22. Reorganizing Athens For Democracy
Before the democrats gained power, the Athenians had been grouped into four tribes, based on kin groups. Cleisthenes argued that such grouping lent itself too readily to factionalism. So he replaced that with an artificial classification system that divided the citizen body into ten at-large tribes, with membership drawn at random from all classes and all parts of Attica. With each tribe thus containing a representative sample of the entire population, including all classes and regions, the incentives for parochialism would be eliminated, as no tribe would have cause to act out of geographical or familial loyalties at the expense of Athens as a whole. That drastically reduced the factionalism that had plagued Athens for generations. Cleisthenes’ reforms also granted the entire male citizen population access to institutions and powers previously reserved for the aristocracy.
Another of Cleisthenes’ reforms was ostracism, whereby an annual vote would be held in which each citizen could name any person he thought was too dangerous or getting too powerful for the good of the city. The citizen receiving the most votes – which were written on bits of broken pottery known as ostra, hence “ostracism” – would be exiled for ten years, without prejudice to his property while he was gone, or to his citizenship rights upon his return. A new council, the boule, was also created, in which all citizens had the right to speak. Cleisthenes’ reforms thus established basic democracy in Athens, and created the constitutional structure by which further incremental reforms would be made in subsequent decades to transform Athens into a direct democracy.
