Polis - city-state. These were male-dominated and bound together by race. What this means is that membership in the polis was hereditary and could not be passed on to someone outside the citizen family. The citizens of any given polis were an elite group of people – slaves, peasants, women and resident aliens were not part of the body of citizens. Archons - a chosen a group of officials made to rule the city-state. They were chosen by the wealthiest landowners or nobles who were very powerful during 800 B.C. They were nobles themselves and tended to favor the upper class Tyrant - someone who becomes the sole ruler of a polis because he uses the power of force. Demes – are the ten areas Athens was divided into. Each deme would have 50 representatives for the council. - The Council was made up of about 500 citizens. - It was responsible for the daily runnings of the city-states. - The Council carried out the laws and policies, which were debated at the Assembly. - No citizen could be a counselor for more than two years.

The Assembly was a gathering of all citizens. It occurred once every 10 days on a hill called the Pnyx. - Every citizen was expected to attend and had the right to speak and vote at the Assembly. - The Assembly used lotteries to choose officials, juries for courts, and army commanders. - The main job of the Assembly was to propose laws and policies. The Assembly could purpose changes or reject the Councils suggestions. - Once a year the Assembly could also vote an ostracism. Ostracism was the system used for removing unpopular politicians. During ostracism, the name of the unpopular politician was written on a broken piece of pottery called an ostrakon. If more than 6,000 votes were cast against the politician, he had to leave Athens for ten years (but he would not lose his citizenship).

This was a board of ten elected generals. The Assembly elected the members of the Board annually. This board operated much like a modern-day governmental cabinet. The generals urged the popular assembly to adopt specific measures, and the success or failure of their policies determined whether they would be re-elected at the end of their annual term. - All citizens over the age of thirty were expected to volunteer for jury services. Any citizen who wanted to serve as the juror went to court. - Each court had a jury of over 200 men to ensure jurors would not be intimidated. - The Athenian legal system had no lawyers or legal officials. Citizens had to conduct their own cases. Some people employed professional speechwriters to prepare their cases. - Only citizens could speak in court. A metic, a foreign resident living in Athens, who was accused of a crime had to persuade a citizen to speak on his behalf. - Certain jurors who were chosen by lottery were given special tasks: One took charge as judge, four counted votes, and one worked the water clock. (The water clock was used to limit the time the speaker was allowed to talk.) - Each juror was issued two different bronze tokens, which were used for voting. At the end of the trial, jurors handed in one of two tokens. The token with the solid center represented an innocent verdict and a hollow center represented a guilty verdict.

At around 460 B.C. during the age of Pericles Athenian democracy came to mean the equality of justice and the equality of opportunity. The equality of opportunity said that the criteria for choosing citizens for office were merit and efficiency and not wealth. Whereas Solon had used the criterion of birth for his officials and Cleisthenes had used wealth, Pericles now used merit. The Age of Pericles was considered great because there was much freedom at the time. Pericles was a great leader mainly because he believed that the government of Athens “is in the hands of the many not the few.” Sources: textg.html A History of the World