Instead of providing you with exemplars, I will be giving you the big ideas that I hoped to see in your extended responses. Please review them. If you feel that you adequately explained them in your answers, you can bring me your test and I will reassess. You will also need to understand these big ideas for an upcoming test on modern governments. Those lessons will be coming up in the next few weeks.
Monarchy – The power remained the hands of one person of royal birth, and the power normally remained in the royal family. The monarch usually had a council of advisors, however, unless the monarch left no heir, the advisors had little power. The peasants in the kingdom remained there because their chances of survival were better, under the protection of the king. Their lives were hard and lacked hope.
Oligarchy – The government evolved into the power being held by more than one person. These people were usually still of royal birth and were called aristocrats or oligarchs, and they held all the power. There was a new class of people, called the middle class. These people usually had skills that made them wealthier. With their money, they had more power, however, very little political voice. The lives of the peasants still depended on the whims and protection of the oligarchs, and they still had no voice, but now there was more hope with the development of the middle class.
Tyranny – This was a short lived type of government, where someone took the power away from the existing government through violence. The tyrant would often treat the peasants with some kindness in the beginning, and repay favors to the people who helped him gain power. Eventually he would become greedy and would be over thrown, or perhaps his heirs would be unsuccessful. Peasants still had no voice, and the middle class had political power only if they were willing to pay the tyrant to grant them.
Democracy – In this early form of democracy, power was limited individually, but was in the hands of all rich and poor male citizens. There was the Assembly where the majority of the men could meet to discuss and decided on laws and foreign policy. There was the Council that handled the day to day activities, and the members were chosen by lottery from the Assembly and were paid, so that even the poor could participate. Generals were elected during times of war and could be re-elected. Women continued to have no voice for many more years, however, democracy was preferable to all previous forms of government because the laws were decided by many, not by one or a few.
