11-3 Notes: The City-State and Democracy

The Rise of City-States• Basic form of political

organization in Greece was the city-state (“polis” in Greek), a powerful city and the lands surrounding it

• Common by around 700 BCE

• Most were small (limited by geographic features such as mountain ranges)

• Athens and Sparta were the largest

• Most had fewer than 20,000 residents

Layout of the City• Agora was the center of city life• Agora was an open space where

people came to conduct business, gather publicly

• Festivals, athletic contests were held there

• Statues, temples, and other public buildings could be found there

• Many cities also had a fortified hilltop called an acropolis (“highest city” in Greek)

• People mainly used the acropolis for defensive purposes at first

• Later they built temples and palaces along the flat tops of high hills

Forms of Government• Each city-state in Greece was

independent and had their own form of government

• Monarchies were the earliest form of government (monarchs are kings or queens who have supreme power)

• Most city-states started like this• Aristocracy is another name for

the upper class or nobility• In Greece they were people who

descended from their high-born ancestors (some believed they were descendants of mythical heroes)

• Corinth began as a monarchy and then later became an aristocracy, like most other city-states

Oligarchy, Tyranny• Oligarchy means “rule by the few”

(similar to aristocracy; minority group controls the government)

• Aristocrats rule due to inherited social class, but oligarchs rule due to wealth or land ownership

• Poor people rebelled as a way to show their resentment of being shut out of power

• Some rich people became tyrants (who campaigned for the support of poor people), or people who took power in illegal ways (acted like a king without royal lineage)

• Some Greek tyrants worked to help the poor through building projects or the enactment of laws cancelling debt, etc.

• Tyrants helped to overthrow oligarchies and showed how a leader can gain power through the people

Athens and Democracy• People realized that the power

had political power as a result of tyrants

• Citizen – a person who is loyal to a government and entitled to protection by that government

• To the Greeks this person had a right to take part in the government of that city

• Citizens were born to parents who were free citizens

• Citizens came from both lower and upper classes

• 500 BCE – Solon and Cleisthenes, leaders in Athens, began making reforms to give power to poorer people

Solon and Cleisthenes• 500s BCE – Many poor farmers in

Athens are so in debt that they were forced to work their land for someone else or become slaves

• 594 BCE – Nobles elected Solon to lead Athens

• Solon freed people enslaved due to debt and then abolished slavery

• Solon organized citizens into 4 classes based upon wealth, not class

• Rich men still had more power yet it was a fairer system

• All citizens could serve in the assembly and elect leaders

• He also reformed laws to make them less harsh

• 500 BCE – Cleisthenes increased the citizens’ power even more

• He took power away from nobles, and organized citizens based upon place of residence and not wealth

Direct Democracy• Athens moved towards an early

form of democracy, a system of government in which the citizens make political decisions

• Direct democracy – all citizens meet and vote to create laws

• Indirect democracy, where citizens vote for representatives, is more common today

• Only free adult males who were citizens could vote

• Women, slaves, foreigners could not vote and non-citizens could not become citizens