What kind of democracy is Pericles referring to?

In the twelvemonth 507 B.C., the Athenian leader Cleisthenes introduced a system of political reforms that he chosen demokratia, or "rule by the people" (from demos, "the people," and kratos, or "power"). Information technology was the get-go known democracy in the world.

This system was comprised of 3 separate institutions: the ekklesia, a sovereign governing body that wrote laws and dictated foreign policy; the boule, a council of representatives from the x Athenian tribes and the dikasteria, the popular courts in which citizens argued cases earlier a grouping of lottery-selected jurors. Although this Athenian democracy would survive for but two centuries, its invention past Cleisthenes, "The Begetter of Democracy," was one of ancient Greece's virtually enduring contributions to the mod world. The Greek system of direct democracy would pave the way for representative democracies across the globe.

READ MORE: Why Hellenic republic Is Considered the Birthplace of Commonwealth

Who Could Vote in Ancient Greece?

A marble relief showing the People of Athens being crowned past Commonwealth, inscribed with a law against tyranny passed by the people of Athens in 336 B.C.

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"In a democracy," the Greek historian Herodotus wrote, "there is, first, that most splendid of virtues, equality earlier the law." It was truthful that Cleisthenes' demokratia abolished the political distinctions between the Athenian aristocrats who had long monopolized the political decision-making procedure and the centre- and working-class people who fabricated up the army and the navy (and whose incipient discontent was the reason Cleisthenes introduced his reforms in the beginning place).

However, the "equality" Herodotus described was limited to a small segment of the Athenian population in Ancient Greece. For example, in Athens in the middle of the fourth century at that place were near 100,000 citizens (Athenian citizenship was limited to men and women whose parents had also been Athenian citizens), about 10,000 metoikoi, or "resident foreigners," and 150,000 slaves. Out of all those people, only male person citizens who were older than 18 were a function of the demos, meaning simply about twoscore,000 people could participate in the democratic process.

The Ekklesia

Athenian democracy was a direct democracy made up of three of import institutions. The kickoff was the ekklesia, or Assembly, the sovereign governing body of Athens. Whatsoever member of the demos—whatsoever ane of those forty,000 adult male citizens—was welcome to attend the meetings of the ekklesia, which were held twoscore times per yr in a hillside auditorium w of the Acropolis called the Pnyx. (Merely about v,000 men attended each session of the Associates; the rest were serving in the army or navy or working to support their families.)

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At the meetings, the ekklesia made decisions about war and foreign policy, wrote and revised laws and approved or condemned the conduct of public officials. (Ostracism, in which a citizen could be expelled from the Athenian city-land for 10 years, was amid the powers of the ekklesia.) The group made decisions past simple majority vote.

The Boule

The second important institution was the boule, or Council of Five Hundred. The boule was a grouping of 500 men, 50 from each of ten Athenian tribes, who served on the Council for ane twelvemonth. Unlike the ekklesia, the boule met every twenty-four hour period and did most of the hands-on work of governance. Information technology supervised authorities workers and was in accuse of things similar navy ships (triremes) and army horses. It dealt with ambassadors and representatives from other metropolis-states. Its principal function was to decide what matters would come earlier the ekklesia. In this fashion, the 500 members of the boule dictated how the unabridged democracy would piece of work.

Positions on the boule were chosen by lot and not by election. This was because, in theory, a random lottery was more than democratic than an election: pure chance, after all, could not be influenced by things like coin or popularity. The lottery system as well prevented the establishment of a permanent class of civil servants who might exist tempted to use the regime to accelerate or enrich themselves. Still, historians argue that selection to the boule was non always but a matter of chance. They note that wealthy and influential people—and their relatives—served on the Council much more frequently than would be likely in a truly random lottery.

The Dikasteria

The third of import institution was the pop courts, or dikasteria. Every solar day, more than 500 jurors were chosen past lot from a pool of male person citizens older than thirty. Of all the autonomous institutions, Aristotle argued that the dikasteria "contributed most to the strength of democracy" because the jury had almost unlimited power.

There were no constabulary in Athens, so it was the demos themselves who brought courtroom cases, argued for the prosecution and the defence force and delivered verdicts and sentences past majority rule. (There were as well no rules about what kinds of cases could be prosecuted or what could and could not exist said at trial, and then Athenian citizens frequently used the dikasteria to punish or embarrass their enemies.)

Jurors were paid a wage for their work, and then that the job could be accessible to anybody and not only the wealthy (but, since the wage was less than what the boilerplate worker earned in a day, the typical juror was an elderly retiree). Since Athenians did non pay taxes, the money for these payments came from customs duties, contributions from allies and taxes levied on the metoikoi. The one exception to this rule was the leitourgia, or liturgy, which was a kind of tax that wealthy people volunteered to pay to sponsor major civic undertakings such as the maintenance of a navy ship (this liturgy was called the trierarchia) or the production of a play or choral performance at the urban center's annual festival.

The Finish of Athenian Democracy

Around 460 B.C., under the rule of the full general Pericles (generals were amidst the only public officials who were elected, not appointed) Athenian democracy began to evolve into something that we would call an aristocracy: the dominion of what Herodotus called "the 1 man, the best." Though democratic ideals and processes did not survive in ancient Hellenic republic, they have been influencing politicians and governments always since.

Modernistic representative democracies, in dissimilarity to direct democracies, accept citizens who vote for representatives who create and enact laws on their behalf. Canada, The United States and South Africa are all examples of modern-24-hour interval representative democracies.

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Source: https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/ancient-greece-democracy

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