Everything about Cleisthenes totally explained
» For other figures with the same name as well as for the genus of flounders, see Cleisthenes (disambiguation).
Cleisthenes (
Greek: Κλεισθένης, also
Clisthenes or
Kleisthenes) was a noble
Athenian of the
Alcmaeonid family. He is credited with reforming the constitution of ancient
Athens and setting it on a
democratic footing in
508 BC or
507 BC. He was the maternal grandson of the tyrant
Cleisthenes of Sicyon, as the younger son of the latter's daughter
Agariste and her husband
Megacles.
Biography
According to William Smith, Cleisthenes was the maternal grandfather of
Alcibiades. His daughter
Deinomache (or Dinomache) married
Cleinias (d.
447 BC Battle of Coronea ), son of his
brother's friend Alcibiades (the elder), and had a son
Alcibiades. His mother's cousin
Pericles became her son's guardian.
Rise to power
With help from 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 unrivaled in power within the city. Isagoras set about uprooting hundreds of people from their homes on the pretext that they too were cursed, and attempted to dissolve the council. However, the council resisted, and the Athenian people declared their support of it. Hence Isagoras and his supporters were forced to flee to the
Acropolis, remaining besieged there for two days. On the third, they fled and were banished. Cleisthenes was subsequently recalled, along with hundreds of exiles, and he assumed leadership of Athens.
Contributions
After this victory Cleisthenes began to reform the government of Athens. He eliminated the four traditional tribes, which were based on family relations and had led to the
tyranny in the first place, and organized citizens into ten tribes according to their area of residence (their
deme). Most modern historians suppose there were 139 demes (this is still a matter of debate), organized into thirty groups called
trittyes ("thirds"), with ten
trittyes divided among three regions in each deme (a city region,
asty; a coastal region,
paralia; and an inland region,
mesogeia). He also established legislative bodies run by individuals chosen by lot, rather than kinship or heredity. He reorganized the
Boule, created with 400 members under
Solon, so that it had 500 members, 50 from each tribe. 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 from more than 6,000 of the citizens would exile a citizen for 10 years. The initial trend was to vote for a citizen deemed a threat to the democracy for example 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 (for example Xanthippus in 485/84 BC). Under this system, the exiled man's property was maintained, but he wasn't physically in the city where he could possibly create a new tyranny.
Cleisthenes called these reforms
isonomia ("equality vis à vis law", iso=equality; nomos=law), instead of
demokratia.
Soon after his reforms his life becomes a mystery, as no ancient texts mention him thereafter. It is possible that Cleisthenes himself suffered ostracism, for seeking support from the Persians against the Spartans.
Cleisthenes' ideas revolutionised the way of thinking in
Hellas at the time. But even Cleisthenes couldn't bring full change to Athens, and old institutions of the rich
aristoi still existed, such as the
areopagus. However, some scholars would argue that modern day western politics was shaped by his work.
Further Information
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