the ancient Greece’s most powerful city states, namely, Athens and Sparta. Both city states have gone through various cycles of wars, reforms, social upheaval and unrests, and each of these elements has had influenced the development of the governmental systems that we have bettered or inherited today. Athenians saw the need for fundamental changes in the government, allowing them to pave the way for direct participation of their citizens and citizen’s initiative in the democracy and elimination of the some oligarchical elements. The Sparta, although not as democratic as Athens, allowed women to be far more than reproductive machines whom were expected …show more content…
Athenians participated in the public life and the process of decision making for the community, by the means of direct democracy; Thetes - all free male members who were also a citizen of Athens – had the right to partake in debates and passing laws in Ekklesia or “People’s Assembly”. According to Peter J. Brand (n.d), Athenians who had the right to practice in this governmental system did so in a Legislative counsel known as the Boule council (p. 19).
On the other hand, Spartan were warriors and Sparta was a militarized society. However, the governmental system of Sparta was more complex than a purely militaristic system. For instance, free male citizens of Sparta were a member of the Assembly. The assembly, formally had the power to elect Ephors who shared the executive branch with the two Kings. They could also choose the members of Gerousia, the Elite Counsel. Ephors and the Gerousia formed an Aristocratic alliance which in practice controlled and limited the role of the Assembly and the two Kings.
Who held public office? What rules governed the selection of public office