Eherenberg Democratia (Isonomia)

Origins of Democracy
Author(s): Victor Ehrenberg

Source: Historia: Zeitschrift fr Alte Geschichte, Bd. 1, H. 4 (1950), pp. 515-548
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag
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ABHANDLUNGEN
Origins of Democracy
The Greeks were the first political people in the history of mankind, for
they were the first to create States purely as communities of citizens in which
the administration and the making of policy were the right and the duty of
these citizens1. This is true of all the constitutional forms of Greek States;
but the rule of the majority, or indeed of the whole, of the free popu-
lation, was the final goal of Greek constitutional history - whatever its
J/orstufenwere since the days when the 067rAirat became the noAarat. It was
an ideal rather than a practicable goal; but if it could never be entirely
reached, it certainly could be and was accepted in principle. If it could never
mean that the whole people was actually governing (there would have been
nobody but non-citizens to be governed, as representative government had
not yet been invented), it did mean that every citizen had equal opportunity
of having in turn a share in the government. That is what we call demo-
cracy2. Any investigation into its beginnings will have chiefly to concentrate
on Athens, since only here a consistent and original example of democratic
government was set up, and at the same time we have only here the full
story, or at least something approaching it.
A constitution, unless it is imposed in a single action by some powerful
agent, has no fixed date of origin. It grows, and it will usually be possible to
mention several events which mark the progress of this growth. One or the
other of its stages may be regarded as the real act of foundation; but the
latest possible date would be the moment when the contemporaries them-
selves had found the final and significant name for the new constitution. In
our case, therefore, it can be said that democracy was in existence when
i. It is misleading to regard the City-States, say, of Sumer as bcing of the same

type as the Greek Polis. The forms of settlement may have been similar, but that is
about all the likeness there is. See also next note. It is somewhat different with the
Phoenician cities.
z. We neglect thosc forms, sometimes called democracies, which belong to primitive
tribal or other prehistoric societies. To them there was no direct sequel; they usually
led to early monarchy. Such a primitive democracy has also bccn discovered in Sumer
where, we arc told, sometimes cven later the local king can be regarded as a represen-
tative of the people; cf. Jacobsen, Journ. of Near Eastern Stud. II (1943), 1S9S. H. Frank-
fort, Kingship and the Gods, 2 I5ff., 258 ff. The usc in this context of the word >democracy#
seems out of place.
516 Victor Ebrenberg
people used that word to indicate the existing constitution. The use of the
word is a certain terminusante quem for the foundation of democracy; the
question is whether it is more than that. Perhaps we may say that with the
coining of the word democracy the idea of democracy had found its full
expression, and that earlier stages of the constitutional development which
had led to that final stage can have been only partial and imperfect reflections
of the idea. Thus I believe that the foundation and the naming of democracy
are at least near contemporaries.
By a strange coincidence, the origins of Athenian democracy, of its name
as well as its idea and meaning, have recently been the subject of indepen-
dent research from three very different points of view: that of the linguist,
that of the constitutional, and that of the social historian. All the three
articles have been published in one Festscbrift or another, and are thus more
or less hidden away3. This may be some excuse for taking up the question
again, but there are other more important reasons. The three articles,
however different in points of view and methods, come to similar results.
Professor Debrunner maintains that there is no evidence for the word
6r,uoxeaTta earlier than the middle of the fiftti century, but he admits the
possibility - unlikely though it seems to him - that it was older. Professor
Larsen concludes that #it was the Periclean age that dubbed Cleisthenes the
founder of Greek democracy<(, and that )>Periclean democracy has a special
right to the name<(. Professor Schaefer sees in the Cleisthenic reform and
the events of the following decades even down to Pericles no constitutional
issues at all, rather the struggles for power of individual aristocratic leaders
and their families. To him the specific and real conception of democracy
originated, in theory as well as in practice, as late as the time of the Pelo-
ponnesian War.
If I dare to challenge the chief common result of the three articles, a
comparatively late date for the origin of democracy, I naturally do so with
some trepidation. I feel, however, justified first because I have learnt a
great deal from the three authors; I have shared myself some of the views
they hold, and I still agree with a considerable part of their arguments
though less with Schaefer's than the two others'. Secondly and chiefly,
however, there is the fact that none of the three learned authors has used a
source which seems to me of outstanding importance. In Aeschylus' Supp-
liants we encounter the earliest picture, as far as we know, of the working
3. A. Debrunner, Aj,uoxqatra in Festscrhnftfur E. Tiicbe (I947), 11-24. J. A. 0.

Larsen, Cleisthenes and the Development of thc Theory of Democracv at Athens, in
Essays in Political Theory, presented to George W. Sabine (H948), I-I6. [. Schaefer, Be-
sonderheit und Begriff der attischen Demokratic im 5. Jahrhundert, in Synopsis, Fesigabe
fir Al/red Weber (1948), 479-503. I owe the knowledge of the two latter papers to the
authors' kindness in scnding me oflprints.
Origins of Democracy 517
of a Greek democracy 4. Although to some extent a side-show in the play,

it is essential and significant. We have to discuss its relevant aspects before
we discuss anything else6.
The Constitutionin Aeschylus'Suppliants

The Suppliants, according to the virtually unanimous opinion of modern
scholars, is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. The exact date is unknown,
though the year of the performance of the Persae(47z B. C.) is a certain
terminus antequem.For reasons of style and dramatic structure most scholars,
and in fact not only the most distinguished, but also those differing most in
their approach, are inclined to date the Suppliant as early as the nineties of
the fifth century 6. We accept that date.
Argos, the place to which the daughters of Danaus have fled, is ruled
by the king Pelasgus. The country over which he rules is once described as
# Pelasgian # Hellas, covering the whole of historical Greece up to Macedon
and Thrace (z iff.); but for all practical purposes it is the Polis and people
of Argos, whose king he is. The form of his rule, as we shall see, is demo-
cratic; without any reference to contemporary events - a reference which
could not be proved - we may safely assume that the picture of democracy
is strongly influenced by the democracy of contemporary Athens. It would
be only natural, or it might even be inevitable, for poet and audience alike,
to see mythical democracy in the light of their own daily experience.
4. About the constituLtionof Chios (c. 6oo B. C.), see below, P. 538. Diodorus
(i.e. probably Ephorus') version of Tyrtacus' Eunomiawith the line (9) 6s,iov 6&nA '
'
VIM vjv xa XCa'LTOrIneaOat (xa'LTogbeing interchangeablewith XcDrog), which seems to
presuppose the conception of 6rjsoxLoarTa,cannot be genuine, although clearly referring
to the Rhetra. Cf. Hermes LXVlII (1933), 298, o, and Wade-Gery, CQ. XXXVIII
(I944), 3ff., differently Hammond, JHS. LXX (I950), 48f.
5. Part of the following article was read as a paper to the London Classical Society
on December 6th, 1950. I owe corrections and suggestions to points raised in discussion
bv Professors W. A. Laidlaw and T. B. L. Webster, and by Mr. G. Williams who also
let me read a forthcoming paper of his on *The Curse of the Alcmaeonidae* (to be
published in Hermathena).Prof. F. E. Adcock has read the proofs and acted as a very
helpful censor. The following investigation was partly foreshadowed by earlier articles
of mine; cf. the chapter *Die Generation von Marathon# in Os und West (I935), I27ff.;
RE., Suppl. VII, 2g93 f., also Oxford Class. Dictionary, z66.
6. Thus, e. g., Weil, W'ilamowitz,Gilbert Murray,Pohlenz, Kitto, Snell. All attempts
to pin the play down to a more accurate date havc failed. It was in the 70th Olympiad
(499-96) that Aeschylus for the first time competed with a tragedv (Suidas s. Pratinas),
and in 484 he won his first theatrical victory (Marm. Par.), but in either case we do
not know with which play. I believe that no convincing connection of the Suppliants
with contemporary events can be found, whether in Argos or anvwhere else. Against
a dependence of the lines 556ff. on Anaxagoras' explanation of the Nile flood, cf. W. Ca-
pelle, Neue JahrlbiicherXXXIII (I914), 340, and A. Korte, Phil. Wochenscbr.1929, 373f.
518 Victor Ehrenberg
From the beginning of the play we are, as it were, surrounded by an

atmosphere of Polis religion and Polis constitution. The suppliants, looking
for protection, naturally rely on the sanctuary of the altar (I90: Qeelaaov
5i nVryov flcougO');but they need the strong hand of the Polis to defend both
themselves and the sanctity of the altar. With the latter, and with the whole
religious aspect of the situation, however essential in the play, we are not
concerned, though it must never be forgotten that the question which
king and people of Argos have to face is equally and inseparably both-
religious and political. Even the Egyptian herald can speak of his native
land as the oA)tg eaefl6Cov(8S z). This is not just a vague use of rdotg in
the sense of country or State, but an indication that the characters of the
play - and, we may say, the poet and his audience as well - cannot think
except in terms of Polis society and organisation. It is even more significant
that the chorus in the first lines of the play claims that it was not exiled for
a capital crime by vote of the Polis (7f.: ?pnqpt) ndAeawg),just as later in the
play the voyog no'Amcgof Egypt is invoked, or the o'NoO8v vO6,Ol of Egypt,
even against the divine law of sacred asylum (387ff.). Despite the contrast
between Greeks and barbarians, which dominates the whole drama, the
world of the Polis, even the formal voting of a legal court, is extended to
include that otherwise so strange and strangely fascinating country of Egypt 7.
When Pelasgus is asked by the suppliants whether he is an ordinary
citizen or the guardian of the sanctuary or the leader of the State (z47f.), he
naturally declares that he is Txa& y4g daQay8-Trg and dva4 (2s5if.). Accor-
dingly he is repeatedly addressed as alva$ Jl&Eaaycov(324, 345, 6i6). But
when it comes to the test it is at once clear that he is no independent ruler.
In anything concerning the whole community (To' XOlVOV, 366) he has first
to consult >#all the citizens#< (369); he cannot act without the demos (398),
although he is the ruler. His cautious reluctance in meeting the suppliants'
request is obvious; he is faced with the responsibility of deciding whether
he has to refuse that request or to risk war and thus endanger the city8. His
lack of determination chiefly results from his position, that is to say, from
the constitution of the State. He is the leader of a people who are prepared
to follow his advice; but without their sanction, which is by no means a
foregone conclusion, he is powerless.
It has been said that the poet had little interest in # the debate of the
politicians in the Agora (9. Even so, and although the picture of democracy
7. I cannot share the view frequently expressed (e. g., by W. Eberhardt,-Die Antike
XX I944, 96ff.) that the Suppliantssimplv reflect the conflict between the world of the
Polis as the world of order and moderation, on the one hand, and the barbarian and
savage world of Egypt, on the other.
8. Cf. B. Snell, Die Entstehungdes Geistes(I 946), 9 5ff.
9. J. Vurtheim, in his edition of the play (i928), 3.
Origin:of Democracy 519
is in no way at the core of the play, it is the theme of its most dramatic
scene (344ff.), and it forms the essential background to the central problem,
the rights and duties of asylum'0. Moreover, the forms of democratic
government are needed to make Pelasgus' decision a responsible choice
rather than an arbitrary verdict. The political aspect is treated by the poet as
a matter of primary importance, in fact as a conflict of principles which is
being fought out between the king and the chorus. After he has told them
that the decision is with the people, the chorus replies with a passionate
appeal to the monarchical principle: a Thou art the State, thou the people 1
(370ff). This proclamation, as it were, of the fundamental principle of
absolute monarchy, the challenge of L'I8at c'est moi (or indeed toi), is
elaborated in an interesting manner. The king is called "rev'ravicJ.eFtrog.
The prytanis is a title preferably used for the highest State officials; but
Pelasgus, though he himself may feel as a mere prytanis, is in the chorus'
view much more than an official. He is not responsible to anybody, he is
tunjudged#, which means that he is not subject to any judgment; he is
therefore in a position truly opposite to that of a democratic official who is
always vt38rctvvogI".The king's iovot'Vppa ev'uazra, his will *voting alonec,
stand over and against the ~p5O9 IroAkwgl2. Pelasgus, sitting on the throne
monarchic ()wielding the sceptre aloneo), is called upon to fulfil all that is
needed and to avert pollution. He is supposed # to rule the altar, the hearth
of the country <; the sovereign power (xearvvetv, cf. 699) is naturally exer-
cised over the Polis as a religious community as well 3. Pelasgus is entreated
to use his full monarchical power to save the suppliants and to prevent the
violation of the sanctity of the altar. Later (423 ff.) practically the same con-
ception is expressed in even stronger terms when Pelasgus is addressed:
io. Cf. E. Schlesinger, Die griecb.Asylie (I933), esp. 4zfg. B. Daube, Zu den Rechis-
problemen in Aischylos' Agamemnon (0938?), 749f. Both books deal intercstingly, though
not always convincinglv, with thc legal aspects. This is also true of the book, written
from a wider philosophical angle, by E. Wolf, Griech. Rerch/denken1 (1950), 345 ff. I have
neither cause nor indeed competence to discuss the original (tribal?) foundations of
the legal question; cf. G. Thomson, Aeschylus and Athens (I 941), 298if.
iI. The expression nLoveTavic 6iXLlO is a similar kind of oxymoronas, for instance,
Aristotle's definition of the aisymnetia as a atLeQlT Tvveavvt (Pol. i285a, 31).
12. In Liddell-Scott-jones s. Aov6tpt7'oq, the passage is regarded as rcferring to
Zeus. But in the whole sccne, however frequently the chorus speaks of Zeus, the person
they directly address is always the king and nevcr the god (cf. in particular 359iff,
381i., 395f., 402ff.). It is clearly intentional that the king is addressed by words which
would equally well fit the highest god; cf. above all, 423-437, which I shall mcntion
presently, but here again the distinction between second person (king) and third person
(Zeus) is strictly maintained. The explanation is, of course, that the chorus views
monarchy in its most absolute form.
I3. Vurtheim, 185, is mistaken in his view that xeaTVVett flwjuov is an exaggeration
on the part of the chorus.
w nav xe aro EX v ovo04. This xearo; is power given by Zeus - as is

