United States or Honduras ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We have but further to say that Cleisthenes of Athens a great leader and law-giver, whose laws gave origin to the democratic government of that city was the son of Megacles and Agaristé, and that his grandson was the famous Pericles, the foremost name in Athenian history.
Pericles, the greatest statesman of ancient Greece, was born of distinguished parentage in the early part of the fifth century B.C. His father was that Xanthippus who won the victory over the Persians at Mycale, 479 B.C.; and by his mother, Agariste, the niece of the great Athenian reformer, Cleisthenes, he was connected with the princely line of Sicyon and the great house of the Alcmæonidæ.
The laws of Solon were abrogated, and a new code of laws formed by Cleisthenes, which lasted till the independence of Athens came to an end. Before that time the clan system had prevailed in Greece. The people were divided into family groups, each of which claimed to be descended from a single ancestor, often a supposed deity.
As the drinking which followed went on, Hippoclides, who had surpassed all the others as yet, shouted to the flute-player, bidding him to play a dancing air, as he proposed to show his powers in the dance. The wine was in his weak head, and what he considered marvellously fine dancing did not appear so to Cleisthenes, who was closely watching his proposed son-in-law.
The constitution and laws of Athens continued substantially for about a hundred years after the archonship of Solon, when the democratic party under Cleisthenes gained complete ascendency. Some modification of the laws was then made. The political franchise was extended to all free native Athenians.
This was nothing less than an attempt to create new gentes by effacing the distinctions established by nature and tradition. To parallel a scheme so artificial in its method, we must go back to the history of Sicyon and the changes wrought in the Dorian tribes by Cleisthenes. See Varchi, St. F. lib. vii. cap. 3.
Then, not only the suitors, but all the people of the city were invited to a grand banquet and festival, at the end of which the choice of Cleisthenes was to be declared. What torments of love and fear Agaristé suffered during this slow-moving feast the historian does not say.
Cleisthenes now commanded silence, and spoke as follows to the assembly: "Suitors of my daughter, well pleased am I with you all, and right willingly, if it were possible, would I content you all, and not, by making choice of one, appear to put a slight upon the rest.
When the people had thus obtained the command of affairs, Cleisthenes was their chief and popular leader. And this was natural; for the Alcmeonidae were perhaps the chief cause of the expulsion of the tyrants, and for the greater part of their rule were at perpetual war with them.
For you know, Epigenes and Demophanes and Cleisthenes as private citizens enjoyed the privileges of the state, but in their political career were responsible for the gravest errors. 26. For they persuaded you to condemn to death some without a trial, to confiscate unjustly the property of many, and to banish citizens and deprive them of their civil rights.
Word Of The Day