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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
When Pythodorus in 411 B.C. moved in the Athenian Assembly his decree that Commissioners should be elected to draft measures for the security of the State, Cleitophon added a rider instructing the Commissioners προσαναξητῆσαι καὶ τοὺς πατρίονς νόμονς οὓς κλειδθένης ἓθηκεν ὃτε καθίδτη τὴν δημοκρατίαν, ὄπως ἅν ἀκούσαντες καὶ τούτων βολεύσωντααι τὸ ἂριστον. The instruction appears to have struck Aristotle as paradoxical and inept, for he has appended an explanation of Cleitophon's reasons which is also a criticism: ὡς οὐ δημοτικὴν ἁλλὰ παραπλησίαν οὖσαν τὴν Kλεισθένους πολιτείαν τῇ Σόλωνος. Indeed one would never imagine that the constitution of Cleisthenes as described by Aristotle (21) could have been seriously suggested as a model or a repertory of precedents for legislators intent, like Cleitophon's friends, on restoring the πάτριος πολιτεία, which it obviously disestablished; and the conjunction of τοĐς πατρίουσ with ὃτε καθίστη τὴν δημοκρατἰαν might seem to make the proposal a challenge or a mockery. Aristotle had already (22. 1, cf. 41. 2) given his opinion that by Cleisthenes' innovations δημοτικωτέρα πολĐ τῆς Σόλωνος ἐγένετο ὴ πολιτεἰα He recognized democratic features in Solon's laws, but they lay in the redress of social wrongs or in the method of administering justice rather than in the organization of the government; he regarded Solon's political changes, not as the establishment of democracy proper, but as a reform, conservative rather than revolutionary, of existent institutions. His comment on the rider implies that he would not have corrected Cleitophon if he had referred the Commissioners to Solon's ancestral laws, but to refer them to Cleisthenes' must, he thought, be ignorance, irony, or idiosyncrasy.
Page 84 note 1 Aristotle, , Constitution of the Athenians 29. 3Google Scholar. I will abbreviate my references to that treatise by writing simply Ar. with the numbers of the chapters and sections.
Page 84 note 2 9. 1, cf. 2. 2, 28. 2, 41. 2, Pol. 1273b–1274a.
Page 84 note 3 7. 3 8. 3·4, Pol. l.c. (where δημοκρατίαν is immediately qualified by τῶν μέσων). By insisting on it that Solon was τῶν μέςων and a shining example of μετριότης (cc. 5, 6, 9, 11,12, Pol. 1296a) Aristotle seems to claim him as an exponent of the reformed πάτριος πολιτεία, which was the ideal of Theramenes and his middle party. Cleisthenes, ςτοχαζόμενος τοῦ πλήθους, overshot it.
Page 84 note 4 C.Q. XXVII, 1933, pp. 20–24.
Page 84 note 5 Ar. 34. 3; cf. Aristoph. Ran. 967.
Page 84 note 6 V. 66, 69; cf. Ar. 20.
Page 85 note 1 22. 1; cf. 15. 4, 16. 3.
Page 85 note 2 Cf. Isocr. VII. 16, ἐκείνην τὴν δημοκρατἰαν, ἢν Σόλων μὲν ὁ δημοτικώτατος γενόμενος ἐνομοθἐτηδε, κλειδθἐνης δ' ὸ τοὺς τυράννους ἐκβαλὼν καὶ τὸν δῆμον καταγαὼ7nu; πάλιν ἀρχῆς κατέστησεν.
Page 85 note 3 19. I, 16. 7 (where the period of harsher control seems to be wantonly stretched to included the whole reign of the Pe isis tratidae) Hdt. V. 55, 62, VI. 123; Thuc. VI. 53, 59.
Page 85 note 4 E.g. Hdt. III. 80, νομαιὰ κινεῖ πάτρια Xen. mem. IV. vi.12; Plato. Polit. 301 sqq.
Page 85 note 5 Thuc. VI. 59.
Page 86 note 1 Hdt. VI. 66, V. 74, 90–1.
Page 86 note 2 A short lived alliance of course,for it must have been dissolved when clemenes was evicted from the Acropolis and Cleisthenes put Athens under the protection of Persia. ‘H γενυμὲνη ἐπὶ τῷ ξνμμαχία (thuc. I. 102), is a later treaty, due perhaps to miltiades.
Page 86 note 3 Thuc. VIII. 70, τῷ ἀπστῳ δήμῳ. Cf. Hdt. III. 81, in the mouth of Megabyzus, καίτου ὂβριν πεσεῖν ἐστ7iota; οὐδαμῶς ἀνασχετόν.
