[g. e. m. de ste. croix] athenian democratic origi(bookos.org)

ATHENIAN DEMOCRATIC ORIGINS

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Athenian DemocraticOrigins

and other essays

G. E. M. DE STE. CROIX

Edited by

David Harvey

and

Robert Parker

With the assistance

of Peter Thonemann

1

3Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp

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ISBN 0199255172 9780199255177

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1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Contents

Editors Introduction 1

1. The Solonian Census Classes and the Qualifications

for Cavalry and Hoplite Service 5

(i) The Late Fifth- and Fourth-Century Evidence 8

(ii) Military Categories in the Fifth and

Fourth Centuries 14

(iii) Tele and Military Categories in the Fifth and

Fourth Centuries 19

(iv) The Original Qualifications of the Tele 28

(v) The Original Qualifications of the Pentakosiomedimnoi 32

(vi) The Original Qualifications of the Hippeis and Zeugitai 46

(vii) Were the Qualifications of the Tele Changed? 51

(viii) Pollux VIII 130 56

(ix) Miscellaneous 60Endnotes 63

Appendix: The Dedication of Anthemion

(Arist., Ath. Pol. 7.4) 70Afterword 72

2. Five Notes on Solons Constitution 73

(i) The Introduction of Majority Voting at Athens 73

(ii) The Date of Solons Nomothesia 75

(iii) The Eupatrid Monopoly of the State Machine 80

(iv) The Solonian Council of Four Hundred 83

(v) klZZrvsiB ek prokriitvn [sortition from pre-selectedcandidates] (Ath. Pol. 8.1) 89

Appendix: Election to High Office by Lot Elsewhere

than in Greece 104Afterword 107

3. Solon, the Horoi and the Hektemoroi 109

Afterword 127

4. Cleisthenes I: The Constitution 129

(i) Cleisthenes in Herodotus and Aristotle 129

(ii) The Constitution of Cleisthenes 136Endnotes 172

Afterword 177

5. Cleisthenes II: Ostracism, Archons and Strategoi 180

(i) The Law of Ostracism: Its Date and Purpose 180

(ii) Archons and Strategoi 215Afterword 229

6. The Athenian Citizenship Laws 233

Afterword 251

7. The Athenaion Politeia and Early Athenian History 254

(i) The Athenaion Politeia and the Politics 256

(ii) The Sources of the Athenaion Politeia 277

(iii) Aristotle and the Atthidographers 286

(iv) Aristotle and the Documentary Sources 307Endnotes 323

Afterword 325

8. The metra in Aristotle, Eth. Nic. V vii 5,

1134b351135a3 328

Appendix: Measures of Capacity 341Afterword 347

9. How Far was Trade a Cause of Early Greek

Colonisation? 349

Afterword 367

10. But what about Aegina? 371

Afterword 411

vi Contents

11. Herodotus and King Cleomenes I of Sparta 421

Afterword 438

Abbreviations and Bibliography 441

Index 447

Contents vii

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Editors Introduction

The core of this book is a collection of essays on which Geoffrey de

Ste. Croix was working in the 1960s. They were interconnected in

theme, and as numerous cross-references show were envisaged as a

single book. A colleague rashly referred to them in 1966 as to be

published shortly;1 and the essays that now appear as chapters

12, 45, and 7 existed by then as typescripts with full notes.

Chapter 8 too was very likely designed for a place in the volume,

since it connects thematically with chapter 1. Publication was

delayed by the circumstance that one chapter, entitled The Causes

of the Peloponnesian War, grew into the large book The Origins of

the Peloponnesian War (1972). Ste. Croix would probably have

returned to the essays on completion ofOrigins of the Peloponnesian

War, had not an invitation to give the J. H. Gray lectures for

19723 in Cambridge intervened; from that lecture course

emerged the gigantic Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World

(1981), and the old interests in Christianity and the Later Roman

Empire revived by the writing of that deceptively-titled book

claimed all Ste. Croixs attention for the rest of his life.2

The essays, however, still appear as forthcoming in the author-

ised bibliography included in the Festschrift for Ste. Croix.3 In that

list, the essays mentioned above have been joined by two that exist

only as working drafts but may always, given their themes, have

been envisaged as forming part of the book (chapters 3 and 6),

and by four on different topics. We here publish all these except

one, which is quite different from the others in period and theme

(a lecture on Some Greek views on the origin of man and civilisa-

tion). We have grouped at the start, and in the intended order,

those that certainly or possibly had a place in the volume planned

1 Forrest, EGD 245.2 For a biographical sketch, with a list of published obituaries, see Parker in PBA

111, 2000 Lectures and Memoirs, 44778, or more briefly in the forthcomingOxfordDictionary of National Biography. Those citing his works are asked to note that thefull point after Ste. in Ste. Croix was defended with great vigour against editors bythe names owner.

3 Crux, xii.

in the 1960s.4 Chapters 4 and 5 have been created by division of

what Ste. Croix designed as one huge chapter entitled Cleisthenes,

ostracism, archons and strategoi. The title of the volume, too, is

ours: for Ste. Croix these were just Essays on Greek History.

The subject of these chapters was one of the highest significance

to Ste. Croix, most democratic of Marxists. He used to speak with

amused frustration of an Indian pupil who would regularly con-

clude his undergraduate essays with the thought And so we see

that it all came to the same in the end. Such was not the attitude of

Ste. Croix. The reader will regularly find in these chapters the

language not just of change but even of progress: the reforms of

Cleisthenes, for instance, brought three quite different changes

for the better, operating from the very first (p. 142). And things got

better by design, not through happy chance. A second leitmotif of

the essays is a defence of the political intelligence of the Athenians

against their many ancient and modern critics. Again, the good

sense of the sixth-century Athenians shows itself conspicuously,

we read, or Again we have vindicated the good sense of the

Athenians. The influence in all this of the great liberal historian

of Greece, George Grote, is obvious and explicit.

But if the ultimate aim of the essays is to school the political

intelligence of their readers, their method is scholarship of a

detailed and rigorous kind. They are largely exercises in source

criticism (Quellenkritik) in its twin branches: study of the ancient

evidence with a view to establishing who said what, and on what

authority; and criticism of the data thus secured in the light of the

observable political behaviour of human actors. Much of the

genius of Ste. Croix lay in the energy, thoroughness and realism

with which he applied this second criterion even to technical topics

which offer little purchase to lazier imaginations. Again and again

current assumptions are exposed, when once they are made expli-

cit, as slack and implausible. Mommsen once wrote in rather

apocalyptic tones of the great Niebuhr, always accounted the

founder of source criticism in classical studies: He was the first

to have the courage to test historical tradition by the logic of facts,

4 It is in fact possible that Chapters 9 and 10 were also envisaged even in thesixties as part of theGreek Essays, because they link thematically with the originallyplanned chapter on the causes of the Peloponnesian war. But the order envisaged in1985, with what is now chapter 10 appearing first, was certainly not that intendedin 1965.

2 Athenian Democratic Origins

to exclude what is in itself impossible from the gloomy waste of

misunderstood and incomprehensible tradition, to postulate what

is required by the necessary laws of development even where in the

tradition it is confused or has vanished.5 It is in that critical

tradition that Ste. Croix stands. One might also say of him what

Wilamowitz said of Grote: Here at last was political history

handled by a man who understood politics.6

The other essays are of diverse origin, but they exhibit the same

virtues. The piece on Greek trade and colonisation (ch. 9), de-

livered to a student society, demolishes facile assumptions about

the nature of Greek trade and its role in early Greek settlements

abroad. It remains valuable despiteor in view ofsubsequent

debate and research, which has ranged from the reassessment of

concepts to the publication of fresh excavations. The essay on

Aegina (ch. 10) mounts a multi-pronged attack on the view that

the ruling class of Aegina wasuniquelya mercantile aristoc-

racy. That remains the standard view, and has rarely been chal-

lenged or examined as thoroughly as it is here. Finally, the lecture

on Cleomenes (ch. 11) makes a powerful case for attributing a

coherent anti-Persian policy to the maligned Spartan king. It was

written for a schools audience, and comes closer to catching the

characteristic tone of voice of its author than anything else in this

volume.

Ste. Croixs Nachlass was passed to us by his widow Margaret

after his death in February 2000.7 It was immediately clear both

that the Greek essays ought to be published, and that they should

not be updated except in trivial particulars. Only a very temerari-

ous person would attempt to predict what new argument or new

item of evidence might, or might not, have persuaded Geoffrey de

Ste. Croix to change his mind. But we have indicated in After-

words the main contributions that have appeared since he laid the

essays aside. These are necessarily incomplete; omissions indicate

the limitations of the editors knowledge, not silent condemnation.

To modernise the footnotes would have been less hybristic, but

5 Citation from K. Christ, Von Gibbon zu Rostovtzeff, 3rd edn. (1989), 49.6 U. vonWilamowitz-Moellendorff,History of Classical Scholarship, tr. A.Harris

(1921/1982), 153.7 The early Christian material was subsequently passed by us to Professor

L. M. Whitby of the University of Warwick. It is hoped to bring out a volume ofSte. Croixs writings on early Christianity, including some unpublished pieces.

Editors Introduction 3

here too the advantage to the reader of knowing whose mind made

the decisions seemed to outweigh the gains that revision might

have brought. All that we have done silently (apart from a few

trivialities) is to replace references to outdated editions with those

that are now in use. We have omitted one or two now outdated

Long Notes of merely bibliographic character, or which attacked

new theories of the 50s and 60s which no one has taken up. We

have also added translations. Other interventions are indicated by

square brackets, and are for the most part occasioned by a note

such as check or more in Ste. Croixs typescript.

