what type of democracy did athens have

Unfortunately, sources on the other democratic governments in ancient Greece are few and far between. The powers of officials were precisely defined and their capacity for initiative limited. If the Assembly voted in favor of the proposed change, the proposal would be referred for further consideration by a group of citizens called nomothetai (literally "establishers of the law").[25]. Instead of seeing it as a fair system under which everyone has equal rights, they regarded it as manifestly unjust. Much of his writings were about his alternatives to democracy. [41], In 594 BC, Solon is said to have created a boule of 400 to guide the work of the assembly. In addition, it supports the idea that the people can replace their government through peaceful transfers of power rather than violent uprising or revolution. Solon also made significant economic reforms including cancelling existing debts, freeing debtors, and no longer allowing borrowing on the security of one's own person as a means of restructuring enslavement and debt in Athenian society. Democratic regime in 5th- and 4th-century-BCE Athens, Toggle Participation and exclusion subsection, Toggle Main bodies of government subsection, Size and make-up of the Athenian population, Shifting balance between assembly and courts. There were two main categories in this group: those required to handle large sums of money, and the 10 generals, the strategoi. He argued that only by giving every citizen the vote would people ensure that the state would be run in the general interest. [90] Following Rousseau (17121778), "democracy came to be associated with popular sovereignty instead of popular participation in the exercise of power". Athens - Neolithic to Philosophical Schools | Britannica And what is more, the actual history of Athens in the period of its democratic government is marked by numerous failures, mistakes, and misdeedsmost infamously, the execution of Socratesthat would seem to discredit the ubiquitous modern idea that democracy leads to good government. A popular democracy is a type of direct democracy based on referendums and other devices of empowerment and concretization of popular will. Slavery in Classical Athens: The Dark Side of Democracy Cleisthenes broke up the unlimited power of the nobility by organizing citizens into ten groups based on where they lived, rather than on their wealth. Most importantly, the Boule would draft probouleumata, or deliberations for the Ecclesia to discuss and approve on. Increasingly, responsibility was shifted from the assembly to the courts, with laws being made by jurors and all assembly decisions becoming reviewable by courts. [53], The system showed a marked anti-professionalism. What Modern Democracies Didn't Copy From Ancient Greece. 8.2 Government in Athens. The population and land are too big. For much of the 5th century at least, democracy fed off an empire of subject states. We want people all over the world to learn about history. Once Demetrius Poliorcetes ended Cassander's rule over Athens, Demetrius of Phalerum went into exile and the democracy was restored in 307 BC. "Well into the 18th century democracy was consistently condemned." However, the governors, like Demetrius of Phalerum, appointed by Cassander, kept some of the traditional institutions in formal existence, although the Athenian public would consider them to be nothing more than Macedonian puppet dictators. Another tack of criticism is to notice the disquieting links between democracy and a number of less than appealing features of Athenian life. However, beginning in 403 BC, they were set sharply apart. When Athens was starting to develop into a democracy, a man named Solon was called upon to develop laws to help quell social unrest. What type of democracy did ancient Athens have? Athenians selected for office served as teams (boards, panels). A democratic Athens with an imperial policy will spread the desire for democracy outside of the polis. What is democracy? Two recent biographies, of Plato and Diogenes, show the divergent path Western thought could have taken. Illustrating the esteem in which democratic government was held, there was even a divine personification of the ideal of democracy, the goddess Demokratia. 27 Jun 2023. We care about our planet! Athens transformed ancient warfare and . The random assignment of responsibility to individuals who may or may not be competent has obvious risks, but the system included features meant to mitigate possible problems. Pericles, according to Thucydides, characterized the Athenians as being very well-informed on politics: We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all. Though there might be blocs of opinion, sometimes enduring, on important matters, there were no political parties and likewise no government or opposition (as in the Westminster system). For the most part, Athens followed a citizenship-through-birth criterion. [47], Athens had an elaborate legal system centered on full citizen rights (see atimia). Education - Plato's Academy & Aristotle's Lyceum | Britannica Ancient Greek Democracy - Facts, Voting & Decline | HISTORY When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. Citizenry in ancient Athens is speculated to have not simply been a legal obligation to the state, but also a form of ethnic-nationality. It was this body which supervised any administrative