The Athenians established a direct democracy where the people voted directly on the matter at hand.” (Ancient Greek Democracy, History.com) “The Romans then created their own type of democracy, where the citizens elected leaders to represent the people’s opinion.” (Crabill, Ancient Rome) While neither the Athenian nor the Roman democracies were perfect by any means, they both
The real question is were the Greeks very democratic? I really do not think the Greeks were democratic at all. They really didn’t exemplify true qualities of a Democratic City-State. The next few paragraphs will show the reason behind my answer, and how people were treated unfairly. My first reason behind this is the Athenian government only granted citizenship to men who parents were free-born Athenian parents.
Simply the foundation of democracy in Athens is incredibly important to the governmental system of the current United States. Of course there are the obvious differences between the two systems, such as different ages of voting eligibility, and the fact that gender does not decide someone’s ability and right to make important political decisions. Athens utilized the votes from the people a bit differently as well, with a small 40,000 Athenian men voting on whatever issues simply rose to attention. Elections were also determined through a lottery system, whereas officials in the United States are completely decided by its citizens. There are an abundance of differences between the two governmental system, with the most important policy used by both the Athenians and the United states being the decision to allow the majority, the citizens from any social class, to vote and be a part of a
Unlike the Romans, Athenians had a strict but fair schedule that allowed them to enjoy citizenship equally. Equally, hard workers have brought Athens power just as much as hereditary leaders. According to Document B all citizens should be allowed to speak their opinion and have a share in election because of the hard work they do to make the city powerful. Athenians allowed poor and common men to win a position in government which was a transition from the wealthy having power to everyone having power.
Was ancient athens truly democratic No they were not democratic because first the women,children,and slaves were not allowed to vote because they thought they had no right to vote and only men were allowed to make decisions. Second,the magistrates were elected by a lottery and not the people which meant that the people had no power and no say in who will be ruling them. Also since they excluded people from voting it was considered an oligarchy not democracy. Oligarchy means that a government has a small group of people that have the power to rule and control everything.
The Athens democracy was as follows, “It was a system of direct democracy, in which participating citizens voted directly on legislation and executive bills. Participation was not open to all residents: to vote
Firstly, only male citizens had equal rights to vote, freedom of speech, and opportunities to participate directly in political arenas, which is only 12% of the population. For example Citizen women, Children of citizens, Metics, and Slaves did not have the right to vote which is the other 68%. This shows the Athenians were not democratic because not the whole population wasn 't a system of government, when not even half of them were. Also in Athen nobody had the freedom of thought and or speech. If someone
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.
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.
Before Athens, other civilizations, including ones that were extremely similar to Athens, did not create democracies or types of governments that were similar to the “structure” of a democracy. This made it hard for Athens to create the first democracy because they did not know what they needed to do and what they needed to have in order to create a democracy. According to the article that is titled The Making and Unmaking of Democracy, “The
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
Firstly, it can be argued that people in Athenian democracy voted for their own interest, instead of in
The name comes from demos-people and kratos-power, so literally power of the people. Apart from many smaller changes, it was mainly based on the opportunity for all citizens over 20 to take part in governing the country. One of the main advantages of Athenian democracy was that the archon and his eight assistants were elected annually. It was possible to prolong the rule for the next term but in case of any abnormalities a quick change of government took place. The biggest advantage of democracy in polis was the general possibility of taking part in public life for all free citizens.
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.
Second, the rules were exercised directly by the people, whereas democracy today means government exercised by representatives of the people. Direct democracy has been made impossible by the size of modern nations. The Athenian democracy is criticized for being both more democratic and less democratic than democracy. It is more democratic being the government by the people instead of government by those elected by the people.
