Pisistratid and Cleisthenic Athens

The Road to Democracy

Athens and Peloponnesus

Typology of Polis Evolution

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

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

Solon: Chief Archon in 594 BCE. Seisachtheia Cancellation of Debts New Property Classes (breaks power of Eupatridae)

Pentecosiomedimnoi (“500-bushel men”): treasurer, archon; Areopagus

Hippeis (300 to 500-bushel men): lesser offices, maybe the archonship; Council

Zeugitae (200-300 bushels): lesser offices and Council Thetes (below 200 bushels): assembly, Heliaea, and army

Economic Reforms Standardizes weights and measures; currency Prohibits Exports other than olive oil 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 debt-exiles. 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

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

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

“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) Affair of Harmodius and Aristogeiton 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

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)

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

Council of 500 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 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

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