Decision-Making in Ancient Athens


Target


This lesson is about how the Athenian democracy functioned. You will learn how the citizens came together to make laws and run the city-state.

Introduction


This is the artist Raphael's idea of the ancient Greek assembly. Obviously, it is very different from our House of Parliament.

How did these people depicted as writing notes and books make decisions for their city? Read on to find out.
The two thinkers in the centre are Plato and Aristotle. Plato to the left wears red to depict fire and air. Aristotle to the right wears blue and brown, the colours of the earth. What they wear and where they point shows their ideas. Plato points up to the heavens.  This is where human morals, principles, language, reason, and thoughts come from. Plato is saying truth, beauty, faithfulness, love, and goodness are beyond what we can know by the senses. They are shadows of the truer unchanging spiritual reality. Aristotle points down to the earth. He is examining the physical reality around us (what we can taste, touch, feel, smell, see) or experience.  Science, mathematics, art, literature, relationships, justice, and government of the human world are rooted both in abstract and in physical realities.