Tyranny In Ancient Greece

During the time of the Greeks, the world was in an extremely volatile time, where control of the people was usually determined by some kind of monarchy. This monarchy, controlled the money and the power. The general public had little or nothing to say on how things operated and how they were run, unless they managed to over-throw those in power by brute force, just like what happened in Zimbabwe recently. Because the global mindset was not yet prepared for such forward thinking, democracy was flushed out by neighboring civilizations that proved to threaten the Greek “Utopian” lifestyle, reinstating tyranny over the masses. He who holds the biggest stick and controls the money shall control the people.

Two of the most prevalent government styles

Unlike a benevolent monarch king a tyrant treated citizens harshly. Contemporary tyrants could be seen in the ruling of Stalin or Lenin. Many of the tyrants are former solders, who seek opportunity to overthrow government and take power. In the Greeks, monarchy and tyranny did co-exist more prevalently in city states of Macedonia and Eperios. Sparta also operated under a monarchy with its two-king rule which also shared the power with an elected assembly. Perisistratos was a known Greek leader who paved way for democracy (Cartwright, 2013). Greek tyranny, however, was nothing in comparison to the likes of the ever powerful Darius and Xerxes of the Persians whose civilizations and armies were second to

During the archaic period (between 800-500 BCE) a man named Solon reformed the political system of Athens and gave birth to democracy. Then Cleisthenes reformed the democratic system of Athens. His system was called “Isonomia” or “Equality before the law”, later it became ‘demokratia’ or ‘rule of the people’. Athens was led by direct democracy. Modern day government system in many countries are influenced from ancient Athenian democracy. However, today’s democracy doesn’t allow male vs female or slave vs non-slave discrimination. Therefore every citizen has political right to vote. Instead of the direct democracy of modern day systems, which elects representatives from particular