Cleisthenes aimed at being the leader of a self-governing people; in
other words he aimed at making the democracy actual. He realized that
the dead-weight which held the democracy down was the influence on
politics of the local religious unit. Therefore his prime object was to
dissociate the clans and the phratries from politics, and to give the
democracy a totally new electoral basis in which old associations and
vested interests would be split up and become ineffective. It was
necessary that no man should govern a pocket-constituency merely by
virtue of his religious, financial or ancestral prestige, and that there
should be created a new local unit with administrative powers of a
democratic character which would galvanize the lethargic voters into a
new sense of responsibility and independence. His first step was to
abolish the four Solonian tribes and create ten new ones.[2] Each of the
new tribes was subdivided into "demes'" (roughly "townships"); this
organization did not, except politically, supersede the system of clans
and phratries whose old religious signification remained untouched. The
new tribes, however, though geographically arranged, did not represent
local interests. Further, the tribe names were taken from legendary
heroes (Cecropis, Pandionis, Aegeis recalled the storied kings of
Attica), and, therefore, contributed to the idea of a national unity;
even Ajax, the eponym of the tribe Aeantis, though not Attic, was famous
as an ally (Herod, v. 66) and ranked as a national hero. Each tribe had
its shrine and its particular hero-cult, which, however, was free from
local association and the dominance of particular families. This
national idea Cleisthenes further emphasized by setting up in the
market-place at Athens a statue of each tribal hero.
Demes.
The next step was the organization of the deme. Within each tribe he
grouped ten demes (see below), each of which had (1) its hero and its
chapel, and (2) its census-list kept by the demarch. The demarch (local
governor), who was elected popularly and held office for one year,
presided over meetings affecting local administration and the provision
of crews for the state-navy, and was probably under a system of scrutiny
like the _dokimasia_ of the state-magistrates. According to the
Aristotelian _Constitution of Athens_, Cleisthenes further divided
Attica into three districts, Urban and Suburban, Inland (_Mesogaios_),
and Maritime (_Paralia_), each of which was subdivided into ten
_trittyes_; each tribe had three trittyes in each of these districts.
The problem of establishing this decimal system in connexion with the
demes and trittyes is insoluble. Herodotus says that there were ten[3]
demes to each tribe ([Greek: deka eis tas phylas]); but each tribe was
composed of three trittyes, one in each of the three districts. Since
the deme was, as will be seen, the electoral unit, it is clear that in
tribal voting the object of ending the old threefold schism of the
Plain, the Hill and the Shore was attained, but the relation of deme and
trittys is obviously of an unsymmetrical kind. The _Constitution of
Athens_ says nothing of the ten-deme-to-each-tribe arrangement, and
there is no sufficient reason for supposing that the demes originally
were exactly a hundred in number. We know the names of 168 demes, and
Polemon (3rd century B.C.) enumerated 173. It has been suggested that
the demes did originally number exactly a hundred, and that new demes
were added as the population increased. This theory, however,
presupposes that the demes were originally equal in numbers. In the 5th
and 4th centuries this was certainly not the case; the number of
demesmen in some cases was only one hundred or two hundred, whereas the
deme Acharnae is referred to as a "great part" of the whole state, and
is known to have furnished three thousand hoplites. The theory is
fundamentally at fault, inasmuch as it regards the deme as consisting of
all those _resident within its borders_. In point of fact membership was
hereditary, not residential; Demosthenes "of the Paeanian deme" might
live where he would without severing his deme connexion. Thus the
increase of population could be no reason for creating new demes. This
distinction in a deme between demesmen and residents belonging to
another deme (the [Greek: egkektemenoi]), who paid a deme-tax for their
privilege, is an important one. It should further be noted that the
demes belonging to a particular tribe do not, as a fact, appear always
in three separate groups; the tribe Aeantis consisted of Phalerum and
eleven demes in the district of Marathon; other tribes had demes in five
or six groups. It must, therefore, be admitted that the problem is
insoluble for want of data. Nor are we better equipped to settle the
relation between the Cleisthenean division into Urban, Maritime and
Inland, and the old divisions of the Plain, the Shore and the Upland or
Hill. The "Maritime" of Cleisthenes and the old "Shore" are certainly
not coincident, nor is the "Inland" identical with the "Upland."
