ADOWPArticle Directory on WordPress

I. Athens

1. The political form of government in Athens was democracy and Athens was an open society. But political rights were restricted to adult male citizens. In Pericles’s Athens, any citizen could hold any office, and offices were filled by lottery.  Almost all offices were held for a year, and they were filled by committees.  The 10 Generals (military men) were one of the few elected offices (annually), and this office was without term limits.
2. Population (350,000–400,000 people)
a. Citizens number 160,000 men, women, and children. 120,000 were women and children, while there were 40,000 adult males with political rights.
b. Resident aliens: (100,000) resident aliens: non-Athenian Greeks, Jews and Phoenicians. Some were wealthy but none had political rights.
c. slaves or “helots” (100,000). They were denied political rights and Aristotle saw them as inferior human beings and “slaves by nature.” They were domestic servants, or served in businesses, crafts, and workshops.
3. The ruling body of Athens was the Assembly. A quorum of 6,000 was needed to conduct business. Although any citizen could address the assembly and propose policy, most of the agenda and business was conducted by the boule, a group of 500 men chosen by ballot, or an “inner council” (an executive committee of 50 men). Legislation, justice, and administration were conducted by the Assembly. The Athenian court systems consisted of juries, of anywhere from 101 to 1,001 men, and were run by ordinary citizens.
4. The plague described by Thucydides in your IH reader breaks out in 430 BCE and kills up to 25% of the population of Athens by 429 BCE, including Pericles himself
5. A paid army and navy of 6,000 men.
6. The contributions of Athens to Western culture in art, history, philosophy, politics, drama and architecture, and science reflect one of the most creative civilizations in world history.

Read more on The World of Athens and Sparta in Classical Greece…

Socrates, the starting point of the succession of four great men, each of whom is the teacher of the next (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great) had a wife, Xanthippe, and three sons. Some sources report that Socrates, like his father, was trained as a stonecutter and that in his later years, he lived off of a modest inheritance from his father. Xenophon (after Plato, the other major source on Socrates) remarks on Socrates poverty, that everything that he owned, including his house was only worth 5 minae.  However, despite his poverty, there have been persistent hints that he was related to Athenian aristocracy, which may have contributed to the general climate at his execution.

Read more on The Life of Socrates…