its symbol, the royal sceptre. Its essence is justice: 3bcXAa AtcOEv xQedn. If
Pelasgus acts with 6dx7and fights the t3fleiadve'ewv, he and his house will
be blessed.
The question encountered here is less that of personal leadership than
of monarchy as an institution15. The bybrisof the man who claims to be the
absolute ruler is later personified in Xerxes, while responsible personal
leadership is depicted in the tragic figure of Eteocles in the Sevenagainst
Thebes.There is little of the latter in Pelasgus, and nothing of the former,
even not in the challenging picture provided by the chorus'. It is they who
come nearest to iUfle;t, though only by their threat to kill themselves on
the steps of the altar. Their attempt to persuade Pelasgus of what they think
is his duty towards the gods and their laws is at the same time fought with
the weapon of political principles. The struggle is between two different
forms of government.
Pelasgus again and again puts the Polis and the will of the citizens first.
He is claimed by the suppliants as their protector and friend (ie o'evo , 419,
49I; cf. z39); later on, they are admitted to the State as metics (609, 994).
Pelasgus' part is that of the citizen who speaks for the foreigners either in
the assembly or before a court. He is their neoaTdrrqg;but he makes it clear
that it is not only he who acts as a neoo-racTrg:he and all the citizens together
who have voted for the admission of the suppliants will, in fact, be * guar-
dians # of their fate (963 f.). Pelasgus is described as the orator who leads
and sways the people (6I5f., 623f.). He is prudent enough to know the
weaknesses of the people; the crowd likes to find faults (485) and does not
like lengthy speeches (273, cf. 200). Pelasgus hopes that the people will be
well-disposed towards the suppliants, and he instructs Danaus how to speak
in order to win them over (5 i8ff.). Peitho (Persuasion) and Tyche (Good
Chance) must help (5z3).
It is, above all, the danger of war of which Pelasgus is afraid, for that is
what the Polis wants least (35 6ff.). He fears the reproaches of the people
14. Thc same expression is used by Her. VII 3, 4, when he describes Atossa's
position.
IS. To assume the contrary was my erroneous view in Oxt und West, i31. It is,
however, by no means certain that this absolute monarchy is *oriental and #barbariane,
as is commonly assumcd. The Greeks saw also in the Persian king a despot not very
different from a Greek tyrant - a point of view w%hich only partially changed under
the impact of the Persian Wars.
i6. Therefore I do not quite agree with fH.G. Robertson, CP. L (I936), 107,
who sees behind the opposite forms of absolute monarchy and democratic leadership
the contrast of vpot and 6(xi7. Though a common thenmeof Greek political ethics
(and of Aeschylean too, as the Persacreveals), the issue in the Supplianit,both political
and religious, is different. See also notc 7.
who may tell him (401): >>Inhonouring foreigners thou hast destroyed the
Polis <#.This is to come very close to the situation which brought democratic
statesmen in Athens to trial as, for instance, Miltiades in 489 on a charge of
aaTin TOV&4YuOV(Her. V I 36).
The evidence so far mentioned seems in general to a surprising extent to
conform to certain features of democratic Athens as we know them from
sources fifty or more years younger. But we have still to deal with the purely
constitutional issue. There can be no doubt that the whole affair is decided
by a decree of the people: &4juov&e'oxTat naVTEAx7 vMTVjuasra (6oI). The
same is stressed again and again, the Y*?0og'eAydwcOv (739),the 6quo'Qaxroq bc
no6kwcg5Vda 7os (942), the Tog of all the citizens (965). These are poetical
variations of the terms used in official language. We know that the early
style of Athenian prescripts had only g6OtE T1O&4uI17, and what the people
decided was called a rTpasya despite the fact that decisions of the assembly
had for a long time been arrived at by raising of hands, and not by Vpi7ot.
Even this is clearly reflected in the play. The chorus asks Danaus who
comes from the assembly (604): *Tell us in what way did 64uov xeaTroika Xeko
prevail? <1o.And Danaus replies that the voting was unanimous: *The air
was moved by the whole people proclaiming their decision with favourable
hands o (607)1'. And again (6zi): the people, after listening to Pelasgus'
speech, )cast their vote with their hands without a herald (who would
probably act as a teller when the voting was not unanimous) that it be so 4.
The modus of counting the votes had, at a comparatively early time,
generally replaced the cruder forms of acclamation such as still prevailed in
Sparta as late as the fourth century-0. If it was to be a secret voting it had to
be done by vispot, otherwise by show of hands. Both methods seem to have
been in use at least in the seventh century, and cheirotoniawas the normal
procedure in the Athenian assembly as early as Solon, if not earlier. In
elections of magistrates or councillors and also in the decision of popular
courts the counting of votes - one way or another - was a necessary
feature; though not limited to democratic constitutions, it was unlikely to
be used under a monarchic ruler, except for purely formal decisions and
possibly in court. As far as open ballot is concerned, it may not have been
17. Cf. the Salamis inscription (now SEG. X, i), and my paper JHS. LVII (1937),
149f.
I8. The second half of the line is corrupt, but the decisive words and thc general
meaning are quite certain.
I9. 1av6?tdq yde Xse'ai 6e$iwvVJuotq kpeiQrvaIOi) rdv6e ,coasvdvrcov U6yov. XQoaIvCo,
a favourite word with Aeschylus with the gencral meaning of 'to make valid', is
used in the Suppliantsespecially in the sense of casting a vote (cf. 6z2, 943). Cf. also
E. Fraenkel, Aesch. Agamti.II, I93f.
20. On voting procedure, cf. the article, comprehensive except for the evidence
from the Supplianis, by J. A. 0. Larsen, CP. XLIV (949), 164ff.
a satisfactory safe-guard of democracy, but no democratic constitution

could do without it.
A vote taken by cheirotoniais, as we have seen, also the method by which
the people in the Ssuppliants express their will: &Iuovxea-rofaa XE'. *The
people's ruling hand. - can it mean anythingelse than o 6-7sog xeaTcivpr
XEIVOTOViq, that is to say that the show of hands is the expression of the
people's rule, of &5.so-xeaT1a?This passage alone should make it almost
certainthat the word democracy,and thus its very idea, were not unknown
to the poet. The conclusion is confirmedby a second passage. In the song
in which the chorus praysto the gods to bless the city (698if.) they express
the wish that TO 6a'ytov rO aro'AtvxeaTv'vetmay guard the laws. This 661ULov
seems identical with the dexdiwhich is * full of forethought and mindful
of the common weal.. The chorus concludes its song of thanksgivingwith
the wish that the people may be blessed, preserving the sacred laws of
justice21.The suppliantshave learnttheir lesson in politics; they now know
who indeed rules the city. The challenge of av06bE1r &ilLOv (370) is replaced
by the recognition of the ba5dLov xQaTVvov, of democracy22.
21. The whole passage contains unsolved difficulties and at least one certain cor-
ruption not yet finally emended: qpvAdaaot T'aTeEysala (? adTtlag and daTaMag cod.
dac6aena Wilam.) TIAC T6 6da',Uov, rd aT6ALV XeaTwvet, neoya0,.aEOViOtv6PTTtq aLoXa.
The meaning of the first line, whatever its exact wording, is clear from the scholiast's
awraxivi7To rtElev as)rolq ai Tutal, though it still remains to be said what at Ttgal are.
I believe they are neither *prerogatives # nor the position of magistrates, but the honours
due to guests, gods. and parents, according to the three OdacrtaJAx% solemnly invoked
in the following concluding lines (701 If.). Whether this is accepted or not, the words
with which we are chieflv concerned are simple and beyond doubt: *the people who
are the master of the city . It is less certain, though it seems the easiest solution, to assume
(with the scholiast as quoted by Vurtheim, but not in Dindorf's edition) that Td 6dayov
is the subject and dexd an apposition: *as a ruling body, neoauaOi; EvXo&vo'4wurts;. This
seems in essence - though not in the translation of Ttsat - also the view of Wilamo-
witz (Aisbhylos.Interpretaionen,.I. 39f.); but hc detects too much of constitutional
detail in the whole song. For Tucker in his edition (I889), the adxia is the Areopagus
(and the subject), and u3 6dpiov *the public watchcd over bv that Council ((; the corrlpted
passage then bccomes drlaw&t Ts,uaFg. This seems off the mark, and so was Palev
when he took dexa as the government vprotecting the people who arc the strength of
the state#. If the dexi is something to be distinguished from the 6d1uov, it is most
likely the position oc the king which was so important throughout the play. But can
we assume that the two elements, people and king, are mentioned side bv side, without
any connecting TC or xai? On the whole, I fcel, no satisfactory explanation has been
put forth for any phrase in which 3 6daytovis not the subject. Cf. also Bowra's translation
(Greek Lyric Poetry, 4 I 9). But though it might suit my general argument, I do not know
why Suppl.698 ff. should cxpress ) the notion of t'aovopia as the central idea of dcmocracy*.
22. This result is not refuted by v. 398, the passage already quoted, when Pclasgus
is urged to receive the suppliants in his country and to protect them; he repeats that
he must first ask the pcoplc: ov'x dvEv 6r7pOV Ta6E neQaty'dv, ov6 nee xearZv. ))I could
not act without the people, although I am the ruler. For the concessive meaning of
Originsof Democracy 523
There may be some doubt left whether Aeschylus actually knew the
abstract word &yuo,xeadra,or perhaps only a phrase such as 3juog xpard,
which, however, would indicate a form of State in which the Demos was
exercising supreme power. Thus I believe that the two come essentially
to the same thing. The idea of democracy as well as an expression for this
idea, as confirmed by the passages mentioned, were known to the poet,
either in the shape of the final abstract noun or as a verbal phrase of virtually
the same meaning. I really think the former possibility is far more likely.
Prof. Debrunner (see note 3), without taking the evidence from the
Suppliants into consideration, has shown that the very words 6i7,uogceaTe',
and they alone, provide the exact meaning expressed in the abstract noun
when first used. According to him, 6nruoxeaTtawas the only possible word
to indicate government by the people, a word shaped after the abstract
nouns, already in existence at that time, indicating the rival forms of govern-
ment: ,uovaeLXaand o'AtyaoxLa.Of these, the former is used by Aeschylus
(Sept. 88I), but it was known as early as Alcaeus (I 19-22, 27); it is clearly
the earliest of the three, and the first to introduce a composite word in
which the first part referred to the subject, and not to the object, of govern-
ment23. To express the conception of the people's rule, r1tuaeXta was
impossible, as it was already used for the rule over, not by, the people24;
apart from that, even if it referred to the subject of government, it would,
just like monarchy and oligarchy, express the rule over somebody else,
and that could hardly be the idea of the word needed25. Thus, &juoxeaTta
was coined; it had no Grundwort, no 6?IIoxeaTs, but it was most fertile
ot36eoeecf., e.g., J. D. Dcnniston, The Greek Particles, 487. It is Pelasgus who rules,
though not without the consent of the demos. This is the democratic monarchy of the
myth, once more set against the absolute monarchy which is in the chorus' thoughts.
If it is not simply democracy, ic certainlv does not contradict it.
23. 1 am not quite convinced that Debrunner is right in dating &,qyoxLoatra later
than dA&yaexoa, or at least whether we can be sure about it. If I have rightly understood
his view, it would otherwise have been 6rjuoxoa're&a and not djyoxLcaTIa. But can the
ending not equally be influenced by povaexla? The form dA)yaexta,it is true, is directly
shaped after puovaeXta,and the rule of the faamAeig in Hesiod's time or that of the
noble clans in the seventh and sixth centuries may have been described by that namc;
there was no other yet, as far as we can tell. But was there a name at all at that time?
At any rate, we shall sec in the following section that the original opposites were tmon-
archyv and 4non-monarchv ; these opposites, whatever the name of the second, seem
carlier than the triad.
24. The 6r7,uaexog was a magistrate in early Chios (Tod, no. I, 3. 5. 26). Hcre as
well as in the later Athenian &76tuaexot,the men administering the local demes of Attica,
6inpoqis the object of rule.
25- We are used to the idea that democracy means that the people are ruled by the
people. But when the word 6njuoxeaTia was first coined, it cannot have included this
almost metaphysical meaning.
in producing offspring, either direct children such as the verb, generally