Page 86 note 4 Thuc. I. 19, οὐχ ὑποτελεῖς ἓχοντες φόρου τοĐς ξυμμάχους ἡγοῦντο, 7kappa;ατ’ ὲlambda;ιγαρχία7rho; δὲ δὲ σχίσιν αύτοῖς μόνον ἐπιτηδείως ὂπως πολιτεύσουσι θεραπεύοντες. 1. 76, 144; Xen. Hell. III. iv. 2; Ar. Pol. 1296a. The treaties with Argos in 418 (Thuc. V. 77, 79) and Athens in 404 (Ar. 34; Diod. XIV. 3; Xen. Hell. II. iii. 25; cf. Thuc. VIII. 70, Xen. I.e. 45) are the classic examples.
Page 86 note 5 It is enough to refer to Aristotle's use of Herodotus.
Page 86 note 6 Self-congratulation, V. 62, VI. 125, 131 (cf. Ar. 20. 4); malice, V. 70 (cf. Ar. 20. 1), against Isagoras; VII. 144, VIII. 5, 57–8, 109–10, 112 against Themistocles; exculpations, V. 71 (Cyloneian executions), V. 73 (homage to the Persian king), V. 97, VI. 21 (attitude to the Ionian revolt), VI. 121–3 (treachery at Marathon).
Page 87 note 1 The liberation is the Leit-motif all through. Hdt. V. 55, 62, 65, 66, 78, 91, VI. 123.
Page 87 note 2 E.g. Lex. Dem. Patm. p. 152 (Sakkel.) s.v. γεννῆται; Schol. Plat. Philtb. 30d, Axioch. 371d; Suid. s.v.; Harpocr. s.v.; and other references. Kenyon gives a useful conspectus of the passages in his Berlin edition of Aristotle's Resp. Athen.
Page 87 note 3 Cf. , Xen.Mem. III. vi. 14, quoted below, p. 92Google Scholar.
Page 87 note 4 Hdt. V. 66, 69; cf. Busolt, , G.G. 2 p. 279Google Scholar, Bilabel, , Ion. Kolon. p. 256Google Scholar, Gaertringen, Hiller v., Miletos in R.E. pp. 1589, 1595Google Scholar.
Page 88 note 1 Cf. C.Q. XXXII, 1938, pp. 165–6.
Page 88 note 2 The reorganization of the Spartan military system had similar results (Hdt. I. 65–8), and the victories of the armies of the French Republic after the Revolution furnish a modern parallel.
Page 88 note 3 Plut. Sol. 19; Ar. 8. 4.
Page 88 note 4 Freeman, Kathleen, The Work and Life of Solon, p. 79Google Scholar; Wade-Gery, H. T., C.Q. XXVII, 1933, P. 24Google Scholar.
Page 88 note 5 The Athenian Cultndar, pp. 72, 123–4.
Plutarch (Sol. 25), in a passage which defies rational analysis, gives us to understand that Solon wished to rectify the inequality of the months, which was caused by the moon completing its circuit half a day before the sun finished the 30th day of the month, so that the lunar calendar had to adopt in practice a system of alternate months of 29 and 30 days. No reason is suggested why Solon, who was reputed to be the author or patron of the Athenian lunar calendar (Diog. Laert. I. 59; cf. Hdt. I. 32, Aristoph. Nub. 626, Ar. 43. 2), wanted to make the months equal. Did Plutarch's source ascribe to Solon the calendar of 360 days, which is more appropriate to Cleisthenes, and has Plutarch, misapprehending the reference to that calendar, slipped into an explanation of the lunar calendar generally attributed to Solon? His explanation is defective, but is better applicable to the latter than to the former.
Page 89 note 1 Without denying of course that, just as there are Peers outside the Peerage of the Realm, so there may have been in Attica, even from the days of Ion, γένη (e.g. the γένος of the Hesychidae) outside the ranks of the Eupatridae; priestly or princely kin of the pre-Ionian society may well have kept their coherence and their dignities outside the political system, and the word γένος cannot, except in formal legal documents, be restricted to that system.
Page 90 note 1 Cf. 4. 2, ἀπεδίδοτο μὲν ἡ πολιτεία τοία τοῖς ὂπλα παρεχομένοις, where the MS text can be read ἀπεδίδοτο just as well as ἀπεδέδοτο and the imperfect accords better with the imperfects which follow.
Page 90 note 2 The MSS append the word μετοίκονς, and some scholars endeavour to give a meaning to δούλους μετοίκους but there can be little doubt that μετοίκους is an intrusive gloss on οένους.
