Monarchy In Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece was less of a country and more of a collection of neighbouring cities that shared a couple seas. It didn't have a single government that presided over everyone. Instead, each city ran itself as the people there saw fit or had imposed upon them. As such, many differing types of political systems were in place.

Monarchy

In a monarchy, the people were ruled over by a dictator of some sort. The monarch had all say in how the state was run and the citizens held no power at all. This is in stark contrast to a democracy, in which the people have the power. In modern democracy, all (or most) people have a say in government, but even in the ancient Greek version of democracy, there were many more people in charge than in a monarchy.

I couldn't find this in the reading material for the week, but it was easy enough to look up in a dictionary. An aristocracy and an oligarchy are pretty similar. In fact, I'd say an aristocracy is a specific type of oligarchy in which the small ruling group is composed of a specific class.

Tyranny

Tyrannies were just like monarchies, except that the dictator had come to rule the area because they took over by force (Cartledge, 2011). This was different than in a monarchy, as in a monarchy, the role of dictator was passed down through the generations. Aside from that, the two are the same, so tyrannies compare to other types of government the same as monarchies do.

Oligarchy

In an oligarchy, all power belongs to a small group of people. There isn't a single ruler, but the majority of people don't get a say in how things are run. This is sort of a middle ground between a monarchy and a democracy. More people have their say than in a monarchy, but less people do than in a democracy. In ancient Greece, the select few that ran things were the wealthy elite (Cartledge, 2011). Because an aristocracy divides political power on class lines, there's no rising to power. However, in other types of oligarchies, there may be a slim chance of someone without power obtaining power. For example, when political power is given only to the wealthy, there's a slime (almost none) chance of