The commotion spread through the whole city. At daybreak on the next day the presidents summoned the Council to the Council House , and the citizens flocked to the place of assembly. Before the Council could introduce the business and prepare the agenda, the whole body of citizens had taken their places on the hill. So, in a crisis, the safety of Athens lay first in the hands of the presidents and the chairman.
It is worth noting that because there were days in the legislative year Aristot. There are further implications, if we accept the estimate of two scholars that in BCE there were approximately 22, adult male citizens—it is beyond the scope of this article to give evidence and justification for this, but the arguments are presented in Victor Ehrenberg, The Greek State , 2nd English Edition Methuen, 31, whose estimate is 20,,, and in A.
A citizen had to be 30 years old to serve as a Councilor Xen. For the sake of argument, we might assume that the average citizen would then have an active political life of 30 years, until he was During that time, there would need to be approximately 10, chairmen, each controlling the state seal and the treasuries, and presiding over the presidents of the Council for a day and a night Aristot. Since no one could serve as chairman twice Aristot. It follows, then, that approximately one half of all Athenian citizens would, at some point during their lives, have the privilege and responsibility of holding this office, arguably the closest equivalent to a Chief Executive in the Athenian democracy.
More important than any other function of the Council was its role in preparing the agenda for meetings of the Assembly , where all Athenian citizens gathered to discuss and vote on decrees. While any male citizen was invited to speak in an Assembly and all male citizens could vote, the topics for discussion and vote were limited by what amounted to a system of checks and balances between the Assembly and the Council.
Read about the evidence Apollodorus Dem. Plot on a Map Euboea. In this case, an existing law required that any surplus funds in the treasury of Athens should be used for military purposes. But despite this law, Apollodorus wanted the Assembly to discuss how to spend the funds.
So Apollodorus brought the matter to the Council , which voted to create a preliminary decree. The council approved the preliminary decree. This preliminary decree allowed the Assembly to discuss how to spend the money. Demosthenes goes on to say that the Assembly voted, unanimously, to spend the money on the military Dem.
So, after this lengthy procedure, the Athenian democracy did with its money precisely what an existing law required. But the mechanism of the Council , its probouleuma, and the Assembly allowed all of the citizens to deliberate, in an orderly manner, on the extent to which the existing law was appropriate under these circumstances, a war in Euboea and around Olynthus.
Plot on a Map Citium. An inscription that survives in fairly good condition illustrates vividly the course of an actual motion through the Council , to the Assembly by means of a preliminary decree, and into the body of Athenian policy as a decree of the Athenian People. It is important to note that the text and translation given here omit any indication of how the inscription actually looked, and the extent to which modern editors have filled in missing sections; what appears here is considerably cleaned up.
It can serve to illustrate the workings of the Council , but should not be taken as indicative of the proper way to present and read an inscription.
This system was comprised of three separate institutions: the ekklesia, a sovereign governing body that wrote laws and dictated foreign policy; the boule, a council of representatives from the ten Athenian tribes and the dikasteria, the popular courts in which citizens argued cases before a group of lottery-selected jurors. The Greek system of direct democracy would pave the way for representative democracies across the globe. A marble relief showing the People of Athens being crowned by Democracy, inscribed with a law against tyranny passed by the people of Athens in B.
Out of all those people, only male citizens who were older than 18 were a part of the demos, meaning only about 40, people could participate in the democratic process. Athenian democracy was a direct democracy made up of three important institutions. The first was the ekklesia, or Assembly, the sovereign governing body of Athens.
Any member of the demos—any one of those 40, adult male citizens—was welcome to attend the meetings of the ekklesia, which were held 40 times per year in a hillside auditorium west of the Acropolis called the Pnyx.
Only about 5, men attended each session of the Assembly; the rest were serving in the army or navy or working to support their families. At the meetings, the ekklesia made decisions about war and foreign policy, wrote and revised laws and approved or condemned the conduct of public officials.
Ostracism, in which a citizen could be expelled from the Athenian city-state for 10 years, was among the powers of the ekklesia. The group made decisions by simple majority vote. The second important institution was the boule, or Council of Five Hundred.
The boule was a group of men, 50 from each of ten Athenian tribes, who served on the Council for one year. Unlike the ekklesia, the boule met every day and did most of the hands-on work of governance. It supervised government workers and was in charge of things like navy ships triremes and army horses. It dealt with ambassadors and representatives from other city-states. Its main function was to decide what matters would come before the ekklesia. In this way, the members of the boule dictated how the entire democracy would work.
Positions on the boule were chosen by lot and not by election. This was because, in theory, a random lottery was more democratic than an election: pure chance, after all, could not be influenced by things like money or popularity.
The lottery system also prevented the establishment of a permanent class of civil servants who might be tempted to use the government to advance or enrich themselves.
However, historians argue that selection to the boule was not always just a matter of chance. They note that wealthy and influential people—and their relatives—served on the Council much more frequently than would be likely in a truly random lottery. At the age of 18, service in the army was compulsory. Athenian women were dedicated to the care and upkeep of the family home. Athenian society was a patriarchy; men held all rights and advantages, such as access to education and power.
Nonetheless, some women, known as hetaeras , did receive an education with the specific purpose of entertaining men, similar to the Japanese geisha tradition. Hetaeras were considered higher in status than other women, but lower in status than men. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Ancient Greece and the Hellenistic World. Search for:. Learning Objectives Understand the factors contributing to the rise and fall of Athens.
This money funded the building of the Athenian Acropolis, put half the Athenian population on the public payroll, and allowed Athens to build and maintain the dominant naval power in the Greek world. Athens lost further power when the armies of Philip II defeated an alliance of Greek city-states. Key Terms Pericles : A prominent and influential Greek statesman, orator, and general of Athens during its Golden Age, in the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. Acropolis : A settlement, especially a citadel, built upon an area of elevated ground, frequently a hill with precipitous sides, chosen for purposes of defense.
Often the nuclei of large cities of classical antiquity. Greek-Persian Duel. Learning Objectives Understand the structures of Athenian society in the classical period. The Athenian democracy provided a number of governmental resources to its population in order to encourage participation in the democratic process. Many governmental posts in classical Athens were chosen by lot, in an attempt to discourage corruption and patronage.
The Athenian elite lived relatively modestly, and wealth and land were not concentrated in the hands of the few, but rather distributed fairly evenly across the upper classes. Thetes occupied the lowest rung of Athenian society, but were granted the right to hold public office during the reforms of Ephialtes and Pericles. Key Terms thetes : The lowest social class of citizens in ancient Athens.
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