The internal political development of Athens, the reforms of Ephialtes (462 BC), the leadership of Pericles, the introduction of state pay for jurors and officials, the Periclean building program, and the cultural achievements of the period

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to describe the internal political development of Athens between 478 and 440 BC, the reforms of Ephialtes against the Areopagus in 462 BC, the leadership of Pericles, the introduction of state pay (misthos), the citizenship law of 451 BC, the Periclean building program, and the cultural achievements of the period.

The answer

The Cleisthenic background

By 478 BC Athens had been a democracy of sorts for thirty years. Cleisthenes (508/7 BC) had created the ten tribes, the deme system, the Council of 500, and ostracism. But the Areopagus, the Council of former archons (chief magistrates), retained extensive "guardian" powers: it scrutinised magistrates, tried political offenders, and supervised the laws. The archonship was elective and effectively confined to the wealthier classes.

The radical democracy emerged in stages between 487 and 451 BC.

The reforms before Ephialtes

Archonship by lot (487 BC). From 487 BC the archons were selected by lot from a pool of elected candidates (Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 22.5). This weakened the prestige of the office and the social position of the Areopagites who eventually filled it.

The zeugitai admitted to the archonship (around 457 BC). The third Solonian property class became eligible for the archonship. The office continued to be opened to lower classes.

The role of the strategoi. The ten annually elected generals (strategoi) became the most important political magistrates. Election (not lot) selected the strategoi; the office could be held repeatedly; Pericles held it 15 times (around 443 to 429 BC).

The Areopagus before 462 BC

The Areopagus had:

• Scrutiny (dokimasia) of incoming magistrates
• Audit (euthynai) of outgoing magistrates
• Trial of political offences (treason, attempt to overthrow the democracy)
• Trial of homicide
• Religious cases (impiety)
• Supervision of public morals

Its membership consisted of former archons serving for life. Even after 487 BC and the broadening of the archonship, the Areopagus was an aristocratic body.

Ephialtes and his reforms (462 BC)

Ephialtes son of Sophonides emerged as the leader of the democratic faction in the late 460s BC. With his younger associate Pericles he attacked the Areopagus through a series of prosecutions of individual Areopagites for corruption (Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 25.2).

The opportunity (462 BC). Cimon was absent in Spartan territory with 4,000 hoplites helping suppress the helot revolt at Mount Ithome. With Cimon and his philolaconian conservatives away, Ephialtes pushed the reform through the Assembly.

The reform. The Areopagus was stripped of its political powers. Its retained functions were:

• Trial of homicide (including premeditated murder, wounding with intent, arson, and poisoning)
• Religious cases (impiety, in some interpretations)
• Some supervisory functions over sacred olive trees

Powers transferred. The political powers went to:

• The Council of 500 (boule), for the dokimasia and euthynai
• The popular law courts (heliaia), for political trials
• The Assembly (ekklesia), for broader political supervision

Cimon's response. Cimon attempted to reverse the reform on his return. He was ostracised in 461 BC.

The assassination of Ephialtes (461 BC)

In 461 BC Ephialtes was assassinated. The murderer was Aristodicus of Tanagra (Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 25.4). The killer was probably hired by oligarchic opponents. The assassination did not reverse the reform. Pericles took over Ephialtes's role.

The leadership of Pericles

Pericles son of Xanthippus (the victor of Mycale) and Agariste (an Alcmaeonid, niece of Cleisthenes) emerged as the leading democratic politician after Ephialtes's death.

Background. Born around 495 BC. Aristocratic (Alcmaeonid through his mother) but politically committed to the democracy. Educated by Damon (music) and Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (philosophy).

Political method. Elected strategos from 454 BC; held the office every year from around 443 to 429 BC (15 times in succession). Won the Assembly through reasoned oratory rather than mass appeal.

Thucydides son of Melesias. Pericles's main conservative opponent in the 440s BC. Organised the oligarchic protest against the building program. Ostracised around 443 BC; after his ostracism Pericles had no serious rival.

Thucydides's verdict. Thucydides (2.65) summarises: "in name a democracy but in fact rule by the first man."

State pay (misthos)

Pericles introduced state pay for participating in public functions. The exact dates are debated but the system was established between around 460 and 450 BC.

Jury pay. Two obols per day (later three under Cleon in 425 BC) for service in the heliaia. Around 6,000 jurors served annually.

Council pay. Five obols per day for members of the boule.

Magistracy pay. Most state magistracies (around 1,500 a year) received daily pay.

Hoplite pay. From 432 BC, hoplites and rowers on campaign received daily pay.

Significance. Pay made participation possible for poor citizens (thetes and zeugitai). The radical democracy depended on it. Aristotle (Athenian Constitution 27.3 to 4) reports that Pericles introduced jury pay in response to the demagoguery of Cimon's wealth (Cimon had paid for his rural neighbours' meals from his estates).

The citizenship law (451 BC)

Pericles proposed and passed a law restricting Athenian citizenship to those whose father and mother were both Athenian citizens (Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 26.4). Previously only paternal descent had been required.

Reasons. Multiple. The law restricted access to the state pay system; tightened ethnic identity in a period of imperial expansion; responded to a recent grain distribution scandal in which large numbers of non-citizens had claimed citizenship.

Consequences. Marriages between Athenians and non-citizens (especially Ionian Greeks) lost citizenship for the children. The law had personal consequences for Pericles himself: his sons by the Milesian Aspasia would be non-citizens. He had to petition the Assembly in 429 BC for citizenship for his son Pericles the Younger after both his Athenian sons died of plague.

