Democracy In Ancient Athens

Ancient Athens: the beginning of democracy, even the kind we have today. People, only Greek citizens, (men who have completed military training and were landowners,) could vote in this government. They had control of the government. Athens was the “trial” or “beta” state of democracy. It was even a “fragile experiment.” The government was just starting out! Athenians fought for their precious democracy in the Greco-Persian War. Some citizens chose to fight against the Persians in this war; if the Persians took over Athens, democracy could have been destroyed. The Athenian citizens fought for themselves, not for a king, unlike the Persians. Fortunately, the Athenians won this war and democracy was kept safe. Many nations and societies today …show more content…
They were low in social status. These people, if they had work, usually did not have very good work. This is proved in two potteries: one having an image of peasants going to market, with the other imaging a slave working in a mine. In the image of the peasants on the pottery, the peasants seem to be held up by two pigs: they are looking down upon two pigs rivaling each other. They could be annoyed by this, making their work not fun or well. Also, they could be forced to do this job because there could be no other work available to them. The slave working in the mine, however, appears to be performing hard labor. Slaves had no rights, By the look on his face, he is not happy: he is bent over, mining into a basket. He also has no clothes on, supporting the theory that he is not treated well how he should. These visuals would help a historian trying to understand how democratic ancient Greek democracy was because those of no political freedom did not have very good work. These visuals show that ancient Greece was not very democratic because not every native-born or resident of Athens had political freedom. The power was within the citizens, a small number compared to the Athenian …show more content…
First, the ostracon proves that there was voting in ancient Athens, therefore proving of a democracy. In addition, the trireme is a boat in which people were bribed with citizenship to row. Thirdly, the potteries tell of people who did not have any political freedom at all and their work. All of the visuals are about people who could or could not vote. In contrast, however, the ostracon and the trireme help support democracy; they tell of it. The potteries don’t do so as much. They aren’t direct links to democracy in ancient Athens; it takes thought to see how they relate to ancient Athenian democracy. Also, the potteries don’t support the democracy in a good way - they tell of those who could not vote. They tell it in a bad way. Those who could not vote had no political freedom and therefore had nothing to do with the democracy. They couldn’t do anything about it, really. The potteries just tell of