Citizenry in ancient Athens is speculated to have not simply been a legal obligation to the state, but also a form of ethnic-nationality. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/Athenian_Democracy/. The democratic government depends on the control of resources, which requires military power and material exploitation. The boul represented the 139 districts of Attica and acted as a kind of executive committee of the assembly. It was used as a way of neutralizing someone thought to be a threat to the state or a potential tyrant, though . [19], Philip II had led a coalition of the Greek states to war with Persia in 336 BC, but his Greek soldiers were hostages for the behavior of their states as much as allies. At Ancient Athens, only men had the right to participate and vote in the municipal assembly and that only if they had completed their military service, while women, settlers, and slaves were excluded. [53], The system showed a marked anti-professionalism. Some aspects of elections in the Roman Republic are still around today. Yet after the demise of Athenian democracy few looked upon it as a good form of government. Approximately 1,100 citizens (including the members of the council of 500) held office each year. Payment for jurors was introduced around 462 BC and is ascribed to Pericles, a feature described by Aristotle as fundamental to radical democracy (Politics 1294a37). Knowledge of the life of Pericles derives largely from . (Thuc. From the Sphinx of Egypt to the Kama Sutra, explore ancient history videos. We care about our planet! However, historians argue that selection to the boule was not always just a matter of chance. 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". In addition, in times of crisis and war, this body could also take decisions without the assembly meeting. [33], With participation in Athenian Democracy only being available to adult male Athenian citizens, women were left out of government and public roles. Canada, The United States and South Africa are all examples of modern-day representative democracies. Athenian democracy employed the experiment of direct democracy. 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. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. The Roman Republic took the idea of direct democracy and amended it to create a representative democracya form of government that Europeans and European colonists became interested in several centuries later. The council (whose numbers varied at different times from 300 to 750) was appointed by lot. Solon sought to break away at the strong influence noble families had on the government by broadening the government's structure to include a wider range of property classes rather than just the aristocracy. The daily agenda for the Assembly was set by the Council of 500, but then all legislation and government policies were put to a vote. Gods and Worship The Greeks worshiped twelve deities known as the Olympians. Help us and translate this definition into another language! citizen noun member of a country, state, or town who shares responsibilities for the area and benefits from being a member. However, the equality Herodotus described was limited to a small segment of the Athenian population in Ancient Greece. [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). Also, those who were inconsistent with their financial debts to the town did not have the right to vote. For the most part, Athens followed a citizenship-through-birth criterion. Athenian democracy had many critics, both ancient and modern. Athens democratic period also coincided with the city-states tightening of its control over what was originally a voluntary alliance of Greek city-states, but had now become an Athenian empire. As for official campaigning, Dickson says that Roman office-seekers were limited to a one- or two-week campaign season, and most of it was done in-person in the public square. . Alexander The Great's relations with Athens later strained when he returned to Babylon in 324 BC; after his death, Athens and Sparta led several states to war with Macedonia and lost.[20]. 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. Around 460 BC an individual is known with the name of Democrates,[6] a name possibly coined as a gesture of democratic loyalty; the name can also be found in Aeolian Temnus. There were 10 tribes in Athens and each tribe was responsible for providing 50 citizens to serve for one year in the Council of 500. [30] In the timeline of Athenian laws, Solon's laws outlined a clear boundary between the protections that exist between citizens, Athenians, who were considered free and non-citizens, non-Athenians, who legally could be subjected to slavery. [68] In addition, there were some limitations on who could hold office. READ MORE: How Rome Destroyed Its Own Republic. However, these tended to get defeated.. The word Democracy was first known to be used by Herodotus in 440 B.C. Greece will hold fresh elections on 25 June, with the country led by a caretaker government headed by a senior judge until the vote, after an inconclusive ballot last . World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization. (In present-day use, the term "demarchy" has acquired a new meaning. Its meant to be funny in some ways, but theres a serious thought behind it, he says. (Slaves, women, children, and foreigners could not go, though.) A city-state was a major city and the surrounding areas. The Ancient Greeks may be most famous for their ideas and philosophies on government and politics. This promoted a new enthusiasm for assembly meetings. No office appointed by lot could be held twice by the same individual. This eventually led to the formation of the assembly, the boule, and the many other institutions that made up Athenian democracy. The word democracy (dmokratia) derives from dmos, which refers to the entire citizen body, and kratos, meaning rule. Voting was usually by show of hands (, kheirotonia, 'arm stretching') with officials judging the outcome by sight. To Thucydides, this carelessness was due to common peoples' "preference for ready-made accounts". proportional) equality.