Growth of Democracy in Ancient Greece

As we have seen it, it was the Greeks who gave the Western world the growth of democracy. Greek democracy happened when Greece actually became a cosmopolitan culture. Their democracy was a direct democratic system rather than a representative one. They believed that individuals should be free as long as they acted within the laws of Greece. This allowed them the opportunity to excel in any direction they chose. Individuality, as the Greeks viewed it, was the basis of their society. The citizens' views in Greece were all part of the polis. Each city-state had its own personality, goals, laws and customs. As these city-states formed interest shifted from nature to social living; questions of law and convention and civic values became paramount. This change gave a little instability in their government because they did not yet have any professional politicians, lawyers or judges.

Greece was not a unified nation because control of the country was divided between the number of independent city-states, which often formed shifting alliances with each other or fought to expand or preserve their spheres of influence. Each state maintained an army of citizens who could be called on to fight at any moment; the citizens each provided their own armor and fought together in massed formation, a military tactic which is much more effective than hand-to-hand combat by individuals. Each polis maintained its own religious rituals, but individual citizens rather than a class of priests performed it

Ancient Greeks were very loyal to their city-states. The polis became the chief political and social unit for the individual Greek person. In forming the polis as a system of government and social organization, the Greeks were deliberately turning away from the dominant model which existed during this time, namely the kingdom or empire governed by a single individual who usually came to power through birth or conquest. Among the Greeks this was not a term of reproach but merely meant one who had seized kingly power without the qualification of royal descent.

The ancient Greeks were very proud of their city-state because they had different views on the world and how their particular society should be run. Greek people had a heightened tension between government and tribal loyalty. They criticized dictatorship as the worst form of government and hated Eurocracy and did not want it to gather power. This growth of democracy gave citizens in Greece a share in the polis; they were able to vote on leadership and public matters.