Week #4- Daily #4- Was Athens really a 'democracy'?

                A democracy is a government run by the people in a specific place. It is usually ruled by the majority. In Ancient Greece, I think that Athens was a democracy. It was the first democracy. People can argue that it was not a democracy because of the tyranny, but Athens started their democracy in 510 B.C. Athens influenced other city-states to change their government to a democracy, too. They thought Athens’s democracy was a success. Only adult men could vote if they owned a property. Some men could not vote because they had to work, so the people chose to have a couple of men vote instead. They would be chosen by a lottery. If a man had a winning ticket, he was on the council of 500 for a year. The founder of the Athenian democracy, Cleisthenes, had reformed the government of Athens out of tyranny. The Athenian democracy was a lot different than what you would think, but they did have courts, an assembly, and council. They did not have a representative democracy. Athens’s first democratic leader was Pericles. Athens had a more stable and powerful democracy than the other city states. Like the other city states, we are also influenced by the Athenian democracy.  Athens created a whole new type of government. Although there are arguments and disagreements that Athens was a democracy, we should still thank the Athenians for their ancient roots of democracy. We vote and have people in charge, just like they did. They have helped form our government today.