The Ancient Greeks had a government similar to the one we enjoy in the United States, a Democracy. Democracies are where decisions about government were made by citizens and councils. Democracy started to form around 400-300 B.C. in Athens. Women, children and slaves could not vote. Citizens were only men who had Greek origin and were not slaves.
Voting in Athens. Image from National Geographic, March 1944
When there were meetings to vote, there had to be 6,000 or more citizens for the meeting to be held. If citizens did not care for a politician, when they voted, they wrote on a clay tablet which person they wanted to leave Athens. If one person got more than 6,000 votes against him, he couldn't come back to Athens for 10 years.
Popular government - is the idea that people could and should rule themselves rather than be ruled by others. This is the foundation of Greek Democracy
The term democracy is derived from the Greek words demos ("the people") and kratia ("rule"). The first democratic forms of government developed in the Greek city states during the 6th century BC. Although demos is sometimes said to mean just the poor, Aristotle's Constitution of Athens shows that in Athens all citizens, rich and poor, participated fully in government; minors, women, slaves, and foreigners, however--altogether perhaps 90 percent of the population--were not citizens
Democracy has enjoyed continued support from the time of ancient Greece until today because it represents an ideal of justice as well as a form of government. The ideal is the belief that freedom and equality are good in themselves and that democratic participation in ruling enhances human dignity. The ideal and the practice of democracy are inseparably linked because rulers who are subject to voter approval are more likely to treat the voters justly.