The Importance Of Material Evidence In Athenian Democracy

The Representative voting system in the Athenian government was more democratic, than the Roman Republic. In Athens, the first 6000 male citizens voted for their elected officials. Athen’s voting system is truly democratic because the male citizens voted on roles in the government, and sign up for roles. In Rome, all full male citizens could vote, while leaving out the other two types of citizenship that cannot vote2. Only having full citizens is less democratic because the other two citizens could not vote. The Athenian Democracy and Roman Republic both have restrictions on their voting system, but Rome had more restrictions on citizenship.

-Archaeologists reconstructed the environment and studied artifacts from a specific time period to learn about people from that time.

A lack in knowledge to find significance in artifacts in relation to others in the archaeological record could potentially give false information on the

Artifacts are studied by both historians and archaeologists. Physical objects are what archaeologists focus on, while historians focus on things like writings.

With the rise of the second-wave civilizations and empires, 500 B.C.E. to 500 C.E., distinctive political, cultural, social and economical features were highlighted (Strayer 120). These empires included: the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Egyptian Empire, the Chinese Empire, and the Greek Empire. Each sovereign had individual methods in order to forge unity and ensure political authority throughout his or her reign. The systems were comprised of utilizing fear, establishing laws and government, incorporating customs and religious beliefs, the right to rule, etc. Regarding the following of laws, there became a significant distinction between the use of “power” and “authority”. Power denotes the appliance of force or threats of one, such

Aristotle once said, “In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.” To make democratic ideas work to their advantages, the people of Athens had to vote for superiors, rather than simply observe. Like other forms of government, democracy has its strengths and its weaknesses. It was very organized and fair, giving people rights and freedoms, and participation in the rule of the city. Though, there were some negatives.

Evolution of Democracy and the Athenian Constitution Democracy is defined in modern times as government by the people. To put that in perspective and better understand all that democracy entails we must consider its origins. It is surprising indeed that even today tyrannies and dictatorships exist in the world when more than two and a half thousand years ago the ancient Athenians had developed a functional and direct form of democracy. What contributed to this remarkable achievement and how it changed the socio-political scene in Athens is what will be considered in this paper.

Fear, greed, shame. These are all primal emotions that are at the foundation of human instinct and threats that all states face, regardless of their form of government. At its core, a democracy places its power in the hands of its people and, in doing so, relies on their judgement to determine their course. The system of direct democracy in Athens maximized the freedom for its citizens to establish their ideals and work toward them in times peace. But in times of war and plague, those ideals quickly fall to the wayside in favor of irrational fear.

Ancient artifacts tell us much to all of what we know about our worlds past, these crucial remnants of past cultures allow us to physically see what was essential and valued by these ancient peoples. Artifacts tell us about suspicions, beliefs, everyday life and everything in between — without these crucial remnants of culture, we could not even begin to understand what was before us. Although these artifacts are useful for learning and understanding ancient civilizations, there is much debate about the morality of other countries buying and “owning” these historical pieces. Every civilization, past and present leaves behind a cultural trail everywhere it goes thus making exploration of different countries so very easy.

In the following chapter, the focus is looking at culture in archaeology. It goes over the difficulty of looking at cultural through the archeological record and the different types of theories that have evolved over the years. The cultural process looks at how and why things were built such as vases and other objects. The process has some downfalls to it because it tends to condense the definition of the cultural. Cultural is something that is not always looked as being influenced by its environment but as something that is influenced by the interaction of people.

It can be easy to confuse the work of archaeologists and historians. While both spend time and effort to study the past, the evidence they use can be very different. One way that they are different is that archaeologists use physical evidence to understand the past much more than historians. Because they often study the time before humans could write, archaeologists use this physical evidence to fill in holes about the past. They see how this evidence changes over time and also how it may stay the same. Archaeologists consider this to be more objective than the evidence used by historians because physical evidence isn't changed by human lies. For example, archaeologists would use the physical things left by a group while historians would use a letter written by the head of the group. However, this letter may not be objective. So, these different kinds of evidence can lead archaeologists and historians to the same or different research conclusions.

The general public did not create, ‘We, the people’, but by 50 or so white men who owned property. The Athenian democracy followed a similar rule; to be on the Athenian senate, one had to be a male who owned property and was not a slave. This trend has been seen throughout the western world in establishing democracies; the hegemonic power controls the laws of the state. But now, with technology, we are able to empower the disenfranchised and have a more equal representation. And with more holistic and comprehensive laws due to having a more equal representation of the people, which may create less corruption.

The Athenian democracy is discomforting for a contemporary American because of the personal rights citizens obtain today that Athenians do not, and because of the lack of greek legitimacy in their political system, due to rationality. However, the life of an Athenian is quiet interesting, in the way it allows us to view the positive and negative elements of the Athenian society, in contrast of today 's culture, from how it runs, how they studied Greek politics, their perspective of what a citizen should be and its responsibilities, and their acts of rationality.

The settlement site is where residual evidence of past activity is preserved and able to be investigated through its archaeological record. To understand how the record in settlement sites is formed, we must first understand what we are looking for. The Archaeological Record can be split into three sections; material remains of the past, material culture, and sources used by archaeologists (Lucas, 2012). For this topic we will be concentrating on material culture. Material culture refers to the physical objects and artefacts used by a society. These can be both organic - a substance which was once living, like plants or bacteria - or inorganic - a substance derived from non-living matter.

Government is a form of political structure that rules over a group of specific people and while stability is important, in most societies government is fluid in its form and changes over time. As different forms of government take power, typically the laws will favor one demographic over another. While the Athenian democracy favored the masses, oligarchic sympathizers like Pseudo-Xenophon, displayed their discontent with it. In his negative critique of Athenian democracy titled “The Constitution of the Athenians,” Pseudo-Xenophon supports the oligarchic system over the democratic one, yet still maintains a respect for the Athenian’s democracy as he comments on its longevity and stability. His commentary contrasts with the funeral oration that Pericles gave during a public funeral, where Pericles praises the strength of the Athenian democracy and its perseverance regardless of a plethora dead during the Persian Wars. Despite the differences, both as Pseudo-Xenophon and Pericles appeal to the political ideals of their audience while at the same time maintaining their own political beliefs.