-
Introduction
- University of Michigan Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Introduction 1.Archaic and Classical Athens:A Short History General: The standard multi- volume English- language scholarly survey of the history of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world is The Cambridge Ancient History; the Archaic and Classical periods of Greek history are covered in vol. 3 pt. 3 ed. 2 (The Expansion of the Greek World, Eighth to Sixth Centuries B.C., ed. J. Boardman-N.G.L. Hammond, Cambridge 1982); vol. 4 ed. 2 (Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean c. 525–479 B.C., ed. J. Boardman et al., Cambridge 1988); vol. 5 ed. 2 (The Fifth Century B.C., ed. D. M. Lewis et al., Cambridge 1992); vol. 6 ed. 2 (The Fourth Century B.C., ed. D. M. Lewis et al., Cambridge 1994). Good introductions to Archaic and/or Classical Greece include J. B. Bury-R. Meiggs, A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great4 (New York 1975); R. Sealey, A History of the Greek City- States ca. 700– 338 B.C. (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1976); J. V. A. Fine, The Ancient Greeks: A Critical History (Cambridge , MA 1983); J. M. Hall, A History of the Archaic Greek World ca. 1200– 479 BCE (Malden, MA 2007); R. Osborne, Greece in the Making, 1200– 479 BC2 (London and New York 2009); P. J. Rhodes, A History of the Classical Greek World 478– 323 BC2 (Malden, MA 2010); S. Hornblower, The Greek World 479– 323 BC4 (London and New York 2011). History of the Athenian Constitution: C. Hignett, A History of the Athenian Constitution to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford 1952); P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Boule (Oxford 1972); M. Ostwald, From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law: Law, Society, and Politics in Fifth- Century Athens (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1986); T. C. Loening, The Reconciliation Agreement of 403/402 B.C. in Athens: Its Content and Application (Stuttgart 1987); R. W. Wallace, The Areopagos Council, to 307 B.C. (Baltimore 1989); M. H. Hansen, The Athe- 2 • the law of ancient athens nian Assembly in the Age of Demosthenes (Oxford 1987); idem, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (Oxford 1991); P. J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (rev. ed. Oxford 1993); J. H. Blok- A. P. M. H. Lardinois, eds., Solon of Athens: New Historical and Philological Approaches (Leiden 2006). See also the bibliography at the head of the next section (p. 16). Earliest Athens, to Draco In the beginning, the city of Athens was ruled by kings. Probably before the end of the monarchy, and definitely by the seventh century, Athens had extended its sway over the entire surrounding region of Attica (an area of approximately 1,000 square miles or 2,600 square kilometers), which thenceforth comprised a single unified city- state (polis; plural poleis); while government was centered in Athens, all citizens, wherever in Attica they lived, called themselves Athenians. During the Archaic period (776– 479 B.C.), most Greek poleis shed themselves of their traditional monarchies, and Athens was no exception. By 683/2, the Athenian monarchy had been replaced by an aristocracy headed by one or more chief magistrates called archons (for theories on the origin of the archons see [Aristotle], Constitution of the Athenians [Ath. Pol.] 3 with P. J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia [rev. ed. Oxford 1993]); by the late seventh century (1b Thuc. 1.126.3– 12), the board of archons had reached its canonical number of nine, and members of the board served annual terms. The nine archons were the archon (often called the “eponymous archon” because he gave his name to the year); the basileus (“king”), whose title and some of whose prerogatives survived from the earlier monarchy; the polemarch (“war- leader”), whose original function was to command the army; and six thesmothetai (“lawgivers”; singular thesmothetês), whose responsibilities were primarily judicial. Until the reforms of Solon (594/3, see below), only members of the hereditary aristocracy— known collectively as the Eupatrids— were eligible for the archonships; by Solon at the latest, the Council of the Areopagus (Athens’ original council of government, which took its name from the hill next to the Acropolis where it met and which probably began as a council of noble advisors to the king) comprised all living former archons, who at the end of their archonships assumed life tenure on the Areopagus. Two other characteristic phenomena of Archaic Greece were the rise of...