On May 12, 2005, at 9:01 AM, Dan Minette wrote:
What I've read indicates that the Greek democracies bore little
resemblance to our own. The patriarchs of the families got to vote, not
the free males.
Missed that one. I don't believe that's wholly correct. There were cases argued, for instance, involving hetara (male prostitutes) voting -- they weren't allowed to hold public office and apparently this reflected in their voting rights as well. Slaves and women, of course, were not permitted enfranchisement.
But the Greek model *did* reflect an attempt at reasonably fair suffrage, and the Roman one even more so. The concept of democracy was not invented in the US, was not an artifact of the American Revolution or 1776. It was built upon, based on earlier models, one can argue improved substantially, but the idea was not new when Jefferson et. al. proposed it.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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