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[German version] (παράβυστον/ parábyston, literally 'pushed aside') referred to an Athenian law court held in an enclosed space, apparently on the Agora (perhaps next to the route of the Panathenaea procession; s. Athens with map). This court dealt with matters that fell within the jurisdiction of the Eleven ( héndeka ) (Paus. 1,28,8; Harpocration, s.v.). Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham) Bibliography A.L. Boegehold, The Lawcourts at Athens (Agora 28), 1995, 6-8; 11-15; 111-113; 178f.

[German version] (πορισταί/ poristaí, 'providers', from πορίζειν/ porízein, 'provide, supply'), officials in Athens in the last years of the  Peloponnesian War, whose duty was presumably to find sources of money for the city. They are mentioned for the first time in 419 BC, before Athens was in serious financial difficulty (Antiph. Or. 6, 49), and for the last time in 405 (Aristoph. Ran. 1505). Poristai are not attested in inscriptions. Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham)

[German version] ( dikastaì katà dḗmous) are itinerant judges who in Athens visited the demes to resolve minor matters of litigation. Appointed first by Peisistratus ([Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 16,5) to counteract the power of the nobles in their places of residence, they were probably abolished after the fall of the tyrants. They were revived in 453/2 BC (Ath. Pol. 26,3) to relieve the increasingly overburdened jury courts of minor cases. Their number then totalled 30, perhaps one judge per trittys. In the last years of the Peloponnesian War they were probably unable to visit a…

[German version] (ἀριστοκρατία; aristokratía, ‘power in the hands of the best’). In the Greek states there was no institution to ennoble families but in the archaic period the families that were most successful after the  Dark Ages and stood out by wealth and status considered themselves the best ( aristoi). The place of a governing king was taken by a government of members of these leading families: some early testimonials explicitly mention that appointments were made aristíndēn, from the ranks of the best (for example, in Ozolian Locris: ML, 13; Tod, 34). In modern r…

[German version] (Ἄρειος πάγος; Áreios págos). The ‘Ares Hill’ in Athens north-west of the Acropolis. It gave the old council, which met there, its name (‘Areopagus’). There are no noteworthy remains on the hill, the place of the sessions was probably located on its north-east side. Probably, the council was initially simply called the boule and only named after the hill when  Solon had created another council. In Solon's time the council consisted of all former   archontes , who joined at the end of their office term (not so in [1]). It probably had about 150 members. Presumably, the counci…

(πολιτεία/ politeía) can denote either the rights of citizenship exercised by one or more citizens (Hdt. 9,34,1; Thuc. 6,104,2) or a state's way of life, and esp. its formal constitution (Thuc. 2,37,2). [German version] I. Citizenship Citizenship of a Greek state was the privilege of only free, adult males of citizen parentage: commonly, a father with politeía was required; the law of Pericles [1] (451 BC) required a father and mother with politeía (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 26,4). Men not of citizen descent could be rewarded politeía for proven benefaction, but could not acquire citize…

[German version] [I] Office (ἄρχοντες, ἄρχων; árchontes, árchōn). In general, the term applied to all holders of   archai . However, the term was frequently used as the title of a particular office, originally, at least, the highest office of the state. Archontes in this sense of the term are found in most states of central Greece, including Athens, and states dependent on or influenced by Athens. According to Aristot. Ath. Pol. 3, the kings were initially replaced by archons who were initially elected for life, later for a period of ten years, and finally for …

[German version] (αὐτονομία; autonomía). In the sense of ‘having (one's) own laws’, and not, therefore, being required to obey the laws of others, autonomia can be used as a synonym for eleuthería ( Freedom). This referred in particular to the freedom in the internal matters of an alliance, the structure of which was hegemonic and whose members hoped that the aforementioned freedom would be maintained whilst they assigned decisions regarding matters external to the alliance. The word autonomia was perhaps therefore supposed to have been coined as the expression of this …

[German version] (ἐκκλησιαστήριον; ekklēsiastḗrion). Meeting-place of a Greek public assembly. Among the cities where the word ekklesiasterion is used are Olbia (SIG3 218) and Delos during the period of the Athenian klerouchoi in the 2nd cent. BC (SIG3 662). In Athens, the regular meeting-place was the Pnyx in the south-west part of the city, where three different building stages from the 5th and the 4th cent. were identified. From the late 4th cent., the theatre of Dionysus came to be used more and more as a meeting place. As oppo…

