
Excerpt from A History of Greece, Vol. 2 of 4: From the Earliest Period to the Close of the Generation Contemporary With Alexander the Great Such was the first Athenian democracy, engendered as well by the reaction against Hippias and his dynasty as by the memorable part' ncrsbip, whether spontaneous or compulsory, between Kleisthenes and the unfranchised multitude. It is to be distinguished both from the mitigated oligarchy established by Solon before, and from the full-grown and symmetrical democracy which prevailed afterward from the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, toward the close of the career of Perikles. It was indeed a striking revolution, impressed upon the citizen not less by the sentiments to which it appealed than by the visible change which it made in political and social life. He saw himself niarshaled in the ranks of hoplites alongside of new companions in arms - he was enrolled in a new register, and his prop erty in a new schedule, in his deme and by his demarch, an officer before unknown - he found the year distributed afresh, for all legal purposes, into ten parts bearing the name of prytanies, each marked by a solemn and free - spoken ekklesia at which he had a right to be present - his ekklesia was convoked and presided by senators called prytanes, members of a senate novel both as to number and distribu tion - his political duties were now performed as member of a tribe, designated by a name not before pronounced in common Attic life, connected with one of ten heroes whose statues he now for the first time saw in the agora, and associating him with fellow-tribemen from all parts of Attica. All these and many others were sensible novelties felt in the daily proceedings of the citizen. But the great novelty of all was the authentic recognition of the ten new tribes as a sovereign Demos or people, apart from all specialties of phratric or gentile origin, with free speech and equal law; retaining no distinc tion except the four classes of th
Page Count:
862
Publication Date:
2017-12-20
Publisher:
Fb&c Limited
ISBN-10:
0484184199
ISBN-13:
9780484184199
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