Time Travellers Reflection: Essay

Time Travellers Essay Reflection

Project Description:

In this project we had to write a 3-5 page essay about our pillar in our civilization. My civilization was Athens, and my pillar was Government and Society.

Process:

We had many drafts and revisions to go through in this project. I myself had several drafts, including the rough draft and final draft. Each and every time I wrote a new draft I put all my effort into it because I believe that you can only have good revisions if you have a good draft. However, we began with researching. I alone had over 20 pages of research which I read and highlighted using a color coding technique. This allowed my to find exact information easier than having to search through all 20 pages of information. After I had read and highlighted the information I began to write my rough draft.

My rough draft was about 10 pages long, which exceeded the maximum amount of pages. Because of this I had to work really hard to cut the paper down for the first draft. However, when we added in the foot notes to my third draft, it added more than a page to my essay. So, for the next draft I focused only on editing the actual writing, then edited it with Charlotte, re-wrote it again, and cut the fifth draft down to the maximum amount of five pages. By my seventh and final draft I had really solid writing and fit all the requirements for the paper.

Reflection:

I learned a lot about the role government played in the society of Ancient Athens through researching this paper. While I wasn’t surprised at the way the women of Athens were treated, I was still upset by the inequality and unfair treatment of females in their society. It was really sad to me how the only way to have a voice in the city was to become a prostitute. While these woman were the least respected, at least they had more freedom where as married woman were confined to a house all day doing nothing but chores.

When it came to writing the paper, I was really struggling with keeping my draft within the page requirements. However, after learning how to efficiently combine sentences and cut out un-needed information, I was able to turn my seven page draft into a 5 page final essay.

For the next essay I would really like to try to keep all my drafts within the maximum page requirements so that I can spend more time editing my writing than cutting the writing down. This will help me to break the habit of going over the page requirements.

Artifact:

Luna E. Rey

December 8th, 2009

Government and Society in Ancient Athens

“A living civilization creates; a dying builds museums.” -Martin H. Fisher

Over the course of history ancient civilizations have been the foundation for which every modern society has been built. These ancient societies had their own art, architecture, religions, and social classes. However, what really made a civilization was their efficient implementation of government. Without a working government that provides for all their people, civilizations lasted but a small period of time unless they learned to adopt the ideas of another civilization. Ancient Athens was, in particular, very key to the development of our civilizations today and though it had many flaws and failures, Athens' successes were immensely significant to the development of modern government and society.

Home to monuments such as the Acropolis and Parthenon, Athens was and still is a city bursting with great architecture, technology, and art. During the time often known as the "Golden Age" of Greece, Athens saw a huge development in philosophy and the arts due to such inspirations as Sophocles, Socrates, Plato, and Herodotus. The birthplace of democracy, Athens is greatly thought to be the most influential on western civilization due to its many developments within intellectual and artistic areas[1].

Democracy in Athens was a huge success. They had a two-part legislature, similar to our three-part legislature in the United States, composed of the Assembly, or Ecclesia, and the Boule, Or Council. The Council was made up of 500 men, fifty of which were chosen from each tribe by random drawing every year, whose job was to draft new laws and policies for the city/state. The Assembly, made up of nine administrators and ten military officials, would get together and discuss propositions before voting to reject or accept the legislation the Council had formulated. Every male citizen had the right to speak and vote at these gathering, similar to how we vote in America today, and at least 6,000 men had to show up in order for the Assembly to take place[2]. This was one of the many duties assigned to male citizens that allowed them to participate in the politics of their city. The assembly was a great tool that created a freedom of speech type of environment which encouraged the citizens to contribute to the process of law.

Male citizens were also summoned to serve as jurors for the city/states’ court, made up of 200 – 400 men. Such a large number ensured that the accused could not bribe the jury to dismiss their case. If the person was found guilty, they either paid fines and suffered temporary loss of their citizenship for smaller crimes, or were exiled or sentenced to death for serious offenses[3]. These punishments effectively kept the people of the city in check and rid Athens of a high crime rate. Even their government’s leaders had punishments for not doing their job correctly.

One specialized form of exile was ostrakons. If a leader received more than 6000 votes in compliance with his being power-hungry and or dishonest and unpopular than he was exiled for ten years. This efficaciously kept the exiled leader from knowing of the hoi polloi's opinions and goings on within the municipality because the people of Athens relied heavily on communication for news to get around[4]. Overall Athenian leaders were very successful in keeping their people happy and letting them have a say in the politics of their city, but women and non-citizens needs were neglected.

While Athens' democratic government was highly effective for an ancient civilization and greatly impacted the world around it, their society was filled with many flaws. In Athens male citizens ruled the city. The highest in the male social class was Aristocrats, followed by small farmers and Thetes (urban craftsmen, artists, and trireme rowers). As citizens they could participate in the poli's or politics of the city-state while women could not. A man’s job in Athens included heading the household, providing food and shelter for his wife and children, and participating in the politics of the city[5]. However it was greatly thought in Athens that only Aristocrats should have a say in the politics of the city[6]. This popular opinion produced a strong distinction between poor men and Aristocrats, who heavily believed that poor men should have the same rights as Metics (immigrants and were only allowed to own land in the city and could never gain citizenship). While Athens failed in the way Metics rights were limited, and the idea of poorer men being denied the right to have a say in the politics was embraced, they could have improved their government and society even more significantly by giving women and slaves a voice in their community.