(Κλεώνυμος; Kleṓnymos). [German version] [1] Athenian politician, put two important proposals forward in 426/5 BC Athenian politician; in the year 426/5 BC he put forward two important proposals: one concerned  Methone in Thrace, the other the collection of tributes from the  Delian League (IG I3 61,32-56; 68). C. was probably a member of the council in that year. In 415 he was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of an investigation into the religious scandals ( Herms, mutilation of the; And. 1.27). Aristophanes derided him as a glutt…

(νομογράφος/ nomográphos, ‘law-writer’) [German version] I. Greece In some Greek cities individual, specially qualified men were entrusted during the archaic period with the task of writing laws for the pólis. This could include writing down the existing legal practice as well as creating new laws. Known nomográphoi are, for example, Zaleucus in Locri Epizephyrii, Charondas in Catane, Draco [2] and later Solon in Athens. At times, but not always, this commission was associated with a regular office of state. Thus, Solon was at the same time an árchōn (Archontes [1]) in Athens but D…

[German version] (διαψηφισμός, διαψήφισις; diapsēphismós, diapsḗphisis). Literally, a ballot using pebbles to select alternatives. Both terms were occasionally used to designate votes in legal proceedtings (e.g. Xen. Hell. 1,7,14; cf. the verb diapsēphízesthai e.g. in Antiph. 5,8). In Athens, however, they refer specifically to ballots with the purpose of confirming or refuting the citizenship of people who at a certain time laid claim to that right. That happened in 510 BC, when the tyranny of the Peisistratids ([Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 13,5: diapsēphismós) was overthrown, agai…

[German version] The idea of Panhellenism is based on the tendency to place greater significance on the similarities that connect all Greeks as Greeks than on the perceptions of differences. 'Panhellenism' is not a term used in Antiquity, although in the Iliad (2, 530) and elsewhere in early Greek verse panhéllēnes is used to describe the Greeks (Hes. Op. 528; Archil. fr. 102 West). The Trojan War (see Troy) was presented as an untertaking in which the Greeks united in order to regain Helen [1] from the Trojans - although the latter are not described in Homer as being un-Greek. In the Archaic …

[German version] (καταχειροτονία; katacheirotonía) denotes the delivery of a verdict of guilty in a Greek court by means of raising the hand ( cheir). Sentencing by ballot ( psḗphos) is called katapsḗphisis. In Athens the word katacheirotonia was used for the people's verdict of guilty in cases of eisangelía (e.g. Lys. 29, 2; Dem. Or. 51,8), and also for negative votes of the public assembly after a probolḗ (complaint against a person; e.g. Dem. Or. 21,2), or after an apóphasis (recommendation) of the Areios pagos (e.g. Din. 2,20; it is probably referred to by [Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 59,2). Rho…

[German version] (Ὑπέρβολος; Hypérbolos). Athenian statesman (411 BC) from the deme Perithoedae. Contrary to the accusations levelled against him he was Athenian by birth. He seems to have acquired his wealth from the fabrication or sale of lamps (cf. Aristoph. Equ. 1315). Both Aristophanes (e.g. Equ. 1304) and Thucydides (8,73,3) describe him as ‘common’ ( mochthērós). As a  demagogue in the style of Cleon he strove for a leading position after Cleon's death in 422 BC and was a member of the council in 421/420 (Plato Comicus 166f. CAF = 182 PCG; cf. IG I3 82). According to Plutarch, in …

[German version] [1] Poet of epigrams of unknown dating Epigram poet of an unknown period (with a peculiar, otherwise undocumented name), author of an insignificant distich on Hesiod (Anth. Pal. 7,52). Degani, Enzo (Bologna) Bibliography FGE 38. [German version] [2] Union of craftsmen and officials Dēmiourgoí (δημιουργοί, ‘public workers’) were occupied with public matters at various levels, depending on time and place. 1. In the Linear B tablets from Pylos dḗmos is found but not demiourgoi; it has been suggested [2] but not universally accepted that in the Mycenaean world demiourgoi…