committees and officials on behalf of the assembly. Types of Government There were three main types of government: Democracy - A government ruled by the people, or assembly. Athens and Sparta were the two largest city-states and they had many wars and battles. There was also a tendency for the four meetings to be aggregated toward the end of each state month. In tandem with all these political institutions were the law courts (dikasteria) which were composed of 6,000 jurors and a body of chief magistrates (archai) chosen annually by lot. At times the imperialist democracy acted with extreme brutality, as in the decision to execute the entire male population of Melos and sell off its women and children simply for refusing to become subjects of Athens. While there seems to have also been a type of citizen assembly (presumably of the hoplite class), the archons and the body of the Areopagus ran the state and the mass of people had no say in government at all before these reforms. To vote, citizens had to attend the assembly on the day the vote took place. The courts became in effect a kind of upper house. Any citizen could speak to the assembly and vote on decisions by simply holding up their hands. The assembly met at least once a month, more likely two or three times, on the Pnyx hill in a dedicated space which could accommodate around 6000 citizens. [68] In addition, there were some limitations on who could hold office. While Ephialtes's opponents were away attempting to assist the Spartans, he persuaded the Assembly to reduce the powers of the Areopagus to a criminal court for cases of homicide and sacrilege. Tyrants are a type of monarch, with . The percentage of the population that actually participated in the government was 10% to 20% of the total number of inhabitants, but this varied from the fifth to the fourth century BC. Athenian Democracy Timeline - World History Encyclopedia Unlike office holders (magistrates), who could be impeached and prosecuted for misconduct, the jurors could not be censured, for they, in effect, were the people and no authority could be higher than that. and Wagner, P., "Ostracism: selection and de-selection in ancient Greece", "Manifestations of Populism in late 5th Century Athens", World History Encyclopedia Athenian Democracy, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Athenian_democracy&oldid=1159236630, 1st-century BC disestablishments in Greece, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from April 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, In 406 BC, after years of defeats in the wake of the annihilation of their vast invasion force in Sicily, the Athenians at last won a naval victory at. Women, children, and slaves were not considered citizens and therefore could not vote. An unknown proportion of citizens were also subject to disenfranchisement (atimia), excluding some of them permanently and others temporarily (depending on the type). Every male citizen over 18 had to be registered in his deme. [64], Solon's reforms allowed the archons to come from some of the higher propertied classes and not only from the aristocratic families. This was almost inevitable since, with the notable exception of the generals (strategoi), each office had restrictive term limits. This being the case, the following remarks on democracy are focussed on the Athenians. [88], Since the middle of the 20th century, most countries have claimed to be democratic, regardless of the actual composition of their governments. This also acted as a check against demagoguery, though this check was imperfect and did not prevent elections from involving pandering to voters.[70]. The constitutional change, according to Thucydides, seemed the only way to win much-needed support from Persia against the old enemy Sparta and, further, it was thought that the change would not be a permanent one. Athens was known for its system of direct democracy. Opinion | What Happens When You Stop Being a Superpower? What did Socrates teach? Their efforts, initially conducted through constitutional channels, culminated in the establishment of an oligarchy, the Council of 400, in the Athenian coup of 411 BC. By blurring the distinction between the natural and political world, democracy leads the powerful to act immorally and outside their own best interest. Athenian Democracy - World History Encyclopedia The ancient Greeks were the first to create a democracy. Last modified April 03, 2018. To its ancient detractors, rule by the demos was also reckless and arbitrary. [73] According to Samons: The modern desire to look to Athens for lessons or encouragement for modern thought, government, or society must confront this strange paradox: the people that gave rise to and practiced ancient democracy left us almost nothing but criticism of this form of regime (on a philosophical or theoretical level). Athenian democracy was a system of direct democracy, in which participating citizens voted directly on legislation and executive bills. Then there was also an executive committee of the boul which consisted of one tribe of the ten which participated in the boul (i.e., 50 citizens, known as prytaneis) elected on a rotation basis, so each tribe composed the executive once each year. [3] Athens practiced a political system of legislation and executive bills. Ideals such as these would form the cornerstones of all democracies in the modern world. Throughout its history, Athens had many different constitutions under its different leaders. Many of Classical civilization's intellectual and artistic ideas originated there, and the city is generally considered to be the birthplace of Western civilization. Under this system, all male citizens - the dmos - had equal political rights, freedom of speech, and the opportunity to participate directly in the political arena. [55], The institutions sketched above assembly, officeholders, council, courts are incomplete without the figure that drove the whole system, Ho boulomenos ('he who wishes', or 'anyone who wishes'). Athenian Democracy. [28] The women had limited rights and privileges, had restricted movement in public, and were very segregated from the men.