Kleisthenes' 700 Epistia

Robert D. CROMEY, Kleisthenes' 700 Epistia. - Among frequent warnings that to understand Kleisthenes' reforms one must pay attention to terminology in our sources, it is surprising that one term seems so long overlooked : Herodotos' odd term 'epistia' (V, 27). He uses it for the mysterious "seven hundred families" that fell under the Alkmeonid curse during the struggle with Isagoras in 507. But despite the fact that in abridging Herodotos' account the Ath. Pol. substitutes the word 'oikiai' for 'epistia', the word does not mean 'families'. For Herodotos and antiquity generally the word had only one meaning, 'suppliants'. At V, 27 he means the word to apply to a heterogeneous collection of individuals making up a single mass seen as a collective whole : that is why the term is neuter plural. As a motley collection of Kleisthenes' supporters they share his family's intimate 'curse' for executing the supporters of Kylon c 632. The 'suppliants' were made of individuals admitted into various 'gene' before 507, now purged as non-citizens by Isagoras. Kleisthenes readmitted them to the citizenry by making them members of tribes according to deme residence. A part of our trouble in understanding how they were enfranchised and integrated into the citizen body in 507 comes from not understanding that various social institutions within the Athenian state each had their own requirements for membership, some overlapping. "Suppliants" by definition held their position only conditionally ; but in 507 Kleisthenes made them permanent 'neopolitiai

Curse · Epistemology · Genealogy · Linguistics · Meaning (existential · Motley · Plural · Political science · Sociology · Spelling · Term (time · Terminology · Classical Antiquity Studies · History · Law · Philosophy

• The Archon Year of Alkmeon and Isagoras' council of 300

  Peter Bicknell, Peter J Bicknell•L antiquité classique•1985

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