Читать онлайн "Jews and Greeks in ancient Cyrene" - Эпплбаум Шимон - RuLit

In the year 401 we hear of civil war at Cyrene.[194] One Ariston seized power, slew fifty aristocrats, and drove out the rest. They found refuge at Euesperitae, which still maintained, apparently, an aristocratic regime, and with the aid of 3,000 men of Messene recruited by Euesperitae to fight the Libyans,[195] who had heavily defeated the city, advanced upon Cyrene. After a severe but indecisive battle, the two factions arrived at a compromise and set up a joint polity. This account means that a moderate constitution existed in 401, participated in by both the aristocracy and the people. But Aristotle informs us[196] that a constitution modelled on the Athenian polity of Cleisthenes had been established, and had been the occasion of civil conflict (στάσις) in the city. The source for this, the Politics, was completed in 336, and it is known that the citizens of Cyrene had appealed to Plato to draw up a constitution for them;[197] Plato died in 346. The Stele of the Founders, which commemorates a decision of the Cyrenean demos to grant citizenship to resident or visiting Therans,[198] evidences a fully democratic constitution in the first half of the century. In the same period Cyrene was participating actively in the Panathenaic games, a clear sign of her democratic sympathies, the earliest of the known panathenaic amphorae found in Cyrenaica dating from the year 373.[199] Between the years 435-375 the city’s coinage decreases, perhaps as a result of her internal conflicts; contemporarily Euesperitae was under attack from her Libyan neighbours; further, in 430/29 the plague spread from Greece to Libya,[200] and it is to be assumed that her cities suffered accordingly. But in the neighbourhood of 375 there is a change; the coins of Cyrene become more numerous, gold pieces appear in abundance, and the artistic level of the currency reaches its highest point.[201] It may accordingly be suggested that the Cleisthenic constitution was inaugurated at Cyrene in the first half of the 5th century, probably between 375 and 373.[202] Such a date is at least appropriate to the commencement of the building of the Treasury of Cyrene at Delphi, set by Bousquet approximately in the year 373. (See p. 41).

Aristotle’s information of the Cleisthenic character of Cyrene’s democratic constitution poses the historian a number of problems: What were the conditions which produced it, and what the economic situation which it reflects? The problem is not simplified by the numerous differences between the history of Athens and the history of Cyrene. Does the introduction of a Cleisthenic democracy point to similar conditions and was the constitution really like the Athenian?

Aristotle says explicitly that the aims of both reforms were the same — to wit, the complete fusion of all elements of the population and the dissolution of long-standing societies (συνήθειαι) — meaning the cult associations with political aims. As he mentions the increase of the number of phratriai (φρατρίαι)[203] i.e. the organized groups of families of common kinship, — who together formed, at least in ancient times, the tribe (φυλή) — and says that Cleisthenes did not alter their structure in Attica, — we must suppose that in Cyrene their number was enlarged.[204] Newman[205] and Wade Gery[206] on the other hand, interpret Aristotle’s statement, in the light of his information in the Athenaion Politeia[207] — that the increase of the tribes referred to in VI, 4 related only to Athens, and not to Cyrene. This conclusion is accepted apparently by Siebert[208] citing further in support of it the mention of a τριφύλια in the Cyrenean Cathartic Law of the late 4th century.[209] The conclusion may be unimpeachable in terms of an understanding of the texts, but seems unrealistic in terms of the situation in Cyrene which can be assumed on the basis of the country’s social and economic development.

One may wonder, indeed, how far an increase of phratriai is reconcilable with a non-increase of the tribes. Theoretically it is, but there may be other evidence in favour of the view that the number of the Cyrenean tribes actually was increased in the 4th century. Cleisthenes’ Attic reform attained its aim by giving the tribes a new structure, each one deriving its composition from the inhabitants of three demes each located in a different trittys of Attica. The tribes thus ceased to have local political significance and the three old divisions of Attica with their individual political family interests lost their importance. The Cyrenean reform, on the other hand, would have been designed to adapt the constitution to the changes of population that had taken place since the inauguration of the democracy of Demonax, and these must have been considerable in view of the settlement of new elements by Arkesilaos II and IV, and the new groups of merchants and craftsmen doubtless attracted to the country by the growth of Cyrenean trade. It may moreover be supposed that Arkesilaos IV, in his desire to increase the population, had not hesitated to grant privileges and right of residence to newcomers. If so, the old tribes constituted by Demonax according to the origin of their members would no longer have corresponded to the composition of the free population.

Cleisthenes established the principle that the tribes no longer built their membership according to locality or origin.[210] On the other hand, the demes, which were the elective units, he made into organs of local administration. The Cyrenean democracy of 375 must have enlarged the citizen-body, the more so as Cyrene was a country of immigration and absorption to a greater degree than Attica. This is evidenced by the increase of the phratriai, whose function was, inter alia the initiation of the newborn infant, the bride and the young adolescent into the community. On the other hand we hear of no Cyrenean demes on the Athenian model, nor has any term parallel to the γενή of Samos, or the demes of Kalymna and Cos, come down to us. This might lead us to ask whether the Cyrenean tribes themselves did not become geographical and administrative units, as occurred at Mantineia and Elis, with whom Cyrene had close relationships? We have no answer to this question at present.

There remains the problem, whether the three Demonactan tribes were superseded by a greater number. According to lines 15-16 of the “Stele of the Founders”, Therans obtaining Cyrenean citizenship are to be registered[211] in a phyle of their own in the original Demonactan tribe of Therans and perioikoi, according to Siebert.[212] Yet Ptolemy Lagos’ new Cyrenean constitution, given at the end of the 4th century,[213] established a boule of 500, and five strategoi in addition to Ptolemy himself, implying the existence of five phylai.[214] Five strategoi are indeed independently attested in the 4th century (see n. 213). As Ptolemy’s constitution restricted citizenship to owners of an annual income of 2000 drachmae, it may be assumed that the citizen-body of the Cleis-thenic constitution was larger. For this reason, the word τριφύλια recorded in the Cathartic Law of much the same period[215] may be no more than a reference to an archaic building whose name reflected an ancient division long obsolete. On the other hand, the “Stele of the Founders” further records that each new citizen under the democracy was registered in a tribe, a patra (= phratria) and a hetairea (ἐτοαρήα).[216] The nature of the last is unknown; such are recorded at Thera,[217] and in the Dorian cities of Crete they are identical with the phratriai,[218] but as units smaller than the phratriai they seem to be peculiar to Cyrene.[219] They originated as groups of kindred serving together in war,[220] but as Aristotle writes that the aim of the “ Cleisthenic” reform was to break up the social-political clubs (συνήθειαι), the Cyrenean hetaireai must have had a different character. The Therans, it should be observed, are incorporated among nine hetaireai, — presumably each tribe had this number, — which might be interpreted as favouring a division of each tribe into three parts. Theoretically, if the democratic constitution of Cyrene was really Cleisthenic, the entire city territory would have been divided into three or more districts, each furnishing a section of one phyle. It is indeed to be remarked, that geographically the Cyrenaican Jebel does fall into three parts — the coastal plain, the Lusaita, and the uppermost plateau.[221]