[77][73]. The boul or council was composed of 500 citizens who were chosen by lot and who served for one year with the limitation that they could serve no more than two non-consecutive years. This criterion could be further divided into three categories: free birth from an Athenian father, free and legitimate birth from an Athenian father, and free and legitimate birth from an Athenian father and an Athenian mother. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. Books [12] By granting the formerly aristocratic role to every free citizen of Athens who owned property, Solon reshaped the social framework of the city-state. assassination of Hippias brother, Cleisthenes may have sensed there was growing public support for a system in which the city-state was not governed by an elite ruling class. It was a direct democracy and not representative as today's state of parliamentary democracy is. Ostraka were shards of pottery used as voting ballots in Athens. Read this article that describes how elements of ancient Greek democracy heavily influenced the figures that designed the United States government. The boule was a group of 500 men, 50 from each of ten Athenian tribes, who served on the Council for one year. Only free, adult men enjoyed the rights and responsibility of citizenship. Updated: June 5, 2023 | Original: August 23, 2018. Not everyone in Athens was considered a citizen. Most importantly, the Boule would draft probouleumata, or deliberations for the Ecclesia to discuss and approve on. 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. Multiple-choice . Goldhill, S., 2004, The Good Citizen, in Love, Sex & Tragedy: Why Classics Matters. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Only the first 6,000 to arrive were admitted and paid, with the red rope now used to keep latecomers at bay. This system was comprised of three separate institutions: 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 dikasteria, the popular courts in which citizens argued cases before a group of lottery-selected jurors. In Aristotle's works, this is categorized as the difference between "arithmetic" and "geometric" (i.e. Cleisthenes, I think probably partly for his own personal self-promotion, put himself forward as champion of the majority view, which was that we must have some form of popular, people regime, Cartledge says. Voting was by simple majority. 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. It could also be granted by the assembly and was sometimes given to large groups (e.g. [81] A new version of democracy was established in 403 BC, but it can be linked with both earlier and subsequent reforms (graph paranmn 416 BC; end of assembly trials 355 BC). 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). Also, one member of the jury was randomly chosen to serve as the judgenot to have the final say, but to make sure that the rules and procedures were followed. The Church voted to start a war, while it had the right to grant citizenship to a foreigner - non-Athenian. The Greeks didnt have elections in the sense that we think of them, where you either vote by mail or go to a school or church to drop off the ballot, says Del Dickson, a political science professor at the University of San Diego and author of The People's Government: An Introduction to Democracy. This led to the Hellenistic control of Athens, with the Macedonian king appointing a local agent as political governor in Athens. [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 ekklesia of Athens [ edit] The ekklesia of ancient Athens is particularly well-known. Nevertheless, democracy in a slightly altered form did eventually return to Athens and, in any case, the Athenians had already done enough in creating their political system to eventually influence subsequent civilizations two millennia later. In part, this was a consequence of the increasingly specialized forms of warfare practiced in the later period. Elected officials, too, were subject to review before holding office and scrutiny after office. They married young, often to much older men. This executive of the executive had a chairman (epistates) who was chosen by lot each day. Voting was done by raising hands and the winner was determined by nine presidents (proedroi). The ruling New Democracy, with 40.79% of the vote, won 146 seats, five short of an overall majority in the 300 . This may have had some role in building a consensus. 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.[83]. [22], Under Roman rule, the archons ranked as the highest officials. Athenians were very careful to avoid any possibility of cheating the system. Every day, more than 500 jurors were chosen by lot from a pool of male citizens older than 30. There were no lawyers as such; litigants acted solely in their capacity as citizens. HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. 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). https://www.worldhistory.org/Athenian_Democracy/. Bring some of these details to class to help make the gameplay feel more authentic! Women were not citizens and therefore could not vote or have any say in the political process. Athenian Democracy quiz for 6th grade students. 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). Democracywhen all citizens of a society vote on all issues and each vote is considered equally important as all otherswas invented by the Greeks who lived in small city-states called poleis. