Citizenship : Why Athens was the Better System Athens was a small city compared to Rome that honored and protected citizenship. There was a constant importance of acknowledging all citizens hard work and participation. Athenians made it clear that the poor helped build the city 's power and not just the wealthy. They took politics very seriously and made sure that everyone had a voiced opinion. Hard work and equality is what makes a nation outstanding.
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.
I believe that ancient Athens was not a true democracy. In a democracy all of the people are able to vote, and have a choice on who runs their city. In ancient Athens only the men were able to vote. Their government was Demokratia, and this excluded the women, the children, the metics, and the slaves. Even though their government was ran by the people themselves, only the men in the city could vote.
A polis was a self-governing city-state that served as a foundation of Greek identity. Although each polis was unique in its own way, they shared a similar significance to Ancient Greek civilization being that it formed a new political structure that provided a defining characteristic of Greek identity and civilization. For instance, new political institutions provided communities with their own laws and traditions. In their respective polis, people had a sense of belonging to the community and how each individual had a part in making the whole of the community. This was vital for the idea of Greek identity as “this notion of community was fundamental to the polis and was the very badge of Greekness” (A History of Western Society 68).
A Critique of Plato’s “Second Wave”: The Rise of Disunity in the State This paper seeks to critique Plato’s “Second Wave” or “the community of wives and children”. I will argue that Plato’s“second wave” or the “community of wives and children” which he perceived as a tool to promote unity in the state is not useful in achieving its goal.
The pure democracy of Athens did not only concern itself of the people, for the people but prioritized by the people more than current democracies. The Athenian government required large amounts of machinery and paraphernalia as a result of the mass citizen participation in government. As a result of this, historians are able to evaluate the Athenian government through material remains found in the center of civic life, the Agora. Thus, enabling a vivid depiction of the purity of democracy in ancient Athens. Historians are able to understand, “what seemed best to the people” in the words of the Athenians themselves.
In ancient Greece, there was a definite line between rich and poor. With that, finding government that would work with everyone was hard. Aristocracies and oligarchies only helped one side, looked down on the poor, and since there was generally no middle class to mediate, the two sides were constantly fighting. Aristotle noticed this, and wrote about how there needs to be a middle class in his work Politics.
With the controversial topic of abortion, individuals in society would have different opinions to share. Some individuals would either agree or disagree that abortion should be a women’s right. By coming together to as one, they would be able to come to one reasonable conclusion. Aristotle believed
He wrote his ethical theories for us to be able to know and to apply it in our daily lives in general understanding in our particular cases. Aristotle set virtue and excellence are required in doing anything. Aristotle was known to two ethical treatise: Eudaimonian Ethics and Nichomachean Ethics. .Both treatise tells the nature of purpose of human morale.
The Greeks and Romans seem to be extremely influential on our modern civilization. Many Greek and Roman traditions and cultures play major roles in our civilization. These traditions and cultures are displayed throughout our government, education, art, architect, cultural activities, and many other things. I assert the most influential ideas the Greeks and Romans had are displayed in our government, art, and architecture. Their ideas have inspired over 25 centuries, growing and changing over time, and still remain in our modern civilization.
There are many greek influences on our culture today. However, these impacts are not very widely known in our modern society. The Greek culture affects our everyday way of life. They created democracy, the alphabet, libraries, the Olympics, math, science, architecture, and even lighthouses. Greecians created systems that would not be imagined in a person’s wildest dreams.
When talking about empires, a negative connotation of being oppressed is usually present. Living in the modern age, we tend to consider democracy as the “rightest form of government”. However, democracy is not simply “freedom for all” or “the will of the people” for ancient empires. It was a complex, delicate system that sometime people overlook its inherent fragility. Many democratic states, such as ancient Athens, the Roman Republic, failed to keep the promise of freedom for all and ended up in failure.
the idea of representative government began to take root in some city states, specifically Athens. Athenian reformers moved toward democracy, rule by the people. In Athens citizens participated directly in political decision making. However there were limitations on citizenship to ensure that only the most rational people were able to vote. Through the construction of democracy in Athens, equality of all citizens became greater, and the city would become the top democracy of all the democracies.
Aristotle is a prominent figure in Ancient Greece’s history. He made significant academic contributions to logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. He was a student of Plato who in turn studied under Socrates. He was more empirically-minded than Plato or Socrates and is famous for rejecting Plato 's theory of forms (iep.utm.edu). Aristotle was the first to classify areas of human knowledge into distinct disciplines such as mathematics, biology, and ethics.
Ancient Greece had been through with thousands of poleis (city states) existing at the same time. Together with the existence of these poleis were different systems of governments being set up. In particular, there were five main types of government dominantly appeared during the history of ancient Greek, including monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. Each type of government mentioned here was substituted by one another during the course of ancient Greek’s development. So, the question is, what is the difference among all?
