Increase Your Knowledge Through These Athenian Government Facts

Athens is the capital of Greece.Athens is a beautiful city filled with historic landmarks. Some of these landmarks date back to the fifth century BC.Do you love to learn about history? Does Ancient Greece intrigue you and make you wonder about their ancient government? In this article, you will be subjected to Ancient Greeks and their political process. So let’s get started.Introduction To The Athenian GovernmentAthens is a beautiful city situated in the heart of Greece, filled with numerous pieces of buildings and spaces that date back to as early as the fifth century BC. Let us learn some facts about the Athenian government.The city has a lot to offer to the historic hungry individuals throughout the world. Famous historical structures such as the Acropolis, Parthenon, and Temple of Olympian Zeus enrich the cultural and historical value of the city.The Acropolis Museum and the National Archaeological Museum situated in the city help answer a lot about the vibrant and colorful past of the state.Athens might be the earliest place to introduce the world to government and political equality.The idea of democracy and a democratic government originated in Athens and was gifted to the modern world.Ancient Greece was famous for its ideologies and philosophies concerning government and politics.Ancient Greece was divided into city-states. Each city-state consisted of one major city and its neighboring areas.The city-state had laws and government of its own. The two largest city-states of Ancient Greece were Athens and Sparta. A lot of battles were fought between them.But democracy was not the only form of government present at that time. What were the other forms of government, you ask? The answer to this question is that there were four forms of Ancient Greek government.Democracy: the people ruled the state (male citizens).Monarchy: a direct successor of the previous leader inherited the role and ruled the state.Oligarchy: a particular group of people ruled the state.Tyranny: the state was ruled by a particular person who had snatched the power forcefully or by unconstitutional means.The city-states used to alter the form of government from time to time. For example, Athens followed tyranny and then changed to a democratic process later on.Athenian democracy started around the fourth century BC and went on to flourish in the next two centuries.With the help of some great philosophers like Aristotle, Socrates, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Herodotus, and Xenophon, the Greeks had developed democracy into a worldwide phenomenon.Development Of The Athenian GovernmentAfter knowing how the government was established and what forms of government were present in Ancient Greece, one relevant and important question pops out: how did the Ancient Greek government develop through time? The answer to that question will be discussed in this section. So keep reading.First, let us understand the four different types of government formed by the Greeks in Ancient Greece in detail.Athenian Democracy:The democratic government practiced in Athens was a direct democracy, which means that all the citizens decided the laws made.Each citizen would instead vote for a law and not a representative. So in this direct democracy format, citizens had to attend the assembly and vote.The officials appointed to run the democratic institutions were chosen by lottery, which means anyone could be elected regardless of their social status and the amount of money they possess.Now moving forward to the important question in this context, what were the primary democratic institutions? There were three basic bodies of government: The Assembly, Council of 500, and Courts.The Assembly: This body consisted of all the citizens that showed up to vote in the direct democracy format. The Assembly was responsible for deciding on important topics such as new laws and whether they should go to war or not.The Council of 500: This body mainly saw the everyday running of the democracy. Five hundred men were chosen by means of lottery from the assembly that gathered.The Courts: Politics require a support system to uphold the laws and virtues; this duty was given to the Courts. They dealt with trials and lawsuits. Decisions were taken with the help of juries. Two hundred one juries were assigned for private lawsuits, and 501 juries were assigned for public lawsuits.Monarchy:The Ancient Greek people were not very successful in distinguishing monarchy from tyranny.Monarchy means unlimited power to one individual who had inherited the role of leading people from his predecessor.This sometimes seems like tyranny, but the Greeks used to term the more compassionate leader as the monarchy.Unlike democracy, in this system, the decisions were foreseen by one individual and his chosen set of people.Oligarchy:In this system of government, the power of politics and decision-making was handed over to a select group of people.Athenian Greeks used to define any system of power which was denied from all the citizens was not tyranny or monarchy as an oligarchy.Oligarchy was possibly the most common form of state government which usually took place when