Women in Athens were viewed as highly sexual beings with uncontrollable sexual urges that had to be contained for their own benefit. For this reason, they were controlled by the men in their life from birth to death. Married women in ancient Athens social standing was the same as her husband's. While they were the most respected in society, they were also the least free. They were almost never allowed to leave the house, except for a few convivial religious festivals, weddings, and funerals[7]. They were confined to the house most days and given little more rights than a slave and were looked to only to bear suitable children; however; married women were extremely more respected by men and other married women than un-married women.

Women who were not married were separated into two classes. The Hetaerae class was more educated than either wives or concubines. They were sexual and intellectual companions to men and were paid an expensive price for their company[8]. They were allowed into parties with men and were able to freely speak their mind about the goings on within the city. While the wives did work at home, looking after children and attending to the house, these women were allowed outside and had more freedom as they were not controlled by their husbands and/or fathers, giving them more rights than slaves. Then there were the Concubines, poor women who tended to be widows, girls that were left to die as babies and slaves who were prostitutes[9]. While most un-married women were not treated very well, they were often treated with slightly more respect and acceptance than the slaves in Athens.

Even though the city eventually rid itself of slavery, it was still a huge fault within the civilization because it allowed the unacceptable and un-fair treatment of human beings. Male and female slaves within the city were treated very brutally. Female slaves mainly worked in brothels and houses, which was much more humane than male slaves’ jobs[10]. Male slaves attended to the duties their masters had given them, as did females. However, unruly and disobedient male slaves were often sent to work in the Athenian silver mine, an assignment looked upon as a death sentence, where they were shackled in chains, brutally treated by their masters, and had no hope of gaining freedom[11]. This punishment was extremely inhumane and was a major fault in ancient Athenian society. The mistreatment of woman, use of slaves, and unfair deployment of non-citizens were major faults that plagued the city. So, while the democratic government was mainly successful, not including the exclusion of woman from politics, their society was a huge detriment in their civilization. However, the mix of both a faulty government and bad social class and standards could have led to the downfall of the Athenian civilization.

Without the development of democracy, Athens would have been filled with even more faults, just like the Mayans whose civilization was killed off by Spanish invaders. While the Mayan empire was much younger than ancient Athens, it was also much less developed. The Mayans were a monarchy ruled by priests, where as Athens was ruled by the citizens. Both civilizations where heavily religious based, but the Mayan government was focused even more solely around religion. They, like Athenians, had sacrifices, but they sacrificed their own people instead of animals and used it as part of their government verses a religious ceremony. This led to a decrease in population which, when the Spanish invaders came, was not very helpful to the survival of their civilization[12]. The Mayans had a great military, but failed to survive because of their faulty and un-fair government which, as a monarchy, didn’t provide an opportunity for their citizens have a say in their government, just like the city/state of Sparta.

While the Spartan’s military was extremely successful, its government, which Aristotle called a mixture of a Monarchy, Oligarchy, and Democracy, was seemingly unsuccessful because their race eventually died out, and their war practices often led to the deaths of their own people. So even though the Spartans and Mayans ranked high in many areas where the Athenians did not, such as their military and fairer treatment of women, they also lacked in areas where Athens excelled, such as government.

Athens was greatly significant to the development of modern day democracy, but failed to have the voices of all the citizen’s heard. Because of this it was very hard for the government to do what was best for all of their people. Because over half the people living in Athens could not voice their opinions, such as slaves, Metics, and women, their needs were often forgotten amongst the voices of the male citizens. So, in society Athens lacked in creating equality. However, overall their government was immensely successful in getting most opinions heard which is more than can be said for most civilizations of their time and after. Though their society lacked in fairness and equality, without Athens and their immense developments in government, modern day administration would cease to exist as it does today.

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[1] “Travel and Geography – Athens.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Nov. 11^th, 2009.

[2] Nardo, Don. Life in Ancient Greece. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, 1996. Page 22

[3] Nardo, Don. Page 22-23

[4] Nardo, Don. Page 23.

[5] Konstam, Argos. Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece. New York, NY: Thalamus Publishing, 2003. Pg. 92

[6] Nardo, Don. Page 20.

[7] Nardo, Don. Page 98.

[8] Nardo, Don. Page 92.

[9] Graham, Casey. “Angel Fire.” Casey’s Website for Ancient Athenian Women. 11^th Nov., 2009.

[10] Graham, Casey.

[11] Nardo, Don. Chapter 8 and Page 20.

[12] Coe, Michael D. The Maya: Sixth Edition. Bt Bound, 1999.