used in passive, and the adjective 3rnioxQearnxno or relatives in a side-line
such as aeutroxeaTta (first example in Thucydides), rtguoxea-ra, and many
others. That is to say - and for further details we must refer to Debrunner's
lucid article - it is the abstract noun with which the history of the con-
ception really begins. Aeschylus would hardly have spoken of the 64uOV
xeaTofxa Xete or the 6iyuoq mqaTvvvwv,unless the idea of 6i.oxqaTta had
previously taken shape and found expression.
The passages quoted from the Suppliants show that the emphasis in the
idea of the ,ito0 in power is on the contrast to the dvat in power. It is
the contrast and conflict between monarchy and democracy which is essen-
tial, and no other form of government is mentioned. Thus, democracy is
seen as the essentially non-monarchic State; but the whole setting of the
play makes it obvious that at the same time it really means the people's rule.
Its positive nature, the people's power to decide, is just as clear and definite
as its negative nature, the challenge to monarchy. The particular allusions
to democracy in the poet's words will have been understood by his audience,
just as they enjoyed the general picture of a State in which the people
had the real say. If the abstract noun 6rjuoxoarTawas not yet in use at the
time of the Susppliants,it must, at any rate, have been the result of exactly
that trend of thought and that use of words which we find in the play.
Thus, it seems not too bold to assert that the word 6rjquoxQadta,even
supposed it was not, as I believe it was, actually used before the time of
the Suppliants, was almost contemporary.
This then is the first result of our investigation. Aeschylus, who fought
at Marathon and Salamis, wrote a play, probably before the year of Marathon,
in which he is a witness to the fact that roughly at that time the name of
democracy was well known. The word 6r,uoxQaariaregains an earlier origin
than is nowadays commonly assumed. We cannot expect to find in mythical
Argos a complete analogy to a fifth century constitution. There is, for
example, as we have already said, no mentioning of a flovAl for which
there was no place in the plot, nor could the king of the myth have entirely
the shape of a democratic official. But as closely as he could the poet did
paint his mythical State with contemporary colours. The essential constitu-
tional facts are that the form of government is strictly opposed to autocratic
monarchy, that the ruler depends on the decision of the people and is
responsible to them, that he leads the people by his oratory, and that a
decision in the assembly is reached by taking a vote through a show of
hands.
It will now be our task to find out what else we know of the name
and nature of early democracy, and whether any other evidence can confirm
and supplement or, on the other hand, is at variance with, the results we
have reached so far.
Democracyin Herodotus
In Greek political theory three chief forms of government are usually
distinguished, though their names vary to some extent. The most common
distinction is based on the numeral factor: monarchy, oligarchy, democracy
(demos standing for the majority). We have just been discussing some
aspects of the three words, and we also realised that one of the outstanding
features of democracy as depicted by Aeschylus was the predominant
contrast to only one other form of government, to the one man's rule.
This dualism within the triad emerges also from the earliest example extant
of a theoretical discussion on the subject of the best form of government,
the famous debate among the Persian nobles in Herodotus III 8o-8z. Al-
though there is a speech in favour of each of the three constitutions, Otanes in
praising democracy attacks only monarchy; Megabyzus attacks democracy,
but his plea for the rule of the detaot dv6ete is very brief and almost
negligible; finally Darius, while mentioning all three forms, treats oligarchy
because of the inevitable outbreak of rivalry and strife between its members
as a transitional phase only which inevitably leads to monarchy. The real
conflict is, in fact, between monarchy (or trannis) and democracy.
As in the Suppliants so in Herodotus the fundamental tendency seems
to be the opposition to monarchy. Whose opposition? I do not wish to
repeat in this context the word democracy, for if there are only two forms
of government, oligarchy must belong to one of them, and that can only
be the non-monarchical form. Moreover, Otanes never mentions the words
demos or democracy. Darius, on the other hand, speaks of the demos. He
actually - even twice - distinguishes three rulers rather than forms of
rule: ijC4oq, dALyaoXi,q,4uov'vaexo;(8z, i. 5). The lack of logic in this
tripartition is obvious. ) The key to the meaning is the use of monarch
and not monarchy (26, but, as I should like to add, in the mutual opposition
of monarch and demos. Oligarchy, awkwardly put in instead of the &tyot,
the small group of ruling men, looks very much like an afterthought.
The original dualism, once again, is recognisable, although it has grown
into the triad which had become the normal conception.
Herodotus is a late source as compared with the Suppliants.But he must
have had predecessors. He assures us that the story of the debate was Per-
sian, and he turns with some fervour against the scepticism of certain
Greeks. That shows that he told essentially the story which he had found
in his source. This source, written, of course, in Greek, had probably
transferred a Greek debate. - or at least arguments based on Greek condi-
tions and expressed in a purely Greek spirit - to a Persian setting27.
26. Larsen (see note 3), note x6.

27. It is not impossible that such sceptical utterances as he mentions followed one
of Herodotus' public lectures. Even so, evervthing speaks for a literary source, on which
Whether or not we recognise in that debate the influence of early Sophistic

teaching, it is more likely than not that its original version reflected thoughts
anid arguments which were chiefly at home at Athens. There the tyranno-
phoby of democracy would be a fitting background for a theory in which
the opposition to monarchical rule was the principal theme. On the other
hand, since the late sixties, if not earlier, the domestic struggle in Athens
had clearly grown into a party strife between democrats and oligarchs. At
that time, the triad must have become self-evident. If we are right about
the earliest stratum of the Herodotean debate as a discussion among Greeks
for and against monarchical rule (we admit, this remains hypothetical), its date
must be fairly near to the time of the Persian Wars, and thus comparatively
close to the probable date of the Suppliants.
Democracy *has the most beautiful name of all, laovo1di'* (8z, 6).
Whatever the origin and intrinsic meaning of this word28, to Herodotus
it is simply a synonym of 6rnoxeaTla. In Otanes' speech it is made equal
to. aA7iOoqa4Xov (8o, 6), in Darius' to u0o9 d6QXcwv (82, 4), while Megabazus
argues against conferringTOreaTog on ttie nZAioo (8I, i). Other passages
confirm that Herodotus uses the two conceptions of quoxmea-rta and iaovo1dr1
indiscriminately. The liberty promised to the people of Samos after Poly-
crates' tyrannis had been overthrown is called lcrovod,u77(III 142, 3f.).
Histiaeus warned his colleagues that their tyrannis was entirely based on
the supremacy of Persia, while each of the Ionian cities would prefer
6n1uoxtaTU'a0 ,aAAov v xTveavvevuCaOat (IV 137, z). On the other hand,
when Aristagoras resigned his tyrannis he created icaovoJldr (V 37, 2), and
everywhere in the cities the tyrants were replaced by elected strategoi
(V 38, 2). It was therefore surprising that Mardonius eventually did not
restore the tyrants, but gave democratic constitutions to the Greek cities:
6tq,uoxeaT(ag xaT1cTa (VI 43, 3)29. Here we have the abstract noun 6r,,oxLoaTta
Herodotus relied, which already had the Persian setting. The exceptional position of
Otanes' family (83, 3) ruay have been a motive for inventing that sctting, while, on the
other hand, the final arguments in favour of monarchy with their reference to Cyrus
are made from the Pcrsian point of vicw. The allusion in Hcr. VI 43, 3, to the debate
in Book III shows how weak Herodotus' argument actually is. Those Greeks, he says,
who did not belicve that Otanes recommended democracy to the Persians (co; xe'ov El7
6n,yoxeadru6Oaa 17tocTaa) must have been greatly surprised when Mardonius introduced
democracies in the Ionian cities. Herodotus does not even see the fundamental distinc-
tion, underlying the issue, whether it was the Persian empire or some Greek cities which
were to be ruled democratically. - It will be seen that in the discussion between M\or-
rison and Gomme (JHS. LXX 1950, 76f.) I really cannot side with either of them;
but I deprecate any direct reference in Hcrodotus' debate, even in its final form,
to Periclcs (cf. AJP1. LXIX, 1948, I6I, 40).
z8. Cf. my article on Isonomia, RE. Suppl. VII, 293-301, and this paper, p. 530 f.
29. 4e did so on his way to the expedition of 492. His intention must have been to win
the loyalty of the lonians, and later events down to 480 show that he had been successful.
Originmof Democracy 527
itself, and there is one more passage in which it is used. That is when
Herodotus mentions Cleisthenes as one of Pericles' ancestors and describes
him as the man who introduced in Athens -ra qvmAaxal n)v 6nyoxearTiv
(VI 131, I). Our first impression from all these quotations will be that
Herodotus had no definite conceptions of, nor a clear-cut name for, any
constitution - with the possible exception of monarchy, though it too
is not distinguished from tyranny30. That general impression is further
confirmed by the fact that, according to V 78, the rise of Athens after the
downfall of the tyrannis was due to liberty expressed in atyoehq, while
we learn from V 92 that Sparta, by destroying 'YoceaT'ag in Greece,
was bound to introduce rveavv(6ag.
Thus the same thing is expressed by 5jouoxQaTla, iaovopl,&, and occasio-
nal variations of which ii?yoQe7i is the freedom of speech in the assembly,
singled out as a specific and ~)excellente feature of democracy, while ao-
xQea-rta looks like an attempt to combine the two more usual words and
thus to indicate the rule of equality. Obviously, Herodotus is well versed
in using abstract nouns to describe a constitution, but none of them seems
yet fully settled. We ask what are the particular contents which make the
various expressions, at least for Herodotus, practically interchangeable.
The outstanding issue is undoubtedly the contrast to monarchy. In
every single case mentioned this is the point in question, and apart from
the debate of the Persian nobles, there is never any further indication what
the specific characteristics of any form of ?yIoxQear1aor laovo1tih actually
were. It was therefore tempting to conclude that there was nothing else
in it, that even when Herodotus speaks of democracy he connects with
the word not more than the general meaning of a free and unmonarchical
constitution31.
This is rather a vague definition, and if we are not satisfied by it, we
had better try to dig a little deeper. Herodotus claims that the democracy
prevalent at his own time, the Periclean democracy, is essentially the same
as that of Cleisthenes. That is, I believe, also the deeper meaning of VI 131,
that short chapter in which the story of the wooing of Agariste, the daughter
of Cleisthenes of Sicyon, from which Megacles the Alcmaeonid emerged
triumphant, leads to the enumeration of his descendents, of another
3o. This can cven lead to using the word ,i6vaexog contrary to its very meaning.
Cypselus was given an oracle (Her. V 920) which set him as the one who was to bring
justice to Corinth against the Bacchiads who, although forming a family oligarchy,
are called ),monarchical men4:. . .. E'v 69 7ecrELTaL av6QdYa ,owatndxotat,&txaLtKale 69
KMQLvOov.
31. Schaefer, 503: *nicht die Demokratic im Sinne der spateren Staatsform, son-
dern. .. ganz allgemein eine Verfassung, bci der die freiheitliche Entscheidung des
Volkes gesichert ist.e
Cleisthenes, the founder of Athenian democracy, and another Agariste who

