Feb 15th Daily

Was Athens really a 'democracy'?

Athens, in my opinion, was not what we consider a democracy today. In today's time, we consider democracy to be a government where the people decide everything, with the help of some government officials to represent them. It is true that the Athenian people made some of their own decisions, like who to exile from the country every year and they had some sort of authority on who could be their leader. Other than that, they had no control on their large empire at all. The leaders of the country had all of the control over the government, laws, and how people were to live in this empire. Also, unlike the democracies now a days, the rulers of the Athenian empire ruled until they die. The current democracy in the United States can only be president, not ruler, for two 4 year terms. There are a lot of things that are different from today's, but some things are similar. The Athenian empire was divided into large groups of land, like the states in the United States. They had a council of representatives like what we do today. I do believe that the ancient Athenian empire was a democracy, but they had different beliefs in democracy back then rather than what we do now. I think that the ancient people back then didn't like having a leader that made every decision for you regarding your personal life, but I think that in order to be a good empire, they felt as if they needed a government leader who would lead them in battles and wars. I think that they also felt as if they needed these people so if they did lose a war, much like the Peleponnesian War, to blame for the loss. Since they had such a leader to lead them in this, but they still had the power of home life and such in their own hands, they agreed to it. This is my personal opinion on the Athenian democracy.