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The Journal of Hellenic Studies Demetrius and Draco: Athens The Journal of Hellenic Studies http://journals.cambridge.org/JHS Additional services for The Journal of Hellenic Studies: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Demetrius and Draco: Athens' property classes and population in and before 317 BC Hans Van Wees The Journal of Hellenic Studies / Volume 131 / November 2011, pp 95 - 114 DOI: 10.1017/S0075426911000073, Published online: 25 November 2011 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0075426911000073 How to cite this article: Hans Van Wees (2011). Demetrius and Draco: Athens' property classes and population in and before 317 BC. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 131, pp 95-114 doi:10.1017/S0075426911000073 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/JHS, IP address: 147.91.1.45 on 23 Sep 2013 Journal of Hellenic Studies 131 (2011) 95−114 doi:10.1017/S0075426911000073 DEMETRIUS AND DRACO: ATHENS’ PROPERTY CLASSES AND POPULATION IN AND BEFORE 317 BC HANS VAN WEES University College London* Abstract: The nature of the census figures produced by Demetrius of Phaleron, crucial evidence for the size of the Athenian population, has been misunderstood. The census categories were not ‘native Athenians, foreign residents and slaves’, but ‘citizens above the property qualification, residents without political rights and members of households’. The property qualification of 1,000 drachmas associated with Demetrius’ regime was the requirement for holding the highest offices; the property requirement for citizenship rights was lower, as it was in the spurious constitution of Draco described in Athenaion Politeia 4, which was probably invented and inserted during Demetrius’ reign. In the light of this reinterpretation of the evidence for the structure of the Athenian population under Demetrius, a reconsideration of the evidence for the size of the Athenian population in 322 BC suggests that there were ca. 30,000 adult male citizens and far fewer metics than generally assumed, probably ca. 5,000. The distribution of property among the citizen population was very uneven, with the richest 30% of the population owning about 80% of the wealth. According to Demetrius’ census as reinterpreted here, slaves outnumbered free residents by ‘only’ about 3:1, which still seems an implausibly high figure, but needs to be taken seriously as a government estimate rather than a rhetorical exaggeration. I. Introduction: going beyond Beloch Under Demetrius of Phaleron a review took place of the inhabitants of Attica, and 21,000 Athenians, 10,000 metoikoi and 400,000 oiketai were found. 'AyÆnhsin §jetasmÚn gen°syai ÍpÚ Dhmhtr¤ou toË Falhr°vw t«n katoikoÊntvn tØn 'AttikØn ka‹ eÍrey∞nai 'Ayhna¤ouw m¢n dismur¤ouw prÚw to›w xil¤oiw, meto¤kouw d¢ mur¤ouw, o‹ket«n d¢ muriãdaw mÄ. So Athenaeus, quoting the Chronicles of a certain Ctesicles, who in turn perhaps found the numbers in The Decade, Demetrius’ own account of his time as governor of Athens, 317−307 BC.1 This evidence for the size of the population of Athens has been endlessly discussed since the 19th century, yet almost nothing has been said about Demetrius’ numbers that was not already said by Karl Julius Beloch in 1886 and 1923. Ever since Beloch, scholars have rejected the 400,000 oiketai as an impossibly large number of slaves, accepted the 10,000 metoikoi as good evidence for the number of registered aliens living in Athens and argued over whether the 21,000 Athenians ‘self-evidently’ included all adult male citizens, as Beloch claimed in Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt, or included only citizen soldiers and implied a total citizen body of ca. 30,000, as Beloch suggested in his Griechische Geschichte.2 Beloch’s brilliance is beyond question, of course, and is demonstrated by the very fact that it has proved so hard to make a significant advance on his work. But even he sometimes made assumptions or jumped to conclusions which are open to challenge, yet surprisingly have not * [email protected]. This paper has been much bear responsibility for any remaining flaws. improved by the incisive and helpful comments 1 Athen. 