Our editorial task has been very greatly eased by prompt and

expert responses to various enquiries from Dr J. Black, Professor

J. K. Davies, Dr R. P. Duncan-Jones, Dr P. Haarer, Professor

G. A. Holmes, Dr C. J. Howgego, and Professor R. G. Osborne.

On behalf of Ste. Croix we also thank Dr Duncan-Jones for the

advice quoted in the Afterword to chapter 8. We owe particular

gratitude to Professors P. J. Rhodes and C. M. Reed for supplying

Afterwords to chapters 7 and 9, and to Professor P. A. Cartledge for

good will and judicious advice throughout. For secretarial assist-

ance we thankMrsMary Lale. Hilary OSheas enthusiasm for the

project at OUP has been most encouraging, and we are grateful

also to Lavinia Porter, Enid Barker, and Dorothy McCarthy of the

Press; also to our excellent copy-editor (John Cordy) and indexer

(Rosemary Dear). A research grant to Parker from the Faculty of

Classics in Oxford permitted professional transcription of most of

Ste. Croixs typescript onto disk, and the employment of a graduate

assistant to enter and translate the Greek and perform a thousand

other tasks in tidying the result. Peter Thonemann (then of Lady

Margaret Hall; now of All Souls College) fulfilled that function

with exemplary care and acuity, and some addenda or corrigenda

provided by him are distinguished by his initials PJT.


1The Solonian Census Classes and

the Qualifications for Cavalry

and Hoplite Service

In 1893 Eduard Meyer observed that the problems concerning the

Solonian census classes appear simple but are in reality very com-

plicated and difficult to solve.1 Meyer himself seems to have made

no special study of the subject, and since his time there has been no

attempt to deal with it comprehensively, although many scholars

have given general opinions about it and several have written on

individual points. I am not satisfied with any solution yet offered,

and I wish to propose a radical reinterpretation of the evidence,

which will also deal with the qualifications for cavalry and hoplite

service, a subject which has not been treated in any detail, or

properly linked with the census classes.

As will become clear at various points in these essays, I feel that

too many modern scholars conceive the economic situation even in

fifth- and fourth-century Greece, and still more in the archaic age,

in a thoroughly anachronistic manner, largely in terms of categor-

ies derived from the modern or the medieval world which have no

application to ancient Greece. I would regard, for example, any

theory that the Athenian census classes could ever have been

defined in terms of money income as a sign of a serious misunder-

standing of ancient Greek economics. If in this first essay I devote

much more space to the problems of the census classes than many

people might have thought necessary, it is partly because I believe

that a proper understanding of the census classes (teelZ) may makeit possible to get rid of some basic misconceptions about the

economy of classical Athens.

1 GdA II1 656, repeated in III2 (1937) 608 n. 1.

It is not necessary for me to attempt to justify in detail in these

essays my general conception of the character of the constitutional

reforms of Solon, since my own view is very close to that of a whole

group of scholars, among whom I would single out Jacoby and

Wade-Gery; and for the defence of my general attitude to Solon I

can rely upon their work. The fundamental point has been well put

by both these scholars. As Wade-Gery has said,2 Solons most

drastic political change was to ignore the Eupatrid Order. Jacoby,

in an article entitled GENESIA,3 which has attracted less atten-tion from historians concentrating on archaic Attica than hisAtthis

and his great commentary on the Atthidographers, has a paragraph

which seems to me profoundly true. Seen historically, he says,

the tax-classes of Solons constitution . . . are obviously a step

forward in the development of the Athenian State: they signify

the emancipation of the plebs (this word still remaining the best

translation of pl &ZuoB which is not a proletariat either in Athens orin fourth-century Rome), . . . and they are the preliminary condi-

tion for the formation of a homogeneous citizenship . . . I do not

believe in a pre-Solonian timocracy,4 although I confess that I do

not know at all whether the Clan State of the seventh century B.C.

made personal, as distinct from real, property serve the purposes of

the State; nor whether it conceded a share in the government to

some plebeian families. I consider these two assumptions to be

improbable. The formula aristiindZn kaii ploytiindZn [accordingto birth and wealth] (Arist., Ath. Pol. 3.1; 6) does not prove

anything; it is not old, and wealth is only another aspect of aristoc-

racy;5 it is the genuine palaiooploytoi [men of ancestral wealth]who hold the offices and form the State in the arxaiia politeiia[ancient constitution]. But even if in isolated cases plebeian

families were received into the ruling classes before 594/3 B.C.,6

that would not alter the fact which in my opinion is certain, that

it was Solon who achieved the fundamental change by making

property instead of blood the standard of political rights. Prin-

ciples always have a previous history, actual or ideal, the decisive

step is their being publicly acknowledged: the change from the

Patriciate to the Nobility begins with Solon. During the sixth

2 EGH 86 ff., at p. 101. 3 In CQ 38 (1944) 65 ff., at p. 74.4 Here Jacoby refers to Busolt-Swoboda, GS II 824, and Adcock in CAH IV 47.5 And see the similar opinion expressed by Wade-Gery, EGH 1001.6 See Endnote i (p. 63 below).


century the ruling class becomes more and more what in France

and Alsace one called the Notables who absorb the aristocracy

without destroying it.

In recent years a number of historians have carried mistrust for

the sources for early Athenian history to what seem to me excessive

lengths. In a later essay7 I shall examine some of these sources in

detail. At this point I need only say two things. First, I think there

are good reasons for attaching more weight to the statements about

Athenian constitutional history made by Aristotle than by any of

the Atthidographers who preceded him; but he must not be slav-

ishly followed: every statement in the Politics or theAth. Pol. must

be examined separately on its merits. Secondly, there is no ground

whatever for denying, as several scholars have done during the last

few years, that Solons noomoi included laws materially changingthe constitution, the politeiia, as well as laws which did notaffect the constitutional framework but functioned within it.8 We

have every right to speak of a Solonian politeia.

The four tele, the pentakosiomeedimnoi, ippe &iB, zeyg &itai andu &ZteB (terms I shall as a rule simply transliterate, as Pentakosio-medimnoi, Hippeis, Zeugitai and Thetes), were created as such by

Solon, whose constitution was promulgated in 594/3, the year of

his archonship.9 Some would take the tele back into the seventh

century, to Draco or beyond; but this seems to me certainly wrong.

To conceive the origin of the tele as such as pre-Solonian is to rely

entirely either upon conjecture or upon the bogus10 constitution of

Draco inserted in chapter 4 of Aristotles Athenaion Politeia and

the purely consequential addition of the words just as they were

divided before in Ath. Pol. 7.3. As will become clear later,

I believe that with the exception of the Pentakosiomedimnoi,

whose name is of a different kind from the others, the tele already

existed as recognisable military and social groups.

Down to the last days of the Athenian democracy as we know it

(i.e. until 322 B.C.), the four census classes remained in existence,

at least in theory, as the basis of qualification for certain political

offices: this was certainly their chief original function, but by the

fourth century, and perhaps earlier, the rules were little regarded.

7 Ch. 7. 8 On this point, see esp. pp. 31017 below. 9 See ch. 2 (ii).10 That the constitution of Draco is a forgery has been so amply proved, and is

now so generally admitted, that I can regard it as a fact. It will be sufficient to referto the admirable analysis by Fuks, AC 84101, where a full bibliography is given.

The Solonian Census Classes 7

The classes also entered into certain administrative regulations, in

ways that we shall see. In the early days, they may well have had

something to do with the taxation system. Many people have be-

lieved that they also providedalways, or only at the beginning or

laterthe foundation of the military system, so that the Hippeis

(and Pentakosiomedimnoi) provided the state cavalry, the Zeugitai

were the hoplites, and the Thetes served either as light-armed

(ciloii) or as sailors in the fleet.In the late fifth and fourth centuries, for which our information

is so much more plentiful than for the sixth and early fifth, there

are a few references to the census classes in relation to contempor-

ary affairs. It will be well to look at this evidence first, as it is

naturally more reliable than statements about the origin of the

classes, which as we shall see could not have been based upon

any very secure foundation. We can divide these passages into

four distinct groups: (1) those concerned with qualifications for

political office, (2) those relating to colonies or cleruchies, (3) those

mentioning administrative regulations which distinguish between

the respective tele, and (4) those which referor may referto the

tele in connection with military or naval service. I shall review

these in turn.

