10 Facts about Cleisthenes

Tuesday, January 12th 2016. | Figures

Facts about Cleisthenes tell you about one of the important figures in the world. Cleisthenes was quite a good name. He was a noble family of Athenian. Many people recognized him due to his involvement in ancient constitution reformation. He was also famous due to his democratic establishment in 508/7 BC.

Facts about Cleisthenes 1: The Athenian Democracy Founder

Cleisthenes was well-known as the founder of democracy in Athens. He served as the highest magistrate of Athens at that time. He succeeded to gather some allies to fight against nobles. Later he executed democratic reform with his the Assembly.

Facts about Cleisthenes 2: The Alcmaeonid Family

He was the member of Alcmaeonid family. Cleisthenes also had an important part in the public life of Athenian. Not to mention he was Megacles’son. His role in the family had been significant since the archaic period.

Cleisthenes Book

Facts about Cleisthenes 3: The Exile

Isagoras had a significant influence over the city. Cleisthenes was exiled and forced to leave Athens. In fact, Isagoras have exiled many Athenians and they considered these people cursed. Cleisthenes became one of these people.

Facts about Cleisthenes 4: The Change in Political Organization

Cleisthenes had changed the political organization in Athens as well. He altered it from 4 traditional tribes into 10 tribes based on the residence area / deme. The traditional tribes were once based on family relations.

Cleisthenes Pic

Facts about Cleisthenes 5: The Demonymics

He eradicated patronymics and changed it into demonymics. The term was given based on the individual’s deme. Later, Athenians had a sense of belonging into such deme.

Facts about Cleisthenes 6: The Sortition

Cleisthenes also created sortation. It was a political system in which citizens were selected randomly to work as a government force. The purpose was to remove heredity and kinship politics.

Cleisthenes Facts

Facts about Cleisthenes 7: The Boule Reorganization

He rearranged the Boule and created it with 400 members. The total member was 500 at that time. Each tribe represented 50 people as the member of Boule. Cleisthenes also made the bouletic oath for the organization.

Facts about Cleisthenes 8: The Law Courts

Cleisthenes reorganized the law court system. There were around thousands of jurors chosen each day from each tribe. This was the Boule’s role to use voters to make the laws. Find facts about Charles II here.

Facts about Cleisthenes

Facts about Cleisthenes 9: The Ostracism

He also introduced ostracism. This was an old system which had the function to exile a citizen for a decade by using more than 6,000 votes from the citizens. This system was useful to eradicate a threat from a tyrant. Get facts about Cicero here.

Facts about Cleisthenes 10: The Isonomia

The democratic reform in Athens was called isonomia by Cleisthenes. His life after the reforms remains unknown and there are no references regarding his life during that time.