when pregnant dreamt that she would bear a lion: ))and a few days later
she bore Pericles <X.
This masterpiece of personal homage and flattery implies
the greatness of Pericles as well as his being the heir of the political traditions
of his mother's family, and in particular of the greatest among the Alcmae-
onids, the reformer Cleisthenes32.
The same Herodotus, however, who does not distinguish between
hiovoyurqand 6rjquomeaiia, or between Cleisthenes' and Pericles' State,
mentions in Otanes' speech, and partly also in the opposing speeches,
some of the features considered typical of democracy. It avoids the faults
of monarchy such as the corruption by ifletgand TOOvog,the destruction
of the vo',tua nrdreta, and arbitrary and cruel actions. All this is typical
polemics against t)rannis. But after these generalities we come to real
facts. Government by the people is i5rcv'Ovvo;,while a monarch is avctOvvo;.
Offices are distributed by lot, and all decisions are taken with regard to
the community as a whole. It is easy to object to this description, as Mega-
byzus does, by emphasizing that the mass of the people is stupid, can be
full of Oflm, and thus a worse tyrant than a monarch. Darius' counter-
argument is more specific when he says that the evil of the people's rule
consists chiefly in the appearance of factions acting for their own advantage
and not for the common weal; the only remedy is a leader who puts an
end to this, a eQOaTadg Ttg TOV36tgov. It is quite remarkable thatin Herodotus
the same arguments are brought forward which played such havoc with
modern democracy.
The description of democracy, in both its positive and its negative
topics, does not necessarily refer to Athens; but it is difficult not to think
in this connection of the State in which democracy had grown most con-
spicuously, the State also which had become the spiritual, and at least for
some time the actual, home of Herodotus33. We cannot say how far he
coloured what he found in his source; but the details seem to justify the
view that this description is a fairly adequate reflection of Athenian condi-
tions. If that is so, it can hardly refer to Cleisthenes. The unqualified use
made of sortition points to a date after the archonship was made accessible
by lot (487/6; Atb. pol. zz, 5). The denunciation of mob rule, unless it
32. Against the view of a derogatory meaning of the famous passage, cf. G. W. Dy-
son, CQ. XXIII (1925), i86ff.
33. Was Athens the spiritual home of Herodotus? This is a disputed question.
To think of him as a one-sided and exclusive partisan of Athens is, I believe, a mistake.
Herodotus is at least as fair to Sparta, while his special contempt is rescrved for the
lonians of Asia Minor. He is, in fact, neither a pure Panhellenist nor simply a Polis
citizen; that in the end he became a citizen of Thurii is rather significant. Yet, it was
in his relations to men like Pericles and Sophocles that his mind received its final shape.
relied on an experience won outside Athens of which we cannot find any

traces, could hardly point to anything earlier than the ostracisms of the
eighties. The demand for a popular leader, however necessary a link in
Darius' argument, acknowledges at the same time the need of leadership
in a democracy, the leadership of a neoarda'r Tot&6'iov. That is a position
clearly distinguished from that of a monarch or tyrant. The demand could
not be made before the emergence of political leaders such as Themistocles,
Cimon, and Pericles34. That, I believe, is as far as we can get in fixing
within the framework of Athenian history the features of democracy as
outlined by Herodotus.
It remains to compare those features with the picture derived from
Aeschylus' Suppliants. The dominating issue is the same: the opposition
to absolute monarchy. Both descriptions base their anti-monarchical State
on the principle of responsibility35. The arbitrary and irresponsible king
or tyrant is contrasted with the popular leader who remains responsible
to the people. Aeschylus speaks also on two occasions in later plays of the
ruler who is not V7zev'Ovvog;in the one case it is Xerxes (Pers. 2I2), in the
other the -qeaXq ,uo'vaoxogZeus (Prom. 324). These are significant figures,
miles apart from the leader of the Polis.
As to the other points mentioned, Aeschylus in the Suppliants does not
speak of sortition or election; but the institution of officials does not, and
cannot, come into his picture at all. Herodotus, on the other hand, does
not describe the assembly moved by the leader's oratory; but that is actually
implied in his allusions to the people's rule and the demand for a prostates.
The same phenomena cannot be more strikingly illustrated than by the
cheirotoniain the Argivian assembly on the one hand, the whole figure of
Pelasgus on the other. The latter is not called a 7reoaTarr?so~u TOV uov,
34. It seems certain that ;qrorTardT7j ToiO 6,'Uov did originally mean the leader of the
wholc people, not a democratic capo di par/c. There is no clear evidence at what time
the expression first came into use, though apparently this happened after the time of
the Supplianis. Pelasgus is the perfect example of a nQ7roaTd'T7 TOVt 6v,itov, but if the title
had been in use at the time of the play, he could not have said: neoorraTran 6'ey darlor
TE caVTiE (963), meaning that thcy acted as guardians for the suppliants who were their
metics (See above p. 52o). It would have been almost a pun such as that in Aristoph.
Frogs, 569f. (cf. my People of ArirtophaneS2, I9 i, I 5I, 8). Even without this confirmation
I should have thought that the title of a rLQoardrTaT TOV36 sov was unlikely to have been
introduced as long as the leading politicians had to be satisfied with holding once the
annual office of first archon. The position of the ))leader of the people. developed from
the fact that a man could be re-clected as a member of the board of strategoi, and came
probably into use somc time aftcr 487/6. Perhaps Cimon was the first to bear that un-
official title.
35. This point is madc, perhaps with some exaggeration, the crucial issue in Lar-
sen's paper (see note 3). He also points out the two passagcs from Aeschylus which
I shall mention presently.
34
although he virtually is one; we have seen that the word rrQoaTdr%;is not
yet used in that sense. This confirms that Aeschylus reflects a somewhat
earlierstage of democracythan Herodotus'source; but it does not disprove
that the two constitutions are essentially the same. There is, in fact, not
the slightest difficultyin regardingboth the tragedian'sand the historian's
picturesas reflectionsof the same model: the democracyof Athens between
Cleisthenes and Pericles.
Isonomiaand Dermokratia
We have seen that Herodotus used the two expressions 3i,uoxearia and
icrovoldt'indiscriminately.The praise implied in the words 6vo,ua7dvTwv)v
xdA;UaTov is paid to the name ratherthan the matter. From the very phrase
it seemspossible to conclude that Herodotus knew other dvo6uara for demo-
cracy. They have been discussedin the precedingsection, andthereseems no
need to say more about Herodotus' phraseology. He preferredlaovoyv,
probably because, in avoiding all allusions to power and rule, it set up
some kind of ideal, emphasizing the equal share of all the citizens in the
State36.Aescliylus, on the other hand, laid more stress on the sovereign
power of the people, and apparentlythought of this form of government
as a 6ruoxearta. We must now try to find out whether our remaining
evidence can teachus more about the meaningof, and the relationsbetween,
the two expressions.
Isonomia makes its earliest appearance(as an adjective)in the famous
drinking-song on Harmodius and Aristogeiton (Io-I 3 Diehl). The two
tyrannicides are praised * because they have killed the tyrant and made
Athens i'aov6`ov#. Herodotus (VI I23) realises that they were given the
honour actuallydue to the Alcmaeonids: it was the murderof Hipparchus
that made Hippias' rule truly oppressive and tyrannical,and it was four
years later that Hippias was expelled and Athens liberated. That, on the
other hand, was largely due to the intervention of the Spartanking Cleo-
menes, and it is understandablethat the Athenians should have claimed
their liberationto be the work of Athenians.But who were Ethe E Athenians
who put forward this claim in that lovely little drinking-song? Obviously
it originated among the same people who bewailed their dead in a similar
song remembering the battle of Leipsydrion (24 Diehl). Herodotus
(V 6z) and Aristotle (Ath. poL. I 9, 3) assureus that it was the Alcmaeonids
with their followers who had fortifiedLeipsydrion,and finding no popular
support, were defeated and suffered heavy losses. The song itself calls
Leipsydrion nLoocoaIraqeov, betraying one's hetairoi,and the dead ayaOov'q
36. The evidence shows that to Herodotus laovoprj meant this, and did not mean
equality before the law. Cf. RE., SuppI. VII, 2gs, iOff.
I ea they had fought and died worthy of their

