Athens was one of many ancient settlements (demes) tucked away in the hills or hugging the rugged coast of the Attic peninsula. All the people of Attica were Greek. They spoke the same language and worshiped the same gods, but the rough terrain isolated the demes from each other. Large or small, each was stubbornly independent. When crops failed, when fishing was poor, they raided one another to survive.

Life on the peninsula slowly changed. A brilliant leader named Theseus emerged. He persuaded the scrappy demes of Attica to put aside their differences and form a unified polis (city-state) with Athens as the capital. United, the demes of Attica no longer fought among themselves, and peace was soon followed by prosperity.

Athens outgrew the top of the Acropolis and fanned out at the foot of its cliffs. A new agora (marketplace) was built to the north of the Acropolis as trade with other Greek poleis and even other countries expanded. On nearby Pnyx Hill, where government meetings were held, a stone platform was built where speakers could stand to address the ever-larger crowds that gathered to listen.

Beyond these public areas, mud brick houses and workshops sprawled in every direction. The haphazard new streets were so narrow that residents knocked before leaving home so pedestrians wouldn't be struck as the door swung open. In the dark, windowless rooms, tame ferrets -- there were no cats -- hunted for mice and rats. The crowded lower city was for living, working, buying, and selling. The top of the Acropolis became a sanctuary reserved for religion. It was crowded with altars, temples, and statues of gods.

Government changed when the demes united, and it continued to change afterwards. By the 600s BCE, after centuries of monarchy, there were no longer kings in Athens. Control of the government passed into the hands of a small group of wealthy landowners.

The people of Athens were no longer subject to the whims of a monarch, and the new government established important rights. They wrote laws and established courts where accused individuals could defend themselves. Even so, the lives of most Athenians were controlled by the wealthy few who were in power.

In 594 BCE, Solon, a poet and a thoughtful leader, urged reforms that allowed more citizens to participate in the government. He also passed laws that protected poor people from unfair treatment by the powerful landowners.

During 508 and 507 BCE, more reforms were proposed, this time by a landowner named Kleisthenes. Although he came from one of Athens' most aristocratic families, Kleisthenes thought all citizens, not just wealthy landowners, should have a say in government. His reforms marked the true beginning of democracy in Athens.

It is hard for us today to understand just how extraordinary Athenian democracy was. At the time of Kleisthenes, Egypt was ruled by a pharaoh whose subjects believed he was a god. In Persia, the king had the power of life and death over his subjects. All over the world, people bowed to the will of a single monarch, but not in Athens. In Athens, citizens were ruled by themselves. They obeyed laws written by themselves. Citizens were tried by juries made up of themselves.

Athenian democracy was controversial from the start. Most landowning aristocrats didn't like it -- they wanted to keep the power for themselves. Greeks in other poleis complained that it gave Athenian citizens too much freedom! Despite the opposition, democracy took root in Athens.

It was a "direct" democracy -- citizens weren't represented by elected officials, as we are. They made the laws themselves, in person, during meetings of the ekklesia, the popular assembly. Every one of Athens' 30,000 citizens was a member of the ekklesia and had the right to attend every session and to speak and vote on every law.

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Excerpted from The Parthenon: The Height of Greek Civilization by Elizabeth Mann
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