Democracy: The History Of The Athenian Democracy

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Introduction
Democracy is an important concept in today’s society. It is a form of government that is believed to be the fairest and provides freedom to the people. Democracy derives from the ancient Athenians Greeks, where the word demos mean people and cracy (kratos) means strength/rule, in other words rule by the people. Athenians such as Solon, Cleisthenes, Pericles and others are responsible for contributing to the development and spread of democracy, without these people today’s government systems may be different. Through the use of ancient and modern sources and moments, this paper will look at how the Athenian democracy worked and who was involved in the past before becoming to the democracy.

Background/History
In order to understand how the Athenian democracy, it is important to know that the Greek city-state (known as polis) of Athens has a history of changing government. Prior to the development of Athenian democracy, Athens’ government systems were first monarchy, oligarchy, and then tyranny. During the Bronze Age, Greece was …show more content…

The Athenian democracy consisted of three main bodies: the assembly, the council of 500, and courts system. Each government bodies are composed of multiple members and their functions in the Athenian democracy will be followed.

As depicted in Exhibit 1, every citizen is apart of a deme. However, not everyone was a citizen, especially foreigners, women, children and slaves were excluded. After the Persian Wars, Pericles was put in power and he made it difficult to get Athenian citizenship. In order to attain citizenship and be included in politics, a man must be over the age of 18 and a descent of both Athenian parents and must have served 2 years in the military. The democracy at Athens was direct, rather than representative, which meant that participation in politic was a duty for a male.

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