Download 460 B.C Beginning of Democracy Greece

460 B.C Beginning of Democracy Greece In 507 B.C an Athenian leader, Cleisthenes, introduced a political system of reforms called Demokrattia or ruled by the people. Demokratia had three separate institutions which were the Ekklsia, the boule, and Dikasteria. The Ekklsia was the government body that wrote laws and governed foreign policy. The boule is a body of representatives from ten Athenian tribes. The Dikasteria was the system of courts where people brought cases before a group of lottery­ selected jurors. Before democracy Athenian aristocrats had long monopolized the political decision making process. Demokratia abolished the political decision making process. A Greek historian Herodotus had written ,“In a Democracy, there is, first, that most splendid of virtues, equality before the law.” The th​
“equality” Herodotus described was for a small amount of Athenian people. In the 4​
century the Athens population was around 100,000 citizens. About 10,000 of them were metoikoi (resident foreigners) and 15,000 of them were slaves. If a man was older than 18 and a citizen he was a part of the “Demos” meaning they could participate in the democratic process. Any one of the 40,000 adult citizen men (18 and older) was welcomed to the meetings. The ekklesia, otherwise known as the assembly. They held meetings forty times a year. The location for these meetings was in hillside auditorium west of the Acropolis called the Pynx. Only about five thousand men came to the meetings; the rest were at war or serving time in the military. The boule was a group of men up to 500, 50 from each of the Athenian tribes. They all voted to see who would serve on the council for one year. The boule had meeting every day and did the hands on work of governance. The 500 members of the boule who served on the council was in charge to see how the entire democracy would work, if it was a good idea or not.