The type of democracy practiced in Athens of the fifth and fourth centuries may not have been perfect. Other Greek cities set up democracies, most following the Athenian model, but none are as well documented as Athens' democracy. 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 … In Athens this ruler was called a Tyrant. Notably, this was introduced more than fifty years before payment for attendance at assembly meetings. Other city-states had, at one time or another, systems of democracy, notably Argos, Syracuse, Rhodes, and Erythrai. Several German philosophers and poets took delight in what they saw as the fullness of life in ancient Athens, and not long afterwards "English liberals put forward a new argument in favor of the Athenians". There was also a tendency for the four meetings to be aggregated toward the end of each state month. Remarkably, it seems that blocking and then successfully reviewing a measure was enough to validate it without needing the assembly to vote on it. Under these reforms, the boule (a council of 400 members, with 100 citizens from each of Athens's four tribes) ran daily affairs and set the political agenda. Officials and leaders were elected and all citizens had a say. However, when Rome fought Macedonia in 200, the Athenians abolished the first two new tribes and created a twelfth tribe in honour of the Pergamene king. Athens is known as the birthplace of democracy. These officeholders were the agents of the people, not their representatives, so their role was that of administration, rather than governing. For Athenians, tyranny became the exact opposite of democracy, a position that allowed the citizens of Athens to feel a certain superiority. The Athenian institutions were later revived, but how close they were to a real democracy is debatable. Similar in function to the boulē was the council of elders (selected men over 60), the gerousia, of Sparta, which also had the two Spartan kings as members and had certain legal powers. "Ancient Greek Government." The four most common systems of Greek government were: Our knowledge of the political systems in the ancient Greek world comes from a wide range of sources. Jurors were required to be under oath, which was not required for attendance at the assembly. For example, two men have clashed in the assembly about a proposal put by one of them; it passes, and now the two of them go to court with the loser in the assembly prosecuting both the law and its proposer. [10], 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. 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. But it was a long path to get there. [18] 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. (In present-day use, the term "demarchy" has acquired a new meaning. For the Greeks (or more particularly the Athenians) any system which excluded power from the whole citizen-body and was not a tyranny or monarchy was described as an oligarchy. In Athens, the Areopagus was a similar such council, where elders were made members for life. Athens's oligarchy was composed of nine rulers, also called "archons," elected by the Areopagus. However, by the 4th century, citizenship was given only to individuals and by a special vote with a quorum of 6000. This could cause problems when it became too dark to see properly. proportional) equality.[67][63]. Powerful, self-interested nobles monopolized government. By blurring the distinction between the natural and political world, democracy leads the powerful to act immorally and outside their own best interest. It was at the height of its cultural achievements and imperial power in the fifth century bc during the time of Pericles. Whatever professionalism there was tended to disguise itself; it was possible to pay for the services of a speechwriter or logographer (logographos), but this may not have been advertised in court. cies. 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."[70]. [15], Under Roman rule, the archons ranked as the highest officials. Athenian democracy was characterised by being run by the "many" (the ordinary people) who were allotted to the committees which ran government. Only the first 6,000 to arrive were admitted and paid, with the red rope now used to keep latecomers at bay. Government 9. "[C]omparisons with Athens will continue to be made as long as societies keep striving to realize democracy under modern conditions and their successes and failures are discussed. Elected officials, too, were subject to review before holding office and scrutiny after office. The central events of the Athenian democracy were the meetings of the assembly (ἐκκλησία, ekklesía). Ancient History Encyclopedia. By being inclusive, opponents to the system become naturally included within the democratic framework, meaning democracy itself will generate few opponents, despite its flaws. The archons made decisions regarding Athens, and then submitted these decisions to the Areopagus for approval or denial. The democratic government depends on the control of resources, which requires military power and material exploitation. However, there were officials, such as the nine archons, who while seemingly a board carried out very different functions from each other. [56] The Areopagus kept its power as 'Guardian of the Laws', which meant that it could veto actions it deemed unconstitutional, however, this worked in practice. 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). However, during that time they had power over most areas of civic life and they could appoint and check on all the other public officials. He argued that only by giving every citizen the vote would people ensure that the state would be run in the general interest. Books The assembly meetings did not occur at fixed intervals, as they had to avoid clashing with the annual festivals that followed the lunar calendar. Every male citizen over 18 had to be registered in his deme. By so strongly validating one role, that of the male citizen, it has been argued that democracy compromised the status of those who did not share it. The term Athens can refer either to the Municipality of Athens, to Greater Athens, or to the entire Athens Urban Area. Athens and Sparta were the two largest city-states and they had many wars and battles. See more. However, any member could demand that officials issue a recount. Democracy in its extreme form is mob rule. [14] 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. [22], Also excluded from voting were citizens whose rights were under suspension (typically for failure to pay a debt to the city: see atimia); for some Athenians, this amounted to permanent (and in fact inheritable) disqualification. It was very direct; everyone had a vote, majority ruled, end of story. 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). Athens is known as the birthplace of democracy. Monarchy - A single ruler like a king. 