Daily Blog 2 Week 4

Konnor Drewen

2/15/011

Was Athens really a 'democracy'?

            Well, Athenian democracy is considered to be a predecessor to our own democracy. They had things that were undemocratic like slavery and that women were not allowed to be a leader or vote but that is how America was for a long while. Now there have been a lot of critics to the Athenian democracy, modern and back in ancient times. In modern times people find fault with what was considered the citizen body. In ancient times many writers told of what they thought of the democracy. For them the demos in democracy meant not the whole people, but the people as opposed to the elite, instead of seeing it as a fair system under which 'everyone' has equal rights. To Athenian detractor’s democracy was not well used or established. They had some instances during the Peloponnesian War. The ten treasurers of the Delian league had been accused of embezzlement. They were tried and executed one after the other until, when only one was still alive, the accounting error was discovered and that last surviving treasurer was acquitted. This was perfectly legal in this case. This shows that in that time the system was flawed and innocent people were punished for things they didn’t do. This still happens today where someone goes to prison and years later is released because of a new piece of evidence or a part of the case has opened up. So was Athens really a democracy? Well there is evidence that it was but maybe it was not a true democracy.