Freedom, is supposed to be the basis upon which the United States of America was founded, a nation in which all beliefs and views are considered in equal measure to each other. Yet are US citizens truly free? According to the ancient Greek city-state Athens, freedom was the privilege of being civically engaged in lawmaking and everyday governance of the community. Athenian citizens would scoff at the idea that freedom is the ability to pursue happiness and pleasures, because to them those pursuits were lazy and could be accomplished by mere slaves and or non-citizens and therefore were trivial in nature. Personally, I agree with the notion that freedom is more than the right to pursue happiness; for in order for there to be an obtainable goal of happiness there needs to be a system in place that will help protect such goals. I would argue that it is the citizens priority then to be actively engaged in the system of governance that protects those rights, similarly to the Athenian system. There in fact lies the faults of the American system, in that only a select few have the power to protect those rights creating an illusion for the whole that they are indeed free. In Athens there are no illusions of power or freedom as long as you were labeled a citizen of the city. Being born into potion of a citizen had it’s perks such as the freedom to be a part of the polis, the political body governing Athens, and the most sought after aspect of citizenship. The goal of an actor of the…
Fellow Athenians, today I will share with you the reasons why we must enact a law to give citizenship to the metics of our great city and to the freed slaves worthy of the title! I will persuade you to cast your vote to help our worthy brethren become full members of our society. As a simple pottery maker myself, I sell my wares in The Agora. Some well-known and wealthy metic families have been there in my hours of need. Through the issuance of loans from these great families, I was able to…
Every citizen having equality allowed the people to feel free, which made them exuberant about their government. Furthermore, their democracy contributed to the social structure of the Athenians. Life differed depending on the ranking of the citizen. The Athenian society consisted of four main social rankings which were citizens(free men), metics, women and slaves. Having been born in Athens, every free male was an Athenian citizen. The citizens were allowed to vote, participate in politics, own…
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…
who had land where considered a citizen. They would go to the place to vote about everything, the Pnyx. A white stone for yes and and a black stone for no. They would vote from going to war to building a new temple this was a engineous system and many other city states adopted it.There are three main branch in athens democracy the console of 500, the 500 men who drafted laws to vote on. The assembly would approve or reject the laws the console proposed. The last part of the government was the…
and Attic penisula 1) Native Athenian 2) Metics and 3) Slaves. Native Athenians were free men and citizen of Athens.They could go to Assembly, cast vote. They were categorized into three top income groups called ‘Thetes’. 500 Bushel men were the most top income group were considered to be elected for highest political offices including 10 annually elected generals.”300 Bushel men” were the the” horse men” and could seek comparatively less higher political offices than 500 Bushel men. Another…
Name: Miriam and Alexa Social Studies Faction: Moderate Democracy Period:6-109 Subject: Citizenship The men who were citizens of Athens each had a say in making its laws and were allowed to vote for whatever politicians they wanted in regular elections. A person had to be born in Athens in order to be a citizen. All the citizens decided how the city was run, which was called Democracy. But many people believe that this was not really a democracy because women and children…
Our City of Athens has been struggling for some time now to become a stronger city. At this time we are facing a battle just as difficult as the recent battles we have faced. As an assembly, we granted the metics who fought with Thrasybulus the right to citizenship. Those metics showed loyalty, strength, and passion to give Athens a chance to get back to the city we once were. Those characteristics shown by the metics are similar characteristics the slaves who also fought showed as well. I…
as property and did not have any rights as citizens. A portion of the slaves were called chattel slaves. Chattel slaves were barbarian and had non-greek origins.Most of these slaves were acquired during trade. However there was a large population of slaves in ancient Greek time. A census from ancient Athens said there were around 400,00 slaves in Athens. Aristotle summarized slaves as “animate property” which was the mindset of the majority of people during this time.(Kamen). The middle group in…
in Ancient Greek. In 1960s America there was spread racial strife in Southern states like Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, ext. Powerful Black speakers rose up to protest about the widespread persecution blacks encountered daily. Such powerful speakers `as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. In Ancient Greece persecution was not so much based on race, but based upon class. The status quo was not race based, but based on if you were male and you owned land. Greek society had four social…