Pisistratid and Cleisthenic Athens
The Road to Democracy
Athens and Peloponnesus
Typology of Polis Evolution
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Stasis: External Outlet for Internal Pressures
Colonization
Monetization
Trading Networks
Tyranny
Public Works provide Employment
Cultural Development/Intellectual Stimulation (Plastic
Arts, Lyric Poetry, Scientific Inquiry)
Athens as “Abnormal State”: Solonic Reforms,
Delayed, Benevolent Tyranny of Pisistratus,
Cleisthenes and Dēmokratia
Stasis at Athens
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Debt-Bondage (hektemoroi) and horoi
Cylon, ca. 632 BCE (“curse of the Alcmaeonids”)
Draco, ca. 621 BCE
Athens as Metropolis of Ionian Greeks (Thucydides, 1.2, 1.12, 2.16)
Solon’s Seisachtheia and
Constitutional Reforms
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Solon: Chief Archon in 594 BCE. Seisachtheia
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Cancellation of Debts
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New Property Classes (breaks power of Eupatridae)
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Pentecosiomedimnoi (“500-bushel men”): treasurer, archon;
Areopagus
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Hippeis (300 to 500-bushel men): lesser offices, maybe the
archonship; Council
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Zeugitae (200-300 bushels): lesser offices and Council
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Thetes (below 200 bushels): assembly, Heliaea, and army
Economic Reforms
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Standardizes weights and measures; currency
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Prohibits Exports other than olive oil
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Grants Citizenship to Immigrant Craftsmen
Heliaea- Court of Appeal to archons’ decisions
Council of 400 (100 from each of the four old tribes)
Solonian Reforms break power of Eupatridae, but increase political
competition
Solon of Athens (Poem 24)
Did I stop then before I had accomplished my task in gathering back the
common people? Great Olympian Mother Earth will swear before time's
court that I took from her breast the mortgage-markers, freed her from
bonds. I repatriated many sons of Athens--slaves (by law or not) or debtexiles. Some had lost our Attic tongue so far from home. Others, fearfully
cowed by masters here, I also freed. Fitting might to right, I worked the
deed I'd promised, set straight laws alike for lords and lowly. Another
man, less sage, less honest, could not have checked the mob. Had I
favored one side over the other, our polis would have grieved many sons.
Like the wily wolf amid a pack of hounds, I showed my strength toward all
around.
Solon and Citizen Engagement
Solon realized that the city was often split by factional
disputes but that citizens were content because of idleness to
accept whatever the outcome might be; he therefore produced
a specific law against them, laying down that anyone who did
not choose one side or the other in such a dispute should lose
his citizen rights.
~Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 8
Pisistratus and Athens
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Served as war leader (polemarch) in war against neighboring Megara
(ca. 565 BCE)
Return of stasis: regional divisions in Athens: Hill (poor highlanders
and city-dwellers?), Plain (large landowners?), Coast (fishermen and
craftsmen?)
As leader of the Hill party, Pisistratus becomes tyrant in 561 BCE;
appoints bodyguard
Briefly expelled by coalition of Plain and Coast factions in 556 BCE;
restored with support of Alcmaeonids
Pisistratus again loses power (grown sons and marriage to Megacles’
daughter); retreats to Macedonia (money, mercenaries, alliances)
Pisistratus lands near Marathon, defeats enemies at battle of Pallene
(546 BCE)
Pisistratus rules as tyrant of Athens until his death ca. 527 BCE
Pisistratus’ Policies
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Land and Loans to Poor
Attic exports to Ionia, Cyprus, Syria, and Spain
Alliances with fellow tyrants and development of trading networks
Minting of Athenian coinage (“owls”)
Public works projects (temple to Athena on acropolis, temple to
Olympian Zeus)
Editions of Iliad and Odyssey
Panathenaic Games and Greater and Lesser Dionysia (first tragic
performance in 534 BCE)
Amphora Similar to Those Awarded as
Prizes at the Panathenaic Games
Athenian “Owl” (Silver Coin)
Pisistratus and his Aftermath
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“So Pisistratus took over the power in Athens; yet he in no way
deranged the existing magistracies or the ordinances but
governed the city well and truly according to the laws that were
established.” (Herodotus, 1.59; see also Thucydides, 6.54)
Hippias and Hipparchus (ca. 528-510 BCE)
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Affair of Harmodius and Aristogeiton
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Exiled Alcmaeonids, Delphi, and Sparta
Harmodius and Aristogeiton as Tyrannicides
Democratic (Alcmaeonid) Propaganda:
Cleisthenes archon (525/24 BCE)
Cleisthenes in exile (Date?)
