Ancient Greece: Rise of the democracy IN 5 MINUTES | 6th Grade TCI L26

Hey friends, what's up? Welcome back. Today we are going over still ancient Greece. This is the second lesson because this is lesson 26. This is the rise of Greek democracy. Our objective, how did democracy develop in ancient Greece? Introduction. So, building off of the last lesson, lesson 25, they definitely had a lot of isolated communities because they were separated by steep mountains, making communities grow in very diverse ways. Major differences started to arise. One being how people governed themselves. All of the ancient Greek colonies spoke the same language. However, they did not view Greece as one united country. The people identified with their hometown, what they called their city, and these were known as city-states. So, maintaining their own laws, army, and currency, but basically they were stationed in other countries. Part one of the rise of democracy. This was the monarchy. This means one person inherits power. Monarchy means the king. The governing power is in the hands of one individual. They did not allow queens to govern, no. This was from 2000 to 1850 CE, and a monarch or king ruled most of the Greek city-states at this time. Initially, kings were chosen by the people of the Greek city-state, but then kings started demanding that after their death, their power should be passed down to their children, which was typically their oldest son. So, consequently, Greek monarchs rose to power through inheritance. With the monarchy came aristocrats. The king possessed many powers, like creating and enforcing laws, but kings also had councils of aristocrats to advise them. So, aristocrats is the Greek word for best. I often think of them as the besties, because these members were rich men who inherited land from their families, members of the most powerful class in ancient Greek society. At first, the aristocrats had little actual power, unless it was during wartime. Kings depended on their aristocrats in wartime to buy and supply soldiers with armor and horses. These advisors became the new ruling group after the king lost power, because they kind of figured, hey, we're kind of doing everything here, and I don't see why we need you. So, these aristocrats, aka besties, joined forces, and they became the oligarchy. So, oligarchy means few people shared powers. In the court you see, we made it besties, they took charge. So, oligarchy, the Greek word means few. This kicked the king out of power, and the king's advisors became the new ruling group. Most Greek city-states were ruled this way at this point. Most Greek oligarchs were aristocrats, which were the prior king's advisors, which were rich men who inherited land from their families. Yes, it restated that, which means yes, it's important. They also had very comfortable lives. They spent their time hunting, participating in chariot races, and going to or hosting parties. They ignored a majority of the people's needs by passing laws that favored the rich, protecting and increasing their own wealth. The poor were required to work long hours in the field, yet aristocrats had easy lives. They used the army to force others to obey these unjust laws. Some laws forced farmers who were unable to pay their debts to sell themselves into slavery. Basically, the rich became richer, the poor became poorer. Okay, so the people's hate for oligarchs increased, so the poor turned to the army leaders to use their soldiers to remove the oligarchs from power. So basically, they ended up going to the army leaders and they yeeted these oligarchs out of power. Here's basically the rundown of how it went. So first, monarchy, aka the kings, which the aristocrats, aka the besties, helped out the king, but then they realized, you know what, we're the besties, not the king, we should take over, and they thought they should be in charge. So that became the oligarchy, which means 50 people that ran. So the rich got rich, the poor got poorer, they only got for themselves, and eventually they were thrown out of power because army leaders and poor people, majority rule, yeeted them out. Next came the tyranny. One person takes power by force. I thought a cat was just as appropriate because I know my cat runs my house. So, mid-600s to about 500 BCE, a form of government where a person, who is not the lawful king, holds power. These are the men who forced the oligarchs from power. Tyranny is sometimes called a dictatorship or run by a dictator. Military force allowed this type of leader to rule. So, overstepping the current ruler was to help other people and take that leadership role. Some were well-liked because they made laws that actually improved other people's lives. Then this led to the democracy, where all citizens share power. People of Athens were the first Greeks to develop this form of democracy. There was direct democracy in Greece. Every citizen is allowed to vote on every issue. Representative democracy in the USA, people vote for the representatives who then decide issues on behalf of the people. So, Athens believed that people should rule themselves. The ideal democracy would become one of the greatest gifts from ancient Greece to modern Europe. Here's a quick little timeline for you. This is from the TCI curriculum. Thank you for watching this review on Rise of the Democracy, Lesson 26. Just a disclaimer, all of this information is from the TCI curriculum. I did not do my own research or try to explain anything like that. This is a curriculum that our school uses. If you liked this video, please give it a big thumbs up. Don't forget to subscribe. I'll see you in the next one, Lesson 27, where we talk about Athens and Sparta.