Cleisthenes

Cleisthenes (/ˈklaɪsθɪˌniːz/; Greek: Κλεισθένης, translit. Kleisthénēs

Attic Greek: [kle̝ ːs.tʰé.nɛːs]; also Clisthenes via Latin: Clīsthenēs
Classical Latin: [ˈklʲiːs.t ̪ʰɛ.neːs]) was an ancient Athenian lawgiver
credited with reforming the constitution of ancient Athens and setting
it on a democratic footing in 508 BC.[1][2] For these
accomplishments, historians refer to him as "the father of Athenian
democracy."[3] He was a member of the aristocratic Alcmaeonid clan.
He was the younger son of Megacles and Agariste making him the
maternal grandson of the tyrant Cleisthenes of Sicyon. He was also
credited with increasing the power of the Athenian citizens' assembly
and for reducing the power of the nobility over Athenian politics.[4]

In 510 BC, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant
Hippias, son of Peisistratos. Cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place
a pro-Spartan oligarchy headed by Isagoras. But his rival Cleisthenes,
with the support of the middle class and aided by democrats, took
over. Cleomenes intervened in 508 and 506 BC, but could not stop Modern bust of Cleisthenes, known
Cleisthenes, now supported by the Athenians. Through Cleisthenes' as "the father of Athenian
reforms, the people of Athens endowed their city with isonomic democracy", on view at the Ohio
institutions—equal rights for all citizens (though only men were Statehouse, Columbus, Ohio
citizens)—and established ostracism as a punishment.

Contents
Biography
Rise to power
Contribution to the governance of Athens
Attempt to obtain Persian support (507 BC)
Notes
References
Primary sources
Secondary sources
Further reading
External links

Biography
Historians estimate that Cleisthenes was born around 570 BC.[5] Cleisthenes was the uncle of Pericles' mother
Agariste[6] and of Alcibiades' maternal grandfather Megacles.[7]

Rise to power
With help from the Spartans and the Alcmaeonidae (Cleisthenes' genos, "clan"), he was responsible for
overthrowing Hippias, the tyrant son of Pisistratus. After the collapse of Hippias' tyranny, Isagoras and
Cleisthenes were rivals for power, but Isagoras won the upper hand by appealing to the Spartan king
Cleomenes I to help him expel Cleisthenes. He did so on the pretext of the Alcmaeonid curse. Consequently,
Cleisthenes left Athens as an exile, and Isagoras was unrivalled in power within the city. Isagoras set about
dispossessing hundreds of Athenians of their homes and exiling them on the pretext that they too were cursed.
He also attempted to dissolve the Boule (βουλή), a council of Athenian citizens appointed to run the daily
affairs of the city. However, the council resisted, and the Athenian people declared their support of the council.
Isagoras and his supporters were forced to flee to the Acropolis, remaining besieged there for two days. On the
third day they fled the city and were banished. Cleisthenes was subsequently recalled, along with hundreds of
exiles, and he assumed leadership of Athens.[8]

Contribution to the governance of Athens

After this victory, Cleisthenes began to reform the

government of Athens. He commissioned a bronze
memorial from the sculptor Antenor in honor of the lovers
and tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton, whom
Hippias had executed. In order to forestall strife between
the traditional clans, which had led to the tyranny in the
first place, he changed the political organization from the
four traditional tribes, which were based on family
relations and which formed the basis of the upper class
Coinage of Athens at the time of Cleisthenes.
Athenian political power network, into ten tribes according
Effigy of Athena, with owl and ΑΘΕ, initials of
to their area of residence (their deme,) which would form "Athens". Circa 510-500/490 BC.
the basis of a new democratic power structure.[9] It is
thought that there may have been 139 demes (though this
is still a matter of debate), each organized into three groups called trittyes ("thirds"), with ten demes divided
among three regions in each trittyes (a city region, asty; a coastal region, paralia; and an inland region,
mesogeia).[10] Cleisthenes also abolished patronymics in favour of demonymics (a name given according to
the deme to which one belongs), thus increasing Athenians' sense of belonging to a deme.[10] He also
established sortition – the random selection of citizens to fill government positions rather than kinship or
heredity, a true test of real democracy. He reorganized the Boule, created with 400 members under Solon, so
that it had 500 members, 50 from each tribe. He also introduced the bouletic oath, "To advise according to the
laws what was best for the people".[11] The court system (Dikasteria – law courts) was reorganized and had
from 201–5001 jurors selected each day, up to 500 from each tribe. It was the role of the Boule to propose
laws to the assembly of voters, who convened in Athens around forty times a year for this purpose. The bills
proposed could be rejected, passed or returned for amendments by the assembly.

