The federalization Of Attica

WHEN Theseus succeeded his father Aegeus on the throne of Athens, he reinforced his sovereignty by executing nearly all his opponents, except Pallas and the remainder of his fifty sons. Some years later he killed these too as a precautionary measure and, when charged with murder in the Court of Apollo the Dolphin, offered the unprecedented plea of ‘justifiable homicide’, which secured his acquittal. He was purified of their blood at Troezen, where his son Hippolytus now reigned as king, and spent a whole year there. On his return, he suspected a half-brother, also named Pallas, of disaffection, and banished him at once; Pallas then founded Pallantium in Arcadia, though some say that Pallas son of Lycaon had done so shortly after the Deucalionian Flood.
b. Theseus proved to be a law-abiding ruler, and initiated the policy of federalization, which was the basis of Athens’ later well-being. Hitherto, Attica had been divided into twelve communities, each managing its own affairs without consulting the Athenian king, except in time of emergency. The Eleusinians had even declared war on Erechtheus, and other internecine quarrels abounded. If these communities were to relinquish their independence, Theseus must approach each clan and family in turn; which he did. He found the yeomen and serfs ready to obey him, and persuaded most of the large landowners to agree with his scheme by promising to abolish the monarchy and substitute democracy for it, though remaining commander-in-chief and supreme judge. Those who remained unconvinced by the arguments he used respected his strength at least.
c. Theseus was thus empowered to dissolve all local governments, after summoning their delegates to Athens, where he provided these with a common Council Hall and Law Court, both of which stand to this day. But he forbore to interfere with the laws of private property. Next, he united the suburbs with the City proper which, until then, had consisted of the Acropolis and its immediate Southern dependencies, inducting the ancient Temples of Olympian Zeus, Pythian Apollo, Mother Earth, Dionysus of the Marshes, and the Aqueduct of Nine Springs. The Athenians still call the Acropolis ‘the City’.
d. He named the sixteenth day of Hecatomboeon [July] ‘Federation Day’, and made it a public festival in honour of Athene, when a bloodless sacrifice is also offered to Peace. By renaming the Athenian Games celebrated on this day to ‘All-Athenian’, he opened it to the whole Attica; and also introduced the worship of Federal Aphrodite and of Persuasion. Then, resigning the throne, as he had promised, he gained Attica its new constitution, and under the best of auspices: for Delphic Oracle prophesied that Athens would now ride the stormy seas as safely as a pig s bladder.
e. To enlarge the city still further, Theseus invited all worthy strangers to become his fellow-citizens. His heralds, who went throughout Greece, used a formula which is still employed, namely: ‘Come hither, all ye people!’ Great crowds thereupon flocked into Athens, and he divided the population of Attica into three classes: the Eupatrids, or ‘those who deserve well of their fatherland’; the Georges, or ‘farmers’; and the Demiurges, or ‘artificers’. The Eupatrids took charge of religious affairs, supplied magistrates, interpreted the laws, embodying the highest dignity of all; the Georges tilled the soil and were the backbone of the state; the Demiurges, by far the most numerous class, furnished such various artificers as soothsayers, surgeons, heralds, carpenters, sculptors, and confectioners. Thus Theseus became the first king to found a commonwealth, which is why Homer, in the Catalogue of Ships, styles only the Athenians a sovereign people-and his constitution remained in force until the tyrants seized power. Some, however, deny the truth of this tradition: they say that Theseus continued to reign as before and that, after the death of King Menestheus, who led the Athenians against Troy, his dynasty persisted for three generations.

f Theseus, the first Athenian king to mint money, stamped his coins with the image of a bull. It is not known whether this represented Poseidon’s bull, or Minos’s general Taurus; or whether he was merely encouraging agriculture; but his coinage caused the standard of value to be quoted in terms of ‘ten oxen’, or ‘one hundred oxen’, for a considerable time. In emulation of Heracles, who had appointed his father Zeus patron of the Olympic Games, Theseus now appointed his father Poseidon patron of the Isthmian Games. Hitherto the god thus honoured had been Melicertes son of Ino, and the games, which were held at night, had been mysteries rather than a public spectacle. Next, Theseus made good the Athenian claim to the sovereignty of Megara and summoned Peloponnesian delegates to the Isthmus, upon them to settle a long-standing frontier dispute with neighbouring Ionians. At a place agreed by both parties, he raised the famous column with inscription on its eastern side: ‘This is not the Peloponnese but Ionia!’, and on the western: ‘This is not Ionia, but the Peloponnese!’ He also won Corinthian assent to the Athenians’ taking of honour at the Isthmian Games; it consisted of as much round as was covered by the mainsail of the ship that had brought him.

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1. The mythical element of the Theseus story has here been submerged in what purports to be Athenian constitutional history; but the Federalization of Attica would have happened years too early; and Theseus’s propaganda of making democratical reforms was probably invented in the fifth century BC for Cleisthenes. Legal reforms made during the late Jewish monarchy were attributed to Moses by the editors of the Pentateuch.
2. Oxen provided the standard of value in ancient Greece, Italy, and Ireland, as they still do among backward pastoral tribes of East Africa, and the Athenians struck no coins until nearly five hundred years after the Trojan War. But it is true that Cretan copper ingots of a fixed weight were stamped with a bull’s head or a recumbent calf (Sir Arthur Evans: Minoan Weights and Mediums of Currency); and the Butadae who seem to have been largely responsible for the development of the myth of Theseus, have had this tradition in mind when they struck money stamped with the ox-head, their clan-device.

3. The division of Attica into twelve communities is paralleled by a similar happenings the Nile Delta and in Etruria, and by the distributing Canaanite territory among the twelve tribes of Israel; the number may in each case have been chosen to allow for a monthly procession of a monarch from tribe to tribe. Greeks of the heroic age did not distinguish between murder and manslaughter; in either case a blood price had to be paid to the victim’s clan, and the killer then changed his name and left the city for ever. Thus Telamon and Peleus continued to be highly regarded by the gods after their treacherous murder of Phocus; and Medea killed Apsyrtus without antagonizing her new Corinthian subjects. At Athens, however, in the Classical period, willful murder (phonos) carried the death penalty; manslaughter (akousia), that of banishment; and the clan was bound by law to prosecute. Phonos hekousios (justifiable homicide) and phonos akousios (excusable homicide) were later refinements, which Draco probably introduced in the seventh century BC; the latter alone demanded expiation by ritual cleansing. The mythographers have not understood that Theseus evaded permanent exile for the murder of the Pallantids only by exterminating the entire clan, as David did with the ‘House of Saul’. A year’s absence at Troezen sufficed to rid the city of the pollution caused by the murder.