Ancient Greek Democracy

Democracy. In the 6th century BC, the Athenians developed a new type of government called a democracy, which means strength of the people. The new government had three parts. The assembly included every free-born male citizen, around 30,000 men. They gathered together to discuss and vote for the city's laws. They also elected certain government officials by writing the name of their chosen candidate on a piece of wood or stone. The council, or boule, was made up of 500 male citizens. They were selected once a year using a lottery system. Every region had a representative on the council. The council met most days to discuss the daily running of the city-state. The courts held trials when someone had committed a crime. There was no judge, only a jury. The smallest courts had 201 jury members, to prevent ties, and the largest had 6,000. The jury were also chosen once a year using a lottery system. Athens was one of the most influential and powerful city-states, so it's not surprising that more than 50 other Greek city-states followed their lead and also attempted to set up democratic governments, some more successfully than others. Athenian democracy is an example of direct democracy. Every citizen assembled to pass laws and make decisions. Today, it is more practical for a country or state to have a representative democracy, where representatives are elected to make laws and decisions on behalf of the people. Though this sounds a lot like the way the British government works, the United Kingdom is actually a constitutional monarchy, because our head of state is the king or queen.