[29]. - Melissa Schwartzberg. "Athenian Democracy." However, any member could demand that officials issue a recount. What Modern Democracies Didn't Copy From Ancient Greece They want representative democracy to be added to or even replaced by direct democracy in the Athenian way, perhaps by utilizing electronic democracy. However, by now Athens had become "politically impotent". Indeed, there was a specially designed machine of coloured tokens (kleroterion) to ensure those selected were chosen randomly, a process magistrates had to go through twice. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. The Greek idea of democracy was different from present-day democracy because, in Athens, all adult citizens were required to take an active part in the government. The authority exercised by the courts had the same basis as that of the assembly: both were regarded as expressing the direct will of the people. [92]. [9] The Areopagus, which formerly took on this role, remained but thereafter carried on the role of "guardianship of the laws". George Grote claimed in his History of Greece (18461856) that "Athenian democracy was neither the tyranny of the poor, nor the rule of the mob". [26], The non-citizen component of the population was made up of resident foreigners (metics) and slaves, with the latter perhaps somewhat more numerous. Athenian democracy, or classical democracy, refers to a direct democracy developed in ancient times in the Greek city-state of Athens. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. World History Encyclopedia. Age restrictions were in place with thirty years as a minimum, rendering about a third of the adult citizen body ineligible at any one time. Rather, women were often referred to as an ast which meant "a woman belonging to the city" or Attik gun which meant 'an Attic woman/wife'. [71], The representativeness of the Athenian offices (councils, magistrates and juries) selected by lot was mathematically examined by Andranik Tangian, who confirmed the validity of this method of appointment, as well as the ineffectiveness of democracy during times of political instability.[72][73]. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Around 338 BC the orator Hyperides (fragment 13) claimed that there were 150,000 slaves in Attica, but this figure is probably no more than an impression: slaves outnumbered those of citizen stock but did not swamp them. Representative democracy is a government in which citizens vote for representatives who create and change laws that govern the people rather than getting to vote directly on the laws themselves. Athens Flashcards | Quizlet a. representative democracy b. direct democracy c. parliamentary democracy d. constitutional monarchy See answer Advertisement Advertisement Ladybug11g Ladybug11g Answer: direct hun. Democracy is the idea that the citizens of a country should take an active role in the government of their country and manage it directly or through elected representatives. An important element in the debates was freedom of speech (parrhsia) which became, perhaps, the citizen's most valued privilege. Later, and until the end of World War Il, democracy became dissociated from its ancient frame of reference. Democratic regimes governed until Athens surrendered to Sparta in 404 BC, when the government was placed in the hands of the so-called Thirty Tyrants, who were pro-Spartan oligarchs. The word "democracy" (Greek: dmokratia, ) combines the elements dmos (, traditionally interpreted "people") and krtos (, which means "force" or "power"), and thus means literally "people power". Cartwright, Mark. Cleisthenes issued reforms in 508 and 507 BC that undermined the domination of the aristocratic families and connected every Athenian to the city's rule. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Aristocrats and tyrants, What did Athens create, What other democracy was the ancient democracy different and more. [32], Citizenship applied to both individuals and their descendants. What are aristocrats? In the realm of Athenian men's rationalization, part of the reasons for excluding women from politics came from widely held views that women were more sexual, and intellectually handicapped. These are the assembly (in some cases with a quorum of 6,000), the council of 500 (boule), and the courts (a minimum of 200 people, on some occasions up to 6,000). Thus, for thousands of years the kind of association in which democracy was practiced, the tribe or the city-state, was . ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY Democracy (Ancient Greece) Democracy in ancient Greece served as one of the first forms of self-rule government in the ancient world. Democracy was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. By and large, the power exercised by these officials was routine administration and quite limited. [21] An example of this was that, in 307, in order to curry favour with Macedonia and Egypt, three new tribes were created, two in honour of the Macedonian king and his son, and the other in honour of the Egyptian king. The oligarchy of the 400 take over the democracy in Athens and in a matter of months is replaced by an oligarchy of 5000. Even during his period of office, any officeholder could be impeached and removed from office by the assembly. Sign up for our free weekly email newsletter! There were three political bodies where citizens gathered in numbers running into the hundreds or thousands. Plateans in 427 BC and Samians in 405 BC). Help us and translate this definition into another language! The word democracy (dmokratia) derives from dmos, which refers to the entire citizen body: the People. Under Pericles, Athens entered its golden age and great thinkers, writers, and artists flourished in the city. Thus, a key part of democracy is that the people have a voice. Decisions were made by voting without any time set aside for deliberation. A case can be made that discriminatory lines came to be drawn more sharply under Athenian democracy than before or elsewhere, in particular in relation to women and slaves, as well as in the line between citizens and non-citizens. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. In particular, those chosen by lot were citizens acting without particular expertise. When it came to penal sanctions, no officeholder could impose a fine over fifty drachmas. Josiah Ober, The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece (2015) Princeton University Press, USA. In the 5th century setup, the ten annually elected generals were often very prominent, but for those who had power, it lay primarily in their frequent speeches and in the respect accorded them in the assembly, rather than their vested powers. As usual in ancient democracies, one had to physically attend a gathering in order to vote. This executive of the executive had a chairman (epistates) who was chosen by lot each day. This form of government was called a direct democracy. Government in Athens - Chapter9 - Section 2 Flashcards For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. [1][2] By the late 4th century BC as many as half of the over one thousand existing Greek city-states might have been democracies. [2] However, any stepping forward into the democratic limelight was risky. However, by the 4th century, citizenship was given only to individuals and by a special vote with a quorum of 6,000. that authority as implemented by the people in the Assembly has power. How did the ancient Greeks change the world? - BBC Bitesize Five takeaways from Barack Obama's CNN interview on Biden, Trump, 2024 8.2 Government in Athens Flashcards | Quizlet When you reach out to him or her, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. [65], The reforms of Cleisthenes meant that the archons were elected by the Assembly, but were still selected from the upper classes. It would be misleading to say that the tradition of Athenian democracy was an important part of the 18th-century revolutionaries' intellectual background. [25] Athenian citizens had to be descended from citizens; after the reforms of Pericles and Cimon in 450 BC, only those descended from two Athenian parents could claim citizenship. The council (whose numbers varied at different times from 300 to 750) was appointed by lot. Yet in the case of Pericles, it is wrong to see his power as coming from his long series of annual generalships (each year along with nine others). The goal of Athenian democracy was that all citizens should have equal political rights and the ability to fully participate in either the council or the Assembly. No office appointed by lot could be held twice by the same individual. What was the city that was known for direct democracy in ancient Greece? In the mid-5th century the number of adult male citizens was perhaps as high as 60,000, but this number fell precipitously during the Peloponnesian War. His The Republic, The Statesman, and Laws contained many arguments against democratic rule and in favour of a much narrower form of government: "The organization of the city must be confided to those who possess knowledge, who alone can enable their fellow-citizens to attain virtue, and therefore excellence, by means of education."[80]. They were both simply passed by the assembly. Each year 500 names were chosen from all the citizens of ancient Athens. The majority won the day and the decision was final. The people of Athens tried. Those 500 citizens had to actively serve in the government for one year. What is less well known is its extraordinary record of military success. Jurors would likely be more impressed if it seemed as though litigants were speaking for themselves.