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44 - The Tyranny of Pisistratus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
A. Andrewes
Edited by
John Boardman  and
N. G. L. Hammond
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Summary

Solon to Pisistratus

Solon's reform broke the monopoly of office enjoyed till his time by the Attic nobility. This was bound to be resented, and the following years were punctured by strife over the appointment of the archon. The bleak record in Ath. Pol. 13.1–2 tells of two occasions when faction prevented an appointment, and then of Damasias who, though legitimately archon, held on to office for two years and two months till he was driven out by force. The first regular celebration of the Pythian games, in 582, is dated to the year of Damasias (Marm. Par. ep. 38; hyp. Pind. Pyth.): this must be his first and legal year, which is therefore 582/1, and this enables us to sort out Aristotle's indications of interval and so to date the two earlier years of anarchy to 590/89 and 586/5. We may doubt if anything certain was known beyond the fact that these two years were labelled anarchia in the official list, as for 404/3 when the succeeding democracy refused to recognize Pythodorus the archon of the Thirty. The case could have been similar here, not that Athens was literally without a chief magistrate in these years but that their successors did not recognize these elections as valid.

Damasias' usurpation was followed, acording to Ath. Pol. 13.2, by a decision, ‘ because of the faction, to appoint ten archons, five from the Eupatridae, three from the αγροικοι (agroikot), two from the δημιουργοι (demiourgoi), and these held office for the year after Damasias', that is presumably for the remaining ten months of 580/79.

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Chapter
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The Cambridge Ancient History
, pp. 392 - 416
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1982

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