Athenian Democracy Research Paper

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Athenian democracy was introduced around early in the fifth BC. The city-state that was involved in that action was Athens. This made Athens and surrounding territory of Attica a democracy. Athens is known as one of the first democracies. As you can see at least some time in the ancient world Greek was a democracy. I will tell you about it in the coming up paragraphs.. In 507 BC, the athenian leader Cleisthenes established a system of government to Greece that he called demokratia. This meant “rule by the people”. The system was made up of three separate institutions that included the ekklesia, a sovereign governing body that wrote laws and dictated foreign policy; the boule, a council of representatives from the ten Athenian tribes; and the …show more content…

Only about 5,000 men attended each session of the assembly. Although this Athenian democracy would only last for only two centuries, Cleisthenes’ project was one of ancient Greece’s most contributing contributions to the modern world. The form of democracy was practiced in Athens for 100 years. This is how it worked. All of the adult citizens had to take an active part in the government, which refers back to the ruled by many, if they were called on to do so. In this time period citizens were free men. Women, children, and slaves were not citizens. They also could not participate or vote. Every new year, the Greeks held a drawing and 500 names were drawn. If your name was drawn out of those 500 citizens of Greece, you had to serve for one year. During the time you had to serve you had to make new laws and change old laws that didn’t quite make sense anymore. If you wanted to vote you had to be present on the day the voting was held and that was a majority rule. For about 100 years, Athens had a direct democracy, or a government in which all citizens vote on rules and

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