Ei3nraTre'ag,claiming that
ancestors. They all were Athenian aristocrats,membersof the great noble
houses of Attica37.There was at that moment - in the years after 514-
no difference of aims or methods between the Alcmaeonidsand the other
nobles; they were united in their fight against the tyrant. It was they who
claimed to have brought kaovojda to Athens38.
The question is what this kiovo4ukz actually meant. It was based on
the fact of the liberation, but it must have indicated the state of affairs
resulting from the liberation. In a song sung by nobles in honour of the
tyrannicides it could not have meant democracy:It must have expressed
the ideal aims of the liberators, and we shall not be much off the mark
if we define it as the balanced equality of a society which previously had
been oppressed by the rule of a tyrant. It meant the equality of *peers4,
not of the people. Even so we cannot help wondering why the nobles
did not prefer to revive Solon's well-temperede&vojtaratherthan proclaim
this new conception with its apparentstress on the idea of absoluteequality.
At the same time, it remains something of a puzzle how the aristocratic
laovo/ta could so quickly become the watchword of democracy. The
answerto both these questions,if there is any we can conceive, must emerge
from an investigation of the early history of the two relatedideas, the
tyrannicides as the true liberators, and ioaovopt'a as a watchword for the
new form of State.
As to the former, there has recently been an intricate but important
attempt at explaining the double version of the story of the liberation89.
Dr. Jacoby argues that the erection of the statues of the tyrannicidessoon
after 5io and their replacementby the group of Critias and Nesiotes in
477/6, their tomb in the Cerameicusand their cult as heroes, show a version
opposed to the claim of the Alcmaeonids to be the true liberators,as ex-
37. It may be true that in the skolion naret(aq is a >non-technical adjectives,

as Wade-Gery says (CQ. XXV I93I, 83 f.); nevertheless it does not refer to the Alc-
maeonids only. They were the leaders, but they were not alone, as is clearly stated in
our sources. The aristocrats, who under Isagoras' leadership later opposed Cleisthenes,
must have been there too The dyafooi mat i3naraeIMas were indeed the Eupatrids in
exile. The noblemen of Leipsydrion had a predecessor in one Cedon of whom we
only know from another drinking-song (23 Diehl) that he acted against the tyrants
and belonged to the dvWeadyaOot. Wilamowitz, Aristoteles u. Athen, I, 38, has a sur-
prising misinterpretation of this skolion.
38. Thus, tit is likely that the word originated in connection with the expulsion
of the tyrant in SIo (Larsen, 8). I do not think the fact that only the adjective appears
in our evidence makes any difference. *To make Athens 1ao6d,uovq*cannot mean
anything but * to bring Iciovopla to Athens,; it would mean the same even if the abstract
noun was not yet in use. I think it was, though it would not have fitted into the metre
of the skolion.
39. F. Jacoby, Alibis (1949), ch. III, 2.
532 Vicor Ebrenberg
pressed by Herodotus, Thucydides and Aristotle. The former version

was, according to Jacoby, maintained by Hellanicus. If this 'official'
version is anti-Alcmaeonid as it seems, this would mean that the 'democratic'
version was the one created by Isagoras and his followers, maintained
throughout the leadership of Cleisthenes and his family, possibly revived
under Themistocles (477/6), and still so predominant in the thirties that
Pericles had to submit to it and to introduce a decree by which, among
others, the descendants of the tyrannicides were honoured with public
meals in the Prytaneion40.
If this were true the so-called official version (if there was such a thing
in Athens) would be shared by all non- or rather anti-Alcmaeonids,
whether aristocrats or democrats. This seems difficult to believe, and it
is also a tour deforce to make Pericles at the height of his power supporting
a measure which in its spirit was directed against the Alcmaeonids. I believe
that Jacoby's reconstruction is misconceived because it started from a
mistaken view of the beginning; it is to this beginning that we once more
return, that is to say, to the moment when it'ovoluc'aand tyrannicides were
combined to describe the act of liberation. That view, as expressed in the
Harmodius song, came from the ayaOot Te xca' Evdxrarei6c who had fought
at Leipsydrion. Unless we assume that even in their reference to this event
Herodotus and Aristotle falsify history (and there is not the slightest
indication of that), the Alcmaeonids, as only natural, took part in that
unsuccessful battle and equally in the establishment of the legend of the
tyrannicides. When Harmodius' and Aristogeiton's statues were first
erected to honour those who had brought Iaovojd'ato Athens by killing
the tyrant, the Alcmaeonids and the rest of the nobles were still allies.
We may well ask why immediately after the liberation the story of the
tyrannicides as the liberators became the # official((, or perhaps we better
say, the generally accepted version at that moment. The people who, on
the whole, had not suffered under the tyrants' rule and had, in fact, enjoyed
many advantages, would not easily have accepted a 'liberation' accomplished
by Athenian 6migr6s in alliance with Sparta. It is quite possible that popular
opinion saw in the expulsion of Hippias only the completion of what had
begun in SI4, and that even before, the people had taken the two tyranni-
cides to their hearts. We know from what followed that Boule and people
had a strong say, and it is likely that the aristocrats took this into considera-
tion and for that reason accepted a version of the events which reduced
their own merit almost to nothing. This would also explain the use of the
term icovop,ia by the nobles. They may have realised that the people, in
40. The latest important treatment of the decree is by M. Ostwald, AJP. LXXII
(1951), 24ff.
one way or another, were aiming at an equality which they had to some
extent had under the tyrants, and which would make them safe - safer
than Solon's Evivojta - against aristocraticoppression.
It was, however, something very different to accept the claims made
for Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who after all had been members of
the nobility, and to see in their action the foundation of democracy.
That can only have been done by somebody who had fallen out with the
rest of the nobility and wanted a symbol for his own democraticpolicy.
It must have been the doing of Cleisthenes. The opposite claim that the
Alcmaeonids, and not the tyrannicides,were the true liberatorsof Athens,
could be raised by a later pro-Alcmaeonidtraditionwhen the partplayedby
the Alcmaeonids throughout the years had become a matter of serious
political dispute. In the years immediately after the event, it was just as
impossible to pretend that the Alcmaeonids alone had liberated the State
as to remind the people of those who had actuallyhelped the Alcmaeonids
in their task, but had now become their and the people's enemies. Thus
it was the Alcmaeonid Cleisthenes who made the liberation from the
tyrants the prelude to democracy40a.
A modern archaeologist has maintained that the famous group by
Antenor - the same Antenor who was probablyresponsiblefor the sculp-
ture at the temple in Delphi which the Alcmaeonidshad erected - was the
expressionof a spirit closely relatedto that of Cleisthenes'work4l. However
that maybe, therecould be hardly a stronger falsificationof historicaltruth
than to take the tyrannicidesas a symbol of democracy42.If this was due to
Cleisthenes himself, as we have tried to show, it seems hardly satisfactory
to explain such a policy as self-effacing and to call its #modestyz typical
of ancient Attic traditions43. Cleisthenes was too clever a politician, besides
being a great and creative statesman, for such an explanation to do him
justice. In many ways he probably did not much more than follow the
40 a. Cf. Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry,4I S, who speaks of the *brillant propagandaof
the Alcmaeonids .
41. K. Schefold, MuscumHhelteiicwm III (I946), 59ff., esp. 7x. This is a very interesting,
if provocative, article. The author recognises (p. 85); *Niemals wurden wir allein aus
dem Wandel der Kunst um 5io auf einen Regierungswechsel schlieB3enkonnen., but
he draws many rash conclusions of exactly the type which he condemns. Some of his
many original suggestions deserve to be studied carefuilly,for example his reconstruction
of three Theseus poems; even here, however, the use he makes, outside the field of art, of
the conccptions of Ionic, Doric, and Altattisch goes far beyond what we can know.
42. We do not deny that there was a historical connection between the murder
of Hipparchus and the establishment of Cleisthenes' new order. But that does not justify
the attempts to see in the private act of vengeance of two noblemen an event which
has an inner relation to the creation of a democratic State.
43. Schefold, 1. c., 64. 68f.
trend of public opinion which, at the same time, he tried to direct. But
we can perhaps go a step fuirther.
The outstanding feature of Cleisthenes' new order is the manner in which
he based a rational and at the same time revolutionary system on the natural
foundations of the local communities, the demes, while the ancient social
bodies such as the phratries were left as integral, if powerless, elements of
the new structure of society. It would be quite mistaken to regard this
as a sign of compromise. If ever a statesman was single-minded it was
Cleisthenes; but he was not a doctrinaire. He knew how to give some
share to the forces of the past which otherwise might obstruct his work.
Above all, he knew how to merge the traditions of cult and the living
bodies of religious communities in the life of his new political and social
organisation. It was this kind of political wisdom that enabled Cleisthenes
to lead the way to democracy, using as he did the ideas and the slogans
which had dominated the actual liberation: the legend of the liberation
of A hens by the tyrannicides, and the * most beautiful word of all 'which
offered itself by its emphasis on the idea of equality. Isonomia was a slogan
whiich made it manifest that Cleisthenes did not think of himself as merely
*the defender of the Solonian constitution #44; it was at the same time a
term more acceptable to many than a word such as 6rtioxoa-ra which was
so outspoken in its proclaiming the people as the master of the new State.
There is no evidence to show that the word 6vyuoxeaTta was known as
early as that. When Cleisthenes transferred the conception of Laovogda to
his own democratic order, he deprived at the same time his former- allies
and present opponents, the majority of the nobility, of their anti-tyrannis
slogan. They no less than he himself must have felt the need to have a
positive conception of their respective forms of government, and it may
even have become more urgent to describe the opponent's rather than one's
own form of rule. We cannot decide whether the )>oligarchs # or the * demo-
crats # were the first to announce the name of their particular constitutional
aims, or on the other hand, whether both names were first coined by their
opponcnts. The important and interesting fact is that for all practical
purposes we may assume that the expressions o'AtyaeLXaand 6yuox,Loaiia
made their filst appearances almost simultaneously, although for some time
to come it was democracy which represented the real opposition to mo-
narchy tl.
44. Glotz, HisiQiregreque, 1, 467.

4S It is perhaps possible that the expression dALyaextawas in use beforeCleisthenes;
but democracy had at first tyrannis as its chief enemv, and the history of laovo,Ata shows
that there was then no specific word to express the opposition between nobility and
democrats. Cf. also above, note 23.
We have another piece of evidence for laovoyda, roughly belonging

to the same period as the Harmodius song, i. e. c. Soo B. C., which may
also claim aristocratic origin. The Pythagorean physician Alcmaeon4" used
the contrast between isonomia and monarchy to define illness and health,
the latter being an iuovopdaof powers, and illness the result of ,sovaeyxa or
the predominence of one power. It is obvious that Alcmaeon borrowed his
ideas from the political field; the conclusion took the opposite way to the
more usual one: the body natural is seen in the image of the body political.
The physical Iaovo,udais supposed to be a state of balance, an #equalitarian
harmony e among the forces working in the human body, an equality as
it were in physical citizenship47. The Pythagoreans in general had aristo-
cratic sympathies, and if there was any particular tendency in Alcmaeon's
use of the political imagery, the * good distribution<( of e?lvo,ziawould
probably have been more suitable48. But Alcmaeon followed his model
even more closely. The decisive point was again the contrast to the rule
of one single power, to monarchy. Solon's ei3vo4utahad followed a state
of oligarchic preponderance and misrule, while laovopUla was and remained
the answer to a tyrant's rule.
The political revolution which began with the expulsion of Hippias and
culminated in Cleisthenes' great reform of the political order, started under
the watchword iovoo,4a, but soon became the rule of the people. It is,
however, a mistake (in which I too have shared) to assume that laovoIla,
after an initial aristocratic phase, simply preceded av,osoxeartaas a name
for the same thing. The very nature of each of the two expressions suggests
that they did not mean the same. They were almost contemporary; but
democracy was a form of government, a constitution, while * isonomia(like
eunomia)was not a constitution, nor a state of equal law for everybody; it
was the ideal of a community in which the citizens had their equal share a49.
It is understandable that Herodotus, who had no discriminating knowledge
46. What a peculiar coincidence of namesI

