Government of Athens
- Limited democracy
- included the rich and poor people
- people could speak their minds
influence on our government:
- vote in elections
- elect people to vote for us and represent us
- gave citizenship
- democracy rights
Government before democracy-aristocracy
- state ruled by nobility
- rule is heredirary and based on ties, social rank wealth
- social status and wealth support rulers authority
citizenship
- 18 years old-two years of military training
- could take part in government
- only adult men were full citizens
- thought women were inferior
- wealthy nobles and poor people clashed
- the people avoided major political problems by making reforms
- reformers tried to build a democracy
Key players--pericles and socrates and plato
Pericles
- leader of athens around 450 bc
- made sure all citizens could take part in government
- any citixen could be in assembly or serve on a jery, arranged for them to be paid
- this allowed even poor people to take part in government
Socrates
- teacher of philosophy
- agered some by questioning laws, customs and religion
- brought to trial in 399 bc for urging athens young people to revolt
- sentenced to deaht
- most famous philospher in ancient greece
Plato
- in his book plato discussed his ideal form of government, in which a society could be contructed to bring out the best behavior of its citizens
- plato believed that different people have different strengths and weaknesses
Branches and bodies of government
Assembly of the Demos
- male athenian citizens listen, duscuss and vote on topics that affected athenian life
- spoke their mind and exercise their votes that had to do with the govt jof city
- was the most cetral and most deinitive institustion of their democracy
- citizens were paid for attending that way poor would come without worry about leaving work
The council of 500
- represented the full time govt of athens
- had 500 citizens, fifty from each of the ten tribes who sere from one year
- could issue laws on its own, but main functionwas to prepare the agenda for meetings of the assembly
- would meet to talk about tand vote on preliminary decrees
- any of them that passed the councils vote went on the assembly
The peoples court
- the Heliaea and other courts where citizen juries would listen to cases would vote on whether or not someone was guily, and vote on punishments for the guilty
- Jurors would get 1/2 drachma a day (or three obols) for being in jury
- had to be at least 30 years old to be in the jury
Supplemented by
- The council of the areopagus
- the archons
- the generals
---Our group presented---
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