Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/801

Rh CLEISTHENES. philosopher of Thurium, is said by Diogenes Laer- tius (ii. 112) to have been the first who composed treatises on the fundamental principles of dialectics {■Tfpi d^ita/uLdTcau Kat KaTTjyopTJixdTwv). We learn from Suidas (s. r. riu/JjJwi/), that Pyrrhon, who flourished about 330 B. c, attended the instruc- tions of Bryso, and that the latter was a disciple of Cleinomachus. We may therefore set the date of Cleinomachus towards the commencement of the same century. [E. E.] CLEIO. [MusAE.] CLEI'STHENES (K(iae4uvs). 1. Son of Aristonymus and tyrant of Sicyon. He was des- cended from Orthagoras, who founded the dynasty about 100 years before his time, and succeeded his grandfather Myron in the tyranny, though proba- bly not without some opposition. (Herod, vi. 1*26 ; Aristot. Polit. V. 1-2, ed Bekk.; Pans. ii. 8; Miil- ler, Dor. i. 8. § 2.) In B. c. 595, he aided the Amphictyons in the sacred war against Cirrha, which ended, after ten years, in the destruction of the guilty city, and in which Solon too is said to have assisted with his counsel the avengers of the god. (Pans. x. 37 ; Aesch. c. Qes. § 107, &c. ; Clinton, F. II. sub anno, 595.) We find Cieis- thenes also engaged in war with Argos, his enmity to which is said by Herodotus to have been so great, that he prohibited the recitation at Sicyon of Homer's poems, because Argos was celebrated in them, and restored to the worship of Dionysus what the historian calls, by a prolepsis, the tmgic choruses in which Adrastus, the Argive hero, was commemorated. (Herod, v. 67; see Nitzsch, Mele- tem. i. p. 153, &c.) Miiller (Z. c.) connects this hostility of Cleisthenes towards Argos, the chief Dorian city of the district, with his systematic en- deavour to depress and dishonour the Dorian tribes at Sicyon. The old names of these he altered, calling them by new ones derived from the sow, the ass, and the pig ('Torot, 'Ovedrou, Xotpearat), while to his own tribe he gave the title of 'Apxi^aoi (lords of the people). The explanation of his mo- tive for this given by Miiller {Dor. iii. 4. § 3) seems even less satisfactoiy than the one of Hero- dotus which he sets aside ; and the historian's statement, that Cleisthenes of Athens imitated his grandfather in his political changes, may justify the inference, that the measures adopted at Sicyon with respect to the tribes extended to more than a mere alteration of their names. (Herod, v. 67, 68.) From Aristotle {Pol. v. 12) we leani, that Cleis- thenes maintained his power partly through the respect inspired by his military exploits, and partly by the popular and moderate course which he adopted in his general government. His adminis- tration also appears to have been characterized by much magnificence, and Pausanias mentions a colonnade {a-Tod KAdcrdeveios) which he built with the spoils taken in the sacred war. (Pans. ii. 9.) We have no means of ascertaining the exact date of the death of Cleisthenes, or the conclusion of his tyranny, but we know that it cannot be placed earlier than b. c. 582, in which year he won the victory in the chariot-race at the Pythian games. (See Clinton and Miiller on the year.) His daugh- ter Agarista, whom so many suitors sought, was given in marriage to Megacles the Alcmaeonid. [AgaKIvSta.] 2. An Athenian, son of Megacles and Agarista, and grandson of the tyrant of Sicyon, appears as the head of the Alcmaeonid clan on the btinish- CLEISTHENES. 783 ment of the Peisistratidae, and was indeed suft- pected of having tampered with the Delphic oracle, and urged it to require from Sparta the expulsion of Ilippias. Finding, however, thjit he could not cope with his political rival Isagoras except through the aid of the commons, he set himself to increase the power of the latter, and to remove most of the safeguards against democracy which Solon had established or preserved. There is therefore less trutn than rhetoric in the assertion of Isocrates {Areiopag. p. 143, a), that Cleisthenes merely re- stored the constitution of Solon. The principal change which he introduced, and out of which most of his other alterations grew, was the aboli- tion of the four ancient tribes, and the establish- ment of ten new ones in their steivd. These List were purely local, and the object as well as the effect of the arrangement was, to give permanence to democratic ascendency by the destruction of the old aristocratic associations of clanship. (Comp. Arist. Polit. vi. 4, ed. Bekk. ; Thrige, Res Cyren. § 48.) The increase in the number of the ^ovri and of the vavKpapiai was a consequence of the above measure. The (pparplai were indeed allowed to remain as before, but, as they were no longer connected with the tribes (the Srjfioi constituting the new subdivision), they ceased to be of any political importance. According to Aelian ( V. If. xiii. 24) Cleisthenes was also the first who insti- tuted ostracism, by which he is said, on the same authority, to have been the first sufferer ; and this is partly borne out by Diodorus (xi. 55), who says» that ostracism was introduced after the banishment of the Peisistratidae (but see Plut Nic. 1 1 ; Har- pocrat. s. V. "linrapxos). We learn, moreover, from Aristotle {Polit. iii. 2, ed Bekk.) that he admitted into the tribes a number of persons who were not of Athenian blood ; but this appears to have been only intended to serve his purposes at the time, not to be a precedent for the future. By some again he is supposed to have remodelled the Ephetae, add- ing a fifth court to the four old ones, and altering the number of the judges from 80 to 51, i. e. five from each tribe and a president. (Wachsmuth, vol. i. p. 360, Eng. transl. ; but see Miiller, Eu- nienid. $ 64, &c.) The changes of Cleisthenes had the intended effect of gaining political supe- riority for himself and his party, and Isagoras was reduced to apply for the aid of the Spartans under Cleomenes I. Heralds accordingly were sent from Lacedaemon to Athens, who demanded and ob- tained the banishment of Cleisthenes and the rest of the Alcmaeonidae, as the accursed family {iva- 7"?), on whom rested the pollution of Cylon*8 murder. [Cylon.] Cleisthenes having withdrawn, Cleomenes proceeded to expel 700 families pointed out by Isagoras, and endeavoured to abolish the Council of 500, and to place the government in the hands of 300 oligarchs. But the Council resisted the attempt, and the people supported them, and besieged Cleomenes and Isagoras in the Acropolis, of which they had taken possession. On the third day the besieged capitulated, and the Lacedaemo- nians and Isagoras were allowed to depart from Attica. The rest were put to death, and Cleis- thenes and the 700 banished families were re- called. (Herod, v. 63, 66, 69—73, vi. 131 ; comp. Diet, of Ant. pp. 156, 235, 323, &c., 633, 755, 990—993.) 3. An Athenian, whose foppery and effeminate profligacy brougiit him more thou once under tUd.