Democracy: The Golden Age Of Athenian Democracy

When talking about empires, a negative connotation of being oppressed is usually present. Living in the modern age, we tend to consider democracy as the “rightest form of government”. However, democracy is not simply “freedom for all” or “the will of the people” for ancient empires. It was a complex, delicate system that sometime people overlook its inherent fragility. Many democratic states, such as ancient Athens, the Roman Republic, failed to keep the promise of freedom for all and ended up in failure. Most of them not only collapsed, but were replaced by dictatorial regimes. Compared to the democratic states, empires ruled by dictators or emperor with coercion seemed to function more effectively and efficiently, taking Imperial Rome, Qin

Athens, under the leadership of Pericles, enjoyed a golden age of democracy. Pericles himself was extremely pleased with this form of government as he claimed proudly in his funeral oration that “‘the city state’s’ administration favours the many instead of the few”. However, this Golden Age of Athens was not as golden as it appeared. Internal problems prevailed under the administration of democracy. The freedom granted to the public has created several issues for the city-state/empire. In fact, Thucydides portrayed the Athenian masses as moody, emotional and indecisive. The Athenians were described as “unreliable and all too often moved by irrational emotions.” So, does the majority know what is best for the common good? Can the people administer their own affairs wisely? The answer was probably no for the case of the Athenians. The decisions made by the public has led Athens into several unnecessary wars that eventually led to its downfall. And after the death of Pericles, the Athens’ democracy began to decline. So, it is reasonable to conclude that Athens had prospered not just because of its freedom, but because of the wisdom of its leader who was able to control the feelings of the masses. On the contrary, Qin in China had a completely different political system compared to Athens. One of the main reason for its success was its highly-centralized political system. Under Shang-yang’s reform, power was even “stripped from the nobles to enhance the central government”. The ruler was considered to be the "source of all law", and the society 's task was to "follow this law and enforce it". This form of highly-constrained government was actually very strong, leading the state of Qin to defeat all the other states and unite China. Consequently, it could be argued that under the coercion of a powerful leader, empires were