History: Democracy in Ancient Greece
For the Format just write Name and Date. Sources: Western Civilizations, Lerner, Meacham, Coffin, Stacey, (vol. I) Sources of the West, Kishlansky Reader: (vol. I) The Theme for the paper : The democratic system evolved in the city states of Greek civilization. During the late Bronze age, the city states of Mycenean civilization described by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey, were ruled by kings. A thousand years later, the Greek city states were ruled by leaders that the citizans elected. One of the great achievements in early civilization was this birth of the democratic idea. Compose an essay on what you think the factors were (natural, geographic, cultural, intellectual, military) that enabled the Greek city states to achieve democracy. In your essay be sure to include a brief account of the principal stages of political development the city states went through in going from being ruled by the rich and few (oligarchy) to being ruled by elected officials. (Comment on who voted: how universal was greek democracy; what were its limitations with respect to what true democracy is considered today) Take Athens as a model for this
History: Democracy in Ancient Greece
Name
Course
Instructor
Date
The geography of Ancient Greece influenced civilization as the areas were near water sources, while the mountains terrain encouraged development of city-states (polis). The people encountered difficulties in communication, and this led to the city states to develop independently, and the polis became the basis for which people organized (Kishlansky, 2011). Athenian democracy was the most prominent among the city states and this was because cultural and intellectual factors, but the militarily strong Sparta was not enthusiastic to embrace democracy. The people increasingly sought to limit the impact of oligarchs and tyrants, and Athens was a city state where intellectual discussions and learning took place. As such direct democracy took place whereby people voted directly on legislations instead of electing representatives.
Monarchies were the earliest form of governments in Ancient Greece with Kings and Queens having supreme power over people. With time, aristocracy arose comprising of the upper class rulers and the nobility. These were people believed to have been descended from mythical heroes. The oliga...