World History Ancient Athens and Government Terms

Government

A system for controlling a society

Monarchy

a single person ruled government (king or monarch)

Aristocracy

a government ruled by a small group of privileged elites or nobility

Oligarchy

A government ruled by a few powerful people

Democracy

a government ruled by the people through voting for representatives

Direct Democracy

a government where citizens rule and make laws directly (directly voting for laws)

Solon

passed a law that outlawed debt slavery (being a slave to work to repay debt)

Cleisthenes

generally regarded as the founder of democracy in Athens

Pericles

increased the number of paid public officers and payed jurors

Socrates

used a question-and-answer approach that became known as socratic method

Plato

he wanted a society governed not by the richest and most powerful but instead by the wisest and most qualified