Ancient Greek Government Essay

Ancient Greece went through many types of governments throughout its history. The five mentioned are monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. Now, in a broad sense, most of the city-states transitioned through all these, in this order. However, this was not consistent, and all systems of government were in place during the history of Ancient Greece. We will start by discussion the first type of government, monarchy, and move from there. (Brand, n.d.)

Monarchy, according to Merriam Webster, is "a country that is ruled by a [monarch]- a person who reigns over a kingdom or empire as a sovereign ruler." (Webster, 2016) Essentially, its one person who has all control, legally. In the beginning around 2000-1200 BC, most of the city-states were monarchies. Of particular note, Sparta broke the rules a bit and had two kings who ruled in tandem. The successors of these monarchs were blood relations, most usually father and then the son. (Carr, 2016) …show more content…
A democratic government is, according to Webster, it is "a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting." (Webster, 2016) This set the tone for many other nations to follow suit much later on. In this democracy, the Athenians developed a system of checks and balances, where different sections of the government had say over one another. This democracy was actually very different from our own, as not everyone had a say. The poor, the slaves, and the women were all considered inferior and didn't get a say in the government. (Carr, 2016)

All in all, Ancient Greece went through many changes throughout its history. And again I repeat, not all city-states moved along with all the other ones in terms of what kind of government they had. They were all different. But the order I described was generally followed sooner or later. I believe this paper brings a clear picture of how Greek city-state governments progressed throughout their