The Different Forms Of Government In Ancient Greece

There were many forms of government in Ancient Greece including monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. These varying forms of government had many similarities and differences and their implementation varied from city-state to city state.

A monarchy means that the people are governed by an undivided rule or absolute sovereignty by a single person. Monarchies are typically ruled by a king, usually with the help of a council of advisors. Greece was ruled by a series of foreign kings and emperors for around 2000 years and as recently as the early 1970’s; until they claimed independence again and became a democracy.
An aristocracy is a form of government in which power is in the hands of a small, privileged, ruling class (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2014). In Ancient Greece, an aristocracy was sort of a pseudo aristocracy meaning that the wealthier, privileged citizens had power and influence in the government regardless of whether it was a democracy in Athens or an oligarchy in Sparta. In Sparta aristocrats were veterans of the Messenian Wars and were awarded land and this became the basis of the Spartan aristocracy (Brand, 2014). In Athens, aristocrats were the wealthiest of the natural born Athenian men. Aristocrats were very persuasive, using their power to manipulate the masses to vote in line with policies and laws that they favored.
Tyranny was used in many of the Greek city-states. Eventually tyrannical rule would be overthrown by the unhappy people and new forms of government and/or rule would form. Tyrannies are typically ruled with unfair treatment of the people being