Lastly, it has been asked whether we are to believe that Cleisthenes
invented the demes. To this the answer is in the negative. The demes
were undoubtedly primitive divisions of Attica; Herodotus (ix. 73)
speaks of the Dioscuri as ravaging the demes of Decelea (see R.W. Macan
_ad loc._) and we hear of opposition between the city and the demes. The
most logical conclusion perhaps is that Cleisthenes, while he _did_
create the demes which Athens itself comprised, did not create the
country demes, but merely gave them definition as political divisions.
Thus the city itself had six demes in five different tribes, and the
other five tribes were represented in the suburbs and the Peiraeus. It
is clear that in the Cleisthenean system there was one great source of
danger, namely that the residents in and about Athens must always have
had more weight in elections than those in distant demes. There can be
little doubt that the preponderating influence of the city was
responsible for the unwisdom of the later imperial policy and the
Peloponnesian war.
The diapsephismus.
A second problem is the franchise reform of Cleisthenes. Aristotle in
the _Politics_ (iii. 2. 3 = 1275 b) says that Cleisthenes created new
citizens by enrolling in the tribes "many resident aliens and
emancipated slaves."[4] But the Aristotelian _Constitution of Athens_
asserts that he gave "citizenship to the masses." These two statements
are not compatible. It is perfectly clear that Cleisthenes is to be
regarded as a democrat, and it would have been no bribe to the people
merely to confer a boon on aliens and slaves. Moreover, a revision of
the citizen-roll (_diapsephismus_) had recently taken place (after the
end of the tyranny) and a great many citizens had been struck off the
roll as being of impure descent ([Greek: _oi to genei me katharoi_]).
This class had existed from the time of Solon, and, through fear of
political extinction by the oligarchs, had been favourable to
Peisistratus. Cleisthenes may have enfranchised aliens and slaves, but
it seems certain that he must have dealt with these free Athenians who
had lost their rights. Now Isagoras presumably did not carry out this
revision of the roll (_diapsephismus_); as "the friend of the tyrants"
(so _Ath. Pol._ 20; by Meyer, Busolt and others contest this) he would
not have struck a blow at a class which favoured his own views. A
reasonable hypothesis is that Cleisthenes was the originator of the
measure of expulsion, and that he now changed his policy, and
strengthened his hold on the democracy by reinstating the disfranchised
in much larger numbers. The new citizens, whoever they were, must, of
course, have been enrolled also in the (hitherto exclusive) phratry
lists and the deme-rolls.
The council and boards of ten.
The Boul[=e] (q.v.) was reorganized to suit the new tribal arrangement,
and was known henceforward as the Council of the Five Hundred, fifty
from each tribe. Its exact constitution is unknown, but it was certainly
more democratic than the Solonian Four Hundred. Further, the system of
ten tribes led in course of time to the construction of boards of ten to
deal with military and civil affairs, e.g. the Strategi (see STRATEGUS),
the Apodectae, and others. Of these the former cannot be attributed to
Cleisthenes, but on the evidence of Androtion it is certain that it was
Cleisthenes who replaced the Colacretae[5] by the Apodectae
("receivers"), who were controllers and auditors of the finance
department, and, before the council in the council-chamber, received the
revenues. The Colacretae, who had done this work before, remained in
authority over the internal expenses of the Prytaneum. A further change
which followed from the new tribal system was the reconstitution of the
army; this, however, probably took place about 501 B.C., and cannot be
attributed directly to Cleisthenes. It has been said that the deme
became the local political unit, replacing the naucrary (q.v.). But the
naucraries still supplied the fleet, and were increased in number from
forty-eight to fifty; if each naucrary still supplied a ship and two
mounted soldiers as before, it is interesting to learn that, only
seventy years before the Peloponnesian War, Athens had but fifty ships
and a hundred horse.[6]
The device of ostracism is the final stone in the Cleisthenean
structure. An admirable scheme in theory, and, at first, in practice, it
deteriorated in the 5th century into a mere party weapon, and in the
case of Hyperbolus (417) became an absurdity.
