Athens

Athens (Ancient Greek: Ἀθῆναι) was a polis in Attica and one of the principal political and cultural centres of Greece. In the fifth century BCE it became a leading naval power; its history is closely connected with democracy, philosophy, theatre and art.

The formation of the Athenian polis was a lengthy process of uniting Attic communities and developing shared institutions. Ancient tradition attributed synoecism to Theseus, but cannot be treated as an exact account of one king’s reforms.

In the Archaic period, landholding, debt dependence and rivalry between elite families caused serious conflict. The nine archons and the Areopagus played important roles in government. Solon’s reforms, Peisistratid tyranny and the changes introduced by Cleisthenes successively transformed the polis.

The free population did not share a single legal status. Political rights belonged to citizens; metics were free residents without Athenian citizenship. The position of women and enslaved people also differed from that of male citizens.

The synoecism of Theseus

"Synoecism of Theseus" — the formation of a single Athenian polis. Social struggle in Attica in the seventh and early sixth centuries BC The region of Attica was located in Central Greece: its soil was sparsely fertile, there was not enough bread of its own, but there were some minerals (clay, marble, silver in the south in Lavrion) and, most importantly, several convenient harbors for navigation. During the Mycenaean period, there were several independent settlements here, although there may have been some consolidation, which is reflected in the legend of the "Synoecism of Theseus": the legendary hero allegedly united the isolated rural communities of Attica (the twelve communities traditionally associated with Cecrops) around the Acropolis of Athens. In fact, the process of consolidation of the Attic settlements went on for several centuries and ended centuries after the era of this mythical hero (c. XIII century BC) - in the VII century BC, when Eleusis was annexed to the Athenian polis. Synoecism (Greek. "live together" — - the association of several primary communities (usually rural or in some cases territorial-generic) into a larger entity, one of the ways to form an ancient polis. The process could be either voluntary or compulsory (forced submission): the common origin, language, cultural and religious unity of neighboring communities made it possible in most cases to dispense with the first option. Eupatrids (Greek. "descended from noble fathers") — the ancestral nobility in Athens. Athens was once ruled by kings, but gradually the basileus king was stripped of all important functions; royal power was placed under the control of the aristocracy, and then completely abolished. The only thing that reminded me of it was that one of the members of the highest official board (the board of archons) was the archon Basileus. Archons were chosen, apparently, at first for life, but later for a year. There were nine of them in total. Originally three: archon-eponym (gave the name of the year), archon-basileus (performed the duties of the high priest), archon-polemarch (commanded the militia), in the VII century BC. added six thesmothetai-guardians of laws and customs. Legal proceedings were then entirely in the hands of the archons, and the Thesmophetes probably tried cases that went beyond the competence of other archons. The former archons sat in the aristocratic council, which was located on the hill of Ares near the Acropolis and therefore called the Areopagus. The Areopagus in the first centuries of the Archaic period, having control, judicial and legislative functions, was in fact the highest authority in the Athenian state. The People's Assembly, if it met, was irregular, and did not have much power. As in Ancient Greek communities, Attica was undergoing a process of social and property differentiation. The first social division was again attributed by tradition to Theseus: Eupatrids — the landowning aristocracy, demos — the common people, peasants and demiurges-artisans. Athens did not escape the social upheavals that often occurred during the era of the "archaic revolution". The first signs of social unrest date back to the mid-seventh century BC. e. The Athenian aristocrat Cylon tried to seize power in Athens and become a tyrant. Cylon was an Olympian and counted on his popularity as the winner of the Olympic Games. The event that went down in history as the "Cylonian affair" occurred, according to most modern historians, in 632 BC. e. The coup failed, the Athenians did not support it, and Cylon and like-minded people took refuge in the acropolis. The Athenians began to besiege the rebels, Cylon secretly disappeared, while the rest, suffering from hunger, sat down at the altar of the goddess Athena as supplicants. The besiegers, in order not to desecrate the sacred place with corpses, offered the starving rebels to leave, promising inviolability. But when they left the altar, tying something like a thread to it, and began to descend, holding on to it, one of the leaders of the archon's besiegers, Megacles, attacked the rebels with his squad — they all died. The murder of those who prayed for divine protection was regarded as sacrilege, Megacles was condemned and exiled along with his relatives, and the "the Cylonian curse"fell on the Alkmeonid family to which he belonged.

Related topics

• Ancient Greece
• Athenian Democracy
• Solon's reforms
• The oligarchic movement in Athens

Literature and sources

• The Great Soviet Encyclopedia: [in 30 volumes] / ch. ed. by A.M. Prokhorov. -3rd ed. — Moscow: Sovetskaya entsiklopediya,1969-1978.
• Athens // Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additions).
• St. Petersburg,1890-1907.
• Buzeskul V. P., Aristotle's Athenian Politics as a source for the history of the state system of Athens until the end of the fifth century, Khar.,1995;