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. Athens assembly was composed of over 6,000 male citizens who voted on the laws. Sparta also had an assembly made up of male citizens who voted on the laws. Sparta and Athens both had a council. The major difference being that Athens council of five hundred men were chosen by lottery.
Even though, today, we think of Greece as a whole, Greece was not unified or centralized then. Greece was not unified until Philip II from Macedon made the efforts to make Greece into one empire. Also, Persian officials were considered royalty, and were usually pretty wealthy. In Greece, the officials for the government were chosen by the people and were usually commoners from Greece. Persia and Greece had more similar economic systems.
Many male citizens held public offices irrespective of class and in different areas or offices as mentioned above. They are often chosen by lot. What rules governed the selection of public office holders? The rules that govern the selection of public office holders was that they must be a free adult from Athenian and Spartan parents (which are very few), must be 30 years of age, must be native-born and wealthy and must be selected through lot to checkmate corruption. How were the two city-states similar in their governmental structures?
However P.R made it difficult for a lot of parties to gain a majority of seats in the Reichstag, which made it harder for one major party to take control of the country. This P.R system made it a coalition government whereby the country is ruled by many parties together having to make joint decisions, therefore made it more difficult to compromise and lead to a weaker government resulting to further elections, making the constitution unstable. Furthermore Universal male suffrage enabled men over the age of 20 to vote in an election. This included the upper, middle and working classes, which made parties competitive. However as there were so many parties only the ones with the most convincing views and issues that effected the general population became major for example, the Communists, Socialists and Democrats, which were aimed for, change and equality.
The helots were serfs that consisted of people that were overtaken by Spartans military victories. These people had to give half their profits to the Spartan citizens that owned the lands they lived in. (History.com Spartans) The male and female roles of Sparta were vastly different compared to Athens. Male Spartans lived their lives trying to be the strongest warrior. Being a warrior was an honor and every Spartan man wanted to fight for Sparta.
In the ancient Roman Republic, a complex political system was in place. Much like America, it was an indirect representative democracy. It also had a system of checks and balances, a way to accommodate two social classes, and set terms for every office. Romans system of government pushed politicians like Sulla and Marius to the extremes. Maintaining ones office was hard enough in Rome, but Roman culture
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.
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.
Athens decided to worry more about culture. The Spartans Goverment had A War Like Attitude and best met the needs of ancient Greece. The Athen democratic government, gave the citizens in Greece more freedom. Only Some of the total population of Athens actually had voting rights and all of these citizens were upper class men who were over thirty years old. Women were given
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.