Ancient Democracy: What is Democracy and Where Did it Start?

Ancient democracy was invented at the beginning of the 5th century BCE at almost the same time in both Athens and Rome. The word democracy comes from the Greek word demokratia with demos meaning the people and kratos meaning power or rule. So put that together and you essentially get the rule of the people. Today’s idea of democracy is a representative democracy, which means the people have the power to choose their representative, whereas the democracy of Athens was a direct democracy

Athenian democracy began with Cleisthenes reforming the earlier laws by the statesman Solon. His governmental and law reforms saw the beginning of democracy in Athens, and gave Cleisthenes the title of the Father of Athenian Democracy. After the Persian Wars, the general Pericles initiated the Delian League and was the man who advocated for what is known as radical democracy,. Pericles developed Athenian democracy until his death from the plague in 429 BCE.

Roman democracy arose independently at pretty much the same time as in Greece! Rome was ruled by a monarchy between 753-509 BCE when it abandoned that model and instituted the democracy of the Roman Republic. Instead of a king and his counsellors, Rome had a representative government of three branches: the Senate, the Consuls and the Judges. The Roman Republic, although it can’t be considered a true democracy, did give its citizens a voice in the way their city was governed. This same basic form would continue during the Roman Empire with the emperor taking the place of the Consuls.

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— CHAPTERS —
0:00​ Introduction
0:50 Democracy in a Nutshell
1:42 Athenian Democracy - the Backstory
3:50 Athenian Democracy - the Structure
8:22 Roman Democracy
11:05 Outro

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— ATTRIBUTIONS —

The music used in this recording is the intellectual copyright of Michael Levy, a prolific composer for the recreated lyres of antiquity, and used with the creator's permission. Michael Levy's music is available to stream at all the major digital music platforms. Find out more on:

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Copyright / republished with permission

Ostraka for Themistocles
Mark Cartwright

World History Encyclopedia

#ancientdemocracy #romandemocracy #atheniandemocracy

[WorldHistoryEncyclopedia]

Looking at these forms of democracy, neither women or foreigners (not to mention slaves) were considered citizens and so could not vote, so do you think we can still consider them democracies?

[okoch]

your vids just completely saved my life, concise and well versed. I'd suggest a video on the greek archaic period since you don't have a video on it yet. But your website was great too. Thanks

[theisheep]

You should know about ancient indian democratic republics known as gana-sanghas.

[davidbarber]

Did democracy get corrupt or is democracy inherently corrupt?

[fennisdembo]

where's that 2ns min mark map from?

[ronrossi]

Excellent discussion and lesson. Thank you.

[stxr.tipsy]

my teacher made me watch to four times😭😭

[roloughlin]

Just the first sentence, paraphrasing, Greeks and Romans developed democracy independent and without influence from each other. Repeat that again.

[ReyLatinoHeatFan]

The Roman Republic was never a democracy! The claims in this video are therefore very misleading. The statements are based on the work of Fergus Millar, which is today widely discussed but refuted by historical research. Furthermore, the American constitution is based on the 6th book of Polybios, in which he describes the Roman institutions, but does not declare them as democracy! The people had an important part in Rome but rather as an arbiter, which intervened in intra-aristocratic competition. If a term must be chosen, then that of the Meritokratie.

[eu-ruoik]

sansa stark's talking bout democracy huh

[REEM-ttxf]

No go read about :
Primitive democracy theory by Jacobson
It was the first emergence of democracy in Mesopotamia 🥺🥺

[troyingram]

I am trying to find where Greeks criticized democracy because of its selfish nature.

[bookmankdw]

Did you know there existed republic's that had assemblies attended by women when Europeans didn't allowed their women and slaves 🙄

[peterbycroft]

I love your work, but democracy was actually invented by the Sumerians and the Greeks copied it from them. See • Kramer, S.N., (1956) 3rd revised edition (1981), History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-nine Firsts in Recorded History; University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, p29.