Cleisthenes also may have introduced ostracism (first used in 487 BC), whereby a vote by a plurality of
citizens would exile a citizen for ten years. The initial trend was to vote for a citizen deemed a threat to the
democracy (e.g., by having ambitions to set himself up as tyrant). However, soon after, any citizen judged to
have too much power in the city tended to be targeted for exile (e.g., Xanthippus in 485–84 BC).[12] Under
this system, the exiled man's property was maintained, but he was not physically in the city where he could
possibly create a new tyranny. One later ancient author records that Cleisthenes himself was the first person to
be ostracized.[13]

Cleisthenes called these reforms isonomia ("equality vis à vis law", iso-=equality; nomos=law), instead of
demokratia. Cleisthenes' life after his reforms is unknown as no ancient texts mention him thereafter.

Attempt to obtain Persian support (507 BC)

In 507 BC, during the time Cleisthenes was leading Athenian politics,
and probably at his instigation, democratic Athens sent an embassy to
Artaphernes, brother of Darius I and Achaemenid Satrap of Asia
Minor in the capital of Sardis, looking for Persian assistance in order
to resist the threats from Sparta.[15][16] Herodotus reports that
Artaphernes had no previous knowledge of the Athenians, and his
initial reaction was "Who are these people?".[15] Artaphernes asked
the Athenians for "Water and Earth", a symbol of submission, if they
wanted help from the Achaemenid king.[16] The Athenian According to Herodotus, the
ambassadors apparently accepted to comply, and to give "Earth and Athenians made the gift of "Earth
Water".[15] Artaphernes also advised the Athenians that they should and Water to the Persians in 507 BC,
receive back the Athenian tyrant Hippias. The Persians threatened to at the time Cleisthenes was leading
attack Athens if they did not accept Hippias. Nevertheless, the Athenian politics.[14]
Athenians preferred to remain democratic despite the danger from the
Achaemenid Empire, and the ambassadors were disavowed and
censured upon their return to Athens.[15]

After that, the Athenians sent to bring back Cleisthenes and the seven hundred households
banished by Cleomenes; then they despatched envoys to Sardis, desiring to make an alliance with
the Persians; for they knew that they had provoked the Lacedaemonians and Cleomenes to war.
When the envoys came to Sardis and spoke as they had been bidden, Artaphrenes son of
Hystaspes, viceroy of Sardis, asked them, "What men are you, and where dwell you, who desire
alliance with the Persians?" Being informed by the envoys, he gave them an answer whereof the
substance was, that if the Athenians gave king Darius earth and water, then he would make
alliance with them; but if not, his command was that they should begone. The envoys consulted
together and consented to give what was asked, in their desire to make the alliance. So they
returned to their own country, and were then greatly blamed for what they had done.

— Herodotus 5.73.[14]

There is a possibility that the Achaemenid ruler now saw the Athenians as subjects who had solemnly
promised submission through the gift of "Earth and Water", and that subsequent actions by the Athenians,
such as their intervention in the Ionian revolt, were perceived as a break of oath, and a rebellion to the central
authority of the Achaemenid ruler.[15]

