How Did Gtrrk City-states Apply Democracy

Which was more democratic, the Greek city-state Athens or the Roman Republic?

You can’t really compare them. They are different things and they differ a lot from modern representative democracies. You can even find differences in the Roman republic if you study different periods.The Athenian democracy.Democracy comes from the Greek word δημοκρατία, δήμο-( people) -κρατία (rule). It literally means the rule of the people. It was pretty simple: if you are a citizen you can take part in Ecclesia (the assemply/public gathering), you can be elected in a public office and you can also vote. Only a small fraction of the population were citizens. Women, slaves, and foreigners for example were excluded. On the other hand every citizen was expected to fight in the war.The Roman Republic.This is a way more complicated system, that changed a lot during its existence and it can’t be summed up in a few lines. In general, not all citizens where equal. In the late years slaves could also acquire citizenship. Wealth also mattered. Being an aristocrat (patrician) meant that you can actually be part of the senate, while being a poor citizen leaves you without a saying. Also the senate would appoint dictators in times of distress, suspending the democracy.Intrigue and armies also helped you elevate in the Republic.As I said, I don't really think you can compare them. If we look at the original definition of democracy, Athens is more democratic, as the people have a direct saying and actively participate in the governance.

Why didn't the democratic ideas of the Greek city states spread throughout the empire of Alexander the Great?

The Macedonians were a monarchy nor were they very keen on Athenian Democracy.When people talk about Greece being the birthplace of democracy, it’s more accurate to say the Greek City-State of Athens was the birthplace. The Hellenic Greeks ran all kinds of governments from monarchies and oligarchies to direct democracies. Such variety was mainly possible because most states had power that stemmed from a single, powerful city and its surrounding lands. At best reaching several vassals and Greek island communities.However the same independent streak that created this test-bed made it nigh impossible for these ideas to persist anywhere but the cities that used them. The largest of powers would organise themselves into alliances called leagues. When city-states were conquered, the leaders were usually made puppets patriotic to the home city. Athens didn’t take the effort to spread the light of direct democracy to their vassals nor was Sparta able to enforce Athens being ruled by kings - when Athens surrendered to the Peloponnesian League (Sparta and its tributes) at the end of the namesake war in 404BC, Sparta installed a pro-Spartan oligarchy history calls the Thirty Tyrants. This group was semi-successful in that it wasn’t initially met by civil war, but Athenian democracy was reinstated via uprising merely a year later.When Alexander marched out to conquer Persia, he did so as a Macedonian. He wasn’t interested in building something to last, so there was no unifying vision of just what Greek ideas would be spread through Asia. Where Greek culture thrived, such as in Egypt, it was only because his successors worked to integrate Greek culture with local ideas. Alexander’s companion Ptolemy for instance may have wanted to build what Alexander could not, but he was still a Macedonian. His master was a king, he had lived under kings, he didn’t see what all the fuss with Athenian democracy was about.Everyone builds democracy on the Roman principles of Res Publica because unlike the Greeks, Italy had a centralised governmental system under Rome. They, unlike Greece, had spread their idea of how to govern because a unitary state was far more cohesive than a collection of vassals that were probably going to break off from you at any time. Res Publica was an idea that spread across the European continent because the Romans wanted a coherent administration.

Besides Athenian democracy and Spartan diarchy, what other governmental systems did the ancient Greek city-states practice?

If you look more closely at Greek city states you'll see that it's rather hard to categorise them as one system of government. Athens was the seat of a tyrant for a long time, and also had a body of 30 tyrants imposed upon them by Sparta. At the same time Athens had little respect for democracy, crafting an empire from city states and island nations which they once called allies and friends. The city was briefly held by the Persians, with their King of Kings.As for Sparta, the diarchy was merely the very tip. In fact if you read some Xenophon you may be inclined to think that the two kings actually were far from the top of the ladder. Sparta actually had the weirdest jumble of systems anyone could hope blend together.Diarchy. Sparta had two kings, from two royal families. The position was hereditary, though specifically it went to the eldest son born during the reign of his father, not before the reign began. The purpose of this system was to ensure while one king was out fighting, another would be in Sparta.Democracy/oligarchy. Five annually elected officials named ephors fill this spot. They accompanied the king but were also known to be a higher power, some historians record them punishing kings on occasion.Democracy/aristocracy. The gerousia was an office of 28 aristocratic elders (and the 2 Kings) who served for life. It was founded by the semi-mythological politician Lycurgus. Members were elected through shouting, whoever got the loudest cheer from current members was allowed to join. They were able to veto decisions made by the following department.Direct democracy. All Spartan men were permitted to join the Ekklēsia. They would vote on state matters such as going to war (again by cheering).Tyranny. While not part of the government there was a ‘secret police’ in Sparta named the Kryptia. They specialised in enforcing certain matters such as terrorising the helots (slaves) to keep them in line. It was common for the state to declare war on its slaves to make the murder legal.Theocracy. Being when it was, religion was an important aspect in all state decisions. A commonly known example of religion dictating state policy is in 490BC when the Spartans could not assist the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon due to a religious festival.Their many departments do give a taste of avaliable forms of governing that existed throughout Greece and surrounding areas (such as Asia Minor).

What was the first democratic country in the world?

The term democracy, which means “rule by the people,” was coined by the Greeks of ancient Athens to describe their city-state’s system of self-rule, which reached its golden age around 430 B.C. under the skilled orator and politician Pericles. It is probable that the Athenians were not the first group of people to adopt such a system (a few places in India have traditions of local democracy that claim earlier origins) but because the Greeks named it, they have a good claim at being the “first” democracy, even though large portions of Athenian society—most notably women and slaves—could not participate.The title of oldest continuously functioning democracy is more hotly contested. Iceland, the Faroe Islands and the Isle of Man all have local parliaments founded in the ninth and 10th centuries, when Vikings pillaged, plundered and set up legislative bodies on the sea-islands of far northern Europe. Iceland’s national parliament, the Althing, dates back to A.D. 930, but it spent centuries under Norwegian and Danish rule. Man and the Faroes, meanwhile, remain dependencies of the United Kingdom and Denmark, respectively.The United States is among the oldest modern democracies, but it is only the oldest if the criteria are refined to disqualify claimants ranging from Switzerland to San Marino. Some historians suggest that the Native American Six Nations confederacy (Iroquois), which traces its consensus-based government tradition across eight centuries, is the oldest living participatory democracy. Others point out that meaningful democracy only arrived at a national level in 1906, when Finland became the first country to abolish race and gender requirements for both voting and for serving in government.FootnoteWhat is the world’s oldest democracy?