[German version] [1] Greek official The lexical meaning of epískopos equates to ‘supervisor’. In the Greek world, episkopos habitually referred to an official, similar to   epimelētaí and   epistátai , but used less frequently. The Delian League sent epískopoi, who were Athenian officials, into allied cities, e.g. in order to set up a democratic constitution (Erythrae: ML 40; cf. Aristoph. Av. 1021-1034). Rhodian officials also included episkopoi (Syll.3 619), Massilia appointed an episkopos for its colony of Nicaea (ILS 6761), and Mithridates VI sent one to Ephesus …

(πρόβουλος/ próboulos). [German version] [1] Member of a preliminary deliberative body Member of a small body with the function of preliminary deliberation, e.g. in Corcyra (IG IX 1, 682; 686 = [1. 319, 320]). In Athens a board of ten próbouloi was appointed in 413 BC after the military disaster in Sicily in the Peloponnesian War (Thuc. 8,1,3), seems to have taken over some functions of the council ( Boulḗ ) and the prytáneis , and in 411 helped to bring the oligarchy of the 'Four Hundred' ( Tetrakósioi ) to power ([Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 29,2). Aristotle regarded próbouloi as characteristical…

[German version] (λογισταί/ logistaí, ‘calculators’, tax officials). In 5th cent. BC. Athens, a collegium of 30 logistai is mentioned in the first three tribute lists of the Delian League (IG I3 259-261) and the first financial decree of Callias (ML 58 = IG I3 52, A. 7-9). It is presumably identical with the collegium which appears (without membership numbers) in the list of loans from the Sacred Money (ML 72 = IG I3 369) and in a document from Eleusis (IG I3 32,22-28). In the 4th cent. the authorities had an interim account (Lys. 30,5; [Aristot.] Ath. pol. 48,3) presented t…

[German version] (συγγραφαί; syngraphaí). Documents which form the basis of a contract, for instance for public works (e.g. ML 44 = IG I3 35, Athens; IG VII 3073 = Syll.3 972, Lebadea) or leases (e.g. Syll.3 93 = IG I3 84, Athen; IG XII 7, 62 = Syll.3 963, Arcesine) or loans (e.g. IG XII 7, 67 B = Syll.3 955, Arcesine). [1: 620, 623, 628]; more on this syngraphe. In Athens in the 5th cent. BC, proposals drafted for the assembly (ekklesia) by a specially commissioned board of syngrapheis (e.g. ML 73 = IG I3 78). These boards were discredited by their involvement in setting up the oligarchi…

[German version] (τιμοκρατία/ timokratía). The modern term 'timocracy' denotes a form of constitution in which people's political rights depend on their wealth (cf. τίμημα, tímēma, 'assessment'), similar to 'plutocracy'. In general, a constitution in which this principle was applied to a significant extent would be called oligarchia by the Greeks, but ploutokratia is also found (Xen. Mem. 4,6,12). In Aristot. Eth. Nic. 8,1160a-b timokratia is used to denote the good form of demokratia ), which Aristotle otherwise calls politeia . Among the subdivisions of demokratia and oligarchi…

(Ἐφιάλτης; Ephiáltēs). Mythology  Aloads. [German version] [1] Son of Eurydemus of Malis Son of Eurydemus of Malis, he is supposed to have shown  Xerxes the path over the mountains at  Thermopylae, in the hope of a large reward. This enabled the Persians to circumvent the Greek army under Leonidas and attack it from the rear. E. himself is said to have led the elite corps of Hydarnes along this path, and so contributed to the defeat of the Spartans. Herodotus was already aware of another version, thought by…

(Αὐτοκράτωρ; Autokrátōr). [German version] A. Greek The meaning ‘exercising control over oneself’ expresses the opposite of subjugation to the will of another. The Thebans used this argument to claim that their support of the Persians in 480 was attributable to a ruling   dynasteia , not to the whole city, which acted as its own …

(κώμη; kṓmē, plural κῶμαι; kômai). [German version] A. Greece in the 5th and 4th cents. BC With the meaning ‘village’, kome signified in the Greek world a small community. Thucydides regarded life in scattered, unfortified kômai as the older and more primitive form of communal living in a political unit (Thuc. 1,5,1; on Sparta: 1,10,1; on the Aetolians: 3,94,4). Under the Aristotelian model of pólis formation, families first group together in a kṓmē, and then the kômai group together in a pólis (Aristot. Pol. 1,1252b 15-28; cf. 3,1280b 40-1281a 1). Scattered living in a kome is typical f…

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[German version] (πολέμαρχος/ polémarchos, plural polémarchoi, 'leader in war') was the title of military officialsin various Greek states. In the stories of the rise of tyrants, Cypselus [2] in Corinth (Nicolaus of Damascus FGrH 90 F 57,5) and Orthagoras [1] in Sicyon (POxy. XI 1365 = FGrH 105 F 2) are said to have been …

[German version] (ἀείσιτοι; aeísitoi). Aeisitoi are entitled, not just occasionally but regularly, to participate in the banquets prepared by the Greek states (cf. Poll. 9,40). In Athens one so honoured was accorded   sitesis in the  Prytaneion (e.g. IG II/III2 I 1,450b) [2; 3]; as aeisitoi were designated also the officials who were assigned to the council and who ate with the   …

[German version] (οἱ δέκα; hoi déka) ‘the Ten’; a committee of ten men, elected after the overthrow of the Thirty in 403 BC to rule the oligarchy of Athens. According to Lysias (12,58) and some other sources, they were to work towards a peace settlement (accepted by [2]), but there is no hint of this in Xenophon (Hell. 2,4,23f.) and it is probably not so (cf. [1]), although the democrats around  Thrasybulus may have hoped that the change of regime in Athens would be followed by a change in direction.…

[German version] (ἐφόδιον; ephódion, ‘travel money’). In Greece, ephodion denotes the allowance for travel expenses paid to an ambassador (e.g. in Athens: Tod 129; cf. the parody in Aristoph. Ach. 65-67; in Chios: SIG3 402). In the Hellenistic and Roman periods a rich citizen could aid his city by declining such a payment due to him (e.g. IPriene 108). Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham)

[German version] (πεταλισμός; petalismós). Petalismos was the name for a ballot using the leaves (πέταλα/ pétala) of the olive tree. At Syracusae, the petalismos was the equivalent of the Athenian ostrakismós , i.e. a procedure for sentencing a leading individual to a period of banishment without finding him guilty of a misdemeanour. Diodorus Siculus (11,87) mentions the petalismos for the year 454/3 BC: it was introduced in the wake of a failed attempt to set up a tyrannis; its consequence was a five-year exile, but it was soon abolished ag…

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[German version] Modern term for the union of Greek states brought into being in 338/7 BC at an assembly in Corinth by  Philippus II of Macedonia after the battle of  Chaeronea (338 BC). The league evidently included all Greek states with the exception of Sparta, a…

(Βουλή; Boulḗ) . [German version] A. General In Greek communities the boule was a council assembly, usually that responsible for current publi…

[German version] (συνοικισμός/ synoikismós, lit. 'living together'). In the Greek world, the combination of several smaller communities to form a single larger community. Sometimes the union was purely political and did not affect the pattern of settlement or the physical existence of the separate communities: this is what the Athenians supposed to have happened when they attributed the Attic synoikismos to Theseus, commemorated by a festival in classical times, the Synoikia (Thuc. 2,15) — whereas …

[German version] (ἀρχαί; archaí, ‘office holder’). In most Greek states the powers of hereditary kings were divided in the  Dark Ages and the archaic period and distributed among a series of officials ( archai or   archontes ), who were usually appointed for a year, often without the option of re-election. This process cannot be traced in detail because the sources tend toward a too schematic reconstruction. Apart from the offices that were responsible for the state as a whole, special offices were created on occasion, such as the control of the state treasury, for supervising public works or the market. There were also religious functionaries, who were considered …

[German version] (αἰσυμνήτης; aisymnḗtēs). Formed from aísa (‘fate’) and   mna (‘to have in mind’): ‘one who has fate in mind (and announces it to the one it affects)’. The Phaeacians (Hom. Od. 8,258-9) name nine aisymnetai, who are responsible for contests ( agones), in the Iliad 24,347 a prince's son appears as aisymnḗtēs. Aristotle sees in the aisymnetes of ancient Greece a kind of monarch, a ‘chosen tyrant’, as demonstrated in  Pittacus of Mytilene around 600 (Pol. 3,1285a 29 - b 1). In the 5th cent. the word appears in Teos synonymously with ‘tyrant’ (Syll.3 38 = ML 30,A; SEG 31,985…