272c; Ctesicles FGrH 245 F 1; SOD no. 51; provided by Riet van Bremen and two anonymous cf. Gallo (2002) 34. referees for JHS. I am also grateful to Yoshie Sugino for 2 Beloch (1886) 58; (1923) 404−06. checking some of the calculations. None of the above 96 VAN WEES been seriously questioned. Recently, however, Raymond Descat has at last moved the debate forward by offering a different interpretation of the oiketai ((2004) 368−70), and the present paper tries to push the discussion still further beyond Beloch by arguing that all three of Demetrius’ census categories have been misunderstood. Key to a better understanding of the census is a closer look at the political context in which it took place, including the imposition of a timocratic regime which has also been much misunderstood but is illuminated, I will argue, by the spurious ‘Constitution of Draco’ which was inserted in the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia. A reinterpretation of the evidence throws new light on the origins of ‘Draco’, on the nature of Demetrius’ regime, on the size and composition of the Athenian population in 317 BC, and by extension also on the population of Athens earlier in the fourth century − another subject over which Beloch has cast a long shadow − as well as the distribution of wealth in Athenian society. II. The property classes of Demetrius and ‘Draco’ Caught up in the power play between Macedonian factions, the Athenians in 317 BC finally decided that their best hope was to negotiate terms with Cassander. He agreed to withdraw his garrison and give Athens its independence, on two conditions: the city should have a governor, to be appointed by him, and citizen rights should be restricted. ‘The state was to be governed on the basis of property qualifications as far as ten minae’ (tÚ pol¤teuma dioike›syai épÚ timÆsevn êxri mn«n d°ka, Diod. 18.74.3). Even before Demetrius was appointed as governor, then, the Athenians had already accepted the terms of a timocratic regime to be imposed upon them. What exactly were these terms? My translation is as literal and neutral as I can make it. The most recent and precise translation of the text, by Stork, van Ophuijsen and Dorandi, renders it as ‘on the basis of property qualifications up to (a minimum of) ten minae’ (SOD no. 16a), and the assumption that ten minae was the minimum qualification for citizenship is, so far as I can see, shared by all previous translations and scholarly discussions.3 A property qualification of ten minae, or 1,000 drachmas, sounds like a neat compromise between the qualification of 2,000 drachmas imposed on the Athenians in 322 and the full franchise restored in 318 (Diod. 18.18.4, 65.6). Yet if this is what Diodorus meant, he had a strange way of putting it, as is indicated by the translation’s strained English: ‘up to a minimum’, where one would expect either ‘up to a maximum’ or ‘down to a minimum’. Diodorus spoke, not of a single property qualification as most scholars seem to think,4 but of ‘property qualifications’ in the plural (timÆseiw), in contrast to the earlier 2,000-drachma ‘property qualification’, which he mentioned three times in the singular (timhsiw, 18.18.4 bis, 18.18.5). ‘As far as’ (êxri) could therefore indicate either the lowest or the highest of this set of property thresholds: it might mean ‘up to 1,000’ or ‘down to 1,000’. The preposition êxri is most often used to mean ‘as far as’ a certain point in space or time, which does not help elucidate its meaning here, but when it is used ‘of measure or degree’ (LSJ 2.3) it always seems to mean ‘up to’ on a spectrum from the lesser to the greater. Diodorus says, for instance, that Theompompus covered 50 years of Sicilian history in three books ‘from book 41 to 43’ (épÚ ... êxri, 16.71.3), and elsewhere we have phrases like ‘we should act in friendship and hatred only up to a point (êxri) which does not exceed what is appropriate’ (Dem. 23.122) and ‘if you go only as far as (êxri) uttering shouts of disapproval or praise’, i.e. as 3 The Loeb translation by Russel Geer has ‘the 259; Hansen (1986) 29, 32; Sekunda (1992) 320; government was to be in the hands of those possessing Habicht (1997) 58, 66; Williams (1997) 330, n.6; at least ten minae’; the Budé translation by Paul Gottschalk (2000) 369−70; Shipley (2000) 128; Gallo Goukowsky reads ‘on établirait en outre un régime (2002) 38; Descat (2004) 368; Hansen (2006) 41; Oliver censitaire en descendant jusqu’à dix mines’. Similarly (2006) 80; O’Sullivan (2009) 108−09. Beloch (1886) 58; Martini (1901) col. 2827; Jacoby 4 Apart from the translation by SOD, of the scholars (1930) 813; Pélékidis (1962) 291−92; Mossé (1973) cited in the previous note only Habicht ((1997) 66) speaks 104−05; Gehrke (1978) 178; Ruschenbusch (1984) 26, of ‘censuses’ in the plural, but he gives no further details. DEMETRIUS AND DRACO 97 opposed to taking action (Dem. 8.77).5 Its synonym m°xri is also commonly used in expressions for age groups ‘up to’ a certain age or fines ‘up to’ a certain level.6 I have not been able to find any example of êxri being used to mean ‘down to’ a lower measure, degree or extent.7 Also, if Diodorus meant to say that 1,000 drachmas was the lowest threshold, more natural and less ambiguous prepositions were to hand: he could have spoken of property classes ‘starting from’ (épÚ) or ‘above’ (Íp°r) 1,000 drachmas.
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