(I) THE LATE FIFTH- ANDFOURTH-CENTURY EVIDENCE

1. (a) According to Aristotle,11 when the question po &ion teeloBtele &i [Of which census class are you a member?]12 was put inhis own day to toon meellonta klZro &ysuaii tin arxZZn [a candidatefor allotment to office], no one would say that he was a Thes. This

may suggest that many offices were still open in theory to none but

the three top classes; but only of the nine archons can we say that

this is partly confirmed by other evidence,13 and only in one case

does Aristotle specifically mention membership of a telos as a

qualification: the treasurers of Athena, says Aristotle,14 still had

in theory to be Pentakosiomedimnoi, although in practice arxei do laxvvn kan paany peenZB Z [the man allotted holds office even if

11 Ath. Pol. 7.4 fin.; cf. Poll. VIII 86. 12 See Endnote ii (p. 64 below).13 i.e. the fact that Arist. (Ath. Pol. 26.2) records the opening of the archonship to

the Zeugitai in 457/6 and does not mention the admission of the Thetes.14 Ath. Pol 8.1; 47.1.


he is extremely poor] (Ath. Pol. 47.1). Isaeus VII 39, discussed in

section (b) below, suggests that in the first half of the fourth

century certain offices were limited to Pentakosiomedimnoi and

Hippeis. Aristotle,Ath. Pol. 7.3, also speaks of the census classes as

being concerned under Solons constitution in the qualification of

the Poletai, the Eleven and the Kolakretai, as well as the archons

and treasurers, but there is no evidence how long this situation

continued. My own belief is that long before Aristotles day the

necessity for these magistrates to belong to one of the higher

classes had been legally removed.15

Aristotles statements about the situation in his own day are

often wrongly interpreted. Thus Busolt16 believed him to be

saying, in Ath. Pol. 47.1, that even very poor men were able to

belong to the class of Pentakosiomedimnoi (gehoren zu den

Pentakosiomedimnoi), and the same view has been taken by

many other scholars, whereas in fact Aristotle is surely saying

that the poor men in question are accepted even if they are clearly

not Pentakosiomedimnoi. In Ath. Pol. 7.4, quoted above, he im-

plies that the candidate for an archonship might give a false answer

to the question po &ion teeloB tele &i [Of which census class are you amember?]; and by analogy a candidate for the treasurership of

Athena would say he was a Pentakosiomedimnos even if in reality

he was far from being one. The only alternative is to suppose that

breaches of the law were openly winked at, and that the aspiring

treasurer admitted he was only a Zeugites, for example, but was

accepted nevertheless, perhaps in the absence of properly qualified

candidates. At any rate, Busolts position is patently untenable. In

the mid-fourth century, as we shall see in a moment, a rich Athen-

ian, Pronapes, could be accused in court of giving himself a low17

property-assessment and yet aspiring to hold office as if he

belonged to the class of Hippeis;18 and this clearly implies that at

15 I base this view on Aristotles failure to mention the question of telos-membership in Ath. Pol. 47.2 and 52.1 (sortition of the Poletai and the Elevenrespectively), and his specific references in 8.1 and 47.1 to the theoretical necessityfor the treasurers of Athena to be Pentakosiomedimnoi. (The Kolakretai had disap-peared in the late fifth century.)

16 Busolt-Swoboda,GS II 838 n. 1twice, near the beginning and the end of thefirst paragraph of the note.

17 The word mikroon [low] in apegraacato . . . tiimZma mikroon is to be under-stood in a relative sense, Pronapes being obviously a man of wealth.

18 Isae. VII 39.

The Late Fifth- and Fourth-Century Evidence 9

that time a Hippeus would still be a man of considerable property.

How early the situation described in Ath. Pol. 7.4 and 47.1 had

arisen we do not know. The only other piece of evidence I can

think of which may be relevant is the Old Oligarchs statement that

in his day all Athenians thought they should t &vn arx &vn mete &inaien te t &v klZZr v kaii en t &Z xeirotoniia [have a share in office by lotand by election].19 This certainly suggests that the situation

depicted by Aristotle may have come into existence already, or

had at least begun to develop.

(b) In Isaeus VII 39 (a speech delivered c. 354) we find the

allegation that Apollodorus did not, like Pronapes, assess his

tiimZma at a low value and yet aspire to hold office as if he were amember of the class of Hippeis. (This passage, as I have explained

elsewhere,20 is often mistranslated, as for example in the Bude and

Loeb editions.) We shall see later on that we must distinguish

between what I call fiscal-timema, the return of property upon

which eisphora was calculated, and political-timema, any valu-

ation of property determining a mans telos,21 and that the timema

which Pronapes is accused of undervaluing is fiscal-timema. And

in any event, there is no necessary implication that Pronapes has

actually returned a political-timema high enough to put him in the

class of Hippeis: the speaker merely says that vB ippaada dee tel &vnarxein Zjiioy taaB arxaaB [he aspired to hold office as if he were amember of the class of Hippeis], and this need not mean more

than that Pronapes, when applying for office, represented himself

to be a Hippeuscompare section (a) above, where we saw that

misrepresentation of their tele by candidates for office apparently

did take place.

(c) Plato, Laws III 698B,22 uses in relation to the constitution

of Athens during the Persian wars the phrase ek timZmaatvn arxaiitineB tettaarvn [certain offices were held on the basis of the fourtimemata]. It is interesting that we should find the timemata

(i.e. the system of tele) mentioned as qualifications for office only.

19 Ps.-Xen.,Ath. Pol. I 2. I would date this work either during the first half of theArchidamian war or in the years following the Peace of Nicias [see Ste. Croix,OPW, 30810].

20 DTAEFC 434.21 In fact this distinction is purely notional, since I do not admit the existence of

political-timema, but it is a useful one just the same.22 Cf. V 744B5A.


(d) It is just possible that we should restore ek to^on [hippeeon][from the [Hippeis]] in IG I3 82.18, an inscription of the year

421/0.

The Hipparchs and Phylarchs who commanded the Athenian

cavalry would of course have to be cavalrymen themselves, but we

never hear of any connection between them or the Strategoi (or any

other military officers) and the census classes, or of any property

qualification for holding any of these military posts, except in the

unhistorical constitution of Draco.23 The fact that we never hear

of any rule that the Strategoifirst created in 501/0, I believe, as a

General Staff and not as tribal commanders24had to be drawn

from one of the higher classes may perhaps afford some slight

indication that the census classes were already becoming less im-

portant by the end of the sixth century. The Strategoi would

always of course belong at least to the zeugite class.25

2. (a) The rider of Phantocles to the Brea decree, of the mid-

fifth century,26 allows colonists to go to Brea from Thetes and

Zeugitai. The purpose of this rider cannot have been to exclude

the Pentakosiomedimnoi and Hippeis, as has often been supposed.

No member of one of the two highest classes would want to

emigrate, especially to such an uncivilised area as Thrace, and

lose his Athenian citizenshipunless of course he went as oikistes,

in which case he could hope for heroic honours after his death.

We can only suppose that the lost earlier part of the main decree

provided that Thetes alone should participate in the colony:27 the

order of the words in the rider, mentioning the Zeugitai after

the Thetes, is in favour of this. Or perhaps the colonists in some

other recent case or cases had been drawn from the Thetes only,

and Phantocles wished to make it clear that this was not a prece-

dent to be followed.

(b) In an Athenian decree which seems to me to be of the year

387/6, preserved only in sadly mutilated fragments yielding no

continuous text, the word pentakosiomediimnvn occurs in anunrestorable context.28 By analogy with the Brea decree, Luria

23 Arist., Ath. Pol. 4.2: see n. 10 above. 24 See pp. 2256 below.25 And see Deinarch. I (c. Dem.) 71.26 M/L 49 Fornara 100. 3942 (IG I3 46. 436).27 This view is endorsed by Jones,AD 168. I now find it was expressed by Jac., ii

379 n. 25.28 IG II2 30 [Ag. XIX L3] a. 12. The date is from b. 5: [- &v]noB mZnooB to metaa

Qeoo[doton arxonta-]. Kirchner and others have taken 386/5 to be the date of the


has plausibly suggested that we should read [-plZZn ippeevnka]ii pentakosiomediimnvn [[apart from the Hippeis an]d Penta-kosiomedimnoi].29 The decree evidently concerns Lemnos, con-

ceded to Athens by the Kings Peace, and there are several

references to cleruchs.30 This is the last piece of evidence we

have for the actual use of the census classes in practice otherwise

than as qualifications for office or (see the examples in para. 3

below) under some old administrative law.

3. (a) Demosthenes XXIV 144 (a speech delivered c. 353/2)

quotes a law forbidding (with certain exceptions) the arrest of an

Athenian oB an eggyZtaaB tre &iB kauist &Z too a ytoo teeloB telo &yntaB[who presents three sureties of the same telos (as himself)]. (That

this law does refer to sureties of the same census class receives

support fromAth. Pol. 4.2, notwithstanding that this constitution

of Draco is fictitious.) It is interesting to note that the new law of

Timocrates, against which Demosthenes is speaking, clearly had

no corresponding provision. We might not feel positive about this

if we had no more to go by than the passages Demosthenes quotes

from the new law,31 but the expectation expressed in ch. 85 that

men of straw (wayyloyB anurvvpoyB) would invariably be offered assureties under the new law places the matter beyond doubt.

(b) Ps.-Dem. XLIII 54 (a speech delivered apparently in the

late 340s) quotes a law prescribing the dowry which had to be

provided for an epikleros of thetic status by a next of kin who did

not wish to marry her: if he were a Pentakosiomedimnos he had to

find 500 drachmae, if a Hippeus 300 drachmae, if a Zeugites 150

drachmae. I think it is very probably a reference to this law which

was the occasion for the use of the word pentakosiomeedimnon byLysias32 in a speech apparently delivered in an inheritance case

involving an epikleros.33

decree, but surely the formula quoted implies that Theodotus year (387/6) is notyet over and Mystichides (386/5) probably not yet elected. [R. S. Stroud dates thedecree to 387/6 in his re-edition, Hesp. XL (1971) 169.]

29 See SEG III.73. [Lurias supplement has been widely if not universallyaccepted: see J. Cargill, Athenian Settlements of the Fourth Century B.C. (1995),192 n. 27.]

30 Frr. a. 13, 20, 22; b. 6; c. 5 [Continuous numeration in later editions: b. 33, c.42; add e. 47].

31 41, 72, 79, 8287, 89, 93, 100 and 122, even if we reject 3940 as spurious.32 Fr. 207 Sauppe, ap. Harp., s.v. pentakosiomeedimnon.33 The title isPerii t &ZB OnomakleeoyBuygatrooB [On thedaughter ofOnomakles].


Poseidippus, a poet of the New Comedy who wrote in the third

century (after the fall of the Athenian democracy), is quoted by

Harpocration as saying that it was obligatory upon to &iB eggistageenoyB taaB uZZssaB Z lambaanein prooB gaamon Z e0 mn &aB didoonai[the next of kin of girls of the thetic class either to marry them or to

give them five minae];34 and Diodorus35 credits Charondas with a

law perii t &vn epikl &Zrvn, o kaii paraa Soolvni keiimenoB [concern-ing heiresses, which is also found in Solons laws]: that the next of

kin must either marry Z penixraa epiiklZroB [the poor heiress] orfurnish 500 drachmae towards her dowry.

4. The following are all the sources I know of which mention

any of the four census classes in a military context:

(a) Harpocration (cf. Hesych., Phot., Suid.), s.v. u &ZteB kaiiuZtikoon cites two late fifth-century writers:

(i) Aristophanes, fr. 248,36 from the Daitaleis of 427. Harpo-

cration simply says, oti dee o yk estrateyyonto (sc. oi u &ZteB)eirZke kaii AristowaanZB en Daitale &ysin [Aristophanes inthe Banqueters says that they (i.e. the Thetes) did not

serve in the army]. Unfortunately Aristophanes actual

words are not preserved.

(ii) Antiphon, fr. 61 (Thalheim):37 Antiw &vn en t &v Kataa FiliinoywZsii toyyB te u &ZtaB aapantaB opliitaB poi &Zsai [Antiphonin the Against Philinus says . . . and to make all the Thetes

hoplites ].

By itself, the quotation from Antiphon need not mean more than

that not all the Thetes served as hoplites in the late fifth century;

but unless Harpocration made a wrong inference from Aristopha-

nes the only conclusion we can honestly draw from the two state-

ments taken together is that the Thetes as a class were not liable to

hoplite service at allthat is to say, that they formed a category

entirely below the hoplite class.

(b) Thucydides III 16.1: all Athenians went on board the ships

in the emergency in 428, except the Hippeis and Pentakosiome-

dimnoi.

34 Poseidipp. Com. Fr. 38 K/A, ap. Harp. s.v. Q &ZteB kaii uZtikoon.35 XII 18.3. 36 248 K/A.37 fr. 63 Sauppe fr. B 6 Maidment.


(c) Thuc. VI 43 (lines 1518 OCT): out of the total number of

5,100 opl &itai [hoplites] in the great Athenian expedition to Sicilyin 415, there were of the Athenians themselves, 1,500 ekkataloogoy [from the katalogos], and 600 Thetes epibaatai t &vnne &vn [as marines],38 the rest being allies and mercenaries.Compare Thuc. VIII 24.2, where Leon and Diomedon in 412

have epibaataB t &vn oplit &vn ek kataloogoy anagkastoyyB [hop-lites from the katalogos serving as marines under compulsion];

also VII 16.1; 20.2, where the opl &itai ek kataloogoy [hoplitesfrom the katalogos] appear again.

I shall return to the interpretation of these passages presently.

After this there seems to be only one passage in which any of

the telemight be appearing in a military context. This is Xen.Hell.

I vi 24: when the Athenians put on board toyyB en t &Z Zlikii a ontaBaapantaB kaii doyyloyB kaii eleyueeroyB [all those of military age,both slaves and free men], for the Arginusae campaign in 406,

eiseebZsan dee kaii t &vn ippeevn polloii [and many Hippeis alsocame on board]. And here I see no reason at all to suppose that

the ippe &iB concerned are anything but the state cavalry. This textis therefore irrelevant to our consideration of the tele.

(II) MILITARY CATEGORIES IN THE FIFTHAND FOURTH CENTURIES

I shall speak of three military categories:

1. Cavalry, meaning as a rule those actually serving in the state

cavalry. They are of course ippe &iB, but to avoid confusion withthe telos of Hippeis I shall invariably call them cavalry.

2. Hoplites, meaning those on the state register (kataalogoB) ofheavy-armed infantry. I shall sometimes refer to the hoplite

class, an expression I shall generally use to include also those

who were once hoplites but had passed the age limit of 6039 and

become ypeer toon kataalogon [above/beyond the katalogos]40

38 These will be the 60 taxe &iai. For 60 ships we would have expected 600marines, and although most of the MSS have eptakoosioi the true reading isprobably ejakoosioi, as in one good MS, Hslwhich alone, as K. J. Dover haskindly pointed out to me, has also preserved in VI 96.3 the correct (cf. 97.3; VII43.4) reading ejakosiioyB, the other MSS all being corrupted to eptakosiioyB.

39 See Arist., Ath. Pol. 53.4; Poll. II 11; Plut., Phoc. 24.40 See Dem. XIII 4; Poll. II 11.


and those adyynatoi [incapacitated] who had sufficient prop-erty to qualify for hoplite service.41

3. Those below the hoplite class, an expression which speaks for

itself.

I shall now review each of these categories in turn.

1. It is generally agreed that there was no organised cavalry force

at Athens until the mid-fifth century. Our earliest conclusive

evidence of the existence of an Athenian military force known as

oi ippe &iB is a dedication on the Acropolis by hoi hipp &ZB (withtheir three Hipparchs named),42 dated by its letter-forms to the

450s or perhaps the early 440s: IG I3 511 DAA 135, 135a,135b.43 It is worth mentioning that Sparta apparently had no

organised cavalry until 424.44

Nevertheless, there is not the least reason to doubt that there

were alwaysbefore as well as after Solon45individual Athen-

ians who possessed warhorses and used them on campaign, as

mounted infantry: at least they could arrive at the battlefield

fresher than the ordinary hoplite,46 and once the enemy was in

flight they could mount their horses again and lead the pursuit

cavalry were invaluable for this purpose, as the Greeks well

knew.47 The horse was the great status symbol of the Greek

41 I do not suppose they will have been a large class: here I agree with Jones,AD1623.

42 Cf. Andoc. III 5 Aesch. II 173: 300 ippe &iB at first. Contrast Schol. Ar., Eq.627b: the Athenian cavalry were at first 600 in number. But the scholion is a veryunintelligent one. [Ste. Croix is translating pr &vton at first, but the latest edd. ofthe scholia rightly read prooteron formerly, with better MSS support. PJT]

43 Cf. IG I3 512 DAA 141, which must refer to a hipparch or hipparchs, andcomes from the early part of the second half of the fifth century. It will be sufficientto refer to the notes in DAA, ad locc., also Gomme, HCT I 316, 328; II 77, 1012;Busolt-Swoboda, GS I 344; II 824 & n. 1, 978, 1128. Paus. I 29.6 and IG I3 1181may refer to 431; but see Wade-Gery in JHS 53 (1933), at pp. 789 [cf. D. L. Page,Further Greek Epigrams (1981), 274 n. 1].

44 Thuc. IV 55.2; cf. Xen., Hipparch. IX 4. The 300 so-called ippe &iB at Spartawere merely a corps delite and fought as hoplites: see Thuc. V 72.4; Strabo X 4.18,pp. 4812; Hesych., s.v. ippagreetaB. They are known from at least as early as 480(Hdts VIII 124), and are doubtless much older.

45 See Endnote iii (p. 64 below).46 Cf. the advice of Aen. Tact. XII 1315 to a hoplite army: to arrive fresh for an

engagement, go by sea or on wagons.47 See e.g. Xen., Anab. II iv 6; III i 2. Note also the anecdote told by Hdts (I

63.2) of how Peisistratus caused his sons to mount after the battle of Pallene and sentthem after the fleeing enemy, to do some useful propaganda. And see Endnote iv(p. 65 below).

Military Categories in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries 15

world, above all perhaps in the archaic period, because in ancient

Greece, as everyone knew, only the really rich man could afford toippotrowe &in [keep/breed horses]. We hear of several Greek statesin this early period in which aristocracies of ippe &iB formed a rulingoligarchy, the best known being the Hippobotai of Chalcis.48

Aristotle was very much impressed by the examples he knew, of

which he mentions Chalcis, Eretria, Magnesia on the Maeander

kaii t &vn allvn polloii perii tZZn Asiian [and many others inAsia], and he proclaims it as a general principle that the early

Greek monarchies were succeeded by a politeiia . . . ek t &vnippeevn [constitution . . . based on the cavalry].49 The militarycharacter of this horsemanship cannot be doubted.

For the official state roll of Athenian cavalry in at any rate

the later fourth century the technical term seems to have been

piinaj.50 Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 49.2 gives a clear and precise descrip-tion of how the cavalry were enrolled in his day, and such infor-

mation as we have for earlier times51 suggests that substantially the

same procedure was followed in at any rate the late fifth and early

fourth centuries.52 A higher standard of physical fitness was

needed for the cavalry than for the infantry, and cavalry service

will probably have been given up by most men well before the age

of 60, at which the hoplite went on the retired list. The retired

cavalryman, unless altogether incapacitated, will surely have been

added to the hoplite katalogos, remaining on it until he reached

the age of 60.