47. Cf. G. Vlastos, CP. XLII (947), 156. The later explanation is 4 aV,/is,TLOO rC&v
xdcat; which, as a term oFmedicalscience, seems to correspond to the dvadatyeaOa
ro&cov
Td aAirOog ascribed to Cleisthenes (Arist. Ath. pol. 2a1, zf. POl. I3I9b, 25).
48. That is why Larsen (p. 9) can say that Alcmaeon's model was *a balanced
State , an ideal that *would be natural enough for those who favoured a Solonian type
of government.. G. Thomson, AeschvlusandAthens, 21 off., asserts that the Pvthagoreans
were democrats. He lays stress on the *doctrine of the meane, but that is Solonian
rather than democratic, and lrovopla, as I try to explain, is not simply a ))democratic
watchwordc<. The Pythagoreans with their mixture of mathematics and mystics were
probably not strictly bound to any political form; in our context it is only important
that Alcmacon saw laovopta purely as a contrast to monarchy.
49. Translated from RE. Suppl. VII, 297, 20ff. For Eunomia cf. my Aspects of he
Ancient World, 88ff., also J. L. M'lyres, CR. LXI (I947), 8off.
of political and constitutional issues, did not realise the difference. But we
must not attribute this merely to his personal shortcomings. Isonomia, in
fact, became the democratic ideal, and the aristocrats, no longer fighting
against monarchy, naturally saw their own ideal in Spartan or Solonian
eEvvoyla rather than in Cleisthenian or Periclean tiaovopla.
Does Thucydides confirm these results? That is to say, did the later
fifth century still see the two conceptions in the same light as its early
decades? This in itself is unlikely. We need only think of the Funeral
Speech, and we shall understand that democracy had found its ideal in
its own conception, in the people's rule. The democrats, just like the
oligarchs, no longer saw their enemy in the tyrant; they now fought against
one another. ))Our constitution, because it is governed in the interest not
of a few, but of the majority, is called democracyo (Thuc. II 37, i). The
principles of equal balance and of general share in the government were of
less importance than the idea of equality before the law. Pericles continues:
* But while there is, by law, equality (ro laov) for all in their private disputes,
by reputation, as far as each man is in any way distinguished, he receives
preference in public life, not to a greater extent because of his class or party
than on account of his merit <(5. In these words, the ruling class in democracy
is depicted as an aristocracy of personal merits. It is an ideal, and was there-
fore never attained; but that does not justify anyone in doubting its intrinsic
truth and the right of such a community to be regarded as a true democracy.
In dealing with the reality of political life Thucydides is free from all
purely conventional expressions and distinctions, but the use he makes of
such words as lUovoida, Tveavvtg, or bvvaarrla, throws some light also
on their general meaning and their earlier history. In III 6z, 3, the Thebans
describe the political conditions of their city during the Persian War. It was
not an ICro'voluog oAyaQXianor a democracy; the State was in the hands
of a bvvacrTela oAtycovavbecov. Naturally the Thebans tried to blame only
those few ju61i'aavTa; (Her. IX 86, i) who had been responsible for the
pro-Persian policy. At the same time, they had to be careful not to hurt
the feelings of the Lacedaemonians who were their audience. Nobody was
ever likely to forget that Sparta's policy was governed by her own experience:
cai vvoyu GO iMaia?eiavTQavvevroqlv (Thuc. I i 8, i). The Thebans there-
fore twisted the well-known terms of political theory so as to adapt them
to their own purposes. The dynasteiais * the nearest to a tyrant #, the complete
contrast to law and moderation; correspondingly, there was to be, on the
opposite side, not only democracy but also a form of oligarchy which
suited the anti-tyrannis scheme. While in other passages in Thucydides
(VI 38, 3. 89, 4) 6vvacmeta again appears as a near relative of tyranny,
?o.A. W. Gommc, CQ. XLII (I 948), IO, gives a differentinterpretationof 7lr6,udoov;.
it is equally contrasted to lkovo1.a, and this time clearly to a democratic

iaovouta, in Thessaly (IV 78, 3). Similarly, yueTa no.Acov laovo1useaOat is
abhorrent to the oligarchs in Syracuse (VI 38, S).
Is all this proof that for Thucydides taovoula was just any anti-tyrannical
or *constitutional# form of government61? I do not think so. Essentially,
tirovo1da was to him democratic as it had been to Herodotus. We cannot
connect Thucydides' laovo,da witb any special political institution such as,
e. g., that of responsible government, but neither was it to him an ovo,ua
xaAUtaTov. On the whole, it was little more than a fine cloak to cover any
moral deformity. ))For the leaders in the States (, Thucydides tells us in
that grandiose moral denouncement of his own times (III 8z), ) acting from
ambition and greed (ta' nAsovE41av xa' qptOTtjdav), using a beautiful party
name by honouring either the political Laovo1la of the masses or a wise
aristocracy, made the general interests which they were serving only in
name, actually their prize#<. We understand how the disillusioned realist
found a consolation in the ideal picture of Pericles' democracy. Everybody
knows that he called it Ao'yc 4wev6v,,oxearia, EQyco 69 t'ro TOV nrrotov
av6ed dexn' (II 65). The more general meaning of this statement is that
the leading man in a State is incomparably more important than the con-
stitution. It will be the task of the last section of this paper to answer the
question raised by such a statement with regard to the period with which
we are here mainly concerned. Thus, I lhope, we shall discover how and
when democracy - the word no less than the matter - was born in Athens.
The Foundingof Democracry

It has been a tendency among some contemporary historians to blame
their predecessors for having taken political conditions and changes,
especially in earlier Athenian history, too much as constitutional issues2.
No doubt, it was useful to be reminded of some of the social implications;
but it could be shlown that the new interpretations had to stand up, not
only against the views taken by the Greeks of the fourth century, but even
against contemporary evidence 53. We shall confine ourselves to the questions
connected with the emergence of a democratic Athenian State, and they
practically boil down to the one well-known question: was Cleisthenes the
founder of Athenian democracy?
5i. The latter word is Gomme's, CR. LXIII (I949), 125. I differ in the following
argument from my own former view (RE. 296, i i ff.).
52. The latest expression of that school of thought is the article by Schaefer men-
tioned before (see note 3).
53 Cf. my earlier papers, JHS. LVII (I937), I47ff., Aspects of the Ancient World,
Miunchen
i 6 f., and H. Bengtson, Sihgungsber. 193 9, Heft i.
There is no real need, I believe, to ask first, as so often has been asked,
whether this title is not rather due to Solon. It is well known that Aristotle,
Ath.pol. 41, z, writes that from Solon's legislationadeXqiy,oxear1aq 7y'esro,
and similarideas were prevalent among other Greek writers of the fourth
century',4. Ta 61yoTiLXcTaTa, however,of Solon'snoAlTE1a,to whichAristotle
points (9, i), do not refer to a democratic constitution, or to a constitution
at alli. They were to indicate certain foundations on which democracy
was to be built. Solon was the first to claim in purely human terms the
eternalrights of justice and freedomfor every memberof the community56.
Nobody will doubt that he gave the ordinaryAthenian citizen a standing
without which there would never have been a democracy.Even the con-
stitution which he shaped contained elements of an essentially democratic
charactersuch as an assembly in which every citizen could get up and
speak, and a people's court to which every citizen could appeal.Moreover,
he was the first to question and even to ignore the old Eupatrid order,
and to base the State on principles which, though not democratic,at least
abandonedthe privileges of birthright57.In giving power to the wealthy
he opened the door for the rise of the non-nobles, but in his own time
this didnot yet leadto much,andon the whole the richwerestill the Eupatrids.
In the end therefore,Solon's constitution broke down before it had settled
down, as an attempt,bound to fail, at steeringa middle coursewhile leaving
the government in the hands of the rich and the noble.
had early Chios a better claim to having a democratic constitution?
What we know rests on one severely mutilatedinscription (Tod, no. I).
We hear of 64uov '4Teat and a flovAt)X 6cpoaol7which was composed of
fiity members from each pvA4;the two conceptions seem to correspond
to the "94pac/ZaTa TOVl ftuov and the PovA' (of the Four Hundred) in
Athens. The *popular Council4 in Chios had jurisdiction, probably not
only as a court of appeal, and there were * democratic<(magistrates,the
5~uaexoL,side by side with the aristocraticflaao4i4. Thus, jurisdictionand
execuuve were at least partiallyin the handsof the Demos. The constitution
oi Chios at the time of the inscription (roughly about 6oo B. C.) was more
democraticthan Solon's, but whether it could be called a real democracy
canot be decided, nor whetherit was a kind of predecessorto Cleisthenes'
State, or even a model which he to some extent copied. I must say that
none of these possibilities seems to me at all likely.
S4. Cf. Larsen, I 2 f. TL,ieElV,

SS- They are: T, uw 6avetCeav lri rOLe cr4Yaart, Tr6I tVO Tq fovAojc
7, ekS vd 6vcacmjeLov tes;
56. Cf. e. g., G. V'lastos, CP. XLI (I946), 65 ff.
57 Cf. 11. T. Wade-Gery, CQ. XXV (I931),
77if.
The progress of democracy in Athens was chiefly marked by the gradual

destruction of the power of the Eupatrid families. It was Peisistratus who
temporarily removed that power, and it was Cleisthenes who finally pre-
vented the nobility from regaining power. However strong the position
of some of the aristocrats still was during the following century, they never
again ruled as a class. Thanks to the fact that the attitude of the Peisistratids
was in general moderate and restrained, much of Solon's constitutional
work survived, and it could be used when the new State emerged. The
essence of the new order was (negatively) the denial of monarchy and clan
feudalism67,. We are back at our first question: did Cleisthenes found
democracy?
The question, quite apart from any possible claims of Solon, has recei-
ved no uniform answer from the Athenians themselves. It is a peculiar
fact that later in the fifth century it was the oligarchs who wanted a return
to Cleisthenes' constitution; they would even call it an aristocracy (Plut.
Cimr. I5, 3) or at least a moderate democracy similar to that of Solon and
based on the rairetot vd1uot(Arist. Ath. pol. 29, 3). The motive behind these
challenging claims was to revoke the more radical measures chiefly due to
Pericles; that would include, above all, the restoration of the power and
full dignity of the Areopagus and the-return to unpaid offices58. However,
though some people might talk of aristocracy, there was no reference to
that feudalism which Cleisthenes had destroyed.
The struggle for power between Cleisthenes and Isagoras was, to some
extent, a repetition of earlier struggles. The Alcmaeonids had more than
once played their separate game; they had in general not agreed withi the
policy of the noble clans, chiefly because they had their clientele largely
among the non-rural classes. They had prevented Cylon from becoming
a tyrant, and it remained a weapon in the hands of their enemies that they
had handled that affair in a very unscrupulous manner. They would not
have committed that sacrilege which made them * accursed # (Ivayeis),
unless they were as early as the seventh century men of a a modern# trend
of thought. They had supported Solon's policy, perhaps during his life-time,
certainly later as leaders of the Paralioi, who must have included most of
the rising class of merchants and traders. The Alcmaeonids had also-allied
themselves with the nobility against Peisistratus, and again with Peisistratus
7 a. My apology for using the terms feudal and feudalism can be found in note 77.
58. The former passage refers to the period aftcr 462, the latter to the revolution
of 411. If Plutarch's story is true to facts, the oligarchs of the middle of the century
did not yet need to the same extent as did their successors in 41I to disguise their
true aims by claiming the naeTQiog =Aoirea as democratic. On the other hand, they
may have been thinking of the form into which Cleisthenes' order had turned under
the supremacy of the Areopagus after tlhePersian War.
against the nobles. Cleisthenes had served as first archon under the rule
of Hippias just like other nobles, for example Miltiades59. Later, possibly
as late as 5I460, Cleisthenes joined the other emigres. When the tyrant
had gone, Cleisthenes had no intention of helping to restore the old supre-
macy of the noble clans; he decided to rely on the people, in particular
on the urban population. It was then that Isagoras for the second time
called in the king of Sparta.Views have been expressed either that Cleisthenes
acted as he did because he was a convinced champion of the people, or,
on the other hand, that he used democracy merely as an instrument to
serve his own lust for power and the glory of his family. I do not think
either view is likely to be adequate. We shall never exactly know what was
in Cleisthenes' mind, but I feel that we should not too easily decide on
one of those two extreme views.
It is hardly too bold to assert that nobody could do what Cleisthenes
did without having fairly strong convictions as to how State and society
should be reformed, nor without previously having made his programme
public, at least in its outlines. On two earlier occasions, in 514 when Hipp-
archus was killed, and somewhat later at Leipsydrion where the Alcmae-
onids were involved, events had shown that a purely aristocratic revolt
would not be supported by the masses of the people, whether urban or
rural. Cleisthenes must have learnt his lesson. He by now realised - and
in this he only revived traditions of Alcmaeonid policy - that he had to
part company with the other noble families and proclaim a political goal
which would catch the people's imagination. As Solon impressed his ideas
upon the people by reciting his elegies, so Cleisthenes must have found
ways and means to let his political programme be widely known. As with
most great statesmen, his own interest became inseparable from the public
interest which at that moment most certainly centred on a form of govern-
ment which would prevent the restoration of either tyranny or aristocratic
feudalism. In the turbulent events of Cleomenes' second intervention, when
the Alcmaeonids and many with them had been banished once more under
the old pollution charge, the council and the people turned against the
attempt to introduce a narrow oligarchy, forced Cleomenes and Isocrates
59. This we know from the fragment of an archons' list: Meritt, Hesperia VIII
(I 9 39), 59 ff. T. J. Cadoux, JHS. LXVIII (I948), iogf. In all likeness it is the younger
liltiades who (cf. Dion. Hal. VII 3, i) also provides the date to put the fragment
in the right position. The list certainly came as a great surprise, and we must admit
that the facts it seems to record largely remain a puzzle. See also next note.
6o. Her. V 62, 2, may be more correct than is recognised when he says of the
Alcmaeonids: pEVyOVT8e HeLatrLoaTibag (not: HeataTLaTov). But see Schefold, 1. c.,
6i ff., on the difficulty of combining the date of 514 with the rebuilding of the temple
in Delphi. There is no evidence allowing to reduce to a more definite date the period
between 525/4 (Cleisthenes' archonship) and 5I4.
to withdraw, and recalled Cleisthenes'6. This anti-oligarchic and patriotic

