Cleisthenes (of Athens) and Corinth
This chapter discusses what Cleisthenes' tribal system in Attica owed to Corinth. Stroud's hypothesis that the eight Corinthian tribes each had one component from the city, within and beyond the Isthmus, is extended and defended against other suggestions. Attic tribes, each with a trittys from city, coast, and inland, are very similar. Differences and similarities are explored to illuminate Cleisthenes' motives. The Corinthian pattern enabled him to separate Athenian aristocrats from their traditional support and yet to bring benefits to Alcmeonids; the deme, however, has central importance for Cleisthenes but no Corinthian counterpart. Cleisthenes cannot have made his trittyes equal: the 50 councilors from each tribe cannot come in equal numbers from three trittyes. Cleisthenes may have learned Corinthian details in the city itself, in exile on Cleomenes' instructions; but he did not understand the democratic potential, unrealised at Corinth, of what he borrowed.
Keywords: Cleisthenes, Corinth, Athens, Attica, tribes, trittys, trittyes, deme
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