2. The hoplites were those enrolled on the official register, the

katalogos, and are consequently referred to in technical language as

48 Hdts V 77.2; VI 100.1; Arist., Pol. IV 1289b39, and ap. Str. X 1.8, p. 447;Plut., Per. 23.4. And see Busolt, GS I 21011.

49 Pol. IV 1297b1622; cf. 1289b3540; VI 1321a811.50 Arist., Ath. Pol. 49.2, lines 7 & 14 OCT. For the roll of cavalry under the

Thirty the term saniideB (Lys. XXVI 10; cf. saniidion in Lys. XVI 6) seems to havebeen used. On one or two occasions kataalogoB is used of a particular list ofcavalrymen, e.g. those selected for an expedition (as in Lys. XVI 13), or of newrecruits (Arist.,Ath. Pol. 49.2. Those on this kataalogoB who do not secure exemp-tion are entered eiB toon piinaka).

51 e.g. Xen., Oec. IX 15; Lys. XIV 8, 10 (where yw ym &vn is to be understood asexplained by Sandys,ACA2 192 n.); XVI 13 (where adokimaastvn alone is relevant,the enrolment by Orthoboulos being obviously for the particular expedition, not forcavalry service in general).

52 On the question what qualified a man for cavalry service, see pp. 256, 489below.


(opl &itai) ek kataloogoy [(hoplites) from the katalogos].53 Theword katalogos can also be used (a) of a list of hoplites enrolled

for a particular campaign;54 (b) of a corresponding list of cavalry;55

(c) of the lists first compiled (as I think) in 362, with the aim of

making those below the hoplite class liable to compulsory naval

service;56 and (d) in various other ways;57 but o kataalogoB prop-erly means the state register of hoplites, and the expression ekkataalogoy normally refers to that register. Although we are wellinformed about the method of enrolling cavalry,58 we have no

positive information about the way in which a man was registered

in the hoplite katalogos,59 or about the qualifications which en-

titled him or obliged him to be so registered. This last question will

be discussed later.

I should like to make a general point which is commonly missed

by those who speak of the necessity of the hoplites being able to

provide himself with the standard armour. A hoplite in fact needed

much more than the initial outlay required to buy his armour

(which would no doubt last a long time in ordinary circumstances,

and might be handed on from father to son): he needed sufficient

property to be able to support himself and his household if, as

might happen, he had to be away from home for long periods on

serviceprobably unpaid until about the middle fifth century.

And the household would normally have to include a slave at-

tendant for himself while on campaign and surely another slave or

two at least to do the farm work.60 I should be very surprised

indeed if any Athenian hoplite owned no slaves at all.61

53 Thuc. VI 43; VII 16.1; 20.2; VIII 24.2; Xen., Mem. III iv 1; Arist., Pol. V1303a910; Ath. Pol. 26.1; Poll. II 11. Cf. Lys. XV 5. We also find the expressionopl &itai ek t &vn taajevn [hoplites from the ranks] in Thuc. III 87.3. It has beensuggested by Beloch and Busolt (seeGS I 572 n. 1) that this expression differs fromopl &itai ek kataloogoy only in excluding the ephebes.

54 As in Thuc. VI 26.2; 31.3; Ar., Eq. 136971; cf. Ach. 1065; Pax 117984 etc.I myself believe that Lys. XIV 67 and probably XV 7, perhaps 11 (but not 5), alsofall into this category. And see Endnote v (p. 65 below).

55 Lys. XVI 13.56 Ps.-Dem. L 6 ff.: see para. 3 below.57 See e.g. Arist., Ath. Pol. 49.2 and n. 50 above.58 See p. 16 above.59 According to Lys. XV 5, it was the taxiarch who would strike his name off, and

presumably therefore it was the taxiarch who enrolled him.60 See my review of W. L. Westermann, The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman

Antiquity, in CR 71 n.s. 7 (1957) 54 ff., at p. 58.61 There is only one single text, namely Dem. XXIV 197, which Jones (AD 84) is

able to cite in favour of his view that eisphora-payers, and therefore a fortiori

Military Categories in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries 17

3. Those below the hoplite class are often referred to nowadays

as Thetes, sometimes as ciloii [light troops] or as sailors; but wehave not yet decided how far those below the hoplite class corres-

ponded with the Thetes, and in my belief it is misleading to call

them ciloii or sailors, because they were not liable to regularconscription in either of these forms until the year 362 (or a little

earlier).62 Thucydides expressly says that the Athenians never had

any regular formations of ciloii.63 Nor, in the fifth and early fourthcenturies, was conscription used for the fleet, as far as I can see,

except in emergencies, when there might be something like a levee

en masse.64 I think regular conscription for the fleet was first

introduced by the decree of Aristophon in the autumn of 362

(Ps.-Dem. L 67, 16).65 All passages referring to naval conscrip-

tion, as far as I know, are without exception subsequent to this: i.e.

Isocr. VIII 48 (c. 355); Dem. III 4 (referring to late 352); IV 36

(delivered in 351 or just after);66 Aesch. II 133 (referring to 346).

Compare Dem. XXI 1545, with Thuc. VI 31.3 and Lys. XXI 6.

I realise that the view I have expressed is not the accepted one, but

it seems to me very probable.67 We never hear of katalogoi (or a

katalogos) for those below the hoplite class before 362, and surely

what is described in Ps.-Dem. L 67 is not simply the extraction of

lists of crews68 from registers already existing, but the actual

compilation of such registers in the first place, in all the individual

hoplites, might own no slaves, and this will not bear the interpretation he gives itsee Endnote vi (p. 66 below).

62 Not until c. 337, according to Kahrstedt, SSA 249 n. 1; UMA 21.63 Thuc. IV 94.1: ciloii . . . ek paraskey &ZB . . . vplismeenoi oyte toote [424 B.C.]

par &Zsan oyte egeenonto t &Z poolei [they had no regular light-armed troops withthem on this occasion, nor did Athens ever have an organised force of this kind].

64 As perhaps in Thuc. III 16.1 (428); Xen., Hell. I vi 24 (406); ?V iv 61 (376).The mere use of the expression pandZmeii [in full force] (Thuc. II 31.1; III 91.4;IV 90.1; Xen., Hell. II iv 43; IV iv 18) or panstrati &a [with the whole army](Thuc. II 31.1; IV 66.1; 94.1) need not imply that there was a universal levy,extending below the hoplites (even if numbers of light troopsand even manualworkersare sometimes involved): cf. Xen., Hell. I iii 10; vi 18; II ii 7; IV vi 3;V iv 42.

65 Note esp. the words kataloogoyB poie &isuai t &vn dZmot &vn kaii apoweereinnayytaB [make katalogoi of the demesmen and return (a list of) sailors] in 6.

66 See G. L. Cawkwell in CQ 56 n.s. 12 (1962) 1227, who makes a good casefor 351.

67 The existence of an offence of anaymaxiioy (for which see Lipsius,ARR 454 &n. 7, with refs.) need not imply more than what is understood by LSJ9, s.v.:indictment of a taxiarch for keeping his ship out of action.

68 Corresponding to the kataalogoi mentioned in n. 54 above.


demes, under the supervision of the demarch and councillors of

each deme. Even if I am wrong about this, the naval conscription

of 362 will have been the earliest actually recorded, and we need

not suppose that the procedure had been instituted long before

that date.69

It is precisely because there was not even a register of Thetes

corresponding to the hoplite katalogos that Thucydides refrains

from giving actual figures for the numbers serving70 or the losses

in battle71 or by plague72 of those below the hoplite class, and

contents himself with uncharacteristically vague expressions likeo alloB omiloB cil &vn o yk oliigoB [a substantial crowd of lighttroops in addition], or to &y dee alloy oxloy anejeyyretoB ariumooB[a great and undetermined number from the rest of the popu-

lation], or cil &vn dee kaii skeyowoorvn polyyB ariumooB [a greatnumber of light troops and baggage-carriers].73

(III) TELE AND MILITARY CATEGORIESIN THE FIFTH AND FOURTH CENTURIES

What relationship, if any, existed between military categories and

tele in the late fifth and fourth centuries? The Pentakosiomedim-

noi, for any other purpose than eligibility for office, can surely be

regarded merely as the top section of the Hippeis, and for present

purposes when I speak of Hippeis I must usually be understood to

include the Pentakosiomedimnoi. What we have to decide is how

far Hippeis corresponded with cavalry, Zeugitai with hoplites, and

Thetes with those below the hoplite class. That there must have

been at least a rough equivalence at all three levels74 is clear from

69 I suppose the year 378/7 is possible. Cf. my DTAEFC, at pp. 5962, forcomments upon the peculiar procedure adopted in 362 for levying a proeisphora,through the demes, in spite of the fact that quite different machinery, involving thesymmories, had been devised in 378/7, though probably never used in the interval.[G. L. Cawkwell, CQ 34 (1984) 338, and V. Gabrielsen, Financing the AthenianFleet (1994) 107, envisage conscription as exceptional even after 362.]

70 Thuc. II 31.2 (the invasion of the Megarid, 431); IV 94.1 (Delium, 424).71 IV 101.2 (Delium).72 III 87.3.73 II 31.2; III 87.3; IV 101.2.74 Even Hignett (HAC 101), in rejecting, with a reference to De Sanctis and

Busolt-Swoboda (who, incidentally, give no real arguments), the view that theclasses had a military origin, thinks it possible that after they had been createdthe property-classes came to be used to decide the incidence of military obligations.Contrast pp. 489 below.