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. Theres evidence that the political enemies of Themistokles pre-etched his name on hundreds or thousands of pottery shards and distributed them to illiterate members of the Assembly. All Rights Reserved. In addition to being barred from any form of formal participation in government, women were also largely left out of public discussions and speeches with orators going as far as leaving out the names of wives and daughters of citizens or finding round about ways of referring to them. For instance, the system of nomothesia was introduced. [58][59][60] But the sense history of the word does not support this interpretation. If a mistake had been made, from the assembly's viewpoint it could only be because it had been misled.[37]. The Assembly met on a natural hilltop amphitheater called Pnyx, which is derived from a Greek word meaning tightly packed together, and could hold between 6,000 and 13,000 people. In an ostracism election, each member of the Assembly would be handed a small piece of pottery and told to scratch down the name of someone who deserved to be exiled. Author March 31, 2020 Table of Contents 1 Who could vote in Democratic Athens? In Latin, the privilege of voting first was called praerogativa (translated as to ask for an opinion before another) and is the root of the English word prerogative. 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. All Rights Reserved. All Rights Reserved. License. Becky Little is a journalist based in Washington, D.C. [26], The non-citizen component of the population was made up of resident foreigners (metics) and slaves, with the latter perhaps somewhat more numerous. The assembly meetings did not occur at fixed intervals, as they had to avoid clashing with the annual festivals that followed the lunar calendar. 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. 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=1157882992, 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 3.0, 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. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), Leemage/Universal Images Group/Getty Images, https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/ancient-greece-democracy. You go and gather with other citizens and you decide the issues before the Assembly that day.. [34] In terms of intelligence, Athenian men believed that women were less intelligent than men and therefore, similarly to barbarians and slaves of the time, were considered to be incapable of effectively participating and contributing to public discourse on political issues and affairs. The 50-man prytany met in the building known as the Bouleuterion in the Athenian agora and safe-guarded the sacred treasuries. Modern representative democracies, in contrast to direct democracies, have citizens who vote for representatives who create and enact laws on their behalf. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! 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. In the words "monarchy" and "oligarchy", the second element comes from arch (), meaning "beginning (that which comes first)", and hence also "first place or power", "sovereignty". Jurors were paid a wage for their work, so that the job could be accessible to everyone and not just the wealthy (but, since the wage was less than what the average worker earned in a day, the typical juror was an elderly retiree). In this case there was a secret ballot where voters wrote a name on a piece of broken pottery (ostrakon). [45], The boule also served as an executive committee for the assembly, and oversaw the activities of certain other magistrates. Of this group, perhaps as few as 100 citizens - the wealthiest, most influential, and the best speakers - dominated the political arena both in front of the assembly and behind the scenes in private conspiratorial political meetings (xynomosiai) and groups (hetaireiai). [35] The Constitution of the Athenians provides a run-down of the structure of Athens' government and its processes. 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. Who could vote in Democratic Athens? The Athenian democracy was direct, rather than representative, meaning that Athenian men themselves made up the Assembly. This demokratia, as it became known, was a direct democracy that gave . This was generally done as a reward for some service to the state. During the period of holding a particular office, everyone on the team would be observing everybody else as a sort of check. This principle extended down to the secretaries and undersecretaries who served as assistants to magistrates such as the archons. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), Remains of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. 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. The Athenian Democracy existed from the early 7th century BC up until Athens was conquered by the Macedonians in 322 BC. [64], Solon's reforms allowed the archons to come from some of the higher propertied classes and not only from the aristocratic families. Most of the annual magistracies in Athens could only be held once in a lifetime. 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. [30], 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. Running the courts was one of the major expenses of the Athenian state and there were moments of financial crisis in the 4th century when the courts, at least for private suits, had to be suspended. VOTING IN LAW COURTS Aristotle, in his Athenaion Politeica (68-69), describes contemporary voting procedure in the dikcasterta as follows. There was also a tendency for the four meetings to be aggregated toward the end of each state month. The courts became in effect a kind of upper house. We want people all over the world to learn about history. [23], After Rome became an Empire under Augustus, the nominal independence of Athens dissolved and its government converged to the normal type for a Roman municipality, with a Senate of decuriones. 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. 