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Concept
Athenian democracy
Summary
Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica. Although Athens is the most famous ancient Greek democratic city-state, it was not the only one, nor was it the first; multiple other city-states adopted similar democratic constitutions before Athens. By the late 4th century BC as many as half of the over one thousand existing Greek city-states might have been democracies. Athens practiced a political system of legislation and executive bills. Participation was open to adult, free male citizens (i.e., not a metic), who probably constituted no more than 30 percent of the total adult population.
Solon (in 594 BC), Cleisthenes (in 508–07 BC), and Ephialtes (in 462 BC) contributed to the development of Athenian democracy. Cleisthenes broke up the unlimited power of the nobility by organizing citizens into ten groups based on where they lived, rather than on their wealth. The longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles. After his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolutions in 411 and 404 BC, towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides; the most detailed accounts of the system are of this fourth-century modification, rather than the Periclean system. Democracy was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were later revived, but how close they were to a real democracy is debatable.
The word "democracy" (Greek: dēmokratia, δημοκρατία) combines the elements dêmos (δῆμος, traditionally interpreted "people") and krátos (κράτος, which means "force" or "power"), and thus means literally "people power". In the words "monarchy" and "oligarchy", the second element comes from archē (ἀρχή), meaning "beginning (that which comes first)", and hence also "first place or power", "sovereignty". One might expect, by analogy, that the term "demarchy" would have been adopted for the new form of government introduced by Athenian democrats.
Official source
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