Summary.
In conclusion it should be noticed that Cleisthenes was the founder of
the Athens which we know. To him was due the spirit of nationality, the
principle of liberty duly apportioned and controlled by centralized and
decentralized administration, which prepared the ground for the rich
developments of the Golden Age with its triumphs of art and literature,
politics and philosophy. It was Cleisthenes who organized the structure
which, for a long time, bore the heavy burden of the Empire against
impossible odds, the structure which the very different genius of
Pericles was able to beautify. He was the first to appreciate the unique
power in politics, literature and society of an organized public
opinion.
AUTHORITIES.--_Ancient:_ Aristotle, _Constitution of Athens_ (ed. J.E.
Sandys), cc. 20-22, 41; Herodotus v, 63-73, vi. 131; Aristotle,
_Politics_, iii. 2, 3 (= 1275 b, for franchise reforms). _Modern:_
Histories of Greece in general, especially those of Grote and Curtius
(which, of course, lack the information contained in the _Constitution
of Athens_), and J.B. Bury. See also E. Meyer, _Geschichte des
Altertums_ (vol. ii.); G. Busolt, _Griech. Gesch._ (2nd ed., 1893
foll.); Milchhoefer, "Ueber die Demenordnung des Kleisthenes" in
appendix to _Abhandlung d. Berl. Akad._ (1892); R. Loeper in _Athen.
Mitteil._ (1892), pp. 319-433; A.H.J. Greenidge, _Handbook of Greek
Constitutional History_ (1896); Gilbert, _Greek Constitutional
Antiquities_ (Eng. trans., 1895); R.W. Macan, _Herodotus iv.-vi._,
vol. ii. (1895), pp. 127-148; U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, _Arist.
und Athen._ See also BOLL[=E]; ECCLESIA; OSTRACISM; NAUCRARY; SOLON.
2. CLEISTHENES OF SICYON (c. 600-570), grandfather of the above, became
tyrant of Sicyon as the representative of the conquered Ionian section
of the inhabitants. He emphasized the destruction of Dorian predominance
by giving ridiculous epithets to their tribal units, which from Hylleis,
Dymanes and Pamphyli become Hyatae ("Swine-men"), Choireatae ("Pig-men")
and Oneatae ("Ass-men"). He also attacked Dorian Argos, and suppressed
the Homeric "rhapsodists" who sang the exploits of Dorian heroes. He
championed the cause of the Delphic oracle against the town of Crisa
(Cirrha) in the Sacred War (c. 590). Crisa was destroyed, and Delphi
became one of the meeting-places of the old amphictyony of Anthela,
henceforward often called the Delphic amphictyony. The Pythian games,
largely on the initiative of Cleisthenes, were re-established with new
magnificence, and Cleisthenes won the first chariot race in 582. He
founded Pythian games at Sicyon, and possibly built a new Sicyonian
treasury at Delphi. His power was so great that when he offered his
daughter Agariste in marriage, some of the most prominent Greeks sought
the honour, which fell upon Megacles, the Alcmaeonid. The story of the
rival wooers with the famous retort, "Hippocleides don't care," is told
in Herod. vi. 125; see also Herod, v. 67 and Thuc. i. 18.
CLEISTHENES is also the name of an Athenian, pilloried by Aristophanes
(_Clouds_, 354; _Thesm._ 574) as a fop and a profligate. (J. M. M.)