Athens was a true democracy because the citizens have the liberty to vote on just about everything, excluding the magistrates, which were elected by a lottery. Some may argue that it wasn’t a true democracy because women, children, and metics weren’t allowed to vote, thus making Athens an oligarchy, which was proven in Wealthy Hellas by Josiah Ober, but this argument is invalid, only because at the time women were considered to be lower than men, children did not know better, and metics most likely did not support Athens in the way that the regular citizens would. The Athenian Constitution by Aristotle states that everyone in power besides the magistrates are elected by the people, and those people in power included military officers, the military treasurer, the Commissioners for Festival Funds, and the Superintendent of the Water Supply.
As stated in “Was Athens …show more content…
“Ostracized in Athens: Ancient Greeks Knew How To Dump Bad Pols.” by Professor John Camp conveys the fact that the citizens of Athens gathered once a year to have a discussion about any politicians or magistrates that seemed to be affecting the democracy and making Athens less democratic. After this discussion, they reassembled two months later with an ostracon, which is a fragment of pottery, with the name of a politician etched on to it. With this, there was a simple vote count, and whoever had the highest amount of votes was banished from Athens for ten years. Of course, this method was abused by people running to be elected and used their power to make people vote for others to be banished, and eliminating them from the competition. In fact, it was found that about one hundred and ninety ostracons were made for one person by only thirteen people, when only one ostracon per person is
As stated in “Was Athens …show more content…
“Ostracized in Athens: Ancient Greeks Knew How To Dump Bad Pols.” by Professor John Camp conveys the fact that the citizens of Athens gathered once a year to have a discussion about any politicians or magistrates that seemed to be affecting the democracy and making Athens less democratic. After this discussion, they reassembled two months later with an ostracon, which is a fragment of pottery, with the name of a politician etched on to it. With this, there was a simple vote count, and whoever had the highest amount of votes was banished from Athens for ten years. Of course, this method was abused by people running to be elected and used their power to make people vote for others to be banished, and eliminating them from the competition. In fact, it was found that about one hundred and ninety ostracons were made for one person by only thirteen people, when only one ostracon per person is