Influence of Greek & Roman Governance on U.S.

The American system of government owes much the governmental structures of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Those systems were different than the one we have today, but the philosophy of governance influenced how the Founding Fathers shaped the government in the New World. They also derived certain ideas from Greek and Roman originals. The government of the Roman Republic was not a democracy, though it did have democratic elements.

In the earliest era of human history, areas were ruled by chieftains or tribal leaders who became leaders by inheritance or raw power. In the earliest civilizations, an allpowerful ruler or king governed, and these early rulers like Hammurabi, Sennacherib, Xerxes, and Pharaoh Ramses I held immense power while their subjects had few rights. Many of the Greek citystates developed a form of democracy, with Athens being the best-known. The Golden Age of Athenian democracy began about 500 B.C. and lasted for a little more than a century. Other city states, such as Sparta, were ruled by a king.

Rome created the first great world-state and developed an empirewide system of law and citizenship. Rome's genius lay in the development of law and government. The first phase of Rome was the period of the Republic beginning in 509 B.C., and the second phase was the Empire once Rome initiated the trend toward political and legal universalism. The early Romans absorbed the Etruscans, thought to have come from Asia Minor before settling in n

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for the same reason that some animals become leaders--they are stronger, "superior of body or courage of soul . . . The standard of this authority would be physical strength. . ." (Finley 477). When inheritance becomes the rule, the leader is expected to be marked by ideas of goodness and justice. Polybius also finds that the raising of children over time produces the idea of duty, which then becomes an important component in loyalty to the leader and to the country as a whole. Polybius finds that the good leader uses reason rather than emotions to guide him in making decisions, and reason should be based on those qualities of fidelity, honor, and reverence noted above. When a leader fails to adhere to these principles and instead elevates his own desires or finds ways to cater to the emotions of the mob, government falters. The checks and balances that Polybius cites in the Roman constitution are such as to prevent this from happening by building in ways of preventing it and ways to keep the leader properly directed. Another creation of the Roman era was the Roman Senate, composed of leading citizens who were members of the original aristocratic families in the old Republic. The purpose of this group was to advise the Ki

Category: Government - I