The deme and tribal reforms of Cleisthenes (the Deme)

The Deme and Tribal Reforms of Cleisthenes (the Deme)

Local governance had hitherto been under the aegis of the phratries (brotherhoods), which were predominantly controlled by the aristocratic clans (gene).

The aforementioned ‘phratry’ system served to accentuate and consolidate the power of the aristocracy, its structure being inherently hierarchical. All national directives emanating from the central government, pertaining to matters of taxation or military conscription, were conveyed to the phratry leader, who bore the responsibility for the organisation and supervision of all requisitions from the local community. This leadership of the phratry was hereditary, thus contravening democratic principles, as it was neither accountable nor subject to re-election. Furthermore, this control over the phratries vested in the aristocratic clans the incontestable right to determine the legitimacy of Athenian citizens, phratry membership being the sole formal criterion for citizenship prior to Cleisthenes – a power wielded with grave consequences for new citizens following the downfall of Hippias (Ath. Pol. 13.5). While Aristotle underscores the incorporation of these new citizens into the body politic as a primary impetus for Cleisthenes’ deme reform, he also intimates that it aimed to dismantle the aristocratic monopoly of power at the local level (Ath. Pol. 21.2–4).

Thus, the reform of local government constituted a principal objective of Cleisthenes. He divested the phratries of all political functions, permitting them to persist solely in a social and religious capacity (Ath. Pol. 21.6). In their stead, he established the deme as the foremost political institution of local government. The demes were local communities of varying dimensions, akin to villages, which had likely existed in rural Attica since the seventh century (699–600), but which, within the city and its environs, had to be established de novo by Cleisthenes; a total of 139 or 140 demes were distributed throughout Attica. The definitive distinction between the deme and the phratry lay in its democratic constitution. The new leader of the deme was the ‘demarch’, elected, in all probability, annually by his fellow demesmen. Moreover, all matters affecting the deme were adjudicated upon by the deme-assemblies, which any Athenian citizen of eighteen years or older was entitled to attend within his own deme. Each deme also assumed responsibility for the maintenance of its property, an up-to-date register of its membership, and its own cults and shrines, which were established (alongside the new tribal cults) as a novel focus of loyalty for demesmen, in competition with the aristocratic-dominated phratry cults.

Cleisthenes ensured that deme membership would not only confer Athenian citizenship but also obscure the identity of the new citizens:

Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 21.4

Thus, parity of status within the deme was instituted as a salient feature of the reform. It also proved efficacious in attenuating the local kinship organisation by bestowing the name of a clan upon the new deme, inclusive of its new citizens. A pertinent illustration thereof is the allocation of the aristocratic name ‘Boutad’ to a deme, whereby every demesman, irrespective of his humble or foreign provenance, would henceforth share this name with the veritable descendants of the aristocrat Boutas. So efficacious was this measure that, later in the fourth century, the clan of the ‘Boutadai’ deemed it necessary to rechristen themselves the ‘Eteoboutadai’ (‘the veritable descendants of Boutas’) in an endeavour to preserve a degree of distinctiveness. Deme membership became hereditary from the time of registration under Cleisthenes, with all subsequent descendants retaining membership of that particular deme, irrespective of their future domicile.

In this manner, the deme evolved into the centre of social, and more significantly, political life. The deme assembly served as a microcosm of the Ecclesia (Assembly), providing an ideal training ground for those aspiring to participate actively in the decision-making processes of the state at a national level. Furthermore, membership of the deme constituted a prerequisite for the position of councillor in the Boule of 500, each deme being represented on the national council by a fixed quota of councillors commensurate with its size in 508/7. The deme was instrumental in the development of ‘radical’ democracy in the later fifth century. The experience of participating in deme assemblies, serving as a demarch, as a councillor in the Boule, and in the courts, gradually instilled within ordinary citizens the self-assurance and conviction in their capacity to contribute effectively to the government of Athens. Subsequently, this experience engendered the desire to assume total and direct control over the governance of the state.