Athenian Governing

Oxford First Ancient History

Every single country needs some sort of governing to keep the country thriving, including Athens. Athens had a leader called a consul, who would lead the city, and a counsel, that would deal with murderers. Almost anything else was decided by the people Rome, who would meet frequently to take votes on almost all matters. How did this kind of governing come about? Certainly not over night, but after many years of hard work. Draco, who was an early Athenian leader, made extremely harsh laws, with extremely cruel punishments. The people of Athens were not at all excited about this, so when Draco ceased his reign, Solon, the next leader, had the job of changing all these rules. He set about first by allowing people of poorer classes to have some say in the government. Then, he made it clear to the people of Athens that selling yourself into slavery to pay off a debt, was not permitted anymore. Solon made many other wise laws, and then, to test how well the Athenians would obey him, took a nice, long, vacation. Sadly, a tyrant named Pisistratus took over Athens by pretending to be followed by a murderer, he asked for some personal bodyguards, and used them to force the Athenians to let him be leader. Pisistratus was soon thrown out, but he used his cunning to trick the Athenians into thinking that Athena had told them to let him be leader. Unfortunately, the Athenians believed this trick, and for the next 20 years, were ruled by Pisistratus. Cleisthenes soon came to the rescue; he kicked out Pisistratus, and led the Athenians in his place. Cleisthenes was very wise, and helped the Athenians to have even more power over themselves than they had had before. This was accomplished with voting, if any man was so terrible that Athens would be better off without him, than a vote would take place, if more than 6,000 adult males voted that Athens did not need this man, he would be thrown out of Athens for 10 years. This wise man was followed by Pericles, who considered himself to be lucky. He believed that he lead Athens at its height. At that time Athens was much more than just an city, it dominated lots of other land outside of Greece. Athens received money from allies, to protect the city from possible enemies. Pericles used the excess money in making his city more beautiful, Athens was a lovely place, it would be a great privilege to go back in time and see the wonders of this nation!