<P> It is unknown whether the word "democracy" was in existence when systems that came to be called democratic were first instituted . The word is attested in Herodotus (Histories 6.43), who wrote some of the earliest surviving Greek prose, but this might not have been before 440 or 430 BC . Around 460 BC an individual is known with the name of' Democrates', a name possibly coined as a gesture of democratic loyalty; the name can also be found in Aeolian Temnus . </P> <P> Athens was not the only polis in Ancient Greece that instituted a democratic regime . Aristotle points to other cities that adopted governments in the democratic style . "Yet, it is only with reference to Athens that we can attempt to trace some of the specific sixth century events that led to the institution of democracy at the end of the century ." </P> <P> Before the first attempt at democratic government, Athens was ruled by a series of archons or chief magistrates, and the Areopagus, made up of ex-archons . The members of these institutions were generally aristocrats, who ruled the polis for their own advantage . In 621 BC Draco codified a set of "notoriously harsh" laws that were "a clear expression of the power of the aristocracy over everybody else ." This did not stop the aristocratic families feuding amongst themselves to obtain as much power as possible . </P> <P> Therefore, by the 6th century BC, the majority of Athenians "had been' enslaved' to the rich", and they called upon Plato's ancestor Solon, premier archon at the time, to liberate them and halt the feuding of the aristocracy . However, the "enfranchisement of the local laboring classes was succeeded by the development of chattel slavery, the enslavement of, in large part, foreigners ." </P>

What was the system before ancient greek democracy began