First Athenian Democracy Essay

One of the most powerful legacies from the Athenian Greeks is democracy. The Athenian leader Cleisthenes created the first Athenian Democracy. In democratic Athens full citizens were expected to run the Government. Cleisthenes introduced a system of political reforms called Demokratia meaning “rule by the people”. The system was made up of three separate institutions the ekklesia a sovereign governing body that made decisions about war and foreign policy, wrote and revised laws and approved or condemned the conduct of public officials. About 5,000 men attended each session of the assembly. The group made decisions by majority rule. The Boule was another important institution that supervised workers in charge of Navy ships and army horses. It

The Modern-day democratic governments owe a lot to the democracy of ancient Athens. This early attempt at a fair and equal government run by the citizenry was unprecedented, and it served as a model for all the democratic governments that came after it. (Synonym, 2015). Many aspects of the Athenian Greek democracy are similar to those of the US democracy today. Athenians sought a Government were all citizens would determine how the state was ran. It’s quite clear when looking at the US constitution the Founding fathers were inspired by this. In ancient Athens, the legislation was created by the Assembly, which was made up of every citizen who wanted to attend and met 40 times a year. A council of 500 hundred full-time representatives, chosen each year by lot, could also issue preliminary decrees and was responsible for setting agendas for assembly meetings. Anyone who wanted could speak. The US government takes on a similar role proposing and voting on legislation. Ancient Athenian trials were heard by a randomly selected jury of between 200 and 6,000 citizens. While US courts have much smaller number of jurors and much more powerful judges the basic idea of a fair trial by jury is the