Can someone explain the democratic system of Athens?

Question

Athens was one of the first democratic societies but was it truly all that democratic? Since only men could vote and such. Also can someone explain how it was structured. Lastly could i please get sources since i'm writing it for an essay thanks

Answer 1

ok this is quite simple really...as i am very intrested in ancient greece...here is thae anwser. Cleisthenes was the ruler of athens at the time and he decided that he needed to do something to help athens so he created democracy and all it was, was a large peice of pottery was placed at a certian place in the city and Cleisthenes would ask a question and people would put in a white rock that ment yes and a black rock that ment no so that they could decide what happned in athens. and once a month the would each write a name of a person in the city to be kicked out of athens or ostrisized. and thats bassicly how democracy in athens worked

Answer 2

W T Isc is basically right, but leaves some details out.

First, Athens had no democratic system - or any other system. What existed was a mixture of bits and pieces from various periods of history - the court of the Areopagus, the assembly etc. etc. The assembly (W T Isc is quite right) was the democratic part and in fact the government of Athens.

However, not only women, children slaves & foreign residents were disenfranchised. Male citizens who were ill at home or away (farming their land, trading, serving in the army or navy etc.) had no means of making their opinion count.

The other bodies also had an appreciable influence. The law courts (with huge juries staffed mainly by the unemployed working class for whom the attendance allowance functioned as a sort of dole) could and did come to decisions with direct political effects. There was a Council with members chosen by lot, which could do the same.

All we can say, really, is that the Athenian constitution, makeshift and illogical as it was, allowed more citizens to have a voice in public affairs than any other state of the period. To that extent, one must see it as democratic, though with reservations.

Sources - well, I've known this for so long, ever since I was a schoolboy, that I can't remember the books which summarised the system for me. However, the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature is a good place to start. Contemporary references which make the political and legal set-up clear can be found in Plato's Apology (about the trial of Socrates) and in Herodotus and Thucydides who both wrote histories which include a lot of detail about Athenian politics. If you don't read Greek, you can find the books in cheap Penguin translations.

Answer 3

Not only women couldn't vote, but slaves couldn't either, and they had plenty of them.  So their electorate was probably around 25% of adults--not very democratic by our standards.  Then again, it was amazingly (perhaps unprecedentedly) democratic for its time.  Those are two important things to keep in mind.

It was mainly a direct democracy.  They also had representatives though, but they were chosen by lot.  That's a pretty fair system, though it's not really representative democracy as we think of it.  They also had juries--HUGE ones.  Their juries had 500 people in them (so probably only one at any given time).  Remember, this was a society where all the work was being done by women and slaves, so free men had lots of time for politics.

Answer 4

W.T.ISC is correct but you need to know that citizenship was limited to those born in Athens to parents both of whom had to be citizens.  This meant that when the Golden Age under Pericles took place in the 5th century B.C. very few residents of Athens were citizens.  The result was that when they gathered to debate and to vote it wasn't very crowded.  

If one considers a democracy to be a government in which all residents debate and vote on all issues of concern to the people democracy has never existed in the real world at any time in human history.

Answer 5

It was a direct democracy. Everyday, all citizens would go to the Agora, or the town marketplace, and debate the political issues, and vote on them, while the women, slaves, and other non-citizens would stay home taking care of kids, doing housework, and running the rest of Athenian society.

cruelly, they, if needed, voted on people to be ostracized out of the city, once everyone month or two.