What was one problem of Greek democracy?

Answer 1

Athenian democracy was developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 500 BC. Athens was one of the very first known democracies. Yet, despite all the ahistorical descriptions which accompanied the celebrations for the 2,500 years of democracy, the Athenian democracy was not completed with Cleisthenes. It took another twenty or thirty years before election by lot was first introduced for the archons 487 B.C.Cand for the property criterion which excluded the lower strata from higher offices to be abolished after the battle of Plataia, in 479 B.C. Finally, almost another twenty years had to pass for the Areios Pagos to be deprived of its privileges, which were transferred to the Assembly of the People, the Council of the Five Hundred, and the jury courts. The foundations of this democracy were not solid, however, and that is the cause of the decline, which led to its final disappearance once set in motion. The economic factors that supported Pericles' political democracy disappeared quickly. First, the relative economic equality, brought about by the Persian Wars, was completely temporary.

Answer 2

Officers were chosen by lot entirely randomly based on the idea that any citizen was as qualified for any position as any other. This being true is difficult to believe.

It was very vulnerable to the passions of the voters. Although the law required that any citizen accused of a crime receive an individual trial, a group of general were tried together for failing to recover the bodies of fallen Athenian soldiers. When a government officer pointed out that this was illegal, a citizen who was against the general proposed that the officer suffer whatever penalty the generals would receive, at which point the officer withdrew his complaint. The general were executed, an act that was widely considered to be a serious mistake within a year.

Another example of the lack of oversight or structural restraint was when the general Alcibiades was recalled to Athens in the middle of a campaign to answer a charge of petty vandalism brought against him by a political opponent. He was probably guilty, but it was an insignificant crime (warranting a small fine at most) and requiring Athens' best general to leave his army to defend himself against the charge was ludicrous. There was no means of preventing such absurd abuse of the system for the purposes of petty politics. As it happened, Alcibiades was so insulted that he defected to the enemy, the campaign was a disaster without him and it may have cost Athens the war, a defeat which it never truly recovered from.

Answer 3

women werent in government so it wasnt really a democracy

Answer 4

Population brought problems, since family lands had to be split up among the surviving sons.