[54]. Socrates, (born c. 470 bce, Athens [Greece]died 399 bce, Athens), ancient Greek philosopher whose way of life, character, and thought exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy. All rights reserved. Unlike officeholders, the citizen initiator was not voted on before taking up office or automatically reviewed after stepping down; these institutions had, after all, no set tenure and might be an action lasting only a moment. What type of democracy did ancient Athens have? - Answers After that, it was not just one of the many possible ways in which political rule could be organised. World History Encyclopedia is an Amazon Associate and earns a commission on qualifying book purchases. The only exception was the boule or council of 500. The word democracy comes from two Greek words that mean people (demos) and rule (kratos). Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica. This complex system was, no doubt, to ensure a suitable degree of checks and balances to any potential abuse of power, and to ensure each traditional region was equally represented and given equal powers. The United States has a representative democracy. Usually, the types of government relevant to ancient Greece are listed as three: Monarchy, Oligarchy (generally synonymous with rule by the aristocracy), and Democracy. This money was only to cover expenses though, as any attempt to profit from public positions was severely punished. Elected officials, too, were subject to review before holding office and scrutiny after office. [17], In the wake of Athens's disastrous defeat in the Sicilian campaign in 413 BC, a group of citizens took steps to limit the radical democracy they thought was leading the city to ruin. His constitutional reforms included establishing four property classes: the pentakosiomedimnoi, the hippeis, the zeugitai, and the thetes. The jury could only cast a "yes" or "no" vote as to the guilt and sentence of the defendant. At the same time or soon afterward, the membership of the Areopagus was extended to the lower level of the propertied citizenship. Rich landowners. Obama discusses Titan implosion, migrant deaths in Amanpour interview The central events of the Athenian democracy were the meetings of the assembly (, ekklesa). [35] The Constitution of the Athenians provides a run-down of the structure of Athens' government and its processes. Athenion allied with Mithridates of Pontus and went to war with Rome; he was killed during the war and was replaced by Aristion. From a modern perspective these figures may seem small, but among Greek city-states Athens was huge: most of the thousand or so Greek cities could only muster 1,0001,500 adult male citizens each; and Corinth, a major power, had at most 15,000. The shadow of the old constitution lingered on and Archons and Areopagus survived the fall of the Roman Empire. It was the leading cultural innovator of its age. Pericles led Athens between 461 and 429 BCE; he was an incredibly well-liked leader known for encouraging culture, philosophy, and science and for advocating for the common people. His officeholding was rather an expression and a result of the influence he wielded. In Sparta, women competed in public exercise so in, Meier C. 1998, Athens: a portrait of the city in its Golden Age (translated by R. and R. Kimber). After all, at the time of writing, Athens was the greatest single power in the entire Greek world, and that fact could not be totally unconnected with the fact that Athens was a democracy. The word democracy (dmokratia) derives from dmos, which refers to the entire citizen body, and kratos, meaning rule. History of Greece: Athenian Democracy [25] This slump was permanent, due to the introduction of a stricter definition of citizen described below. Athenian men believed that women had a higher sex drive and consequentially if given free range to engage in society would be more promiscuous. . In this case there was a secret ballot where voters wrote a name on a piece of broken pottery (ostrakon). Athens was the first city to ever have democracy, they invented it. The History Chattel slavery was ubiquitous in classical Athens, but there was one type of slavery that was expressly forbidden. Participation was open to adult, free male citizens (i.e., not a metic), who probably constituted no more than 30 percent of the total adult population.[4]. [7], Athens was never the only polis in Ancient Greece that instituted a democratic regime. In Athenian democracy, not only did citizens participate in a direct democracy whereby they themselves made the decisions by which they lived, but they also actively served in the institutions that governed them, and so they directly controlled all parts of the political process. Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University. Allotment, therefore, was seen as a means to prevent the corrupt purchase of votes and it gave citizens political equality, as all had an equal chance of obtaining government office. During the period of holding a particular office, everyone on the team would be observing everybody else as a sort of check. Generals were elected not only because their role required expert knowledge, but also because they needed to be people with experience and contacts in the wider Greek world where wars were fought. [40] After the restoration of the democracy in 403 BC, pay for assembly attendance was introduced. In 621 BC, Draco replaced the prevailing system of oral law by a written code to be enforced only by a court of law. In each of the ten "main meetings" (kuriai ekklesiai) a year, the question was explicitly raised in the assembly agenda: were the office holders carrying out their duties correctly? How Democracy Developed in Ancient Greece | HISTORY

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