DERIVATION AND PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE GREEK CITY-STATES

DERIVATION AND PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE GREEK CITY-STATES

Five of the most powerful Greek city-states :
1. Athens
2. Megara
3. Sparta
4. Argos
5. Corinth

D E S C R I P T I O N :

That after the Greek dark ages, exciting things began to happen in the ancient Greece. The villages were started to band/closed/void together to form strong trading centers. These groups of villages that were banded together called city-states. Soon, hundreds of city-states had formed in ancient Greece.

CITIZEN OF A CITY-STATE:

The ancient Greeks referred to themselves as the citizens of their individual city-states. Each city-state had its own personality, goals, laws and customs. Ancient Greeks were very loyal to their city-state.

The city-states had many things in common. They all believed in the same gods. They all spoke the same language.

DERIVATION AND PROCESS OF DEMOCRACY :


The Greeks apparently did not like big Kingdoms or empires. They liked little City-States. Each city was an independent State. They were little republics, with the city i the centre and some fields round about from which the food of the city came. A republic has no king. These Greek City-States had no kings, but were governed by the rich citizens with consent in any term. So, average man had their say in the government. There were many slaves who had no rights in the government, and women also had no rights but their basic rights wee upheld by some wise citizens. So only a part of the population of the City-States were citizens, and as such could vote on public questions of governance. It was not difficult for these citizens to vote, as all of them could be gathered together in one place, the state being small and Population being identifiable. This could only be done because it was a small City-State and not a great big country under one government. The state gradually being larger, difficulty had to be faced and a solution was found in what is called "representative government". This means that instead of all the voters of a country meeting together to decide on a question or any problem, they elect their " representatives" who meet together and consider public questions and common problems of the peoples and the voters helped the government of the country in the impersonal functioning of state.

Greece embraced all possibilities and devised ways and means to easily govern the peoples within the city-states. The Greeks spread out all over Greece. The concept of a bigger city state extended to Italy and Sicily and other coasts of the Mediterranean later on. They did not try to have an empire or one government for all these places under their control. The peoples however formed their separate manageable City States. with the passage of time, to reap the benefit of greater nature, the peoples and their government thought of establishing a little more big state within the concept of city state with wider areas. This was particularly for mutual benefits, more exchange of liberal views from sudden attacks by the ambitious neighboring powerful states.

Before Alexander, Greeks refused to join their little City States together to form a large State, kingdom or republic even when they were confronted with small skirmishes and fights amongst themselves.

Despite the differences, they had tendency to keep lings with City States together. They had a common language, a common culture and the same religion. They believed in having healthy and beautiful bodies, and for this purpose organized games and races. Theses games used to take place from time to time on a big scale at Olympia, in Greece, and people from all over Greece gathered together there.
So the Greek City States lived separately, meeting each other at their games and fighting each other frequently. When a great danger came from outside, however, they united to resist it. It was the Persian invasion which was resisted by City States being united for common cause of maintaining democracy.