move was, if not started, certainly driven on by the people's knowledge
of Cleisthenes' democratic programme, on which therefore his final success
depended. On the other hand, it is hardly adequate to measure the politician
Cleisthenes by the standards of a leader of democracy. It is only natural
that he who in 5I0 was probably a man of sixty, was in many ways still
bound to the methods of sixth century politics. Democracy was a thing
still to be established, and its leadership was the task of a ftuture in which
the essential features of democratic government had first to be created.
We thus can easily agree with Herodotus' description (V 69): >By
allying himself with the people Cleisthenes became much superior to his
avTzarraat5TaL((. It was a r-raadt
between Cleisthenes and Isagoras (V 66)
or between the Alcmaeonids with their aVarTaatJTat (V 70) and the other
nobles; in later days it was to be between oligarchs and democrats. In 5o8,
Athens had no political parties, but it is a mistake to assume that therefore
there could be no fight of principles. Schaefer makes a great deal of these
things in order to show that Herodotus was right in regarding the struggle
as a mere CrTao tE; Qeot&vvdyzwg.But that does not exclude the possibillty
that it was at the same time much more. Herodotus goes as far as to say
that Cleisthenes, in danger of being defeated, TOrV 3dzov npoasratQlETat
(V 66). This shows that Cleisthenes found in the people the support which,
as the skolion on Leipsydrion confirms, a nobleman usually found among
his hetairoi. Aristotle (Ath. pol. zo, I) gives the same report a slightly
anachronistic twist: >In danger of being defeated by the hetairiai, he won
over the demos ((. The hetairiai as an instrument of politics hardly belong
to the sixth century; Herodotus' words depict the situation more accura-
tely62. When Cleisthenes began his great work, he had not yet quite out-
grown the atmosphere of feudalism; but that does not really say anything
about the nature of that work. We have to distinguish between his aims
and his methods. Neither Cleisthenes nor even Pericles could ever behave
like middle-class people; they were aristocrats by birth and habits, but they
made democratic politics. In all his plans and actions Cleisthenes clearly
embarked on a new, in fact revolutionary, adventure, and thus it was he
who finally changed the political world of Athens3.
6i. Her. V 70. 72. Arist. AtJ. pol. 20, 3. Thuc. I I26, iz.
62. Her. V 71 calls Cylon's followers a lTae'qtn TCrV4A9xCTCOwV.In spite of the
abstract noun, this only cGnfirmsour view.
63. Herodotus speaks of Cleisthenes' imitation of his namesake and grandfather,
the tyrant of Sicyon (V 69, I), though only because he had shown an equal contempt
of the lonians (one of Herodotus' hobby-horses) by abolishing the old Ionian phylae.
This idea had a surprising success with some modern historians. Berve and Schaefer
draw comparisons between the two men simply because in each case the constitutional
In his painstaking, if over-confident, article on the early archons,

Mr. T. J. Cadoux has expressed the view" that Cleisthenes (who had been
archon in 525/4) was not archon when he carried through his legislation.
I had assumed that he was in a short paper more than twenty-five years
ago 6". I admit there is no evidence for this view. I still do not find it easy to
believe that Cleisthenes was able to overthrow most of the old organisation
of the State and build up a new one while having no official position or
power, except that he must have been a member of the Areopagus. If,
however, this was so, it has to be explained by the revolutionary character
of the period. A man who merely by putting his revolutionary proposals
before the assembly could alter the whole structure of the State must have
had tremendous influence indeed and must have acted in a #tyrannical((
manner. Still, we can understand this; anything might happen when the
enemy from within had become the enemy from without. Together with
those traces of feudalism still recognisable, as we have seen, in the tradition
about Cleisthenes, his #tyrannical(( manner shows that we have to allow
for the revolutionary activities of a great individual. But is this not what
we ought to expect? If, as seems very likely, an Alcmaeon (in whose year
the ten phylae were introduced according to Poll. VIII iio) was archon
in 507/6, this was clearly a piece of 'tyrannical' policy; Alcmaeon, obviously
a kinsman of Cleisthenes, acted as a sort of decoy, as his constitutional
instrument66. In this, Cleisthenes imitated Peisistratus (Thuc. VI 54, 6).
Nothing, however, can justify the view that his reforms, too, showed
a tyrannical or even feudal character. I am not going to discuss these
reforms in any detail as they are common knowledge; but I must protest
against the assertion that the new constitution was made to give either
Cleisthenes or his family a secure position. Naturally he saw to it that
those most interested in his work and most loyal to his person would
have considerable influence; therefore the emphasis on the part played by
the city with its large numbers of new citizens. If he did away with the
compact areas of aristocratic supremacy in the Pedion, he did not treat
the old Alcmaeonid areas of the Paralia very differently; they were just
changes served the struggle for personal power! Schefold, 73, thinks that the relations
of both men with DeJphi causcd deeper affinities between them, which, though doubtful,
makes better sense.
64. Cf. note 59, also F. Cornelius, Die Tyranmis in Atben (I929), 93.
64a. See next note.
6s. I do not propose to discuss the intricate chronology of the events. I certainly
no longer maintain the position of that early article of mine (Klio XIX I924, io6ff.).
From my text it will be clear that I now assume as early as 5og/8 propaganda for, but
not the actual introduction of, Cleisthenes' programme. The issues are fully and sensibly
discussed by Cadoux, note 249 (against Schachermeyr, Klio XXV 1932, 334ff., and
others).
as much divided among the new tribes, though the combinedvoting of the
urban and the paraliantrittyes may have brought occasional majoritiesfor
the Alcmaeonids. It is generally acknowledged06that his aim was to create
a uniform type of aoAhtr/s; that is the very opposite to any attempt at
providing for the rule of his own family. He was the first to aim at the
ideal of government by a free people, the first to reach the goal for which
the Greeks had been heading ever since the Polis came into being. He built
his new communityupon the equality of the citizens, upon laovo1ta. There
is no clearer proof of the fact that this was indeed 67j,ioxQaTra than the
surprisingswiftness and smoothness with which the new State settled down
without any revolts or repercussions.Cleisthenesrenewed the State coinage
with Athena and owl which now became the symbol of democraticinstead
of PeisistratidAthens. The danger oi tyrannis disappeared,the danger of
a reversal of Cleisthenes'work never rnaterialised.CleisthenicAthens was
for a time led by the Alcmaeonids, but it remained essentially the same
when others took their place. It was and remained a democracy.
This, of course, does not mean that there were no changes. Just because
the new State was from the first a working and living entity, it went
through various developments which, taken as a whole, only carried
Cleisthenes' order some steps further. It was not until 480 that the new
ascendency of the Areopagus led to a retarding movement. Perhaps the
most significant phenomenpn In the domestic history of the twenty years
after Cleisthenes is the use, made or not made, of ostracism. This novel
and unheard-of device with its idea of a temporary and honourable exile
through a responsible decision of the people combined in a unique way
resoluteness of purpose with mildness of means. By expelling one man and
never more than one at a time it was clearlyaimedat a possibletyrant;it was,
if we rightly understandits original meaning, equally a weapon to support
the unity of the people and to discourage sectional factions. No ordinary
politician would ever have hit on such an unusual measurein which are
combined the boldness, the rationalclarity, and the deliberate moderation
of Cleisthenes' statesmanship67.
Schaefer(p. 491f.) believes that he has found a new reason for assuming
that ostracism did not exist before 490; for otherwise Miltiades' enemies
would not have dragged him before a court when he came home from
the Chersonesein 493 (Her. VI 104). They would have used the weapon
of ostracism which, according to this theory, was designed only shortly
before it was used in 488; it may, in fact, have been invented because of
66. Even by Schaefer, 483.

67. Cf. Schefold, 82, who finds in .he device of ostratism the *Delphic ethos.
which he generally discovers in the spirit of Cleisthenes' work.
the failure of the trial of Miltiades,in order to avoid the repetition of such
an event. This is an ingenious argument, and Schaefer largely relies on
the fact that Miltiades was charged with Oyrannis.We know very little of
the internal history of Athens after 500, ar.dthe little evidence we have is
much disputed"8. I am reluctant to express any definite view, but I have
no doubt that ostracism had indeed been created as a weapon against the
restorationof yrannis - naturallyoyrannisin Athens. Miltiadeswas accused
Tveavvi6ogv7; lv XEeao 'ar. Although this referred to the Athenian
citizens over whom he had ruled just as over Thracians"9, there is not the
slightest indication that Miltiades, however great and independent, did
aim, or could be chargedwith aiming, at something like 6,uov xara'Avacn,
at becoming the tyrantof Athens. Certainly,the people who saw in Miltiades
the god-sent leader against the threatening Persian attack, did not think
so, and that may have been one reason why his enemies did not dare to
ask for an ostracism. Moreover, who could foresee what might happen
when that untried weapon was employed? Might Miltiades' enemies not
endanger their own position? Earlier in the year Phrynichus had been
condemned for causing trouble by his play >The Captureof Miletus; but
the next archon was Themistocles who had perhaps been responsible for
the political propagandaof that tragedy, and who had an active naval and
democraticpolicy as his programme.It seems that the people did not want
the appeasement of Persia7O. They certainly preferred Miltiades to his
accusers and elected him strategosimmediately after his acquittal. I doubt
whether it was within the limits of a reasonablepolicy to come before the
people, proposing a measurewith which they were not familiar,at a moment
when it could hardlybe justified. It needed, in fact, anothergreatpolitician,
Themistocles,to makenew anddifferentuse of the weaponwhichCleisthenes
had forged but never used7l. None of the minor politicians who accused
Miltiades would have dared to do so.
68. Cf. Gommc, AJP. LXV (I944), 321ff., an interesting but by no means final
contribution. The debate continues.
69. Cf. my Aspects of the Ancient World, 2zT.
70. Cf. H. T. Wade-Gery, BSA. XXXVII, 269. For Themistocles and The Capture
of Miletus, cf. Walker, C.A.H. IV, 172.
71. The view has been widely accepted that the ostracisms between 488 and 483
were the work of Themistocles. This would partially fill the ten years' gap in his career
(492--83) of which we know little. He was strategos in 490 (Plut. Arist. 5, 4), but that
is all we know for certain. The silence of our sources has caused Gomme (1.c., 323f.)
to discard Thcmistocles' archonship in 493 altogether. This seems to me to he unneces-
sarily sceptical. Themistocles' share in the ostracisms of the eighties was a kind of
behind-the-scene politics which may easily have escaped the historians, though I admit
that it would have provided excellent material for the kind of gossipy anecdotes which
have found their way into Plutarch's Lifes. It remains to be said that no other valid
Ostracism had been a safe-guard which Cleisthenes designed for his