Tele and Military Categories 19

the name of the telos of Hippeis and the passages quoted on pp.

1314 above from Aristophanes, Antiphon and Thucydides. The

question is whether the equivalence was complete. If it was not, we

shall have to see if we can establish separate sets of qualifications

for the tele on the one hand and the cavalry and hoplites on

the other.

Most scholars have either taken the identification for granted or

hedged. I have come across only one presentation of the case

against making the identification which is worth taking seriously:

that of Kahrstedt,75 who believes that military service was in

earlier times tied to the tele but that it became detached when the

tele became meaningless (gegenstandlos), as Athens grew out of a

natural economy.76 The tele were superseded in practice for mili-

tary purposes, Kahrstedt thinks, by a classification of citizens as

oi ek to &y kataloogoy (Landdienstpflichtige) und u &ZteB im neuenSinn (Ruderdienstpflichtige) [those from the katalogos (liable to

service on land) and thetes in the new sense (liable to service at

sea)].77 In fact there is no evidence that the term Thetes ever came

to be used in any new sense, nor, as I have already shown, is there

any evidence that the Thetes were under any duty, except in

emergency, to serve in the fleet, as the hoplites were to serve in

the land army. Kahrstedts theory is founded upon a conception

which I believe to be false and which anyway remains to be investi-

gated: the belief that the census classes were always defined in the

way Aristotle says they were when they were first created by Solon,

in terms of income from landed property. If indeed they were

originally and always so defined, then of course well-to-do Athen-

ians who owned no land, or only a little, would necessarily be

Thetes, yet such men would surely have been liable to hoplite

service,78 and this would destroy any equation between Zeugitai

and hoplites.

Let us return to the sources I have quoted on pp. 1314 above.

Thuc. VI 43, using technical language, draws a clear distinction

between hoplites proper, ek kataloogoy [from the katalogos], and

75 SSA 2515; UMA 201, cf. 55, 61.76 See esp. SSA 251. 77 UMA 21.78 It would be absurd to pretend that there were no such men, or that they were

an insignificant class, for by 431 at least 3,000 hoplites (see Thuc. II 31.2) andpossibly many more were drawn from the metics, and therefore, with few or noexceptions, would have been entirely landless.


u &ZteB epibaatai [Thetes serving as marines]. This is the onlyoccasion on which the word u &ZteB appears in Thucydides. Inhistorical times, as far as our information goes, the word was

used at Athens in only two different senses: it could mean the

lowest of the four census classes, or it could be applied to

misuvtoii, men who worked for wages. No one will suppose thatThucydides is using it in the latter sense here. I cannot imagine

why he should want to call these men by the technical term Thetes

if they were not precisely that, as it would be thoroughly mislead-

ing. The whole point of his statement is to explain the status of the

two different groups which together made up those armed as

hoplites on the expedition in question. He defines one group, the

hoplites, by a technical term, ek kataloogoy, and the word u &ZteBmust similarly be technical: if it were not, it would tell us nothing

about the status of the men concerned. And these Thetes, by

contrast with the other group, are not ek kataloogoy, not enrolledon the hoplite katalogos, not members of the hoplite class. This

strongly reinforces the tentative conclusion we drew from the

passages quoted by Harpocration, that the Thetes were not hop-

lites but formed a class below them. But if the hoplites were the

class above the Thetes, then it is an irresistible inference that the

line (whatever it may have been) which divided Thetes from Zeu-

gitai was the same as that dividing Thetes from hoplites, so that

Zeugitai and hoplites (or the hoplite class)79 were identicalfor at

the next level Hippeis and cavalry can hardly be separated.

It also appears from Thuc. VI 43 and VIII 24.280 that the

regular hoplites did not normally serve as marines (epibaatai) inthe Athenian fleet, at least in the late fifth century and probably at

all times, although they might on occasion be obliged to do so, but

that marines were customarily drawn either from Athenian Thetes

or (like many of the rowers)81 from other volunteersno doubt

mainly from the allies. Such men may well have been given their

armour by the state.

It is not possible to speak of a rough equivalence between

Zeugitai and hoplites, and between Thetes and those below the

hoplite class: any such attempt to obscure the issue is excluded by

79 See p. 14 above, and cf. pp. 234 below. 80 See p. 14 above.81 See the recent article by M. Amit, The Sailors of the Athenian Fleet, in

Athenaeum 40 (1962) 15778.


Thucydides quite explicit language. Again, it has been suggested

to me that calling these men Thetes is merely a reference to their

financial status, men whom the state had to arm as hoplites. The

obvious reply is that being either a Zeugites or a Thes, or being

either a hoplite or below the hoplite class, was indeed a matter of

financial status, and anyone who could not afford to serve as a

hoplite, and had to be armed by the state, was not a hoplite and is

properly called a Thes.

The significance of Thuc. III 16.1 is that it presents us with two

census classes, Hippeis and Pentakosiomedimnoi, introduced in a

military context: they receive exemption from service in an emer-

gency in which everyone else is mobilised. Without the addition

of kaii pentakosiomediimnvn [and the Pentakosiomedimnoi], thewords plZZn ippeevn in this passage would most naturally be takenas referring to the actual serving cavalry, some such expression

as plZZn t &vn ippaada teloyyntvn [except those assessed as Hip-peis] being necessary to signify clearly the census class of Hippeis,

whereas if ippe &iB are joined with Pentakosiomedimnoi they canhardly be anything but the census class. (Realising this, Kahr-

stedt82 was driven to the desperate expedient of deleting

kaii pentakosiomediimnvn as an interpolation.) At first sight onemight think that it would have been sufficient to give exemption to

the ippe &iB (the cavalry) alone. Would not the exclusion of thecavalry be understood to cover both Hippeis and Pentakosiome-

dimnoi? Was it really necessary, therefore, to mention the Penta-

kosiomedimnoi at all? In fact the decree exactly answered to the

needs of the situation. To have said merely plZZn ippeevn wouldhave been ambiguous: prima facie the expression might well be

thought to exclude only the actual serving cavalry, and this would

in theory have made liable to service on the ships a fair number of

wealthy Athenians who were members of the census class of Hip-

peis (or Pentakosiomedimnoi) but were no longer physically fit for

cavalry service and had therefore been registered in the hoplite

katalogos.83 Such men were not likely to be of much use as rowers.

To say except the Hippeis and Pentakosiomedimnoi would make

it quite clear that they too were excluded. Thucydides wording,

technical and precise, no doubt reproduces that of the actual decree.

82 SSA 253 n. 5. The extreme rarity of references to the Pentakosiomedimnoimakes the interpolation of their name very unlikely indeed.

83 See p. 16 above.


A factor which seems to have influenced Kahrstedt in his at-

tempt to separate the tele from the military categories is that the

tele are mentioned in relation to military service by no ancient

source but Thucydides. But why should we expect anyone else to

mention them in this connection? Let us see precisely what Thetes,

Zeugitai and Hippeis were. I suggest that the key to the whole

problem is the realisation that we must begin with, and treat as

primary, not the census classes but the military categories.

Scholars who have identified tele and military classes have begun

with the tele and have assumed that a man was drafted into the

cavalry or the hoplites or exempted frommilitary service according

to whether he was qualified by his property assessment as a Hip-

peus, a Zeugites or a Thes. That would naturally make member-

ship of a particular telos a very important factor in every mans

position. It then becomes very puzzling that we have no infor-

mation whatever about the nature of the qualifications for the

respective teleor even a hint that such qualifications existed in

the fifth and fourth centuries. Reserving for later treatment the

position under the original Solonian constitution, I am going to

argue that in the fifth and fourth centuries membership of all tele

except the highest was entirely dependent upon a mans military

classification, and did not determine that classification. We can

postpone for the present the question how a man came to be placed

in one military category rather than anotherwhether, that is to

say, the hoplite was (as I believe) a man who could afford to serve

in the infantry and a cavalryman one who could afford to serve on

horseback, or whether there were precise quantitative qualifica-

tions, in terms of landed produce or of money (capital or income),

and if the latter, what the figures were.

1. The Thetes, on my hypothesis, will have been those who were

too poor (in the sense hereafter defined) to become hoplites.

2. Of the Zeugitai the nucleus will have been oi ek kataloogoy.From these serving hoplites we must deduct (a) those men,

whether Hippeis or Pentakosiomedimnoi, who had when

younger served in the cavalry but had retired from it as being

insufficiently able-bodied and had been enrolled on the hoplite

katalogos, and (b) any men with sufficient wealth to maintain

warhorses whose services were not at the time required in the

cavalry because the establishment (of 1,000 or whatever) could


be made up without them, and who were consequently serving

as hoplites. And wemust add (a) oi ypeer toon kataalogon [thoseabove/beyond the katalogos] and (b) those incapacitated

(adyynatoi)the lame and the blind and so forthwho hadsufficient property to make them financially capable of hoplite

service.84

3. The Hippeismore strictly, oi ippaada telo &ynteB [thoseassessed as Hippeis]will have consisted of the cavalry actu-

ally serving, minus the Pentakosiomedimnoi, and plus (a)

former cavalrymen, whether now serving as hoplites or on the

retired list, (b) any of those men already mentioned who were

rich enough to be cavalrymen but were serving as hoplites

because they were surplus to establishment, and (c) the incap-

acitated (adyynatoi) of sufficient wealth to have served in thecavalry, who were not equal to the physical exertion involved

and who either fought with the hoplites or were excused mili-

tary service altogether.