Hipparchus assassinated (514 BCE)
Tyranny overthrown with Spartan
assistance (510 BCE)
Cleisthenes’ reforms (508 BCE)
Harmodius and Aristogeiton become
democratic liberators in Athenian
democratic ideology
Athens ca. 500 BCE
So Athens increased in greatness. It is not only in respect of one thing
but of everything that equality and free speech are clearly a good; take
the case of Athens, which under the rule of tyrants proved no better in
war than any of its neighbors but, once rid of those tyrants, was far the
first of all. What this makes clear is that when held in subjection they
would not do their best, for they were working for a taskmaster, but,
when freed, they sought to win, because each was trying to achieve for
his very self.
~Herodotus, 5.78
Athens-Construction Phases
Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 20
(cf. Herodotus 5.72)
After the fall of the tyranny, there was a struggle between Isagoras … and
Cleisthenes, who was of the family of the Alcmaeonids. When Cleisthenes lost
power in the political clubs, he won the support of the people by promising
them control of the state. The power of Isagoras waned in turn, and he called
in [the Spartan king] Cleomenes again, for he had ties of friendship with him.
He persuaded him to ‘expel the curse,’ for the Alcmaeonids were thought to
be amongst the accursed. Cleisthenes retired into exile, and Cleomenes
arrived with a few men and expelled 700 Athenian families as being under the
curse. Having done this, he tried to dissolve the Council (Boulē) and to put
Isagoras and 300 of his friends in control of the city. The Council resisted and
the people gathered; the supporters of Cleomenes and Isagoras fled to the
Acropolis. The people surrounded them and besieged them for two days; on
the third they let Cleomenes and all those with him go under a truce, and
recalled Cleisthenes and the other exiles. The people had taken control of
affairs, and Cleisthenes was their leader and champion of the people.
Herodotus 5.66
These two men strove together for the mastery; and
Cleisthenes, finding himself the weaker, called to his aid the
common people.
Revolution in Athens, 508 BCE
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Struggle for political power between Isagoras and Cleisthenes (ca.
510-508 BCE)
Athenian Council (Boulē) resists
Spartan king Cleomenes and Isagoras occupy Athenian acropolis
Athenians unite, besiege acropolis
Cleomenes surrenders, withdraws; Cleisthenes gains power in Athens
Cleisthenes and his Reforms (ca. 508/7 BCE)
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Tribes (10), demes (139?), and 30 groups of demes = 30 trittyes.
Each Tribe = 1 trittys from each region: city, coast, inland
(trittys = 1/3 tribe)
10 Strategoi (Generals)
Council of 500 (50 from each tribe); prytany (50) = one-month
term (10 months)
Ekklesia (Assembly)
Dikasteria (Popular Courts, set up on tribal basis)
Ostracism
Athens and Attica
Demes of Attica
Rota-Principle in Cleisthenic Athens
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Council of 500
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50 from each of the ten tribes
Pre-election, sortition (lot)
Each tribe presides for one-tenth of the year
Councilors not eligible for re-election for ten years
Citizen Identity and Demes
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Registered as citizen by fellow demesmen
Individual identity: Name, Father’s Name, Deme
Cleisthenic Athens has a place for every Athenian
male citizen, who will participate in the democracy at
some time in his life
Ostraka from Athens
Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 56.2
As soon as the Archon enters upon his office, he
proclaims through the public herald that whatever a
person possessed before he entered upon his
Archonship he will have and possess until the end of
his term.
Cleisthenes’ Motivations
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Military Needs: 10 strategoi, one from each tribe; army
recruited on tribal basis
Alcmaeonids diffused through three tribes, apparently
weakening, not strengthening, clan power
Isonomia (equality before the laws); breaks down regional
loyalties to forge Athenian civic democratic identity
“He first divided all the citizens into ten tribes instead of
the earlier four, with the aim of mixing them together so
that more might share control of the state.” Aristotle,
Constitution of the Athenians 21