The building program

Funded by allied tribute moved to Athens in 454 BC after the Egyptian disaster, the Periclean building program transformed the Athenian Acropolis.

The Parthenon (447 to 432 BC). Designed by Ictinus and Callicrates with sculpture by Phidias. The chryselephantine statue of Athena Parthenos (438 BC) by Phidias. The metopes, frieze, and pediments depicting Athenian and mythological scenes. Cost around 700 talents.

The Propylaea (437 to 432 BC). Monumental gateway, designed by Mnesicles. Construction halted by the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.

The Odeon of Pericles (440s BC). A roofed music hall on the south slope of the Acropolis.

Later additions. The temple of Athena Nike (around 421 BC), the Erechtheion (421 to 406 BC).

Funding. Allied tribute funded the program. Plutarch (Pericles 12) records the conservative protest by Thucydides son of Melesias: Athens was "decking herself out like a vain woman with our allies' money." Pericles replied that Athens defended the allies and could spend the surplus as she pleased.

Significance. The building program made the empire physically present in Athens. The civic religion was monumentalised. The artisans (stonemasons, sculptors, gilders) drew the Athenian poor into a wage economy of public works.

Cultural achievements

The period 478 to 440 BC saw the flowering of Athenian culture.

Tragedy. Aeschylus (525 to 456 BC) wrote the Oresteia (458 BC). Sophocles (around 496 to 406 BC) won his first victory in 468 BC and wrote Antigone around 441 BC. Euripides's first surviving play (Alcestis) is from 438 BC.

Comedy. State-supported from the 480s BC. Cratinus, Crates, and Eupolis are the major fifth-century comedians before Aristophanes.

Philosophy. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (Pericles's teacher) taught a rational cosmology at Athens. He was later prosecuted for impiety in the 430s BC.

History. Herodotus of Halicarnassus moved to Athens in the 440s BC and gave public readings of his Histories. Thucydides began collecting material in the same period.

Sculpture. Phidias designed the Parthenon sculptures and the statue of Athena Parthenos. Polyclitus of Argos created the Doryphoros (Spear-bearer) and the canon of human proportions.

Architecture. The Doric and Ionic orders reached their classical forms. The Parthenon (Doric with Ionic frieze) and the Erechtheion (Ionic) are the showcase buildings.

The radical democracy in operation

By 440 BC the Athenian political system worked roughly as follows:

Assembly (ekklesia). Meeting four times each prytany (around 40 times a year) on the Pnyx, open to all adult male citizens, voting by show of hands on policy.

Council of 500 (boule). Chosen by lot, one prytany of 50 in continuous session, preparing business for the Assembly.

Heliaia. Popular law courts, 6,000 jurors annually, chosen by lot.

Strategoi. Ten annually elected generals, the principal political magistrates.

Magistracies. Around 700 internal magistrates and 700 external, mostly chosen by lot.

Pay. State pay for jurors, councillors, and most magistrates.

The system was the most participatory of any ancient state. Only adult male citizens participated; women, slaves, and metics (resident foreigners) did not. Citizenship was hereditary and exclusive.

The sources

Thucydides 1.107 to 117; 2.65. The major source for Pericles.

Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 25 to 28. The key political summary.

Plutarch, Pericles. Later but draws on lost authors (Stesimbrotus, Ion of Chios, the Atthidographers).

Aeschylus, Eumenides (458 BC). The play justifies the Areopagus's reduced role; it ends with Athena founding the Areopagus as a homicide court.

Inscriptions. The Athenian Tribute Lists; the Parthenon building accounts; the Strasbourg ostracon list of Pericles.

Archaeology. The Acropolis; the agora and the Pnyx; the Odeon site.

Historiography

Christian Meier, Athens (1990, English 1998). The polis as the political achievement.

Donald Kagan, Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy (1991). Biographical synthesis.

P. J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (1981). Standard commentary.

Josiah Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (1989). Political sociology.

How to read a source on this topic

Section IV sources on the democracy typically include extracts from Thucydides 2.65, Aristotle Athenian Constitution 25 to 28, or Plutarch. Three reading habits.

First, attend to the conservative perspective. Both Thucydides and Aristotle wrote after the fact, often with a critical view of mass politics. The democratic case must be reconstructed.

Second, distinguish the reforms from the rhetoric. Ephialtes and Pericles passed real laws (the Areopagus reform, state pay, the citizenship law). The "Periclean Age" of cultural flowering is partly a literary construction.

Third, integrate empire and democracy. Allied tribute paid for the building program and the state pay. The radical democracy was an imperial democracy.

Common exam traps

Crediting Pericles with all the reforms. Ephialtes did the foundational work in 462 BC; Pericles built on it.

Treating the Athenian democracy as inclusive. Only adult male citizens, perhaps 30,000 to 50,000 out of 250,000 to 300,000 residents of Attica.

Forgetting the citizenship law of 451 BC. It restricted as well as expanded participation.

Underestimating the cultural dimension. Tragedy, sculpture, philosophy, and architecture were funded and shaped by the democracy.

In one sentence

Between 462 and 440 BC Ephialtes stripped the Areopagus of its political powers (462 BC, while Cimon was at Ithome), Cimon was ostracised in 461 BC after his attempt to reverse the reform, Ephialtes was assassinated in the same year, and Pericles took over the democratic leadership and introduced state pay (misthos) for jurors and officials, the citizenship law of 451 BC requiring both parents to be Athenians, and the building program (the Parthenon from 447 BC) funded by allied tribute, producing by 440 BC the radical Athenian democracy that Thucydides (2.65) called "in name a democracy but in fact rule by the first man."