4. The Pentakosiomedimnoi were the top layer of the Hippeis.

The nature of the qualification for this class cannot be deter-

mined until we have considered the position under Solon.

The census classes, so defined, would remain important only so

long as they were actually used for the purpose for which they were

designed: qualification for office, provision of a surety or of a

dowry for a thetic epikleros or the like, and perhaps classification

for the levying of taxes.85 Apart from this, I cannot see that there

will have been any occasion for anyone to refer to Zeugitai or to

Hippeis (in the sense of oi ippaada telo &ynteB [those assessed asHippeis]) or to Pentakosiomedimnoi. In military contexts the

terms used would be hoplites and cavalry, and for the hoplite

class and cavalry class together there existed another expression,

oi opla parexoomenoi [those providing (their own) arms]. Char-acteristically, it is in Thucydides, less averse than most historians

from using technical terms, that we find our one reference to those

below the hoplite class as Thetes.

* * *

84 [Ste. Croix here asked himself in a note did oi ek katal. include metichoplites?.]

85 See pp. 78 above and section (viii) below.


Let us now try to see what can be said about the qualifications for

membership of the military classes and the tele in the fifth and

fourth centuries. No direct information at all survives, and there is

of course no earlier information of any kind except for the tele in

the time of Solon himself. At this stage I am going to make some

tentative suggestions to which I shall return at a later stage. For the

present we canmainly ignore Pentakosiomedimnoi and Thetes and

concentrate upon cavalry/Hippeis and hoplites/Zeugitai.

I begin with the cavalry and the telos of Hippeis. In the first

place, we never have a hint in any source that the word ippe &iB canmean two quite different things: the telos of Hippeis, and the actual

serving cavalry. Xenophon, our principal authority, can occasion-

ally speak of too ippikoon86 but he normally calls the cavalryippe &iB.87 The Ipp &ZB of Aristophanes play of that name arecertainly the state cavalry.88 The telos of Hippeis evidently played

little or no part in anyones consciousness. That becoming a caval-

ryman, at any rate in the fourth century, depended in any sense

upon membership of a telos of ippe &iB or ippaada telo &ynteB, or forthat matter upon the possession of any timema expressed in quan-

titative terms, seems to me entirely excluded by the negative

evidence, above all that of Xenophon, Hipparch. I 912; IX 5,

and Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 49.2. It is worth looking at this evidence

closely.

(a) Xenophon (Hipparch. I 9) simply advises his Hipparch

toyyB meen toiinyn ippeeaB . . . kauistaanai . . . kataa toon noomon toyyBdynatvtaatoyB kaii xrZZmasi kaii svvmasin Z eisaagonta eiBdikastZZrion Z peiiuonta [to raise . . . his cavalrymen . . . accordingto the law, those best qualified by wealth and strength, either by

bringing them before the court or by persuasion]. Had there been

any specific qualification, in terms of money or of Solonian meas-

ures, it would surely have been mentioned here.

(b) According to Aristotle (Ath. Pol. 49.2), anyone newly placed

on the list (kataalogoB) of cavalrymen compiled each year by theKatalogeis was excused if he was prepared to take an oath

(ejoomnysuai) mZZ dyynasuai t &v svvmati ippeyyein Z t &Z o ysii a,89

86 e.g. in de Vect. II 5; Hipparch. I 2, 3 etc.87 As in Hipparch. I 2, 5, 6 etc.88 Note lines 242 ff., where Simon and Panaitios are the hipparchs; cf. Schol.

ad 242.89 Cf. Xen., Hipparch. IX 5.


i.e. that he could not serve either because he was not physically fit

to do so or because he had insufficient property. Had there been a

fixed quantitative qualification, the class of each man would have

been settled automatically, and the ejvmosiia [oath-taking] wouldeither have referred specifically to the qualifying timema or would

have been confined to physical incapacity.

The cavalryman became such, therefore, simply by being finan-

cially able to serve in the cavalry. He volunteered for it, or was

persuaded or compelled to serve,90 or obtained exemption as anadyynatoB [incapacitated]; and this was what also made him amember of the census class of the Hippeis. It may appear less

surprising that there was no quantitative timema possession of

which involved cavalry service when we remember that there

were no fixed qualifications which made men liable for the per-

formance of liturgies either.91 Maintaining a warhorse was a kind

of liturgyand quite an expensive one.

I turn now to the hoplites and Zeugitai. I believe that a man had

himself registered in the hoplite katalogos if he could afford to

provide himself with arms and armour and was financially able to

bear the burden of going on campaign when required (see p. 17

above). It is true that some men shrank from serving in the cav-

alry;92 but I think everyone who could qualify as a hoplite would

have wanted to have himself put on the katalogos, because of the

social cachet he would thus obtain; and if there was anyone con-

spicuously able to serve who did not apply for registration, the

Taxiarch of his tribe would no doubt enter his name, and social

pressure to accept the fait accompli would be irresistible.

I believe, then, that there was no fixed quantitative timema

possession of which made a man a hoplite. In favour of this view

I would advance the following considerations:93

90 See esp. Xen., Hipparch. I 912.91 This seems quite certain and is now, I think, generally accepted, in spite of the

opinion of Busolt-Swoboda, GS II2 271 n. 1. [J. K. Davies (personal communi-cation) endorses Ste. Croixs view.]

92 See e.g. Xen.,Hipparch. I 912; IX 5. Contrast Lys. XVI 13; but the statementthat service in the infantry was more dangerous on the occasion in question thancavalry service may be thought to receive some confirmation from Lys. XIV, esp.7, 14.

93 I refuse to draw any conclusions from the conflicting statements made aboutthe property of one distinguished hoplite, Socrates: contrast Xen., Oec. II 3, withDem. Phal., FGrH II B 228 F 43.9 (ap. Plut., Arist. 1.9), and other sourcesdiscussed by Bockh, SA I3 1424.


(1) In the revolutionary movement of 41211 we never hear

either of the tele or of a monetary or other qualification for theopla parexoomenoi [those providing (their own) arms]. This isperhaps understandable in the early stages of the movement, be-

cause the leading figures wanted a politeuma of less than 5,000,94

which was a good deal smaller than the hoplite class; but one might

have expected a quantitative timema to be fixed in the autumn

of 411 for the Five Thousand who were defined as the hoplite

class.95

(2) Even more striking is the constitution of Draco in Arist.,

Ath. Pol. 4, which I take to have originated in the fourth century.96

Here we do find precise property qualifications for archons and

treasurers (1,000 drachmae) and for generals and hipparchs

(10,000 drachmae), but none for the opla parexoomenoi whoalone are to enjoy full citizen rights and fill the minor offices.

Why not, since this is by far the most important categoryunless

it was deliberately intended (in accordance with current Athenian

practice, as I would say) not to have a fixed financial qualification

for the opla parexoomenoi at all?(3) Certainly in some states there were quantitative political

timemata: see e.g. Arist., Pol. IV 1297b 16; V 1306b916; Hell.

Oxy. XI 2 (the cities of the Boeotian League); Plato, Rep. VIII

550C, 553A; cf. Laws V 744B5A. But I do not remember coming

across a clear example of the fixing of a monetary figure as a hoplite

(or cavalry) qualification, although of course this may have

happened in some states.97

(4) If my theory is right, the situation would be much more

flexible on the death of one of the poorer hoplites who left more

than one son: obviously a fixed monetary timema creates difficul-

ties in such a situation.

Even before the end of the fifth century the census classes as

such had evidently become unimportant. Their principal function

had always been to determine eligibility for political office, and

in the half-century between 508/7 and 457/6 most offices were

94 Thuc. VIII 65.3.95 Thuc. VIII 97.1. They were probably now about twice that number, if we can

place any reliance upon Ps.-Lys. XX 13.96 See n. 10 above.97 [In a marginal note, Ste. Croix expresses his aspiration to add something on

Rome here.]


probably opened to all classes which could possibly aspire to

themeven the archonship to the Zeugitai in 457/6.98 (I cannot

believe that any Thes would have thought of presenting himself as

a candidate for an archonship for at least a generation after that

date.) By the mid-fifth century, therefore, it is likely that candi-

dates for office would always be of at least the required status, and

hence that membership of a telos would be something that rarely

entered anyones mind. Occasionally, as when allotments of land

were being distributed in a colony or cleruchy, it might be con-

venient to make use of one or more of the census classes, because

the four classes did, after all, include all citizens, and for none of

them was there a precisely equivalent expression.

(IV) THE ORIGINAL QUALIFICATIONSOF THE TELE

It is unnecessary to set out at length all the numerous sources

which purport to give information about the original qualifications

of the four tele, since the later ones mainly copy from the earlier.

Full details may be found in the standard works.99 I shall discuss

only the more important sources here.

1. The earliest explicit account we have is that in Aristotle,Ath.

Pol. 7.4 (cf. Pol. II 1274a1521). With the exception of Poll. VIII

130, which will be mentioned below and separately examined later,

all subsequent versions are directly or indirectly derived either

from this passage or from some independent representative of the

same tradition,100 and the variants they introduce are due to mis-

understanding or error. Aristotles statements can be summarised

as follows. The Pentakosiomedimnos was a man who derived from

his own land (ek t &ZB oikeiiaB, sc. g &ZB, or o ysiiaB in the sense of g &ZB)500 measures, dry and liquid together (meetra taa synaamwv jZraakaii ygraa)annually, of course. The Hippeus was a man who had300 such measures. An alternative theory, held by some people,

98 Other offices as a qualification for which Solon may have prescribed mem-bership of one of the two highest tele will surely have been opened to at least theZeugitai not later than the archonshipexcept perhaps financial ones.