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". The oligarchy endured for only four months before it was replaced by a more democratic government. Get HISTORYs most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week. The victorious Roman general, Publius Cornelius Sulla, left the Athenians their lives and did not sell them into slavery; he also restored the previous government, in 86 BC. [66] 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. Furthermore, they used the income from empire to fund payment for officeholding. Its main function was to decide what matters would come before the ekklesia. World History Encyclopedia. Bertoch, MJ., The Greeks had a jury for it. Under this, anything passed or proposed by the assembly could be put on hold for review before a jury which might annul it and perhaps punish the proposer as well. Athens practiced a political system of legislation and executive bills. In a democracy, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote, there is, first, that most splendid of virtues, equality before the law. It was true that Cleisthenes demokratia abolished the political distinctions between the Athenian aristocrats who had long monopolized the political decision-making process and the middle- and working-class people who made up the army and the navy (and whose incipient discontent was the reason Cleisthenes introduced his reforms in the first place). Another group[who? Throughout its history, Athenian democracy remained relatively stable, though it faced several threats. [13] Another major contribution to democracy was Solon's setting up of an Ecclesia or Assembly, which was open to all the male citizens. 3 What kind of democracy did the Athenians have? Athens developed a system in which every free Athenian man had a vote in the Assembly. Rex Warner (1954). There was in Athens (and also Elis, Tegea, and Thasos) a smaller body, the boul, which decided or prioritised the topics which were discussed in the assembly. To its ancient detractors, rule by the demos was also reckless and arbitrary. They note that wealthy and influential peopleand their relativesserved on the Council much more frequently than would be likely in a truly random lottery. Cartledge, P, Garnsey, P. and Gruen, ES., agathe.gr: The Unenfranchised II Slaves and Resident Aliens, "The Position of Attic Women in Democratic Athens", "The Internet Classics Archive | The Athenian Constitution by Aristotle". The secret one was done with balls or ballots. The Athenians declared for Rome, and in 146 BC Athens became an autonomous civitas foederata, able to manage internal affairs. Henceforth, laws were made not in the assembly, but by special panels of citizens drawn from the annual jury pool of 6,000. Thus, the Founding Fathers of the United States who met in Philadelphia in 1787 did not set up a Council of the Areopagos, but a Senate, that, eventually, met on the Capitol. Any male citizen could, then, participate in the main democratic body of Athens, the assembly (ekklsia). Although Athens is the most famous ancient Greek democratic city-state, it was not the only one, nor was it the first; multiple other city-states adopted similar democratic constitutions before Athens. [90] Following Rousseau (17121778), "democracy came to be associated with popular sovereignty instead of popular participation in the exercise of power". The classical example that inspired the American and French revolutionaries, as well as English radicals, was Rome rather than Greece, and, in the age of Cicero and Caesar, Rome was a republic but not a democracy. Increasingly, responsibility was shifted from the assembly to the courts, with laws being made by jurors and all assembly decisions becoming reviewable by courts. [25], Some Athenian citizens were far more active than others, but the vast numbers required for the system to work testify to a breadth of direct participation among those eligible that greatly surpassed any present-day democracy. Democracy was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. Votings were usually by raising hands, while officials usually judged the outcome by counting the number of raised hands with their eyes. The Greek system of direct democracy would pave the way for representative democracies across the globe. When they married, Athenian women had two main roles: to bear children, and to run the household. 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. His officeholding was rather an expression and a result of the influence he wielded. Please note that some of these recommendations are listed under our old name, Ancient History Encyclopedia. The majority won the day and the decision was final. Contact with the wide world was slower. [75], Thucydides, from his aristocratic and historical viewpoint, reasoned that a serious flaw in democratic government was that the common people were often much too credulous about even contemporary facts to rule justly, in contrast to his own critical-historical approach to history. Ecclesia (Ekklesia) is the term used for the assembly in Greek city-states ( poleis ), including Athens. This could cause problems when it became too dark to see properly. [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. In the late 6th century B.C., the Greek city-state of Athens began to lay the foundations for a new kind of political system. 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". Positions on the boule were chosen by lot and not by election. [15] He did this by making the traditional tribes politically irrelevant and instituting ten new tribes, each made up of about three trittyes (geographical divisions), each consisting of several demes (further subdivisions). Special interests include art, architecture, and discovering the ideas that all civilizations share. But theres a serious thought behind it, he says in Greek city-states ( ). The building known as the Bouleuterion in the Athenian population in ancient Greece hands (, kheirotonia, stretching. The executive had a vote in the later period accurate and informative content city-state. Possibility of cheating the system showed a marked anti-professionalism [ 58 ] [ ]. Citizen, in his Athenaion Politeica ( 68-69 ), including Athens therefore could vote! 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