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. 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. Which other types of government did Greek society eventually have? athens had an oligarchy in which several wealthy people ruled the government, while the united states is a republic in which all its citizens take part in government. [28] For a small category of votes, a quorum of 6,000 was required, principally grants of citizenship, and here small coloured stones were used, white for yes and black for no. At the end of the session, each voter tossed one of these into a large clay jar which was afterwards cracked open for the counting of the ballots. In Aristotle's works, this is categorized as the difference between 'arithmetic' and 'geometric' (i.e. Voting was by simple majority. Henceforth, laws were made not in the assembly, but by special panels of citizens drawn from the annual jury pool of 6,000. [51][52], Although, voters under Athenian democracy were allowed the same opportunity to voice their opinion and to sway the discussion, they were not always successful, and, often, the minority was forced to vote in favor of a motion that they did not agree with. Citizen families could have amounted to 100,000 people and out of these some 30,000 would have been the adult male citizens entitled to vote in the assembly. Thank you! [17], Estimates of the population of ancient Athens vary. In Athens, the board of ten elected generals, known as the strategoi, could influence the agenda of the assembly and so prioritise their own causes. "Funeral Oration", Thucydides II.40, trans. In particular, those chosen by lot were citizens acting without particular expertise. (5) After the chaos of the Greek Dark Ages, most of the emergent city-states evolved into Oligarchy. Furthermore, they used the income from empire to fund payment for officeholding. In Athens, "democracy" (literally meaning rule by the people) was in opposition to those supporting a system of oligarchy (rule by a few). (Pericles, 431 BCE). 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. Join us to celebrate Dr. King's legacy at the 2021 Athens Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service on Monday, January 18. But it was the best government up to that time and superior to what most of the ancient world was living under. 1. Critics of democracy, such as Thucydides and Aristophanes, also pointed out that the dēmos could be too easily swayed by a good orator or popular leaders (the demagogues) and get carried away with their emotions. Another tack of criticism is to notice the disquieting links between democracy and a number of less than appealing features of Athenian life. To the Athenians, it seems what had to be guarded against was not incompetence but any tendency to use the office as a way of accumulating ongoing power. Part of the ethos of democracy, rather, was the building of general competence by ongoing involvement. 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. Yet after the demise of Athenian democracy few looked upon it as a good form of government. 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").[18]. Please support Ancient History Encyclopedia Foundation. We know that in 411 BCE in Athens, ‘the oligarchy of the 400’ took power out of the hands of the Assembly and were themselves superseded by a more moderate oligarchy of 5000. Many civic positions were short-term and chosen by lot to ensure bribery was kept to a minimum. Starting in 355 BC, political trials were no longer held in the assembly, but only in a court. One downside to this change was that the new democracy was less capable of responding quickly in times where quick, decisive action was needed. The Ancient History Encyclopedia logo is a registered EU trademark. Competence does not seem to have been the main issue, but rather, at least in the 4th century BC, whether they were loyal democrats or had oligarchic tendencies. Term: Athens' Government Definition: Only in Athens, and only for a short time, "rule by many" meant that all citizens had to be willing to take an active part in government. Even most high government officials were decided by lottery. Annual MLK Day of Service, Monday, Jan. 18, 2021 In 1994, Congress made the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday an official day of service. According to tradition the last Attic king was Codrus, who was killed in the … After his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolutions towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. Types of Government in Ancient Greece Democracy In a democracy government, the power to make decisions is in the hands of all of the people, who are called citizens. Should sovereignty (kyrion) lie in the rule of law (nomoi), the constitution (politea), officials, or the citizens? That influence was based on his relation with the assembly, a relation that in the first instance lay simply in the right of any citizen to stand and speak before the people. Government and Politics of Ancient Athens. Cartwright, Mark. In this: A new law might be proposed by any citizen. [1] Citizen families could have amounted to 100,000 people and out of these some 30,000 would have been the adult male citizens entitled to vote in the assembly. And what is more, the actual history of Athens in the period of its democratic government is marked by numerous failures, mistakes, and misdeeds—most infamously, the execution of Socrates—that would seem to discredit the ubiquitous modern idea that democracy leads to good government. Later, and until the end of World War Il, democracy became dissociated from its ancient frame of reference. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2021) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. In a public suit the litigants each had three hours to speak, much less in private suits (though here it was in proportion to the amount of money at stake). [48][49][50] But the sense history of the word does not support this interpretation. [45], 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'). In 621 BC, Draco replaced the prevailing system of oral law by a written code to be enforced only by a court of law. Ostracism required the voters to scratch names onto pieces of broken pottery (ὄστρακα, ostraka), though this did not occur within the assembly as such. Every citizen was a part of the government, no matter what their social standing. Ancient History Encyclopedia. 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. Anything higher had to go before a court. Although democracy predated Athenian imperialism by over thirty years, they are sometimes associated with each other. 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. (Oligarchy means “the rule of the few.” Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University and Michigan State University and University of Missouri. Tyrants Could Be Benevolent. Both of these processes were in most cases brief and formulaic, but they opened up the possibility of a contest before a jury court if some citizen wanted to take a matter up. Given the exclusive and ancestral concept of citizenship held by Greek city-states, a relatively large portion of the population took part in the government of Athens and of other radical democracies like it, compared to oligarchies and aristocracies. This cannot be adequately explained by simply referring to the immature ‘objective’ conditions, the low development of productive forces and so on—important as may be—because the same objective conditions prevailed at that time in many other places all over the Mediterranean, let alone the rest of Greece, but democracy flourished only in Athens” . Most people today think of democracy as an inherently good thing. The council (whose numbers varied at different times from 300 to 750) was appointed by lot. In the 5th century at least, there were scarcely any limits on the power exercised by the assembly. and Wagner, P., "Ostracism: selection and de-selection in ancient Greece", https://books.google.com/books?id=z9garz74CJ0C&dq=athens+kagan&q=%22Plato+and+Aristotle+must%22#v=snippet&q=%22Plato%20and%20Aristotle%20must%22&f=false, Ancient History Encyclopedia – Athenian Democracy, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Athenian_democracy&oldid=1000179026, 1st-century BC disestablishments in Greece, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, 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. However, beginning in 403 BC, they were set sharply apart. Athens was the center of the development of the democracy as a form of government and the philosopher Cleisthenes, was primarily responsible for the development of the concept and system. Democracy definition is - government by the people; especially : rule of the majority. The assembly of Athens met at least once a month, perhaps two or three times, on the Pnyx hill in a dedicated space which could accommodate 6000 citizens. This approximately translates as the "people's hand of power", and in the context of the play it acts as a counterpoint to the inclination of the votes cast by the people, i.e. Any proposal to modify an existing law had to be accompanied by a proposed replacement law. In opposition, thinkers such as Samuel Johnson were worried about the ignorance of democratic decision-making bodies, but "Macaulay and John Stuart Mill and George Grote saw the great strength of the Athenian democracy in the high level of cultivation that citizens enjoyed, and called for improvements in the educational system of Britain that would make possible a shared civic consciousness parallel to that achieved by the ancient Athenians".[80]. Others include Peisistratos in Athens (from c. 560 BCE) - a typical benevolent tyrant who actually paved the way for democracy, Pheidon in Argos (c. 660 BCE), Lycophron in Thessaly, the Kypselidai, which included Periander, in Corinth (c. 657-585 BCE), and Polycrates in Samos (530-522 BCE). Government - Government - Greece: The Phoenician example was followed by the Greeks, originally Indo-European nomads who gradually made their way south to the Aegean and there took to the sea. Jurors did talk informally amongst themselves during the voting procedure and juries could be rowdy, shouting out their disapproval or disbelief of things said by the litigants. The City of Athens has a municipal government comprised of an elected Mayor and 5 members of a City Council. Speaker's Platform, Athens Assembly, Pynx, Athensby Mark Cartwright (CC BY-NC-SA). As usual in ancient democracies, one had to physically attend a gathering in order to vote. The boulē or council of 500 citizens was chosen by lot and had a limited term of office, which acted as a kind of executive committee of the assembly. Rather than any citizen partaking with an equal share in the rule, he thought that those who were more virtuous should have greater power in governance.[72]. [47], The word idiot originally simply meant "private citizen"; in combination with its more recent meaning of "foolish person", this is sometimes used by modern commentators to demonstrate that the ancient Athenians considered those who did not participate in politics as foolish. By the mid-4th century, however, the assembly's judicial functions were largely curtailed, though it always kept a role in the initiation of various kinds of political trial. The cases were put by the litigants themselves in the form of an exchange of single speeches timed by a water clock or clepsydra, first prosecutor then defendant. Athenion allied with Mithridates of Pontus and went to war with Rome; he was killed during the war and was replaced by Aristion. However, by now Athens had become "politically impotent". License. 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. Officials and leaders were elected and all citizens had a say. [20], Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens. The municipality (City) of Athens is also the capital of the Attica region. After that, it was not just one of the many possible ways in which political rule could be organised. The government systems of ancient Greece were varied as the Greeks searched for the answers to such fundamental questions as who should rule and how? 15 Jan 2021. [37], Athens had an elaborate legal system centered on full citizen rights (see atimia). Ancient History Encyclopedia Limited is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. 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? To its ancient detractors, rule by the demos was also reckless and arbitrary. This slump was permanent, due to the introduction of a str… [29], Attendance at the assembly was not always voluntary. As was true elsewhere in the Greek world, the individual city-state (polis) of Athens had once been ruled by kings, but that had given way to an oligarchic government by archons elected from the aristocratic (Eupatrid) families. Under the 4th century version of democracy, the roles of general and of key political speaker in the assembly tended to be filled by different persons. By and large, the power exercised by these officials was routine administration and quite limited. Goldhill, S., 2004, The Good Citizen, in Love, Sex & Tragedy: Why Classics Matters. Not settling on a definitive answer to these questions, government in the ancient Greek world, therefore, took extraordinarily diverse forms and, across different city-states and over many centuries, political power could rest in the hands of a single individual, an elite or in every male citizen: democracy - widely regarded as the Greeks' greatest contribution to civilization. Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide.