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(λειτουργία; Leitourgía). I. Political [German version] A. Definition In the ancient Greek world leitourgía signified a ‘benefit/service for the people’, especially a benefit for the state or a part of the state, which was provided by rich citizens from their own means. Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham) [German version] B. Athens The two main forms of liturgy in Athens were the ‘encyclical’, recurring festive liturgy with the responsibility to endow the performers and the celebrations themselves, and the trierarchia with the task of fitting out a shi…

[German version] (ἄγραφοι νόμοι; ágraphoi nómoi, ‘unwritten laws’). The earliest laws of the Greek states were unwritten and lived on in the memory of the leading families. Already in archaic times, people began to write them down as in the laws of  Dracon and  Solon in Athens (621/20 and 594/93 BC, respectively) or in a constitutional law in Dreros on Crete (ML 2). Because not all valid laws were written down right away, unwritten laws existed alongside the written ones (e.g. …

[German version] (συμμαχία; symmachía). An alliance, literally an agreement between two or more states to fight (Gr. máchesthai) together ( syn-). Such alliances might be made either for a limited period or for all time. Thuc. 1,44,1; 5,48,2, distinguishes between a symmachia, as a full offensive and defensive alliance, and an epimachia, as a purely defensive alliance; but that use of the two terms is not widespread, and, for instance, the 'prospectus' of the (Second) Athenian League, which was a defensive alliance, consistently uses symmacheîn and cognate words (Tod 123). …

(Κλεισθένης; Kleisthénōs). [German version] [1] Tyrant of Sicyon c. 600-570 BC Tyrant of Sicyon ( c. 600-570 BC), son of Aristonymus, from the family of Orthagoras, whose tyranny lasted about 100 years ( c. 665-565 BC.; Aristot. Pol. 1315b 11ff.; cf. Nicolaus of Damascus FGrH 90 F 61). During the war with Argus C. pursued an anti-Argive domestic ideology, including prohibition of the presentation of the Homeric epics because they favoured Argos. The Argive hero  Adrastus [1] was replaced by the Theban hero  Melanippus (Hdt. 5,6…

[German version] (προστάτης/ prostátēs, pl. προστάται/ prostátai), a person 'standing at the fore', either as leader (e.g. Aesch. Supp. 963 f.) or protector (e.g. Aesch. Sept. 408). Both aspects converged when Cyrus [2] became the prostates who freed the Persians from the yoke of the Medes (Hdt. 1,127,1), or Megabazus [1] what Myrcinus may do with Histiaeus [1] as prostates (Hdt. 5,23,2). When the Spartans were regarded as the prostatai of Greece at the time of Croesus (mid-6th cent. BC) (Hdt. 1,69,2), this was no expression of a leading position; when they were t…

(διοίκησις ; dioíkēsis, Lat. dioecesis). [German version] …

[German version] I. General The states of antiquity had no executive PA independent of government and legislature in the sense of the modern separation of powers. The triple division of constitutions, indicated in Aristot. Pol. 1297b 35-1301a 15 ( tría mória, 1297b 37), into a decision-making, legislating organ ( tò bouleuómenon), an executive element ('on the offices': tò perì tàs archás) and judicature ( …

[German version] (ἀτέλεια; atéleia). Freedom from obligations, especially from taxes and other financial obligations, was regarded as a privilege, which the state could bestow in order to honour someone. This term and the adjective atelḗs…

[German version] (διωβελία; diōbelía). A payment of two   oboloí in Athens. According to the author of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (28,3), the diobelia was introduced by Cleophon whereupon a certain Callicrates promised to increase the sum but in fact abolished the diobelia. The diobelia is attested from 410 to 406/5 BC from inscriptions (in 406 temporarily reduced to an obolos) and in 405/4 was …

[German version] (ἐπιγαμία; epigamía). In the Greek world, epigamia refers to the right of entering into a legal marriage with a person from a different state. It also granted legitimacy and citizenship to the children of such a marriage. It was possible to be granted this right in cases when such a marriage would not have been recognized according to the prevailing laws of the respec…