Page 90 note 3 V. 66, ἑσσούμενος δἑ Kλεισθὲνης τὸν δῆμον προσεταιρίζεται. μετά δέ τετραφύλους ἐὸντας ‘Aθηναίους δεκαφύλους ἐποίηε. 69, ὡς γάρ δὴ τὸν’ Aθ. δῆμον… προδεθὴκατο, τὰς φυλὰς μετɷνόμασε κτλ. the parrallel passage I. 65, ὠς γἁρ ἑπετρὁπεοσε τάχιστα, μετέστησε τά νόμιμα πάνα …μετά δὲ τά ἐς πὸλεμον ἒχοντα … ἒστησε Άυκοῦργος, shows that μετά is not an adverb, but a preposition to be added to ἑποὶησε.
Page 90 note 4 22.2, where he appears to put the Bouleutic oath and the election of the στρατηγοὶ in the year of Hermocreon, in the fifth year after Cleisthene' legislation, and in the twelfth before Marathon; but (I) the year 504/3 is occupied by Acestorides, and (2) it cannot be the twelfth before Marathon, whether we place the battle in 490/89 or in 491/0.
Page 91 note 1 Cf. Myres, J. L., Cleisthens in Herodotus in Mèlanges Glotz, II. pp. 557–66Google Scholar.
Page 91 note 2 I.G. II21237; Ditt. Syll. 3921; Wilamowitz, , Ar. u. Ath. II. p. 266Google Scholar; Kahrstedt, , Staatsgeb. PP. 233–5Google Scholar. Cf. I.G. XII. V. I. 540.
Page 92 note 1 Xenophon (Mem. III. vi. 14) represents Socrates as saying in an argnment with Glaucon ἑπεί ἠ μέν πὸλις ἐκ π7lambda;ειὸνων ἢ μυρίων συνέστηκε. The statement does not apply to the Athens of his time, but Socrates in aristocratic company is no doubt talking archaistically (or neoterstically) and counts no citizens beyond ‘the upper ten thousand’. The reactionaries of 411 went farther and reduced the ‘ancestral’ number of 10,800 by half, to 5,400. a number unversally rounded to ‘the 5,000’.
Page 93 note 1 νὁμῳ τινί ἒχοντες κοινωνίαν. I cannot accept νὸμῳ τινὶ as equivalent to νόμῳ tout court, in the sense of ‘conventionally’.
Page 93 note 2 Ar. 4. 3, where I accept B. Lakon's emendation.
Page 93 note 3 Cf. C.Q. XXXII, 1938, pp. 162–3, 166Google Scholar. They must, I think, have had some precedent in their Cleisthenic model; and the way in which Aristotle (22. 2) first mentions τοὺς ατρατηγούς seems to imply that they already existed.
Page 93 note 4 Are they to be identified with the 300 who passed sentence on the accursed (Plut. Sol. 12; Cf. Ar. I)? The suggestion that the first trial of the accursed, whatever be its date, has been contaminated with the proceedings taken against them by Isagoras has been widely accepted, and is supported by the demotikon attached to the name of their accuser, Myron of Phyla. The demotikon does not prove that Cleisthenes had already enacted his final constitution. for he may have used the demes in building his ἐπίστια, or it may have been derived from the counter-proceedings which must have rescinded the verdict after his return, but it is certainly more probable in the last decade of the sixth century than earlier.
Page 94 note 1 Προσεταιίζεται τὸν δῆμον. I surmise that he adopted the principle applied, if we can trust Aristole (13.2), in the election of the ten Archons to succeed Damasias, and that in every ten πρὸκριτοι five were to be Eupatridae, three Georgi, and two Demiurgi (cf. Cavaignac, Rev. Phil. XLVIII, 1924, ii. pp.144.8); but this conjecture belongs to another inquiry.
Page 94 note 2 I am not convinced that in the context αἴρεσις will be satisfied by πρόκισις.
Page 95 note 1 Wilamowitz, , Ar. u. ASth, I. pp. 299–303Google Scholar; Adcock, , Kilo. XII, 1912, pp. 1–16Google Scholar; Ledl, , Stud. z. ä. ath. Verfass. pp. 14–17Google Scholar.
Page 95 note 2 The continuation, τὸτε μετά τὴν τυραννίδα πρῶτο οἰ δὲ πρὁτεροι πάντες ᾖσαν αἰρετοἰ, does not affect my arguments. Cleisthenes, I hold, in situated κλὴρωσισ ἑκ προκρίτων in his first democratic statue, but dropped it in his second; Aristotle referred the first to Solon, and the promulgation of the second to the date of the deposition of Hippoas.
Page 96 note 1 The Constitution of Dracontides, C.Q. XXXII 1938, pp. 153–166Google Scholar.
