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Greek democracy created at Athens was direct, rather than representative: any adult male citizen over the age of 20 could take part, [41] and it was a duty to do so. The officials of the democracy were in part elected by the Assembly and in large part chosen by lottery in a process called sortition .
It was a centre for democracy, the arts, education and philosophy, [11] [12] and was highly influential throughout the European continent, particularly in Ancient Rome. [13] For this reason, it is often regarded as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy in its own right independently from the rest of Greece. [14] [15]
These activities were often handled by a form of direct democracy, based on a popular assembly. Others, of judicial and official nature, were often handled by large juries, drawn from the citizen body in a process known as sortition. By far the most well-documented and studied example is the Athenian democracy in Athens.
Athens had a central role in the struggle for his succession, when Antipater's son, Cassander, secured the Piraeus leaving Athens without a source of supplies, [20] to contest Antipater's successor, Polyperchon. To consolidate power against Cassander, Polyperchon restored Athens's democracy, as it was before the Lamian War.
The Pnyx was the official meeting place of the Athenian democratic assembly (Ancient Greek: ἐκκλησία, ekklesía). In the earliest days of Athenian democracy (after the reforms of Kleisthenes in 508 B.C.), the ekklesia met in the Agora. Sometime in the early 5th century, the meeting place was moved to a hill south and west of the Acropolis.
The main participants in Greek commerce were the class of traders known as emporoi (ἕμποροι). The state collected a duty on their cargo. At Piraeus (the main port of Athens), this tax was set initially at 1% or higher. [2] By the end of the 5th century, the tax had been raised to 33 talents (Andocides, I, 133-134).
In the classical period, Athens was a centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, [23] [24] Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Aristophanes, Sophocles, and many other prominent philosophers, writers and politicians of the ancient world.
A democracy is a political system, or a system of decision-making within an institution, organization, or state, in which members have a share of power. [2] Modern democracies are characterized by two capabilities of their citizens that differentiate them fundamentally from earlier forms of government: to intervene in society and have their sovereign (e.g., their representatives) held ...