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KLEISTHENES AND THE DEMOCRACY
Kleidemos FGrH 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: "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.] 10/31/2003
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John Paul Adams, CSUN
john.p.adams@csun.edu