User:DangerouslyPersuasiveWriter/sandbox/School Notes/Western Legal Tradition/Class 3 Reading Notes

Notes on Athenian Constitution Parts 20 to 28 and Part 41

Part 20

setting

Start = after the overthrow of the tyranny Rival Leaders = • Isagoras (partisan of the tyrants) (son of Tisander) • Cleisthenes (of the family of the Alcmeonidae)

action

1. Cleisthenes, being beaten in the political clubs, gave franchise to the masses.
2. In response, Isagoras invites Cleomenes to Athens and convinces Cleomenes to 'drive out the pollution'. Alcmeonidae was supposedly "under the curse of pollution i.e. they were allegedly sick and therefor not supposed to be in the city.
3. Cleisthenes "retired from the country" and Cleomenes enters Attica with a small force and expels seven hundred Athenian families.
4. Cleomenes tries "to dissolve the Council, and set up Isagoras and three hundred of his partisans as the supreme power in the state. However, the counsel resists and the people flock together.
5. Cleomenes and Isagoras and company take refuge in the Acropolis.
6. The people besiege them for two days.
7. On the third day, the people agree to let Cleomenes and all his followers depart
8. Cleisthenes and the other exiles are summoned back to the city.
9. Cleisthenes was the chief and popular leader. "and this was natural