Kleisthenes and the Democracy

KLEISTHENES AND THE DEMOCRACY Kleidemos Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker IIIB #323 F 8 (Photios Lexikon s. v. naukraria) Naukraria: earlier on, they used to use the terms naukraria and naukraros as follows: naukraria was something like the symmoria and the demos; and naukraros was somewhat like the demarchos. And Solon named them that way, as for example Aristotle says [Ath. pol. 8. 3; 21. 5]; and in the Nomoi, "if someone should enter into dispute with the naukraria . . .", and "the naukrarious according to the naukraria. Later on, from Kleisthenes, they were called demoi, and demarchoi. According to the Politeia of Aristotle [8. 3], when Solon arranged the constitution with regard to the polis, "there were four phylai, from each phyle had been constituted three trittyes, and there were twelve naukrariai in each." Kleidemos says in his third book that, when Kleisthenes created the ten tribes in place of the four, it was done in such a way that they were arranged in fifty groups which he called naukrariai, just as now they call the division into a hundred parts symmoriai. "Aristotle" Athenaion politeia 20-22: After the fall of the Tyranny, there was a struggle between Isagoras, the son of Teisander, who was a supporter of the tyrants, and Kleisthenes, who was of the family of the Alkmaionidai. When Kleisthenes 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 Kleomenes again, for he had ties of friendship with him. he persuaded him to 'expel the curse', for the Alkmaionidai were thought to be among those accursed. Kleisthenes retired into exile, and Kleomenes arrived with a few men and expelled seven hundred Athenian families as being under the curse. Having done this, he tried to dissolve the Boulé and to put Isagoras and three hundred of his friends in control of the city. The Boulé resisted and the people gathered. The supporters of Kleomenes and Isagoras fled to the Akropolis. The people surrounded them and besieged them for two days; on the third day they let Kleomenes and all those with him to go, under a truce, and recalled Kleisthenes and the other exiles. (4) The people had taken control of affairs, and Kleisthenes was their leader and champion of the people, for the Alkmaionidai had been the group probably the most responsible for the expulsion of the tyrants and had stirred up trouble for them for much of the time. (5) Even before the Alkmaionidai, Kedon had attacked the tyrants, and therefore his name also figures in the drinking songs: Pour a draught also for Kedon, boy, and do not forget him, if it is right to pour wine for brave men. (21. 1) The people trusted Kleisthenes for these reasons. At that time, as their leader, in the fourth year after the overthrow of the tyranny which was the Archonship of Isagoras, (2) 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. From this arose the saying, "No investigation of tribes", as an answer to those wishing to inquire into ancestry. (3) Then he established a Boulé of 500 instead of 400, fifty from each tribe; previously there had been 100 from each. His purpose in not splitting the people into twelve tribes was to avoid dividing them according to the trittyes which already existed; there were twelve trittyes in the four old tribes, and the result would not have been a mixing. (4) He divided Attika into thirty sections, using the demes as the basic unit; ten of the sections were in the city area, ten around the coast, and ten inland. He called these sections trittyes , and placed three into each tribe by lot, one from each geographical area. He made fellow demesmen of those living in each deme so that they would not reveal the new citizens by using a man's father's name, but would use his deme in addressing him. Hence the Athenians use their demes as part of their names. (5) He set up Demarchs with the same functions as the previous Naukraroi, for the demes took the place of the naukrariai. He named some of the demes after their position, others after their founders, for not all were still connected with a particular locality. (6) He left the citizens free to belong to clan groups, and phratries, and hold priesthoods in the traditional way. He gave the tribes ten eponymous heroes selected by the Oracle at Delphi from a preliminary list of one hundred. (22.1) These changes made the constitution much more democratic than it had been under Solon. A contributory factor was that Solon's laws had fallen into disuse under the Tyranny, and Kleisthenes replaced them with others, with the aim of winning the support of the Demos. These included the law about ostracism. It was in the fifth year after this constitution was established in the Archonship of Hermokreon, that they formulated the oath which the Boulé of the 500 still take today. At that time they selected the strategoi by tribes, one from each tribe; the Polemarch was the overall commander of the army. Eleven years later, in the Archonship of Phainippos, the Athenians won the Battle of Marathon . . . . "Aristotle" Athenaion politeia 29. 3: [411 B.C.] [under the government of the Four Hundred] Kleitophon supported the motion of Pythodoros in all respects, but added the proposal that the elected committee should also investigate the ancient laws which Kleisthenes had enacted when he established the Democracy, so that, after having acquainted themselves with those measures, they might then deliberate as to what the best course would be. The implication was that the Constitution of Kleisthenes was not really democratic, but similar to that of Solon. Meiggs & Lewis #45 (Athenian Tribute Lists ii D 14) The Athenian Coinage Decree: (12) The Secretary of the [Boulé] is to add the following clause to the Bouleutic Oath, [ to take effect from next year onwards ]: 'If anyone mints silver coinage in the cities, or uses [ foreign coinage ], weights, or measures, instead of those [ of the Athenians, I will punish or fine him according to the former ] decree of Klearchos. Aristotle Politics III. 1.10 (1275b34–1276a): But perhaps a question rather arises about those who were admitted to citizenship when a revolution had taken place, for instance such a creation of citizens as that carried out at Athens by Kleisthenes after the expulsion of the Tyrants, when he enrolled in his tribes many resident aliens who had been foreigners or slaves. The dispute as to these is not about the fact of their citizenship, but whether they received it wrongly or rightly. Yet even as to this, one might raise the further question, whether, if a man is not rightly a citizen, he is a citizen at all, as 'wrongly' means the same as 'not truly' . . . . Therefore, it is clear that even persons wrongly admitted to citizenship are to be pronounced as citizens, although the question whether they are so rightly or not rightly is connected with the question that was propounded before [i.e.'What is a polis': 1274b34] Aristotle Politics VI. ii.11 (1319b19 ff.): [Aristotle is discussing the last and worst form of democracy; one of its features is the admission of persons who have only one parent-citizen or who are nothoi. Demagogues regularly introduce such practices and make the government more unstable by provoking the gnorimoi.] . . . a democracy of this kind will also find useful such institutions as were employed by Kleisthenes at Athens when he wished to increase the power of the democracy, and by the party setting up the democracy at Kyrene. Different tribes and brotherhoods [ phylai and phartriai ] must be created, outnumbering the old ones, and the celebrations of private religious rites must be grouped together into a small number of public celebrations, and every device must be employed to make all the people as much as possible intermingled with one another, and to break up the previously existing groups of associates . . . .