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Democracy denied: why Ephialtes attacked the Areiopagus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

T. E. Rihll
T. E. Rihll
Affiliation:
St David's University College, Lampeter
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Extract

Ephialtes is a rather enigmatic figure in Athenian history. On the one hand, he is widely regarded as the third and final ‘author’ of Athenian democracy; the man who finished what Solon began and Kleisthenes pushed forward. On the other hand, our knowledge of what he actually did is remarkably fuzzy.

Considerable research on matters relevant to Ephialtes and his reforms has been published during the last decade, and it is my intention here to try to bring some of these results together to propose a new solution to the two principal problems concerning Ephialtes’ reforms: (i) what power(s) did he transfer from the Areiopagus to other bodies? and (ii) why did he propose these changes?

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 115 , November 1995 , pp. 87 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1995

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References

1 Our source here is peddling just one rumour about Ephialtes' death. Others had it that Perikles killed Ephialtes (Idomeneus FGH 338 F8), and some assert that the killer was never found (Antiphon v 68, Diodorus xi 77.6). A.H. Sommerstein (‘Sleeping safe in our beds: stasis, assassination and the Oresteia’, in Molyneux, J.H. ed. Literary responses to civil discord (Nottingham 1993) 1–17)Google Scholar has recently provided good justification for the strong tendency to see this as a political assassination, which reinforces the idea that Ephialtes' reforms—whatever they were were extremely important.

2 Wallace, R.W., The Areopagus council (Baltimore & London 1989).Google Scholar Henceforth Wallace.

3 For a detailed study see Hansen, M.H., Eisangelia (Odense 1975).Google Scholar

4 Wallace 76.

5 Rhodes, P.J., The Athenian boule 2 (Oxford 1989) 199–201.Google Scholar Henceforth Rhodes AB.

6 Sealey, R., ‘Ephialtes, eisangelia and the Council’, (henceforth Sealey EEC) in Shrimpton, G.S. and McCargar, D.J. edd. Classical contributions: studies in honour of M.F. McGregor (Locust Valley 1981) 125–34Google Scholar, p. 131. His explanation for changing habits is the declining quality of Areopagites.

7 For an excellent exposition of the arguments in favour of double dokimasia for archons and referral to dikasteria for rejected bouleutai, see Rhodes AB 176–8.

8 No-one supposes that jurors conducted dokimasiai before Ephialtes, if indeed dikasteria existed at that time.

9 Rhodes AB 178, italics are mine. Rhodes denies the boule any other judicial competence before Ephialtes.

10 Rhodes AB 205; see also Rhodes, P.J., Commentary on the Athenaion Politeia (Oxford 1981) 150.Google Scholar Henceforth Rhodes CAP.

11 Wallace 245 n. 78.

12 The Forty for private suits, the thesmothetai for public.

13 For discussion of euthuna see Harrison, A.R.W., The law of Athens ii (Oxford 1971) 14–5, 28–31, 208–11Google Scholar, and Hansen, M.H., The Athenian democracy (Oxford 1991) 220–4.Google Scholar Henceforth Hansen AD.

14 Pol. 1274a15–18, 1281b32–5.

15 Wallace 53–4.

16 See especially Sealey, R., ‘Ephialtes’, CP lix (1964) 11–22Google Scholar = Essays in Greek politics (New York 1967) 42–58.

17 There is only one source for this, AP 22.5, and although it seems to contradict other sources, and is clearly wrong on at least one detail (a pool of 500, instead of 100, elected candidates for the archonship) it is generally accepted as historically accurate. Why this change was introduced (if indeed it was) is a question on a par with that tackled here, and has been answered with many similar hypotheses to those proposed for Ephialtes' reforms.

18 Any argument based on the particular names of known archons is spurious. There are simply too few of them to say anything meaningful, and one cannot assume identification of a named archon with a famous bearer of that name. Even where we have a complete list of eponymous archons for a period, eg. 480–460, this gives the names of only 11 % of all archons during that period, since the ep. archon had eight colleagues—none of whom are known in the period given as an example. See Develin, R., Athenian officials 684–321 BC (Cambridge 1989) 63–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Henceforth Develin.