[German version] (ἐπιμεληταί; epiméletai). Functionaries, who ‘take care of something’ ( epimeleîsthai). The word is used as the title for several Greek officials; see also epískopoi, epistátai. 1. The author of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia mentions for Athens the epimeletai of wells (43,1), of the market (51,4), of the festival of Dionysia (56,4), and of the Eleusinian Mysteries (57,1). Also documented are epimeletai as court officials who deal with the tributes in the Delian-Athenian League (ML 68), epimeletai of shipyards (such as IG II2 1629, 178-179; Dem. Or. 22,63…

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[German version] (δημαγωγός, dēmagōgós, ‘leader of the people’). Aristophanes uses demagogue to mean a political leader in the mould of  Cleon (for example in Equ. 191-193; 213-222). The word was possibly coined in the 2nd half of the 5th cent. BC in Athens for the new style of populist politician whose position depended less on the clothing of office than the ability to speak persuasively at meetings of the popular assembly and at jury trials. The older word for a political leader was prostátēs. Thucydides and Xenophon generally used prostátēs, but each of them twice used dēmagōgós to ref…

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(Εὐκλείδης; Eukleídēs). [German version] [1] Athenian archon in 403/2 BC Athenian archon in 403/2 BC. During his year in office Athens made a new start following the Oligarchy of the Thirty (e.g., see And. 1,87-94) and, among others, officially adopted the Ionian alphabet (Theopomp. FGrH 115 F 155). Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham) Bibliography Develin 199 LGPN 2, Εὐκλείδης (9). [German version] [2] of Megara Student of Socrates Student of Socrates, founder of the  Megarian School; born between 450 and 435, probably died early in the 360s. In Plato's Phaedon (59c) E. is named among those …

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[German version] (χειροτονία; cheirotonía, ‘raising the hand’). Method of voting in popular assemblies and other Greek committees. In large assemblies votes thus given were probably not counted: the chairman would have to decide where the majority voice lay. Distinct from cheirotonía is voting by psēphophoría (‘throwing-in of ballot stones’), which made possible the precise counting of votes in a secret ballot. Notwithstanding the method actually used, the tendency in Athens and generally was to use the term cheirotoneín in the case of elections and the term psēphízesthai in the case of decisions on public affairs: in the Athenian popular as…

[German version] (ζητηταί/ zētētaí, 'investigators') were appointed ad hoc in Athens to enquire into breaches of law; the lexicographers (e.g. Harpocration [2], s. v. Ζ.) attribute an 'office' ( archḗ) to them, which was constructed in Athens from time to time. Z. are recorded in three instances: in 415 BC z. were assigned to look into the Mutilation of the Herms (Herms, Mutilation of the) and related religious offences (And. 1,40;  cf. 1,14; 1,36). Three members of the board are known (Diognetus, Peisander [7], Charicles [1]); Peisander was also…

[German version] (ἐπίδοσις; epídosis). Voluntary tax requested by Greek states during special emergencies to supplement the revenue from regular taxes and contributions furnished through public office. In Athens, epidóseis…

(νησιῶται/ nēsiôtai). [German version] [1] See Hecatonnesi See Hecatonnesi Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham) [German version] [2] Aegean league of islanders, with Delos as its centre, c. 315 BC League ( k oinon …

[German version] (δεκάτη; dekátē), ‘the tenth (part)’, primarily refers to various forms of tithe: 1. Crop yield taxation, e.g. in Athens under  Peisistratus (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 16,4; but perhaps it is a ‘twentieth’, eikostḗ, in Thuc. 6,54,5, and decate…

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[German version] (ἰσονομία; isonomía). The concept of isonomia, (equality before the law) - along with other compounds formed with the element iso- (‘equal’) - seems to have played a significant role in political discourse in Greece during the late 6th and early 5th cents. BC. In the constitutional debate at the Persian Court, Herodotus uses isonomia to refer to democracy (3,80,6; 83,1), and in other places (3,142,3; 5,37,2) he employs isonomia to designate a constitutional government in contrast to one that is tyrannical ( Tyrannis); in the latter sense he also uses the words isēgoría …