democracy didn’t work.One such instance is when the oligarchy of 400 took power from the Assembly, and then they were overpowered by the oligarchy of 5000; this incident took place in 411 BCE in Athens.Also, in 404 BCE, an oligarchy of 30 tyrants took over Athens after the brutal defeat of the Athenian military in Sicily.Tyranny:This system was contradictory to democracy, and one individual possessed unlimited power.Tyrants were not necessarily evil, some were generous and compassionate, but the fact that they only considered things if it benefited them was the major issue.But then there are exceptions; for example, the tyrant Peisistratus whole ruled in Athens during 560 BCE, was generous, and helped establish democracy later on.Unique Features About The Athenian GovernmentNow that we have understood what type of political system was presented by Ancient Greeks at that time, we can now dig further into this matter and bring out some amazing facts and unique features about them.In Athens, during democracy, all adult citizens needed to participate in voting and the Assembly.This idea of democracy was different from our present idea of democracy.When adult citizens didn’t participate in these political activities, they were heavily fined.They were marked with red paint in some cases if the adults failed to participate in democracy.Special administrative bodies were made to make decisions for the surrounding areas adjacent to the major state.Members of this administrative body were selected from some traditional tribes. That is members from each of the ten tribes.In Athens, women, resident foreigners (metoikoi), enslaved people, and children were not subjected as citizens, so they were not allowed to vote.Only male citizens who served in the military and were 18 above were considered citizens.In Athenian democracy, the 500 members chosen for the Council had to serve the system for one year enthusiastically.The Ancient Greek civic positions to which the citizens were elected were short-term to reduce bribery and corruption.Since this position of power required both time and monetary funds, therefore most of the people chosen for this position were wealthy.Constitution of the Athenians, a book was written by Aristotle and his pupils have, helped to give a proper structure to the politics at that time.During the fourth and fifth century BCE, the count of male citizens varied from 30,000 to 60,000.The Assembly used to gather at least two to three times a month (except if any emergency erupted) in a particular space called Pnyx Hill.Pynx Hill could house around 6000 citizens at a time.Ancient Greek citizens were allowed to present their ideas and views in the Assembly simply by raising their hands.The Council was also responsible for deciding and ranking the topics that were to be presented in the Assembly.The Law courts (or called dikasteria in Greek) that upheld democracy consisted of 6,000 jurors and a group of magistrates, who were elected annually.The magistrates and jurors had to be at least 30 years or above to participate.To make this election fair and random, a special machine designed of colored tokens called kleroterion was used.Facts About The Athenian GovernmentAs mentioned above, the Ancient Greeks used to work in unique and unforgettable ways. Democracy was conceived and was developed in Athens. So let us now focus on some facts that glorified the Athenian democracy.Although Aristotle helped establish democracy, he was a silent supporter of the aristocracy (oligarchy).He also stated that dikasteria or the Court was what contributed most to strengthening democracy.He thought so because the jury possessed limitless power.The Athenian citizens used to bring forward court cases as there was no police there at that time.The Agora was a central area in Athens where people used to gather to discuss agendas.Around the fourth century, there were 100,000 Athenian citizens, 10,000 foreign residents, and 150,000 enslaved people.Ancient Athens residents practiced a law called Ostracism, in which a particular person (irrespective of citizen or political leader) was banished from the city-state for ten years if found guilty of wrong deeds or threatening democracy.Radical democracy was practiced by the city residents, which means ‘pay for service.‘Citizens were awarded money so that they would show up to the Assembly.This practice assured that more men attended this assembly and helped in the decision-making of the democratic bodies.The jury was subjected to the people’s will, as they had no higher authority.A special body called the Boule was responsible for carrying out some executive functions.The Boule consisted of 500 members, 50 members chosen from the ten different tribes.The fact that the Athenian democracy has worked wonders for them and also established a rock-solid agenda for the modern world is true.But then again, many mistakes were made by the Ancient Greeks while following democracy; for example, six generals of the military’s forces were slaughtered after they won a war at Arginousai in 406 BCE.Also, another important and infamous mistake made by the people was the death sentence that was agreed for Socrates in 399 BCE.

Athens is the capital of Greece.