• During the seventh and sixth centuries BC, aristocrats ran the show in most of Greece
• Aristocrats, members of the ruling class
• The attended symposiums, meetings where the elite men would enjoy wine and poetry, performances by dancers and acrobats and the company of hetaeras (courtesans) while discussing politics.
• politics
• no women, middle class, slaves, or certain aristocrats who did not have the right connections.
• tyrants seize control
• sometimes, aristocrats would form alliances with hoplites- well armed soldiers, and set up an alternative form of government known as tyranny
• tyrant- someone who rules outside the framework of the polis
• modern meaning of tyrant- an abusive or repressive ruler
• Greek meaning- someone who seized power
• Draconian- unnecessarily harsh
• Draco- 621
• Solon reforms 594
• outlaws debt slavery
• all Athenian citizen can vote at the assembly
• any citizen can press charges against other wrongdoers
• Cleistheses
• more reforms around 500 BC
• all citizens can submit laws at the assembly
• created the council of five hundred (numbers chosen at random, to counsel the assembly
• women slaves and foreigners could still not vote.