democracy in athens

democracy in athens

Democracy in Athens was a very advanced political system of the time, however, it was not a true democracy but rather, it paved the way for democracy to grow and flourish in the future. A true democracy is one where everyone gets a say; everyone being men, women and slaves of all classes. It means that even though each person has a right to voice their opinion, there is still a leader who facilitates the choices of the people. However, this was not the case in Ancient Athens. The birth of democracy began with the reforms of Solon who first initiated the ideas of a democracy. Though this initial start on the road to democracy was created, Athens still did not give voice to all people, meaning that it was not a true democracy.

Solon was one of the main reformers of the time who saw the birth of democracy. As seen in sources 2 and 5, Solon was the leader who first initiated the ideas of a democracy into ancient Athens. In source 2, one of Solon’s personal writings, he talks about how Athens was “previously…enslaved, but is now free.” At the time Athens was in a lot of debt and people were selling their freedom in order to cancel their debts. Solon came in and abolished all debt and slavery. In his poem (source 5) Solon talks about these dark times when he says that the city will “never…be destroyed by Zeus” but that it will rather be destroyed by the corrupt nature of “the Athenians themselves.” Gods were a very important part of Athenian culture and to say that it would be the people who would destroy the city before the god’s did, really emphasised how corrupt the people were. Solon describes the rich as greedy, leaving nothing for the poor. He shows that he was the one who brought Athens out of a very dark time by trying to create equality when he says that he was the one who “set them free.” (source 2). The fact that all of these writings were written by Solon bring into question their reliability. There is a bias as he may have been...