19 Badian, E., ‘Archons and strategoi’, Antichthon v (1971) 1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar He argued that a decline in the age and quality of Areopagites started many years earlier, following the Peisistratid meddling with the archonships (Thuk. vi 54.6) and was formalised through an unknown reform of Kleisthenes.

20 Cawkwell, G.L., ‘Nomophulakia and the Areopagus’, JHS cviii (1988) 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 4–7. Henceforth Cawkwell.

21 See also Forrest, W.G. and Stockton, D., ‘The Athenian archons: a note’, Historia xxxvi (1987) 235–40.Google Scholar

22 When the hippeis were first admitted is not known. However, assuming that archons were of old chosen from the highest group, it is likely that they were admitted from the first, because until Solon created the pentakosiomedimnoi, the hippeis were the highest social group. Had Solon restricted the archonship to his newly created highest group, the pentakosiomedimnoi, then he would at the same time have denied the hippeis their traditional right of access to the archonship, and we might expect the sources to remember and mention such a removal of privilege.

23 Rhodes would add to the pre-Ephialtic powers of the Areiopagus further assorted procedures which he categorises under the title ‘Official jurisdiction’; besides the ‘falling prestige of Areopagites since the introduction of the lot’ explanation, he also cites the trials of Kimon and Themistokles as possible contributory factors. See especially CAP 316 f. and AB 205 f., 210. Cf. Wallace 85 f.

24 Wallace's phrase.

25 Sealey EEC, quote p. 134.

26 Cawkwell 9.

27 Isokrates' Areopagiticus, written over a century after Ephialtes' reforms were introduced, ‘contrasts the degenerate democracy of his own day with the earlier democracy of Solon and Kleisthenes, with particular reference to the function … of the Areopagus as censor of public morals’ to quote the splendid summary in the OCD.

28 This story from a fragment of Hyperides, apud Athenaios 566F. Note that the occasion implied here is either dokimasia for entry to the Areiopagus (for which the only evidence is Plut. Per. 9.4) or euthuna on leaving an archonship. Remembering that a Greek breakfast, if taken, consisted of bread dipped in neat wine, the offence cited is not ‘immoral’ in the sense in which the average modern, contemplating his or her cornflakes or kedgeree, might assume. The offence derives from public houses as places, rather than from alcoholic breakfasts.

29 Meritt, B., ‘Greek inscriptions’, Hesperia xxxvi (1967) 72–84.Google Scholar

30 A rather misleading word, since it does not ‘appear in politics’ before 462/1 either.

31 Wallace 77–82. Argument (iv), which is extremely weak, is a reply to Rhodes.

32 Eg. Sinclair, R.K., Democracy and participation (Cambridge 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Whitehead, D., The demes of Attica (Princeton 1987) 267.Google Scholar Henceforth Whitehead.

34 See Rhodes AB 7, and references cited in n. 9. As is clear from eg. Lysias xxvi, there were also deputy archons, and since all magistrates were subject to dokimasia, it follows that there must have been provision of deputies for each type, if not for each individual. By virtue of its size, the Boule clearly represented the biggest single problem in this respect.

35 Traili, J.S., ‘Athenian bouletic alternates’, in Shrimpton, G.S. and McCargar, D.J. edd. Classical contributions: studies in honour of M.F. McGregor (Locust Valley 1981) 161–9Google Scholar, with references to earlier works in n. 1, and Whitehead 268, refs. n. 5.

36 ‘About the most fatal infectious disease that is known’, with a mortbidity rate (i.e. the proportion that die once they have caught it) of 96%; see Hollingsworth, T.H., Historical demography (London 1969) 357.Google Scholar

37 Described by Procopius, Persian Wars ii 22–3.Google Scholar For the estimate see Hollingsworth (n. 36) 367.

38 The standard questions, which concern technical qualification for office, were asked of each and every candidate, and this stage of the dokimasia was probably uncontentious in almost all cases. It was during the second part, when questions were invited from the floor, that individual and personal attacks might be made on the candidate. Such particular ‘questions’ are reproduced in the relevant speeches, but naturally not in abstract treatments such as AP 55.3.

