The Reforms of Cleisthenes
Having prevailed against Isagoras and the Spartans, ordinary Athenians turned to Cleisthenes, the man who had unsuccessfully stood up against Isagoras on their behalf. Windows in history rarely open to revolutionary political change. But such a window opened in 507 BC. Cleisthenes was recalled from exile and asked to build the world's first government of the people- the demos- a government that we now call direct democracy. His unprecedented task was to forge a government that genuinely reflected the will of all Athenians, aristocrats and commoners. Cleisthenes first major reform was his reorganization of Athenian society. In 503-502 BC, he divided Athens and the surrounding countryside of Attica into 140 local units, called demes. The demes varied in size, but each male citizen belonged to one. Cleisthenes combined the demes into trittyes. There were thirty trittyes- ten in the city, ten along the coast, and ten in the interior. Cleisthenes combined the trittyes into tribes (phylai). (The four tribes comprising the Council of 400 lost their political significance after this point.) The ten tribes he formed were comprised of three trittyes each. Cleverly, he declared that each tribe would have one trittye from the c
ity, one trittye from the coast, and one trittye from the interior. This division of regions ensured that each tribe had a mix of interest groups and families. A powerful aristocratic family from one region would at most dominant only one of the tribe's three trittyes. It would have to compromise with the other trittyes to conduct business. This undermined old channels of influence. Athenian male had one vote. As such, the general assembly was an example of direct democracy. What happened to Cleisthenes after instituting these reforms is a mystery. What is known, however, is that his reforms revolutionized Athenian life. In a mere 50 years, Athens had changed from a narrow democracy dominated by an aristocratic oligarchy, to a tyranny, to the beginning of history's most famous democracy. His reforms nurtured an age of achievement and prosperity, marking the beginning of the Classical Period and what would be called Athen's Golden Age. In a second historic reform, Cleisthenes replaced the old Council of 400 with a new Council of 500. Like its predecessor, the new Council was a representative body whose purpose was proposing laws to the Assembly. This was extremely important because the Assembly could not consider laws on its own; the Assembly could consider only those laws proposed by the Council. The Council's 500 representatives were drawn from the ten new tribes. Each tribe had 50 representatives. To ensure that the Council of 500 represented all regions of the city-state, Cleisthenes required the tribes to elect their representatives from each deme based on population. For example, if a tribe was comprised of 10 demes of equal population, then the
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Approximate Word count = 1133
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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