Cleisthenes and the birth of Athenian democracy

Over several decades, Athens had experienced repeated unrest, largely driven by the plans of noble families who wanted to increase their power and by the private alliances that they formed.

Peisistratus first seized power in 561 BCE and ruled in three separate periods, and he finally secured long-term control around 546 BCE.

He ruled as a tyrant, and for the most part he maintained the outward appearance of the usual system of laws and offices.

After his death in 527 BCE, his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus, continued their rule, but resentment among many Athenians had begun to build beneath the surface.

In 514 BCE, the assassination of Hipparchus by Harmodius and Aristogeiton brought about an important change.

In response, Hippias tightened his control and punished opponents severely, which deepened public hostility and weakened support for his rule.

Eventually, the Alcmaeonid family, who had long been enemies of the Peisistratids, secured the backing of Sparta and arranged for King Cleomenes I to lead a Spartan force that expelled Hippias from the city in 510 BCE.

Soon after, Isagoras had already secured the archonship, and he tried to increase his power when he dissolved the Council and brought more control into his own hands.

With Spartan support, he attempted to force his rule through on his own authority, but this triggered a citizen revolt.

Athenians blockaded him on the Acropolis and forced him to surrender. As a result, Cleisthenes had recently been exiled by Isagoras, and he returned to Athens in 508 BCE with the backing of the people and began to implement a series of reforms that would change the political system for good.

Herodotus described the events in detail, and Aristotle later described Cleisthenes' measures as a clear move away from rule by elite families toward regular citizen involvement in politics.

To break up the old networks of aristocratic power, Cleisthenes changed the tribal system, which had long grouped citizens according to kinship and regional loyalty.

The earlier four Ionic tribes, Geleontes, Hopletes, Argadeis, and Aegicoreis, were largely based on inherited privilege.

Instead of preserving them, he replaced them with ten new tribes, each made up of demes, which were local units drawn from across Attica, from rural demes to coastal settlements and the city itself.

Citizens enrolled in the deme registers that were known as the lexiarchikon grammateion were now more closely politically aligned with neighbours from different parts of the region, which weakened the power of large families and reduced the influence of local elites.

Each tribe took the name of a hero who gave his name to the tribe and who had a well-known public cult, and this hero was chosen after the Athenians took advice from the Delphic oracle.

Statues of these ten figures were erected in the Agora, where they acted as important public symbols and as practical bulletin boards for public announcements.

Next, Cleisthenes expanded the Boule, or Council, from 400 to 500 members, with each tribe that supplied fifty representatives selected by lot.

The use of sortition rather than election meant that wealthy families could no longer keep control of most council seats, and ordinary citizens came to have a much more direct role in decisions.

The Council took responsibility for the preparation of legislation and for the management of state finances and the supervision of public officials, so that no single group could control public affairs.

This system replaced Solon’s earlier Council of 400 and created a system for the preparation of legislation that balanced members from different parts of Attica.

At the same time, he introduced a new system for military leadership through the establishment of the office of strategos.

Each tribe elected one general so that the total reached ten, which helped keep regional interests balanced in military planning.

Because military leadership required skill, generals were chosen by vote rather than lot, and they held significant power during times of war, which allowed the Assembly to maintain control over military appointments without any need to depend only on elite families.

Unlike most public offices in the city, strategoi could be re-elected, which gave experienced leaders sustained influence during long conflicts.

Soon after these changes to the system, Cleisthenes strengthened the role of the Ekklesia, or citizen Assembly, which became the main decision-making body for the approval of laws and the election of magistrates, along with decisions about policy on war and public matters such as alliances or public duties.

All free adult male citizens could attend and vote, and meetings were held on the Pnyx hill, which looked out over the city.

The Assembly eventually met around forty times per year, though this schedule had developed more fully by the later fifth century.

Major decisions, such as declarations of war, required a quorum of 6,000 citizens.

Decisions now rested in the hands of those who had previously held little political influence.

Importantly, Cleisthenes gave the Assembly genuine authority, and it could accept or reject proposals from the Boule, amend decrees, and supervise magistrates.

As participation grew, so too did the idea that citizenship came to mean legal status and active involvement in public life.

While women, slaves, and resident foreigners remained excluded, the male citizen body took on new responsibilities that had once belonged exclusively to aristocrats.

Cleisthenes’ reforms replaced Solon’s earlier system, which had divided citizens by wealth class, with a structure grounded in geography and equal political opportunity.

To prevent the rise of new tyrannies, Cleisthenes also introduced ostracism, a procedure by which citizens could vote to exile a political figure for ten years without taking his property.

If at least 6,000 votes were cast against a man, he was required to leave Athens, even if no official charges were made.

This vote occurred annually and was held at a specially arranged meeting.

Although rarely used in its early years, ostracism later became an important protection against individuals who seemed to threaten rule by the citizens as a group.

The earliest attested ostracism took place in 487 BCE and likely targeted Hipparchus, son of Charmus, according to inscriptional and later literary sources.

Through changes to the political system of Athens, Cleisthenes removed the formal support for aristocratic control and focused political energy on institutions that were based on geography and on a shared identity as citizens.

His reforms did not abolish inequality, but they shifted influence from the few to the many through the replacement of kinship networks with regional organisation and selection by lot.

The new tribal divisions also played an important role in religious festivals and public competitions, together with the organisation of the military, so these reforms became part of every area of public life.

Over time, later leaders widened participation, but the basic structure largely remained the same.

The system of ten tribes, the Council of 500, the final authority of the Assembly, and the strategic use of ostracism had all originated from the program that Cleisthenes introduced in 508 BCE.

His reforms had made it possible for Athens to become the first city-state to make direct citizen involvement in legislation, supervision of the courts, and parts of military command a regular part of government.

According to Aristotle, Cleisthenes gave power to the people through a restructuring of the system instead of through proclamations of general ideas.

He did not rely on personal appeal or military strength, and instead he imposed limits on fighting between rival groups and created systems that allowed citizens to speak, vote, and act in the name of the polis.

Through these steps, he laid a stable basis for democracy as a process of organising politics that was based on law and procedure and on habits of taking part in public life, rather than as a distant ideal.