39 Perikles introduced the rule that both parents had to be Athenian-born in 451, about ten years after Ephialtes' reforms.

40 Some modern scholars refer to atimoi in very charitable terms, saying for example that these people are ‘disfranchised’, which means little if anything in the modern world, or that they have ‘lost’ their citizen rights, as if they absentmindedly left them somewhere. This is very misleading. Atimia was a punishment for a crime. An atimos was a citizen who had had his rights taken from him (in toto—in which case he was denied rights that even metics and women enjoyed, e.g. entering the agora—or in part, for a fixed term or for life, and if the latter, for one or more generations) either upon conviction in court or by default (in the case of public debtors) for one of a number of specific military, familial, or civic crimes (Hansen identifies 27 such crimes; see Hansen, M.H., Apagoge, endeixis and ephegesis against kakourgoi, atimoi and pheugontes (Odense 1976) 72–4).Google Scholar As such the atimos is, first and foremost, an Athenian criminal.

41 See Rhodes AB 1–3; AP 55 and Rhodes CAP ad. loc.; Bonner, R.J., Aspects of Athenian democracy (New York 1933) 12–13Google Scholar, henceforth Bonner; MacDowell, D.M., The law in classical Athens (London 1978) 167–9.Google Scholar Henceforth MacDowell.

42 Eg. lists of atimoi, metics, or in this case archived cavalry registers.

43 The dispute in Lys. xvi [Mantitheos] concerns which of two tablets, on one of which the accused appears, but on the other of which he does not, is the more credible.

44 ‘To undergo an examination of the record of their lives’, Lysias xvi 1.

45 Ar. Hippeis 447. This source is not as early as Ephialtes, but does predate the oligarchic revolutions. There is nothing to suggest the existence of a formal question about association with the Peisistratids. See Bonner 13.

46 E.g. (Loeb trans.) ‘Only those have the right to sit in Council on our concerns who, besides holding the citizenship, have their hearts set on it’ (5). Philon's bad character is demonstrated by his leaving the country during the oligarchic regime of 403 (instead of staying to fight them) although he was neither poor nor disabled, and by his mother's lack of trust in him to carry out her funeral arrangements. ‘If then he was as backward as he was able to help, how should he not be hated with good reason by you all?’ (13) It is clear that Philon is not technically debarred from office: ‘what inducement then could you have for approving this man? Because he has committed no offence? (24) … He argues that if it was a crime to absent himself at that crisis, we should have had a law expressly dealing with it, as in the case of all other crimes’ (27).

47 See Rhodes CAP 45.3 ad loc.; Lysias xxvi 14 suggests that someone was rejected ‘out of anger’.

48 Viz. c. 700 per annum plus the 9+ first scrutinised by the boule.

49 Sic; he is referring to those chosen by sortition as well.

50 Hansen, M.H., The Athenian assembly in the age of Demosthenes (Oxford 1987) 101.Google Scholar Henceforth Hansen AA.

51 Theramenes, would-be strategos, Lys. xiii 10.

52 Leodamas, Lys. xxvi 13; Euandros, Lys. xxvi; and Polueuktos, Dein. fr. 1.

53 Mantitheos, Lys. xvi; Philon, Lys. xxxi; and Demosthenes, Dem. xxi 111.

54 Aristogeiton, Dem. xxv 67 and Dein, ii 10. This is the only known individual who held or rather who hoped to hold—this post, though there were ten per annum (omitted by Develin, who does, however, include the only known secretary to this board).

55 Lysias xxv, in defence against a charge of subverting the democracy, which Dover, K.J., Lysias and the Corpus Lysiacum (Berkeley & Los Angeles 1968) 189Google Scholar suspects is a defence prepared in case accusations were made at the dokimasia but not in fact delivered. Accepting this, Hansen did not include this dokimasia speech in his statistic. It has also been suggested that this oration is a political pamphlet in the form of a speech (I owe this observation to Alan Sommerstein).