[German version] (οἱ τετταράκοντα/ hoi tettarákonta, 'the Forty'). In Athens, a college of forty judges appointed by lot, four each out of the ten phylai ( phyle [1]) after 404/3 BC. They were assigned to a phyle other than their own and handled cases concerning defendants of that phyle. They decided private suits for sums up to 10 drachmae on their own, and referred private suits ( dike [2]) for larger sums to the diaitetai [2]. Howeve…

[German version] (4th cent. BC). The  Delian League had broken up in 404 at the end of the Peloponnesian War. One could remember the power which Athens had had over its allies, but Sparta's behaviour with respect to the Greeks in the early 4th cent. also led to dissatisfaction. In the King's Peace of 386, the Greeks in Asia Minor were given over to the Persians and all other Greeks were declared independent. In 384, Athens formed, explicitly in the context of this peace, an alliance with Chios (IG II2 34 = Tod 118). In 378, Athens established, after the liberation of Thebes from Spartan rulership and probably after the acquittal of the Spartan general  Sphodrias who invaded Attica, a new confederacy to ward off Spartan imperialism. A call to join in 377 (IG II2 43 = Tod 123) named the anti-Spartan goal of the confederacy, explained the consequences for the independence guaranteed by the King's Peace and promised that Athens would refrain from doing various things that had fostered resentment in the Delian League.…

(νομοφύλακες / nomophýlakes, ‘guardians of the law’) [German version] I. Classical Period In the Classical Period, nomophýlakes were officials responsible for ensuring compliance with the laws ( nómoi). In Athens, the Areopagus (Areios Pagos) was said to have performed the function of the nomophylakía  until the reforms of Ephialtes [2] (462 BC) ([Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 3,6; [4,4]; 8,4; 25,2). According to one version in a fragment of Philochorus (FGrH 328 F 64), Ephialtes appointed a college of seven nomophýlakes, who also held some religious offices, but it is more likely…

[German version] (ἐπιμαχία; epimachía). Thucydides (1,44,1; 5,48,2) uses the term epimachia for a purely defensive alliance, which obliges the participants to give assistance only in the case of an attack, as opposed to the symmachía, which is an offensive as well as defensive alliance to the full extent, wherein the participants have ‘the same friends and enemies’. The Greeks, however, failed to always make a clear distinction between the two terms: the  …

[German version] In Greece federal states were regional units composed of separate poleis (Polis) and organised in such a way that at any rate foreign policy was in the hands of the federal organisation (Synhedrion), but the individual poleis retained their own citizenship and a greater degree of autonomy than was enjoyed by each of the demes (Demos [2]) of Attica. 'Tribal states' in the less urbanised parts of Greece were similar, with a federal organisation and smaller local units which had a degree of autonomy: as poleis were established these tended to develop into federal states (as in the case of e.g. the Thessalians). There is no one Greek word which means specifically…

(δῆμος; dêmos). [German version] [1] The entire citizenry Demos, meaning ‘people’, could refer to either the entire citizenry of a community or only the ‘common people’ as distinct from its more privileged members. As an extension of the first meaning it also served to designate the popular assembly, so that political decisions in many states were seen as being ‘issued by the council and the people’ (ἔδοξεν τῇ βουλῇ καὶ τῷ δήμῳ). Adjectives …

(πόλις, πτόλις/ pólis, ptólis; pl. πόλεις/ póleis; 'city state'). [German version] I. Topographical background and early development Depending on the particular context, p olis may have topographical, personal or legal-political connotations: a) a fortified settlement on a height, Homeric pólis akrḗ or akrotátē (Hom. Il. 6,88; 20,52), synonymous with the Acropolis in Athens until the late 5th cent. (Thuc. 2,15,3-6); b) an urban settlement; c) an urban settlement includin…

[German version] (5th cent. BC). The Persian offensive on Greece was repelled in 480-79 BC, but nobody could know at the end of 479 that the Persians would never return. In 478 the Greeks continued the war under the leadership of Sparta, but the Spartan commander  Pausanias soon made himself so unpopular that Athens, either of its own record (Aristot., Ath. Pol. 23,4) or at the urging of its allies, decided to take over leadership (Thuc. 1,94-5). At this point, Athens established a standing allian…

