On the understanding of democracy in ancient Greece.

The basic characteristics of Athenian democracy are that all citizens are rulers, participate in politics, and collectively control the supreme power of the country; Relatively equal within the citizens' collective; The law is supreme. However, the essence and limitation of Athenian democracy is that Athenian democracy maintains the dominant position and interests of slave owners and nobles, and its essence is based on slavery and is the democracy of a few people. Democracy in Athens is only a political system of "adult male citizens are masters of their own affairs". Democracy is out of reach for women, foreigners and slaves. It is different from modern democracy, which stifles and restricts the self-development ability of another part of society and has great limitations.

democratic politics

The democratic system in ancient Greece can be roughly divided into three parts: democratic politics, citizens' assembly and jury court. The founder of ancient Greek democracy was Cleisthenes, the great chief executive of Athens. This visionary and courageous politician carried out a major reform of the political system in Athens in 508 BC, and was called "the father of democracy in Athens".

Cleisthenes made a wise decision to give full rights to all free people who settled in this country. He established a new parliament, expanded the number of Athenian citizens and made it the main decision-making body of the government. All citizens over the age of 20 can be elected. They not only have the right to prepare proposals for the conference, but also have the responsibility of administration. Compared with modern democracy, this classical democracy still has many unreasonable places and a strong color of slavery, but it was a very advanced political system more than 2,500 years ago.

church

Perikles, an outstanding representative of slavery democracy in ancient Greece, inherited the spirit of Cleisthenes and further expanded the power of the citizens' assembly. He weakened the power of the consul and the aristocratic parliament, and stipulated that all people who hold public office (that is, civil servants) can receive government subsidies, and the appointment and removal of civil servants is decided by the national highest authority-the citizens' assembly.

All male citizens over the age of 20 can participate in the citizens' assembly and have the right to vote and stand for election at the same time. They are held every nine days in the squares on both sides of Athens. Every citizen can make criticisms and suggestions on national policies and all public officials. All state affairs involving economy, internal affairs, diplomacy, military affairs and peace must be discussed and approved by the citizens' assembly before they can be put into practice.

In addition, the parliament also has a permanent body called the 500-member parliament, which, as the name implies, consists of 500 members. These 500 people will be selected from all men over the age of 20 in the 10 constituency, with 50 people in each constituency for a term of one year. The presidium is convened by each constituency in turn, during which an executive chairman is elected. The term of office can only be one day and cannot be re-elected.

Jury court

After talking about legislation and administration, let's look at the judiciary. The jury court is the highest judicial organ in Athens, consisting of 600 jury judges, who are elected from jury citizens and re-elected once a year. The power of the jury court is considerable, ranging from civil disputes of individual citizens to dereliction of duty of public officials. All state cases, big or small, have it to make decisions and even take part in specific legislative work. The trial judge of each case is decided by lot, and the verdict is decided by all jury judges in secret. The trial efficiency is also quite high, and it only takes one day to decide.