The Greek civilization brought to light democracy. A democracy of direct representation without middlemen or other electoral bodies in between. Since the 5th century B.C the citizens of Athens, who had completed the 20th year of their life, could take part in an assembly called “ecclesia of demos”, which meant: the call of the people.
It was within this assembly that the Athenians were gathered to make decisions about all the important issues of their City-State.Major issues such as the foreign policy or the declaration of war were thorougly discusssed. Each citizen could express his opinion and in case the assembly had been misled by someone’s proposal, an imminent punishment was to be imposed on the citizen who caused a political and social unrest to the city of Athens.
