There is little contemporary evidence for the history of Athens in the decade following the fall of the Pisistratid tyranny. Herodotus wrote some sixty or seventy years after Cleisthenes' reforms, and the internal history of Athens is for him incidental to other concerns. Membership in a deme constituted the most important indication of Athenian citizenship. The substitution of the deme for the phratry as the smallest political unit was one way in which the influence of the noble families was fragmented. The new tribal organization will have had an impact on legislation and policy-making. The Solonian constitution became much more populist than it had been under Solon. For disuse under the tyranny had brought about an eclipse of Solon's laws and had made Cleisthenes enact new legislation in his attempt to gain the favour of the masses. It was in this connexion that the law on ostracism was enacted.

The reform of the Athenian state by Cleisthenes

Pisistratus died in spring 527, but tyranny survived at Athens until 510. Pisistratus left three legitimate sons, Hippias, Hipparchus and Thessalus. Pisistratus' notion of tyranny had certainly included efforts to reach friendly relations with atleast some noble families and there is one clear case of his having recalled an exile, Cimon, towards the end of his life. For his sons' relationships with the nobles, little material existed until the publication in 1939 of a fragment of the archon-list for the first years of their rule, which has thrown valuable light on their use of the eponymous archonship for control and conciliation. When Pisistratus first came to power, Attica had been a country in which the local power of the great dynasts had been all-important. Athens itself had been not much more than the largest centre of population and the seat of some of the more important generally accepted cults.

The tyranny of the Pisistratidae

Identification and classification of the various languages may contribute to the identification of the peoples of ancient Italy and their connexions, while the best evidence for the indigenous institutions of these peoples is often to be found in the inscriptions. The study of these dead languages through inscriptions necessarily involves consideration of the alphabets in which the inscriptions are written, and the diffusion of writing in itself constitutes an important part of the cultural history of early Italy. There are some 10,000 Etruscan inscriptions, the earliest dated to the beginning of the seventh century, the most recent to the end of the first century. Contact with the Etruscans brought literacy to the peoples of northern Italy, whose languages are known from inscriptions written in the so called north Etruscan alphabets. The principal remains of Umbrian are the Iguvine Tables, seven bronze tablets containing over 4,000 words.

The languages of Italy

In the fifth century, Motya developed into a strongly-walled town, half of whose population was Greek and which conducted flourishing commerce with Elymians and Greeks. It became one of the key points of Carthaginian control over the narrow passage between Africa and Sicily, and the main naval base for Carthaginians in their wars against the Sicilians. The striking prosperity of sixth-century Selinus and Acragas speaks eloquently against the assumption that Malchus' 'long wars' in Sicily were waged against the Greeks. For this reason it has been very plausibly argued that his enemy may in fact have been Punics from Motya and elsewhere who tried to resist their mother-city's attempts to dominate them. Some frontier clashes between pro-Punic Selinus and the Acragantines may have served as a pretext for Gelon's propaganda. There is no better evidence of the vitality of Sicilian civilization in the first quarter of the fifth century than the swift rise of Acragas and Syracuse.

Carthaginians and Greeks

This chapter presents an outline of the history of Babylonia from Cyrus II to Xerxes. The historiographic texts from Babylonia providing an outline of the main political events are very sparse, the major one being the Nabonidus Chronicle, which covers the whole reign of Nabonidus, last king of Babylonia, the rise of Cyrus and his conquest of Babylonia. The major political event which is partly reflected in Babylonian documents is the seizure of royal power by Bardiya, the brother of Cambyses. Bardiya was killed by Darius and his fellow conspirators on 29 September, and no Babylonian text dated by him later than 20 September has yet been found. On Bardiya's assassination Babylonia revolted immediately under the leadership of the Babylonian Nidintu-Bel who took the name Nebuchadrezzar (III). Xerxes' relations with Babylonia have been generally sought in the development of his titulature; the earliest texts like those of his Achaemenid predecessors regularly call him 'King of Babylon and Lands'.

Babylonia from Cyrus to Xerxes

Les nombreuses indications eparses dans la Politique d'Aristote relativement a la royaute achemenide sont examinees en detail. Elles supposent une connaissance precise et de cette institution et de ses vicissitudes historiques. Une enquete, soit au niveau des Constitutions, soit au niveau des Nomima Barbarica, permit au Stagirite de juger des qualites et des defauts de la royaute chez les Perses, pour elle-meme et relativement aux modes de gouvernement prones chez les Grecs. La conformite naturelle de l'institution a l'âme barbare et asiatique en determine, pour Aristote, le bien-fonde.

Le premier cours occidental sur la royauté achéménide

La structure trifonctionnelle de la societe indo-europeenne, telle que la voit G. Dumezil, a laisse quelques traces dans les mythes et les institutions d'Athenes. A l'epoque historique, la meme ideologie tripartie sous-tend la legende de Solon ; dans celle-ci, l'homo politicus atteint la perfection au niveau des trois fonctions traditionnelles, mais, correspondant a la laicisation de la societe, la sagesse tient lieu d'inspiration divine.

Richard Bodéüs

Papers

Le premier cours occidental sur la royauté achéménide

Société athénienne sagesse grecque et idéal indo-européen