ancient greek democracy??

Question

im doing my homework and was wondering if any of u guys cold explain to me wat was going on in ancient greek during democracy. or u could just give me some websites so i can read them. or u can just tell me.
p.s- how does ancient greek democracy differ from our democracy today??

thanx

Answer 1

Only Greek citizens could join democracy (like us.) However, to become a citizen you had to be an 18 yr. old man, whose father and mother's father were mcitizens. Citizens who did this could vote on laws and serve as jurors. However, during the Golden Age, Pericles split power more equally between rich and poor, so poor people could afford to be part of democracy.

Answer 2

This is very large topic, I could go on for hours, you should read some basic ideas from Plato ("Politeia"), Aristotle, the "golden era" of Pericles in Athens...I think Wikipedia says a lot though, and it should be enough for homework:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy



http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/pericles.html



Demokratia (in Greek) = demos (citizens) + kratos (state, power)=power lies in citizens.

A basic difference with nowadays though is that in Ancient Greece there was a direct type of democracy, meaning citizens,(only men and only free citizens,not slaves) could directly participate in the discussions of the assembly (lets say a type of parliament). They ruled themselves.This is not possible today because of the increased population, so we elect representatives.

Nowadays we don't have slaves and women do vote, but don't we have our own categories of modern excluded citizens?You should think about that and compare.

Whatever you read keep in mind that democracy in ancient Greece may not have been perfect, but it was adjusted to contemporary way of thinking. So things that we may think are wrong now, may have been completely accepted at that period of time.

Answer 3

accept as true with Numbat. historic Greeks might with out hesitation or exception call our plenty trumpeted democracies OLIGARCHIES. the significant situation is that it is the everlasting assembly that's sovereign. in specific, Parliament or Congress or perhaps if makes a decision the way it may be elected. Direct democracy exchange into to the city-state as representative democracy exchange into to the countryside. With the passing of the countryside, quite some the west is moving right into a placed up-democratic age.