Athenian Democracy by John Thorley

Author:John Thorley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2012-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

CLERUCHIES AND COLONIES

Klerukhiai (cleruchies) were a special kind of colony that the Athenians established in key locations around the Aegean. Though there is no evidence that they were a part of Kleisthenes’ constitution, the system was first used to create a settlement on the island of Salamis only a year or two after Kleisthenes’ reforms (a fragmentary inscription from the Acropolis, described in Meiggs and Lewis 1969, no. 14, records the event), and the regulations for cleruchies appear to have been devised as one of the early measures of the new democracy. In essence a cleruchy was a settlement of Athenian citizens set up in a strategically important location on an island or on the coast of the Aegean. In most cases (perhaps all) the land was taken from the local residents and, as Athens’ Empire progressed, it was taken as a punitive measure after the revolt of an allied state. The settlers were called klerukhoi (cleruchs) from the fact that they were allocated a plot of land (kleros); a klerukhos simply means ‘a person having an allotment’. Cleruchs were chosen mainly from the thetes class, the lowest property class, and they were given an allotment large enough to put them in the zeugitai class, the next higher group. The main cleruchies set up between 508 and 404 were Salamis (perhaps 507), Chalkis in Euboea (before 490), Lemnos and Imbros in the north Aegean (both around 480), Skyros in the west Aegean (about 475), Naxos and Andros in the south Aegean and the Chersonese (Gallipoli Peninsula) (all about 450), Hestiaia in Euboea (445), Aegina (431), and Lesbos (427) (see Map 1). A distinctive feature of the cleruchies appears to have been that settlers retained their full rights and duties as Athenian citizens, whereas other colonists became citizens of their new colony, though it must be said that this distinction may not be entirely correct. Colonies (not cleruchies) were also set up during this period, for example at Brea in Thrace (about 445; an inscription found in the Erechtheum on the Acropolis records the decision to set up the colony and details of how it is to be done; see Meiggs and Lewis 1969, no. 49), at Thurii in south Italy (443), and at Amphipolis in Thrace (437). Both types of settlement benefited the poorer classes in Athens by offering land, but they also created a network of Athenian strongholds.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.