Notes
1. Ober, pp. 83 ff.
2. The New York Times (30 October 2007) [1st pub:2004]. John W. Wright (ed.). The New York
Times Guide to Essential Knowledge, Second Edition: A Desk Reference for the Curious Mind
(https://books.google.com/books?id=-BIGv9vIoqcC&pg=PA628). New York: St. Martin's Press.
p. 628. ISBN 978-0-312-37659-8. Retrieved 31 January 2017.
3. R. Po-chia Hsia, Julius Caesar, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, and Bonnie G.
Smith, The Making of the West, Peoples and Cultures, A Concise History, Volume I: To 1740
(Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007), 44.
4. Langer, William L. (1968) The Early Period, to c. 500 B.C. An Encyclopedia of World History
(Fourth Edition pp. 66). Printed in the United States of America: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Accessed: January 30, 2011
5. The Greeks:Crucible of Civilization (2000)
6. Herodotus, Histories 6.131
 7. Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1916. 4.
8. Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians, Chapter 20
9. Aristotle, Politics 6.4.
10. Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians, Chapter 21
11. Morris & Raaflaub Democracy 2500?: Questions and Challenges
12. Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians, Chapter 22
13. Aelian, Varia historia 13.24
14. LacusCurtius • Herodotus — Book V: Chapters 55‑96 (https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/
Roman/Texts/Herodotus/5C*.html).
15. Waters, Matt (2014). Ancient Persia: A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire, 550–330
BCE (https://books.google.com/books?id=EjhEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA84). Cambridge University
Press. pp. 84–85. ISBN 9781107009608.
16. Waters, Matt (2014). Ancient Persia: A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire, 550–330
BCE (https://books.google.com/books?id=EjhEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA123). Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 9781107009608.

References

Primary sources
Aristotle. Athenian Constitution (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Athenian_Constitution).
Translated by Frederic George Kenyon – via Wikisource.. See original text in Perseus program
(https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0045).
Aristotle (1984). The Athenian Constitution. P.J. Rhodes trans. Harmondsworth, Middlesex,
England: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-044431-9.

Secondary sources
Morris I.; Raaflaub K., eds. (1998). Democracy 2500?: Questions and Challenges. Kendal/Hunt
Publishing Co.
Ober, Josiah (2007). "I Besieged That Man, Democracy's Revolutionary Start". Origins of
Democracy in Ancient Greece. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24562-4.
Lévêque, Pierre; Vidal-Naquet, Pierre (1996). Cleisthenes the Athenian: An Essay on the
Representation of Space and Time in Greek Political Thought from the End of the Sixth
Century to the Death of Plato. Humanities Press.
David Ames Curtis: Translator's Foreword to Pierre Vidal-Maquet and Pierre Lévêque's
Cleisthenes the Athenian: An Essay on the Representation of Space and Time in Greek
Thought from the End of the Sixth Century to the Death of Plato (1993-1994)
http://kaloskaisophos.org/rt/rtdac/rtdactf/rtdactfcleisthenes.html

Further reading
Davies, J.K. (1993). Democracy and classical Greece (https://archive.org/details/democracycla
ssic0002davi). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-19607-4.
Ehrenberg, Victor (2010). From Solon to Socrates Greek History and Civilization During the 6th
and 5th Centuries BC. Hoboken: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-203-84477-9.
 Forrest, William G. (1966). The Emergence of Greek Democracy, 800–400 BC. New York:
McGraw–Hill.
Hignett, Charles (1952). A History of the Athenian Constitution to the End of the Fifth Century
BC. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Larsen, Jakob A. O. (1948). "Cleisthenes and the Development of the Theory of Democracy at
Athens". In Konvitz, Milton R.; Murphy, Arthur E. (eds.). Essays in Political Theory Presented to
George H. Sabine. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
O'Neil, James L. (1995). The origins and development of ancient Greek democracy. Lanham,
Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-8476-7956-X.
Staveley, E. S. (1972). Greek and Roman voting and elections (https://archive.org/details/greekr
omanvoting0000stav). Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Pr. ISBN 0-8014-0693-5.
Thorley, John (1996). Athenian democracy. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-12967-2.
Zimmern, Alfred (1911). The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and Economics in Fifth Century
Athens (https://archive.org/details/greekcommonwealt00zimm). Oxford: Oxford University
Press.

External links
Media related to Cleisthenes at Wikimedia Commons
BBC – History – The Democratic Experiment (https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/gre
ekdemocracy_02.shtml)
Mitchell, John Malcolm (1911). "Cleisthenes" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%
C3%A6dia_Britannica/Cleisthenes). Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 (11th ed.). pp. 479–481.

Preceded by Succeeded by
Tyrant of Athens
Hippias Isagoras

Preceded by Archon in the Athenian

Succeeded by
Isagoras democracy

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