56 See Dover (n. 55) 5.

57 For hearings before the boule and non-appellate hearings before the dikasteria. Those who were rejected by the bouleutai could of course prepare for their appeal before the dikastai. A man might go to other, more sinister, lengths to try to ensure that he passed his dokimasia: see below.

58 ‘The difficult task, it would appear, was evading bouleutic service, not undertaking it from choice’, Whitehead 267 n. 47.

59 See eg. MacDowell 168.

60 Lysias xxvi [Euandros]. This case cannot be used to generalise as Todd, S.C. does (Athenian internal politics (Diss. Cambridge 1985) 119)Google Scholar that ‘pressure on time must have been considerable and hearings must normally have been perfunctory’ (emphasis added), because the ‘time crisis’ which certainly exists here arises from the threatened rejection of the deputy, and there is currently no second deputy to stand in should the deputy now be rejected. Also, Lysias implies that there has been a considerable lapse of time since the rejection of the original candidate, and that the deputy has engineered this ‘time crisis’ in order to pressure the scrutineers into passing him so that they can celebrate the festival over which he (or no-one) will preside tomorrow (xxvi 6–7). Clearly it was possible to reject both the candidate and the deputy, but one wonders how often this was a practical option, for reasons of time or of politics. If the bouleutic deputies could stand for any of their deme quota places (as Traill supposes) then the problem was less acute for the boule than for, eg. the strategia or the archonships, for which we assume a 1:1 relationship between named candidate and named deputy. On the question of time, the Athenians do not seem to have felt pressurized into cutting corners on their standing commitments such as the dokimasiai and euthunai of magistrates; even the oligarchically-inclined author of [Xen.] Athenaion Politeia 3.1–9 saw no solution to the problem of the routine and regular duties of the boule and dikasteria filling their time to such an extent that it was extremely difficult to get a new matter considered.

61 In short, the primary motivation here seems to have been personal enmities, getting even, and the good old virtue of harming one's enemies; see also Lysias xxxi [Philon] 2.

62 Not to be confused with eisangelia proceedings against strategoi.

63 Lysias xiii [Agoratos] sections 9–12 (fourteen lines of Loeb text) concern Theramenes (‘who was plotting against your democracy’) as ambassador; section 10 (two and a half lines of Loeb text) concerns Theramenes' rejection at his dokimasia, ‘because you judged him disloyal to your democracy’.

64 ‘He alone, men of the boule, will have no just cause for complaint if he is not admitted, for it is not you who are debarring him from honour today’ (but his own past behaviour); implication: others will be rejected today, but they might have just cause for complaint and appeal to the dikasteria. This is certainly not the sort of thing said in a meeting whose function is to ‘rubber stamp’ decisions taken elsewhere.

65 Hansen AA 101.

66 Lysias xxviii [Ergokles].

67 Lysias xxx [Nikomakhos], Lykourgos [Leokritos], Hyperides ii [Lyk.], and iii [Euxen.].

68 And a further three given in response: references in Harrison (n. 13) 50 n.2. Responses do not of course add to the number of actioned cases, being only the other side of the argument.

69 Figures from Hansen AD 216 f.

70 The profanation of the Mysteries and desecration of the Herms in 415. The simple fact that nearly 40% of the sample concerns one event warns against taking the numbers seriously.

71 Directly or on appeal from the boule.

72 Eg. Cawkwell, Rhodes, Stockton, Wallace.

73 Although widely held, it is only a guess that outgoing bouleutai scrutinised incoming bouleutai from the foundation of the Kleisthenic boule until Ephialtes' reforms, and if true, this would represent an exception not only to the established practice of dokimasia, but also to the boule's otherwise non-judicial functions during that period.

74 Hall, L., ‘Ephialtes, the Areopagus and the Thirty’, CQ xl (1990) 319–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75 This paper was significantly improved by the comments and criticisms of J.V. Tucker, Stephen Todd, the other referee, and the editor, to all of whom I extend thanks.