How Cleisthenes Saved the Athenian Polis
The Athenian Polis traveled a crooked road in the hundred years before true democracy was achieved under Cleisthenes. The story and the dynamics at work in Athens during the sixth century B.C. are the subject of this article.
Prior to the reforms of Solon, the Athenian political system was controlled by a group of aristocratic families – the Eupatridai or “well born ones”. Notice that “patri” (father) serves as the root of this word like it does in the Roman word patrician. In both cases we see a government managed by a group of families claiming legitimacy through longevity – a kind of original authority.