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Document Details : Title: Archaic Isonomia and the Development of Equality between Mass and Elite Author(s): KRIKONA, Eleni Journal: Ancient Society Volume: 54 Date: 2024 Pages: 1-57 DOI: 10.2143/AS.54.0.3293597 Abstract : The paper aims to interpret the factors that led to the idea and later formation (or attempt of formation) of political balance at the end of the archaic period between the two main competitive social groups in some Greek poleis, the elite and the commoners/the ‘plēthos’, explaining the nature of this conflict and the way this balance led to equality among the expanded (in most cases) citizenry in the decision-making process. The paper focuses on the concept of ‘isonomia’ in the archaic period, as it appears in the so-called Harmodius’ scholion and the work of Alcmaeon from Croton as well as in the Histories of Herodotus, after analyzing the way it has been interpreted so far by modern scholars. Through the study of the Athenian isonomia, the paper aims to interpret the concept as a political promise for equality among the citizenry, leading to the political balance between mass and elite in late sixth-century BCE Athens. Therefore, the political reforms of Cleisthenes the Alcmaeonid will be brought into the discussion as the most characteristic example of constitutional ‘vehicle’ that provided a Greek polis with the institutional means to settle the social conflict between the elite and the commoners in the archaic period, and finally set unwittingly the proper basis for the establishment of democracy (only in the case of Athens), by introducing the concepts of political freedom and sovereignty of law, as well as the principle of political equality. Furthermore, the paper will examine the concept of isonomia as it appeared in the archaic Greek world beyond Athens, selectively focusing, first, on some cases of isonomia succeeding an aristocracy, i.e., the cases of Chios, Heraclea Pontike, Mantinea, Eretria, Elis, and Argos, and second, on three cases of transition from tyranny to isonomia, that is in Cyrene, Erythrae and Ambracia. |
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