[German version] (καταλογεῖς; katalogeîs) are known as Athenian Commissioners of Enrolment. During the oligarchical overthrow of 411 BC, 100 men no younger than 40 years of age were chosen as katalogeis - ten from each phyle - in order to draw up a register of 5,000 Athenians intended to have full citizenship ([Aristot.] Ath. Pol. 29,5). The speech by Lysias for Polystratus (Lys. 20) was aimed at defending one of these katalogeis, who was also a member of the Four Hundred. The latter claimed to have served the initiators of the 5,000 only reluctantly, to have propo…

[German version] (Δοκιμασία; Dokimasía). In the Greek world it means the procedure of determining whether certain conditions have been met. In Athens the following dokimasíai…

[German version] (ἐποικία; epoikía). Epoikia was occasionally used instead of apoikía for Greek colonies, e.g. the early 5th-cent. BC Locrian colony near Naupactus (ML 20). The Athenian decree of 325/4 BC regarding the foundation of a colony on the Adriatic coast contains the reconstructed [ apoi] kía as well as époi[ koi]. It has been claimed that strictly speaking epoikia and époikoi did not refer to the original settlement, but to its later reinforcement with additional settlers [1]. This special meaning may occasionally have been intended, but it is u…

[German version] (ὀστρακισμός, 'trial by sherds' from óstrakon , pl. óstraka…

[German version] (ἀποδέκται; apodéktai, ‘receivers’). A ten-man board of officials in Athens, with members chosen by lot from each of the ten phylai. They were charged by the boule with receiving state funds and remitting them to the central treasury in the 5th cent. BC, and apportioning them to various spending authorities ( merizein) in the 4th, following routine procedures. They had their own powers of jurisdiction towards tax farmers in cases of up to 10 drachmae (Arist. Ath. Pol. 47,5-48,2; 52,3). Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham)

[German version] (μαστροί/ mastroí, ‘searchers’, ‘trackers’) is the name given in some Greek towns to official accountants with functions similar to those of the eúthynoi ( eúthynai ) or logista…

[German version] (λογογράφος; logográphos). Writer of Greek court speeches. The ten classical Attic rhetors were called logográphoi. The word was, however, also frequently used in…

[German version] (ἀντίδοσις; antídosis, exchange). In Athens someone designated to discharge a leitourgia ( Liturgy) could take measures to avoid it by naming somebody richer who was not exempt from it, but who had escaped it. He could ask him to assume the leitourgia o…

[German version] (ζευγῖται, literally 'yoke-men', from ζεῦγος/ zeûgos = 'yoke', 'team'), the third of Solon's [1] four property-classes in Athens ([Aristot.] Ath. pol. 7,3 f.). The name indicates either that they were the men rich enough to serve in the army as hoplîtai , 'yoked together' in a phálanx [2. 135-140; 5], or, less probably, the men rich enough to own a yoke of oxen [1. 822 f.]. According to Ath. Pol. (loc.cit.), they were the men whose land yielded between 200 and 300 médimnoi ('bushels'), best interpreted as barley or the equivalent value in other crops [3. 14…

[German version] (συμμορία/ symmoría, 'company'). In Athens in the fourth cent. BC, a group of men liable for payment of the property tax called eisphora or for the leitourgía (Liturgy I) of the trierarchy (Trierarchia). In 378/7 all payers of …

[German version] (ἑλληνοταμίαι). The title Hellenotamiai (‘Stewards of Greece’) was borne by the treasurers of the  Delian League. The exchequer they managed, originally located on Delos, was probably transferred to Athens in the year 454/3 BC (Thuc. 1,96,2; Plut. Aristides 25,3; Pericles 12,1; cf. IG I3 259 = ATL List 1), because the annually elected boards were numbered in a continuous sequence starting in 454/3. From the beginning, however, the Hellenotamiai were Athenians, were appointed by Athens (Thuc. ibid., cf. [1. 44f., 235-237]),…

[German version] (θεσμοθέται/ thesmothétai 'establishers of law'). In Athens, a college of six men who were added to the archon, the basileus and the polemarchos to form the college of nine archons. In the fifth or fourth cent. a tenth official was created, known as the 'secretary' (Grammateis) to the thesmothetai, after which one archon was appointed from each of Cleisthenes’ ten tribes (Phyle). Their place of work, the thesmotheteion, became the working-place and eating-place for all the archons (Ath. Pol. 3. 5, schol. Plat. Phaid. 235 d). The thesmothetai were responsible not for…