new-born State. Is the oath of the membersof the Bomle,which was perhaps
introduced in 5oi/o (Arist. Ath. pol. 22, 2), likely also to have been the
work of Cleistheneshimself72?Aristotle tells us that it was the same oath
as the one used in his own time, and from other sources we see that the
members of the Council promised to give the best possible advice to the
people, accordingto the laws, and to denounceanymemberwho gave unsuit-
able advice73. This is another safeguard, and though its terms are rather
vague, there is nothing to make it anything but consistent with the
Cleisthenic constitution. In spite of Aristotle's general statement, there
seem to have been a few additions and alterations in later times; but
essentiallyit remainedthe same, and I fail to see why the oath should have
been something very different when it was first used, from what it was
later on: a guarantee,though later no longer a strong one, to keep demo-
cracy unimpairedand safe.
Probably in the same year the board of strategoiwas introduced. This
board of ten, one elected from each phyle, was a natural outcome of the
Cleisthenicorder. Aristotle makesit clearthat at that moment the command
The strategoiwere
of the armywas still in the hands of the archonpolemarchos.
mere regimental commanders. The people were no more prepared than
Cleistheneshimself to use the principles of his constitution to undermine
the archonship74.The events before and during the battle of Marathon
show a further stage in which the position of the Polemarchus as Com-
mander-in-Chiefwas little more than nominal, The final degradation of
archonship followed in 487/6. For this event Cleisthenes was no longer
explanation for the series of ostracisms has been found, and that it is only from rccent
discoveries of ostraca that we learn of politicians, unknown from literarysources, who
were potential victims of an ostracism, e. g. Callixenus, son of Aristonymus, probably
an Alcmaeonid (Stamires and Vanderpool, Hesperia XIX 1950, 376ff.).
72. On tht question of date (504/3 Ot 5ox/o?) see Cadoux, 1. c. 1ixf. - Schaefer,
487, speaks also of the Ephebes' oath as going back to Cleisthenes. This is not impossible,
but there is really no evidence for it. The archaic style of the oath (see Tod, II, no. 204)
provides no certain date, and the Oea,o' of tM3vudvot seem to point to an even earlier
age (cf. mv Rechtridecim fruhen Griechentum, I07).
73. Xen. mem.I i, i8. Lysias XXXI if. [Dem.] LIX 4.
74. Gomme, 1. c., note 13, observes that most of the eponymous archons betwecn
3o6 and 488 are unknown men. This could support the idea that as early as then the
archonship had lost its importance. But if we go through the list of archons during the
sixth century as far as we have their names, we find at least as many names unknown
to us as well-known. The point seems to be that, while normallv any man of wealth
(and therefore usually also of noble birth), without necessarily being an important
politician, may have become archon, it was, on the other hand, the position of the
first archon in which alone an ambitious and important man could exercise power.
We should perhaps not overestimate the numbers of such men available.
35
responsible. Whether he lived to sponsor the introduction of the oath and

the creation of the strategoi, we do not know, although we can say that
these measures grew organically from his foundations. He must have died
about Soo. His personal memory was soon overshadowed by the legend
growing round Solon and the tyrannicides; but his grave was one of the
few officially cared for which survived the destruction of 480o6. His work
was not forgotten; it lived and grew even in those years in which the
Alcmaeonids among others were ostracised. A new actor had appeared on
the stage. Themistocles, without any traditional ties and therefore more
radical than Cleisthenes ever had been or ever could be, completed what
the great inaugurator had left unfinished. He became Cleisthenes' true suc-
cessor as the leader and architect of democracy76.
We have learned to-day to be careful in applying modern conceptions
to ancient conditions. ))Liberalism # and * Socialism# are just as alien to the
political ideas of the fifth or fourth century B. C. as the attempts are
mistaken which see in ancient Greece the features of XIXth and XXth
century economics 77. Democracy, however, is not a modern conception,
and this paper has largely been written to justify the early use of the word
by the Greeks themselves78. Nobody can deny that constitutions did not
simply appear, nor did they live and work, without the thoughts and
activities of individual leaders. It will depend on the particular situation
whether we can be convinced that the individual was historically more
important than the constitution. The essential point, I believe, is that the
two usually cannot be separated. The people commonly led by outstanding
personalities are rarely impressed by constitutional issues; but these make
themselves felt whether or not the people and the politicians are aware
75. Paus. I 29, 6; the grave of the tyrannicides is mentioned in 5 IS. Cf. Schefold,
69f. I do not know of any evidence for Jacoby's confident assumption that Cleisthenes
was ever 'overthrown' (Athis, x6of., with note 53). Admittedly, Herodotus' record
of the first embassy to Sardes (V 73) is a pro-Alcmaeonid version deliberately reticent
on certain points; but nothing seems to justify the view that he suppressed the overthrow
of Cleisthenes which Jacoby admits wou!d be *an almost unique proceeding with him .
76. It is no longer necessary, I believe, to refute Beloch's strange argument by
which he made Theniistocles a leader of the yv6o5e,sot(Griech.Gescb.II 2, 134).
77. Not the first, but an early and important protest against this kind of moderni-
sation was E. Salin's article *Der Sozialismus in Hellas. in the Gotheie-Festschrift
(1923).
I had better admit that in the present paper I have nevertheless ulsedthe term feudalism,
as it seems the only adequate expression to indicate the rule of noble families based
on a dependent agrarian clientele.
78. Only after I had finished this article I realised that I had sought to do with
democracv what I had done at an carlier occasion with the Polis (JHS. LVII, I937,
147fl.), to slhow from contemporary sources that behind a conception which was often
loosely or wrongly used by later writers both ancient and modern, there was at an
early stage the real thing fully alive and working.
of it. No Periclean democracy was possible without Pericles, but none

without democracy either. That is the answer to Thucydides' challenging
statementof the v"idToClnQCTOV aVbQoe adeX.'
We have tried to show that with Cleisthenes it was not really different.
In his constitution, for the first time in Athenian history, eImxAarta and
flovA', exponents of the whole citizen population, had a real say in the
business of government, even of day-to-day government. The sovereignty
of the people was seen in its real meaning; it was anything but an empty
phrase. Areopagus and archons were not yet deprived of their traditional
positions, but even they were bound soon to change their character, since
the elections were no longer the game of the noble clans. In the succeeding
years the essential features of the Cleisthenic order were maintained,
extended, and put to the test. Whatever followed later - radical laws as
well as individual leadership - the foundations had been safely laid, and
they were of the kind which Aeschylus, reflecting important aspects of
contemporary political life, called &uov xearoika xete. That is to say,
the typical feature of early democracy was the majority vote of the people -
the demos being the whole community of citizens as represented in the
assembly.
If, seen from without, Cleisthenes' order was, above all, the final
repudiation of tyranny, its own nature made it rather an instrument for
defeating the power of the noble clans. These are both negative aspects,
largely expressed in Isonomia, proclaiming the ideals of equal balance and
equal share. But the new State was more than that; it was, as it was called
only a few years later, a democracy. The rule of the people was expressed
in the responsibility of the officials to the people, and their dependence
on the majority decisions of the assembly. Naturally, these decisions were
normally not reached in complete independence. The council of the Five
Hundred, itself a truly democratic body, or later even the conservative
Areopagus which, as it was composed of ex-archons, grew more democratic
every year, exercised a strong influence on the business and the decisions
of the assembly. And yet the principle was upheld, that is to say, the
people could, if they wanted, refute any probouleumaor the ruling of the
Areopagus, and thus express their own will, the will of the majority.
Democracy, in its essential features, was a child of the sixth century, and
it grew up in the fifth.
London. Victor Ehrenberg.
POSTSCRIPT
This article had been set for some time when I received by the author's
courtesy A. E. Raubitschek's paper ?The Origin of Ostracism(<(AJA. LV
195 1, zz i ff.). In a clever and provocative argument R. tries to prove that
548 Victor Ehrenberg:Originsof Democracy
ostracismwas enacted by Cleisthenesshortly before it was first used in 487.

In spite of a possible longevity equal to that of certainmodern statesmen
mentioned by R., it seems unlikely that Cleisthenes emerged from the
obscurity of a long period of retirementof which nothing is known, and
I do not think that Aristotle, Ath. pol. zz, z-6, the basic passagefor R.'s
theory, really admits the interpretationthat all the laws mentioned there
are Cleisthenes')>othernew laws< of ? i. In Aristotle's view the xaTaaraa1q
of 507 included the law of ostracism,and while up to this he has attributed
everything to Cleisthenes, he now changes the subject from the singular
to the plural. This is a clear indication that he at least did not regardthe
later laws as Cleisthenic. There are other points as well which I cannot
accept, e. g. that the archonship was the )>legal<(basis of tyranny, that
the law of ostracism was bound up with the establishmentand even the
great influence of the board of generals, or that it replacedthe Solonian
law againsttyranny.Admittedly,every attemptat reconstructingthe obscure
period after 500 will containdoubtfulstatementsand unansweredquestions;
but so far I see no reason why I should alter what I have written on the
preceding pages.

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Origins of Democracy

Author(s): Victor Ehrenberg

i. It is misleading to regard the City-States, say, of Sumer as bcing of the same

3. A. Debrunner, Aj,uoxqatra in Festscrhnftfur E. Tiicbe (I947), 11-24. J. A. 0.

of a Greek democracy 4. Although to some extent a side-show in the play,

The Constitutionin Aeschylus'Suppliants

From the beginning of the play we are, as it were, surrounded by an

w nav xe aro EX v ovo04. This xearo; is power given by Zeus - as is

a satisfactory safe-guard of democracy, but no democratic constitution

in producing offspring, either direct children such as the verb, generally

26. Larsen (see note 3), note x6.

Whether or not we recognise in that debate the influence of early Sophistic

Cleisthenes, the founder of Athenian democracy, and another Agariste who

relied on an experience won outside Athens of which we cannot find any

I ea they had fought and died worthy of their

37. It may be true that in the skolion naret(aq is a >non-technical adjectives,

pressed by Herodotus, Thucydides and Aristotle. The former version

44. Glotz, HisiQiregreque, 1, 467.

We have another piece of evidence for laovoyda, roughly belonging

46. What a peculiar coincidence of namesI

?o.A. W. Gommc, CQ. XLII (I 948), IO, gives a differentinterpretationof 7lr6,udoov;.

it is equally contrasted to lkovo1.a, and this time clearly to a democratic

The Foundingof Democracry

S4. Cf. Larsen, I 2 f. TL,ieElV,

The progress of democracy in Athens was chiefly marked by the gradual

to withdraw, and recalled Cleisthenes'6. This anti-oligarchic and patriotic

In his painstaking, if over-confident, article on the early archons,

66. Even by Schaefer, 483.

Ostracism had been a safe-guard which Cleisthenes designed for his

responsible. Whether he lived to sponsor the introduction of the oath and

of it. No Periclean democracy was possible without Pericles, but none

ostracismwas enacted by Cleisthenesshortly before it was first used in 487.

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