Cleisthenes: The Ideology Of Athenian Democracy

Cleisthenes was a Athenian politician that changed the political game. He brought forth the ideology of Demokratia or rule by the people, we know know this ideology as Democracy.

Before 507 B.C. the city-states of Ancient Greece were failing to uphold control. At the time most city-states were either Monarchies or an Oligarchy, a government ran by a select few. But by the time of the of the collapse of the Bronze age the city states overthrew their kings and adopted a constitution. They still kept the kings but the power that they held was derived from the constitution. This ultimately diminished the power of the king and put more power into the aristocratic people of the city-states. The city-states that were ran by the aristocratic families often went to civil war, because the families would fight over who is in charge. This lead to most Oligarchies having a temporary leader called a Tyrant. These tyrants were in place to lead the city states during a civil war. While this system sounded like it worked, and for the most part it did, it did have it's
Solon also made the Athenians promise to uphold this system for 10 years. Despite promising to do what Solon had requested they only did this for about 5 years and were back to their old ways of government. After the Athenian Aristocrats had undermined Solon’s reformed government, Solon’s cousin Peisistratos took control. Peisistratos did maintain his cousin’s government and ways his son, Hippias didn’t do so well. Hippias, not as benign as his Peisistratos or Solon, began a reign of terror.
In 510 BCE a man named Cleisthenes, son a powerful aristocrat and leader, drove Hippias from Athens, with help of the Spartans. Like Solon, Cleisthenes was more interested in reforming the government than obtaining power. His way of bringing reforms and justice to the common people upset the aristocrats in