Social Sciences and History / Unit 3 SSH 0214 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Athenian Democracy and Its Limits
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The idea
The Classical Age ran from four seventy-nine to three thirty-eight BCE. Democracy crystallized under Cleisthenes and peaked under Pericles, with about a tenth of the population voting, while Athens extracted wealth from other cities through the League.
In practice
The anchor's phrase: the ironies of democracy.
Where people slip
Democratic government would not return to the West until the late eighteenth century. The idea outlived the institution.
Your place on the trail
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