(τοξόται/ toxótai, 'archers'). [German version] [1] Archers in general The Bow and arrow were very ancient weapons. Widespread in Greece since Mycenaean times, they were not the normal weapons of an aristocratic hero, and were held in lower esteem than the sword or the spear. Homer mentions archers and their weapons several times (for instance, Hom. Il. 4,93-126; 11,385-395; Philoctetes on Lemnos: Soph. Phil. 287-292; 707-711; 1146-1162). Near the end of the Archaic Period, Polycrates [1] of Samos relied…

[German version] (ἄξωνες; áxōnes; axes). In Athens the laws of  Dracon and  Solon were recorded on numbered axones. The term   kýrbeis , the origin of which is unknown, was another name for axones (ML 86; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 7,1; Plut. Solon 25). Probably they were three- or four-sided wooden pillars that were mounted vertically on axes in such a way that a person looking at them could turn them. In the 4th cent. BC it was probably still possible to read and study them, at the time of Plutarch small fragments were still in existence. Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham) Bibliography E. Ruschenbusch, όλωνο…

[German version] (ἰσοπολιτεία; isopoliteía). The term isopoliteia (equal citizenship), was used from the 3rd cent. BC, (instead of   politeia ) to denote the granting of citizenship by a Greek state to individual persons (e.g. IG V 2,11 = Syll.3 501) or indeed chiefly to whole communities (e.g. IG V 2, 419 = Syll.3 472). Modern research distinguishes between isopoliteia, the exchange of rights between states, which maintained their independence, and   sympoliteía…

[German version] (ῥαβδοφόροι/ rhabdophóroi, 'staff-bearers', also referred to as ῥαβδοῦχοι/ rhabdoûchoi, 'staff-holders'). A term applied to various officials who carried a staff of office, in particular to officials at contests and other festivals, whether judges (Plat. Prot. 338a 8) or assistants of the judges who enforced discipline (for Athens: Aristoph. Pax 734; for Olympia: Thuc. 5,50,4). In Roman contexts the Greek words rhabdophóroi…

[German version] (ἡγεμονία, ‘leading position’). An important basic feature of international relations in Greece was the formation of alliances in which one of the members took up a prominent position as hēgemṓn (‘leader’). The earliest example was a group of alliance agreements through which Sparta secured its position in the 6th cent. BC in the Peloponnese and which solidified into the…

[German version] (ἀμφικτυονία; amphiktyonía). Probably arose from amphi-ktiones = ‘living in the environs’ (Androt. FGrH 324 F 58), although the Greek usually derived it from an eponymous hero Amphictyon (e.g. Hdt. 7,200; Theopomp. FGrH 115 F 63). Amphictyony designates a group of people who congregate around a sanctuary and tend its cult. As a rule, cult members lived near the sanctuary; the most significant ones, namely the amphictyony of Anthela and that of  Delphi, included members from many parts of Greece. They made good on their promise to become the amphictyony par excellence b…

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(οἱ τριακόσιοι/ hoi triakósioi, 'the Three Hundred'). Collective name in ancient Athens for a group of 300 men, with various functions: [German version] [1] Group of the wealthiest Athenian citizens, 4th cent. BC A group of the 300 wealthiest citizens in 4th cent. BC Athens, made up of the three richest members of each of the 100 tax groups (Symmoria), created in order to raise the eisphora , a property tax. They were liable for the liturgy (I) of the proeisphora , by which they had…

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[German version] (νεωροί/ neōroí). Public officials in Greek states who bore responsibility for shipyards ( neṓria). Athenian inscriptions from the 5th cent. BC mention neōroí (IG I3 154; IG I3 127 = ML 94) and hoi epimeloménoi tōi neōríōi (‘those who care for the shipyard’; IG I3 153); epimelētaí are found at the end of the 5th cent. (IG I3 236); in the 4th cent. the title epimelētaí tōn neōríōn was frequently used. These epimelētaí of the 4th cent. were responsible for the ships and the entire contents of the shipyards. They distributed materials to the trierarchs (triera…