Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman Democracy Essay

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you abate up being governed by your inferiors. PlatoThe question at hand is whether there were any confusableities that led to the f either of superannuated Greek and roman letters democracies. This strain will discuss how wars and territorial expansion led to a establish in populism, which brought policy-making chaos, and how it is the breedamental case of the decline of commonwealth in Ancient Greece and Rome.The prototypic forms of body politic exposited in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. In Ancient Greece, democracy and politics were more related to the Athenian city- separate because Sparta was more of a military dictatorship than any other city-state in the region. As for Rome, the brief period between the roman letters Kingdom and the Roman Empire, cognise as the Roman Republic, came to be a symbol of democracy in the Ancient Roman time period. Though democracy is defined as a form of go vernment in which its people make decisions that now influence their daily lives, the ancient forms of democracy were slightly different. It is clear that the Athenian city-state was more democratic than the Roman Republic, but both had forms of oligarchy that tampered with the image of precedent democracy. The Roman Republic had its Senate, and the Athenian city-state had its Areopagos, groups of aristocrats that usually dominated the regions politics. Some sources even suggest that Rome never became a democracy in the sense that they (the citizens) ever controlled the government for long.But whatever democracy existed in these areas was short-lived. Even though these democracies existed in different time periods, they had similar reasons to their down precipitation. Scholars suggest that these democracies fell because of the sheer landmass each had to control later on their numerous victories. The Roman Republic stretched the Italian Peninsula and controlled parts of Northern Africa capital of Greece ruled much of mainland Greece and the Ionian states (the Delian League basically put the Ionian states under Athenian subjection) on the Mediterranean coastline. The constitutions built for Athens and the Roman Republic were figuratively too small to control these newly added territories. Since the constitutions were do only to satisfy the populations of the homeland itself, the constitutions had gaps in which politicians abused, ultimatelyleading to political corruption. Another cause reasoned for the downfall of democracies in both states is the democracies radioactive dust with their common citizens. Citizens of Rome and Athens consequently wanted a exclusive strong ruler after years of war had created panic among all levels of government. However, though these two reasons are valid, there was another significant cause for the fall of these two democracies.The rise of populism in both the Athenian city-state and the Roman Republic was crucial to the d eterioration of their democracies. The Athenian city-state fought many wars such as the Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian Wars. To fight these wars, the Athenians needed income. The common Athenian citizen had to fund the war, similar to the Roman Plebeians and their war taxes, creating heavy discrepancies between the rich and poor. This in turn paved the way for many populist reforms reforms that favored the running(a) class most importantly, Pericles reforms. Pericles removed the property restrictions on army hinderance to provide more troops in the Athenian war machine. This reform, along with the previous reform of Cleisthenes that en greatheartedd the Council of 400 to five-hundred people, allowed for the involvement of a large part or even the whole of the citizen body in the states affairs, giving the citizens too much power. Citizens, whom had no experience in politics, started to make decisions for the Athenian public.This proved detrimental in Second Peloponnesian War, when Athens could not effectively place its troops because of quarrels within the Council of five hundred (and a weakened Areopagos due to Pericles reforms), leading to a defeat that around crumbled the existing form of democracy in Athens. This inefficiency of the government moved citizens and thinkers, such as Plato, to view democracy as an ineffective form of rule. Citizens now shifted their sights to Macedonia as their only hope for survival. The case for the Roman Republic is similar. The plebeians funded wars which created discrepancies between the Patrician class and the Plebeians. This allowed the Patricians to dominate the states resources, such as land, which started to deteriorate the economy of the Republic. To counter these movements, reformers such as the Gracchus brothers and Gaius Marius turned to populist ideals to gain a strong plebeian holding.In trying to do so, the reformers disobeyed many of the constitutions preexisting legalitys which broughtpolitical instability Tiberius Gracchus well-tried to illegally obtain another year as tribune, resulting in the first daggers in the forum, Gaius Gracchus tried to start a plebeian reform, which failed, and Gaius Marius and sulla created a clash between the populares and optimares, creating conflict within Rome. These attempts at populist reforms plain started a trend within politicians to undermine the authority of the Roman constitution. Sulla was elected dictator for two consecutive terms Roman law only allowed for a single term in case of depicted object emergency and Julius Caesar declared himself dictator-for-life and crossed the Rubicon into Rome with his troops, which were both illegal. wholly of these attempts at populist reforms created confusion amongst the Roman public, whom now viewed dictatorships more satisfying than the current Republic mess. After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Octavion took over, marking the end of the Roman Republic.As discussed above, wars we re the backbone to the populist movements. It is important to note, however, that in Ancient Greece, the fall was associated more with the populist reforms itself, and that in Ancient Rome, the fall was associated more with the concern for populism, rather than the reforms itself. Another rather interesting fact was that the increase in democracy in Greece actually led to the demise of the democracy itself. However, in all, populism was a common factor that brought the collapse of the democracies in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. 1 . Roberts, J. M. The Making of the Roman World. The Penguin muniment of Europe. London, England Penguin, 1997. 51. Print. 2 . Roberts, J. M. Ancient Greece. The Penguin History of Europe. London, England Penguin, 1997. 31. Print. 3 . A term used to describe the first show of violence in the Roman General Assembly it is blamed for start of the disregard of the Roman constitution by many politicians to follow.