Democracy Was the Main Cause of Athens’ Fall: Agree or Disagree Insert Name Insert School Insert Class When Athens fell in the year 404 B.C., it was common for the people of the world to attribute its failure to the might of the Peloponnesian League or the failures of specific generals or warriors. However, using the power of retrospect and firsthand accounts, many have questioned whether the fall of Athens can be largely attributed to its democratic system. Democracy was the pride of Athens, a system in which all of its citizens held equal rights and voted on every issue, but as history has often demonstrated, pride comes before the fall. Was democracy the main cause of Athens’ fall? To answer this question, one must look closely at the people that made up the mighty power that was Athens.
WHAP P.E.R.S.I.A.N. CHART Political: Pericles was the most popular Athenian leader. Under his leadership Athens became more sophisticated. Pericles even boasted that Athens was the “Education of Greece”. Population growth and economic development caused political and social strain but the Athens relived tensions by establishing a government based on democratic principles.
In Ancient Greece There Was two Major forms of Goverment Obligarchy and Democracy. The city States that best represented each goverment were the Spartans Who Were The Obligarchy goverment and the Athens Who Were The Democracy Goverment. The Athens goverment was fair and Advanced for its time. It did not Meet The needs Of Greeks during the time of military battles. Athens decided to worry more about culture.
Athens was in crisis. In order to resolve these problems they announced a new leader, Solon of Athens. He was a great Athenian statesman, lawyer and poet. Throughout his reign, he succeeded in political and economical reforms. Compared to other powerful leaders, Lycurgus of Sparta and Pericles of Athens, Solon was the mediator for Athens.
Compare the governments of Sparta and Athens Athens’s government was a democracy, while Sparta’s government was an oligarchy. A democracy is a form of government in which the ruling power is in the hands of all the people. Democracy comes from the root words demos (people) and kratos (power). Athenian citizens were able to vote and use their voices to help change things and better the community. An oligarchy is a form of government in which the ruling power is in the hands of a few leaders.
Athens and Sparta were two exceptionally powerful, well-known city-states in Ancient Greece. Athens was a Direct Democracy; meaning every male citizen participates directly in government decision-making, lead by an assembly of over 6,000 male citizens and a council of 500. Sparta, on the other hand, was an oligarchy, meaning lead by a few, ruled by two kings, a council of elders, and an assembly. Although both cities had effective systems of running their government, the Spartan government was a more efficient government than Athens. Athens was in fact a democracy and though it gave more freedom to its citizens, there were just too many people to run the government in anyway but chaotic.
Rome dealt with immigrants and intruders from the north and south. A few of these intruders and immigrants were given citizenships. The political structure for the Romans required two political parties in the Senate to have representatives. The upper class was represented by the patricians, while the lower-class, or everyone who was not a patrician, was represented by the plebeians. Political parties were not used by the government in Greece, but they did believe that if the public officials were elected by popular vote then there was a great possibility that the richest and most famous citizen would be elected.
In Athens if you were actively involved in politics you were high in class. Another similarity between these classical civilizations was that women did not have as great of rights as men (documents 2 and 3). Men were thought to be the workers that do the jobs and participate in politics. Women were expected to stay at home and raise a family. On document 3 it says that “women make up 50% of ever category except for bureaucrats and appointed officials, who were male only.
The Athenian ownership of the Delos treasury, suppression of revolts as well as the challis decree marks the transformation of the delian league into the Athenian empire. The role of the delian league was to protect those Greek states which had already revolted from Persia and to liberate those still under Persian rule. The league was very active in overthrowing Persian power and consolidating the role of Athens as hegemon’s in the Greek world. It was clear that the alliance was unequal from the beginning because, the leadership was Athenian, they had the largest fleet and they were also superior in resources. This was a result from their successes in the Persian wars, in particular the battle of Salamis.
Given that the two cities had been allies in the Persian Wars (490–479 bce), many people objected to a course that caused a disruption of those relations. Pro-Spartan elements existed, albeit in the minority, but their presence was enough to cause tensions. Furthermore, not all Athenians agreed with the development of democracy, which allowed nonaristocratic elements to control policy. A work known as the Constitution of Athens, assigned to Xenophon (ca. 431–352 bce), suggested a contempt for commoners in charge, indicating the fiction of the unity presented by Pericles.