Citizenship, an idea that started almost 2000 years ago during the Golden Ages of two great empires. The idea of democracy and citizenship came about around 500 BCE, before that time the lands were ruled by an absolute rule, such as a King, Emperor or a Pharaoh. His or her commands were then implemented by hundreds of thousands of administrators. The common man, woman and children were considered subjects, who had no say in how the land was governed or any of the policies that were implemented. While both Athenian and Roman form of democracy was a major step away from autocratic rule, but they both had their drawbacks. The Athenian citizenship system was limited to a smaller region to about 300,000 people, whereas the Roman citizenship system
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The Athenians had a practice of ostracism where a person who presented the greatest threat to the democracy would be exiled for 10 years. Their assemblies met about 40 times a year, all of the citizens were eligible to attend the session. The attendees chose their officials including the council of 500. The Romans had a census every 5 years and the censors would count the citizens and also rank them depending on their ongoing contribution to the society. This also determined their taxes and privileges they received. While this practice made the censors very powerful but also provided the citizens an ability to move up in the ranking and receive more privileges. Some of the negatives in the Roman senate were that the Senators served for life and usually the title was inherited.
In conclusion, while there are some areas in the Roman Republic citizenship system that could be improved, but I feel that the Roman system was a better system as it was practiced widely and was sustained for over 500 years. It provided citizenship to females and descendants of free slaves. This was a big step forward in the right direction considering it was implemented more than 2000 years ago. The practice of census while had its drawbacks, provided the governing Senate the ability to know the distribution of the population in a
The Athenians had a practice of ostracism where a person who presented the greatest threat to the democracy would be exiled for 10 years. Their assemblies met about 40 times a year, all of the citizens were eligible to attend the session. The attendees chose their officials including the council of 500. The Romans had a census every 5 years and the censors would count the citizens and also rank them depending on their ongoing contribution to the society. This also determined their taxes and privileges they received. While this practice made the censors very powerful but also provided the citizens an ability to move up in the ranking and receive more privileges. Some of the negatives in the Roman senate were that the Senators served for life and usually the title was inherited.
In conclusion, while there are some areas in the Roman Republic citizenship system that could be improved, but I feel that the Roman system was a better system as it was practiced widely and was sustained for over 500 years. It provided citizenship to females and descendants of free slaves. This was a big step forward in the right direction considering it was implemented more than 2000 years ago. The practice of census while had its drawbacks, provided the governing Senate the ability to know the distribution of the population in a