P22 The justification for yet another article lies, I hope, in its different approach, from the land of Attica itself and the framework which Cleisthenes gave it.
The argument of this article proceeds largely from survivals, and leads to the paradox that we can understand Cleisthenes' work best in the places where he failed.
These failures, however, give us clearer light not only on his aims, but on the woven texture of tradition and innovation which is formed by the life of classical Athens.
I. Regional Parties in Sixth-Century Athens
Let us begin by sketching our evidence for regional divisions in Athenian politics before Cleisthenes' reforms.
The pedieis are relatively straight forward. None will doubt that their nucleus is in the plain of Athens itself, not indeed the whole of it, for we shall
P23 see reason to exclude the area south and south-east of the city, but at least the more substantial portion to the north and west.
The paralioi may best be located by looking for Alcmeonid land. Alcmeonids are found in three demes, Alopeke, Agryle, and Xypete, all to the south and south-east of the city. Alopeke is reasonably to be identified as the headquarters of the party.
The Hyperakrioi are, on the face of it, the men beyond the hills, outside the Parnes-Pentelikon-Hymettos ring. Diakrioi, the main alternative form of their name, will come from the Diakria.
P24 It is at Brauron itself that we can safely place their leader Peisistratus. Marathon, further north, is well within their area, and it is tempting to think that the tyrant's party landed there in 546 and 490 because they could be sure of local support.
Hyperakrioi is, I take it, a wider term than Diakrioi, and will accommodate, besides these north-eastern hills, the East Attic plain which we now call the Mesogeia.
P25 Cleisthenes' opponent, Isagoras, presents a more difficult problem. Two recent scholars41 have made him a Philaid, largely on the strength of his father's name, Teisandros.
P26
II. Cleisthenes' Reforms.
A. The Deme-Names.
Obviously, there were centres of population before Cleisthenes.
Cleisthenes gave them corporate existence by making demotai and demarchoi.
Aristotle notes that not all places had names and Cleisthenes gave them names.
The interesting names are those ἀπὸ τῶν κτισάντων, the patronymic deme-names.
P27 Territorially the country-demes would have been easy to arrange.
If there was gerrym andering at this level, we cannot recover its details.
The real problem will have come in the city, and here we are still almost without evidence to determine the principles on which the deme-system was arranged.
B. The Trittyes
P30 In this survey we have on the whole assumed that our evidence, which is mainly fourth-century, is valid for Cleisthenes' reform.
We should note that not much of our evidence for the tribal affiliation of demes is earlier than 450, although some of our evidence for the affiliation of trittyes is earlier.
C. The Anomalies
It should now be clear that Cleisthenes did not just draw lines on the map. Such lines are difficult to draw, and break down notably in the city.
Our best line of approach is through the anomalies outside the city, demes wlhich appear to be enclaves, detached from their trittyes.
If we can gain some insight into the reasons for these anomalies, we may find that we have some light on the reform as a whole.
P31
One of the cities of Kekrops was the Tetrapolis, wllich con- tinued to exist as a separate territorial cult-organisation, sending independent embassies to Delphi and Delos, down to the first century B.C..
It was composed of the four units, Marathon, Oinoe, Trikorynthos and Probalinthos.
These demes will have been fairly close together, and a suitable site for Probalinthos has been found at Xylokerisa, confirmed by two gravestones85 and a dedication.
But the unit formed by these four demes will not only have been territorially compact, but also Peisistratid territory.
Probalinthos is detaclhcd, but it is attaclhed, not to the contiguous coast-trittys of Aigeis, but to the more distant coast-trittys of Pandionis.
The only explanation can be that there is little point in detaclhing it from Marathon in order to attach it to the trittys wlhich contains Brauron. In its detachment from both, it becomes an enclave, separating the two centres of Peisistratid influence.
The second case is Hekale. Its site is a problem.
It is somewhere near the Tetrapolis on the road from Athens to Marathon, which probably puts it somewhere on Pentelikon, and certainly well away from any part of Leontis.
P33
D. Other Religious Organisations
The anomalies have indeed provided us with a clue, which suggests that it may be profitable to investigate the effect of the reforms on other religious organisations of a territorial character.
P34
E. The Purpose of the Trittyes
Our entire argument so far has tended to show that demes were allotted to trittyes with some care, and that the trittyes were constructed in a deliberate attempt to create units which would be sufficiently distinct from existing local
P35 units to compete with them and to destroy the influence which they gained from possessing a common cult in a common locality.
in the event the tribes won a success which can only be described as surprising, while the trittyes totally failed to compete with the older local organisations.
There was a parallel failure in Cleistlhenes' attempt to redefine the qualifications for citizenship. He put the deme beside the phratry, but could not persuade the Athenians that phratry-membership was of no importance.
However, the fact that the trittyes failed to establish themselves as local units does not mean that they were not intended to have importance.
Another substantial reason for modern depreciation of the trittyes has been their apparent random distribution on the map of Attica.
P36
The trittyes cut across the most obvious local loyalties.
It could be left to Apollo to create the tribes, to produce the wider loyalties to be implanted when men served together on the boule and, more importantly, in the army.
III. Cleisthenes
P37
The two things which emerge most clearly are an attack on organisations which held a locality by religious ties, some of them in areas attached to political opponents of Cleis- thenes, and an attempt to unify Attica by making men from different areas work and fight together.
The Alcmeonids possessed no important local cult of their own that we know of Their power rested solely on land and wealth.
In the struggle for power before Peisistratus, they had been squeezed out and forced to rely on their position outside Athens. Cleisthenes had watched this process under his father Megakles and Megakles' successor, his uncle Alkmeonides. The veering of tyrannical favour which brought him home and to the archonship in 525 made no essential difference to the lesson. He had learnt the power of local cults and the value of a wider Athens.
P38 Cleisthenes' main opponent came from Pentelikon, deriving strength from the close-knit religious unions of that area, perhaps from the prestige of the new dramatic festivals of Ikaria.
If there was to be a place for the Alcmeonids in Athens, new methods had to be used. One lesson could be learnt from the tyrants, and Cleisthenes turned to the demos which the tyrants had created and favoured, which he and other dynasts had previously rejected.
Cleisthenes needed a new system.
P39
Cleisthenes realised that there was no possibility of peace and concord without mixing his disparate elements.
The novelty of his solution lies in its determination to make a fresh start.
All citizens, old and new, would start equal in his new demes and new tribes.
This is his most important service to Athens.
Traditionally, and perhaps temperamentally, averse to tyranny, he found a way to create a pyramid of power which would have at its head, at least in theory, the people and not one person, and which would maintain the unifying force generated by the tyranny without a tyranny's disadvantages.
The trittys-lines were drawn to leave Alcmeonids in at least three different tribes, a result which might well prove fatal to a family which depended for influence on the control of a local cult, but which could be positively welcomed by a family of land and wealth which acquired the opportunity to have a hand in the affairs of three of the new tribes.
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