Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 5 - The reform of the Athenian state by Cleisthenes

  • from PART II - THE GREEK STATES
    • By Martin Ostwald, William R. Kenan, Jr, Professor of Classics, Swarthmore College, and Professor of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvani
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 303-346

  • Summary

    There is little contemporary evidence for the history of Athens in the decade following the fall of the Pisistratid tyranny. Herodotus wrote some sixty or seventy years after Cleisthenes' reforms, and the internal history of Athens is for him incidental to other concerns. Membership in a deme constituted the most important indication of Athenian citizenship. The substitution of the deme for the phratry as the smallest political unit was one way in which the influence of the noble families was fragmented. The new tribal organization will have had an impact on legislation and policy-making. The Solonian constitution became much more populist than it had been under Solon. For disuse under the tyranny had brought about an eclipse of Solon's laws and had made Cleisthenes enact new legislation in his attempt to gain the favour of the masses. It was in this connexion that the law on ostracism was enacted.