Hubris In Ancient Greece

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The Greeks believed in morality, taking it very serious. Hubris was the morality that was the most important to them and taken the most serious. When someone acted too prideful, acted almost like a God, almost untouchable, they were displaying hubris. Hubris was something the gods wouldn’t tolerate, resulting in the mortals death later on being their fate. The Greeks took proper burials serious as they believed they couldn’t enter Hades with out a proper burial. Praying to the gods was common along with being ceremonial in their practices. The Greeks are clearly polytheistic in their beliefs with the gods too. Ancient Greece was not politically similar enough to be deemed politically unanimous, specifically pertaining to their different styles…show more content…
They were good for the poor, but hated by the rich. In the Theban Plays Antigone said, “But a tyrant says and does what he pleases” (23) giving a good example of the nature of a tyrant. In the Theban Plays Oedipus is an example of a king as he ruled the Tebes. Oligarchies were governing by a few people. Their people were usually known as elites, some of the richest and most powerful in the city-state. Plato thought aristocracies were the best form of government. Aristocracies are very similar to oligarchies and some say oligarchies are a degenerated form of an aristocracy. Corrupt leaders ruled the oligarchies. Democracy is typically defined as rule of the people. There aren’t any kings or tyrants. Since the people rule they are given the power to vote. The biggest problem with a democracy has always been who is eligible to vote, are they educated and informed? Polity was considered to be a mix of democracy and oligarchy. I have explained the six different types of government used by the ancient Greeks, leaving the question about the Greeks being politically unanimous. The Mycenaean period (Bronze age 2000-1150 BC) was the first time period of the Greeks. The Mycenaeans were the early Greeks. During then Mycenaean period monarchies were the for of government used, ruled by a king. Two great examples of kings during the Mycenaean period would be Agamemnon…show more content…
This new democratic government was adopted by other city-states too soon after. Within the democracy the people who could vote were often only men as women didn’t culturally have power. In Sparta women could hold some positions of authority, whereas anywhere else in Greece they couldn’t. Plato was not favoring of democracies. He argued one of the big problems to be, “the rulers, owning their power to wealth as they do, are unwilling to curtail by law the extravagance of the young, and prevent them squandering their money and ruining themselves; for it is by loans to such spendthrifts or by buying up their property that they hope to increase their wealth and influence.”(Plato 43) Plato’s clearly articulates major problems with democracy. This would be a good reason why some city-states wouldn’t be attracted to democracies. The problem of corruption always comes into politics regardless of the form of government, but some are more suitable than others in certain situations. Other city-states were still run on monarchies, tyrannies and oligarchies. The ancient Greeks were clearly not always the same with their forms of government. Over time many of the city-states did follow others while some did not. We saw how the Greeks used monarchies early on which emerged into aristocracies/ oligarchies, and later into democracies. They weren’t always the same as Sparta was usually the odd ball in Greece. Macedonia kept their monarchy

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