In the ancient world, people had practiced different government structures to rule over their state effectively. The different forms of government interested me because this is one of the main things that we have gotten from the ancient world. The very first civilization was the Greek civilization, which was a rich, cultural, full of good artists and intelligent philosophers. The other famous civilization of the ancient world is Rome, which turned from aristocracy to Republic, turned to Empire and then end up in separating into two parts: eastern empire and western empire. In the Ancient world, the forms of government had gradually changed from Athenian democracy to Roman Republic, then to Roman Empire and end up with Byzantine Empire. .
The first governmental structure according to the history took place in Ancient Greece. Athens was the most important city-state of Greece, which became a first democratic state. The aristocratic oligarchy came to an end when Cleisthenes, an aristocratic reformer opposed the idea of reestablishing the oligarchy. He established the basis to the Athenian democracy in 508B.C. He divided all the citizens in ten tribes, who chose fifty members each year and made a council of five hundred members. This assembly of all male members was authorized to pass the new laws and administer the foreign and financial affairs. Cleisthenes reforms made Athens more united than ever before. Athens came to the new leadership of Pericles after the defeat of Persians in the fifth century B.C. Pericles expanded the democracy by involving poor citizens in the public affairs. He made them eligible for public offices formerly closed to them and introduced state pay for officeholders (Spielvogel, p. 55). .
According to Pericles, "Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands of not a minority but of the whole people"(Reader, Thucydides, p.28). Pericles attached all the Athenians in the democratic system when he made an assembly of total 43,000 members with no class difference.