99 e.g. Bockh,SA I3 578 ff., esp. 580a; Kahrstedt,SSA 250 ff.; Busolt-Swoboda,GS II 8214, 8368; Sandys, ACA2 2630 nn.

100 I say the same tradition to allow for the possibility that Aristotles statementis taken from an early Atthidographer. Cf. pp. 286307 below.


that it was ability to ippotrowe &in [keep/rear a horse] which madea man a Hippeus, is mentioned only to be rejected in favour of

qualification in terms of measures. (I reserve for later discus-

sion101 Aristotles reference to the statue and epigram of Anthe-

mion, advanced by the enioi [certain people] as evidence forthe theory Aristotle rejects.) A Zeugites was a man who had

200 measures; and the others, i.e. those who had fewer than 200

measures, or none at all, belonged to the class of Thetes.

2. The next source in order of value is Plutarch, Solon 18.12.

Here we find the same account,102 except in regard to the Hippeis,

who according to Plutarch were toyyB ippon treewein dynameenoyB Zmeetra poie &in triakoosia [those able to keep/rear a horse or pro-duce 300 measures]. (It is not clear whether Plutarch thought that

a man might qualify as a Hippeus in either of these ways, or

whether he was uncertain which alternative was right.)

3. Out of many passages in late authors, mainly lexicograph-

ers,103 only Pollux VIII 1301104 (partly repeated in almost exactly

the same words by Schol. Plat. Rep. VIII 550C) need be men-

tioned separately. Pollux gives the same qualifications as Aristotle

and Plato for Pentakosiomedimnoi and Zeugitai. Of the Hippeis he

says that they seem to have got their name from their ability to

maintain horses, epoiioyn dee meetra triakoosia [and they produced300 measures]in other words, he is on the side of Aristotle

101 See the Appendix to this chapter.102 The meetra [measures] are en jZro &iB omo &y kaii ygro &iB [in dry and liquid

alike].103 Including Harp., Hesych., Phot., Suid. and Etym. Magn., s.v. Q &ZteB

kaii uZtikoon (etc.) and ippaaB, ippaada, ippe &iB; Harp., Phot. and Suid.s.v. pentakosiomeedimnon; Hesych. and Suid. s.v. ek timZmaatvn; Hesych. s.v.zeygiision; and see Bekker, Anecd. Gr. I 260.33, 261.29, 264.19, 267.13, 298.20.

104 Poll. begins, timZZmata d Zn teettara, pentakosiomediimnvn ippeevnzeygit &vn uZt &vn. oi meen ek to &y pentakoosia meetra jZraa kaii ygraa poie &inklZueenteB anZZliskon d eiB too dZmoosion taalanton oi dee tZZn ippaada telo &ynteBek meen to &y dyynasuai treewein ippoyB kekl &Zsuai doko &ysin, epoiioyn dee meetratriakoosia, anZZliskon dee Zmitaalanton. oi dee too zeygZZsion telo &ynteB apoodiakosiivn meetrvn kateleegonto, anZZliskon dee mn &aB deeka oi dee too uZtikoono ydemiian arxZZn Zrxon, o ydee anZZliskon o ydeen. [There were four timemata,Pentakosiomedimnoi, Hippeis, Zeugites and Thetes. The Pentakosiomedimnoiwere so named because they produced 500 measures, dry and liquid together; andthey paid a talent into the public treasury. Those assessed as Hippeis seem to gettheir name from their ability to rear/keep horses; and they paid half a talent. Thoseassessed as Zeugites were enrolled from 200 measures (i.e. from those able toproduce etc.), and they paid 10 minae. Those assessed as thetes held no office, nordid they pay anything.]

The Original Qualifications of the Tele 29

against the enioi [certain people] controverted in Ath. Pol. 7.4.There follows a reference to the epigram of Anthemion, which I

will discuss with the corresponding passage in the Ath. Pol.105

Pollux also has one set of statements which is entirely independent

of the main tradition: he declares that the Pentakosiomedimnoi

paid a talent into the treasury, the Hippeis half a talent, the

Zeugitai ten minae and the Thetes nothing. I shall examine these

statements later, merely remarking here that they certainly cannot

be accepted as they stand, but that they may preserve in a distorted

form some valid information about the use of the tele as a rough

classification for the levying of taxes.

4. Only one other passage need be mentioned here: Ps.-Dem.

XLIII 54, which (as we have already noticed) specifies the value of

the dowry to be given to an epikleros belonging to the thetic class

by a next of kin who does not marry her himself, the figures being

500 drachmae for a Pentakosiomedimnos, 300 for a Hippeus and

150 for a Zeugites. It is the zeugite figure which is interesting here,

for there is an exact correspondence between the measures re-

quired (according to Aristotles account) as a qualification for

membership of the two top classes and the amount of the dowry

in drachmae, and the question is whether the correspondence

holds for the Zeugites also. Bockh,106 writing before the discovery

of the London papyrus of the Ath. Pol., based on this passage his

conclusion that the zeugite qualification was 150 and not 200

measures, and the same view has even been upheld by several

writers to whom the Ath. Pol. was available,107 usually with the

addition that the figure was raised after Solons time from 150 to

200 measures (and sometimes even with a date for this alteration!).

At this point we need only note that the Demosthenic law does not

even purport to give the qualifications of the three highest classes.

One major question remains: how far have we reason to trust the

account of Solons political classification given by Aristotle? I

discuss in a later chapter of this book the whole problem of the

reliability of theAth. Pol., and at this point I need only make some

brief observations.

There are two factors which may make us feel uncertain about

the value of the details Aristotle gives. First, we do not know how

105 See the Appendix to this chapter. 106 SA I3 581.107 Including Cavaignac, Beloch, Lehmann-Haupt and Busolt-Swoboda: seeGS

II 822 n. 1.


far the laws contained on the actual Axones of Solon could still be

read in the late fourth century, and how far Aristotle (and the

Atthidographers) had to rely upon copieswhich, of course, may

or may not have been reliable, and may or may not have incorpor-

ated later alterations and additions to the original Solonian

corpus.108 And secondly, the qualifications of the census classes

were undoubtedly part of Solons constitution (politeiia), ratherthan of his laws (noomoi) in the narrower sense, and therefore oughtnot to be conceived as necessarily forming part of the nomoi on the

Axones.109 The fundamental definition of the tele probably did not

appear on the Axones at all. We must scrutinise Aristotles account

carefully (though certainly not contemptuously) and not refuse in

advance to admit that Aristotle may be at least partly wrong.

That Aristotle may indeed have been wrong in some important

particulars, because he did not have complete and reliable sources

of information, is strongly suggested by two arguments. First, the

description of the qualifications of the top three classes as so many

measures taa synaamwv jZraa kaii ygraa [dry and liquid together]makes Solons provisions ridiculous, as I shall proceed to show.

A perfectly sensible alternative can be found, at any rate for the

Pentakosiomedimnoi. We must then suppose that Aristotle either

drew mistaken inferences from the Solonian nomoi, or was misled

by a tradition already established, perhaps, by the Atthidogra-

phers. Secondly, the very way in which Aristotle states the quali-

fication of the Hippeis in Ath. Pol. 7.4 is a clear indication of

a lack of certain knowledge. It seems to me virtually impossible

that when Aristotle was defining the four tele in Ath. Pol. 7.4

he could even have thought he had before him the actual text

of Solons provision. The Hippeis, he says, were toyyB triakoosia[meetra] poio &yntaB, vB d enioii wasi toyyB ippotrowe &in dynameenoyB[those who produced 300 [measures], or as some people say,

those able to keep/rear horses]; and he then proceeds to give the

rather feeble argument of the enioi, based on the name of the telos

108 See pp. 31722 below.109 See pp. 31017 below. Another explanation is offered by some scholars: that

Solons laws contained no provisions regarding the qualifications of the censusclasses because Solon found them existing and left them unchangedsee, e.g.,Busolt, GG II2 47 n. 2; Busolt-Swoboda, GS II 8201 (esp. 821 n. 1), 8367.I find this impossible to believe, for the reasons explained on pp. 489 and 55below. However, I should like to point out that my reconstruction of the qualifica-tions of the telewould scarcely be affected if they were in fact pre-Solonian in origin.

The Original Qualifications of the Tele 31

and the statue and epigram of Anthemion.110 He then concludes,

o y mZZn all e ylogvvteron to &iB meetroiB diZr &Zsuai kauaaper toyyBpentakosiomediimnoyB [however it is more probable that theywere defined by measures, just as in the case of the Pentakosiome-

dimnoi]. There is no doubt what Aristotle means by e ylogvvteron:more reasonable, more probable, more credible.111 Whether we

translate (withMathieu) il est plus logique que, or (with Kenyon)

it seems reasonable to suppose that, or (with von Fritz and Kapp)

it is more probable that, or in some other way (it was more

reasonable that they should be classified according to measures?),

the natural supposition is that Aristotle had no hard evidence, any

more than the people against whom he was arguing. If he had had

the text of the law, he would not have neede

[g. e. m. de ste. croix] athenian democratic origi(bookos.org)

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