Council of Four Hundred

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The Council of the Four Hundred ( Greek  οἱ τετρακόσιοι , hoi tetrakósioi “the four hundred”) generally refers to a political body in ancient Athens that was composed of four hundred members. In a narrower sense, it is understood on the one hand to be a council body, the creation of which is attributed to Solon , and on the other hand to be an oligarchic regime that was established in 411 BC. In the final phase of the Peloponnesian War briefly possessed power through a coup in Athens.

Solonic Council

In ancient times, Solon was attributed to around 600 BC. Next to the already existing Areopagus , which was formed from former archons , to have created a council ( bule ) of four hundred. This is said to have been charged with 100 members of each of the four phyls of the archaic period. According to Plutarch , this council had a preliminary advisory function for the people's assembly by discussing resolutions in advance. It is possible, however, that Plutarch concluded this analogous to the Council of Five Hundred later founded by Kleisthenes and replacing the Solonic Council . Since the function of the council allegedly installed by Solon has only been handed down to Plutarch, who wrote about seven hundred years after Solon, his precise competencies can no longer be grasped. The aim of creating this institution was presumably to involve broader layers of political responsibility in order to counteract individual striving for power. Aristocrats, for example, who did not have the opportunity to become an archon and thus to get to Areopagus, benefited from this; However, the dispossessed lower class of the Thets remained excluded . In modern research, however, the Solonic Council of Four Hundred remains very controversial, and its existence or Solon's authorship is sometimes called into question.

Oligarchic regime

The catastrophic outcome of the Sicily expedition , defeats in the Aegean Sea , the threat from the Spartans , who had captured the Dekeleia fortress on Attic soil and severely impaired Athens through their permanent presence, as well as Athens’s financial difficulties had prepared the ground for an oligarchic constitutional overthrow. The reason for this was the offer of Alcibiades to the Athenian fleet, which operated from Samos and was led by several oligarchic-minded commanders, to raise Persian aid if an oligarchy came to power in Athens and he could return himself. Alkibiades had already fled to Sparta at the beginning of the expedition to Sicily in order to evade an impending trial because of the Hermen crime .

Peisandros was sent to Athens to prepare for the coup. In addition, the conspirators made contact with the oligarchically-minded Athenian hetairies . Although there was no support from the Persian Empire , the anti-democratic forces, represented by Peisandros, succeeded in a mood of fear and violence in convincing the people's assembly to set up a committee to draft a new constitution. In May 411, thirty men were therefore appointed to repeal several provisions for the protection of democracy, such as the graph paranomon , and - presumably as an imitation of the institution attributed to Solon - advocated the creation of a council of four hundred with extensive powers. This council was set up immediately and took over the business of government. Citizenship should be limited to the hoplite class with an estimated 5000 citizens; this body of full citizens was not even constituted. The democratic council of five hundred was paid off and dismissed, the council of four hundred took its place, was given like-minded people by the putschists, and ruled in a despotic manner.

When an attempt to make peace with Sparta failed and in September 411 further military defeats at sea had to be accepted, the fleet near Samos in particular turned back to democracy. The hoplites, led by the moderate oligarch Theramenes , also showed increasing dissatisfaction with the regime. Likewise, Alkibiades, from whom the oligarchs had increasingly distanced themselves after he had been unable to keep his promises, sided with the Democrats and was even elected commander-in-chief after negotiations by the fleet contingents in Samos. Substantially brought about by Theramenes and the politician and general Aristocrates , the Council of Four Hundred was ousted after about four months in the autumn of 411 and a moderate oligarchical assembly of 5000 people was formed, which included the citizens of the upper wealth classes. At the beginning of June 410 democracy was finally restored.

Theramenes, who himself had participated in the oligarchic overthrow in 411 and was a member of the Council of Four Hundred, initiated a lawsuit against his former party friends Archeptolemus , Onomakles and the logographer Antiphon for treason after the overthrow of the regime , in order to gain the people's favor through consciously Turn away from the oligarchy to win them over. The defendants were charged with acting against the interests of Athens as members of the twelve-person delegation that tried to secure a peace treaty with Sparta. Onomakles immediately fled Athens and went into exile when the council decided to arrest them, while Archeptolemus and Antiphon stayed behind, assuming an acquittal in the forthcoming trial. However, both were sentenced to death for treason and executed.

literature

  • Herbert Heftner : The oligarchic overthrow of the year 411 BC And the rule of the four hundred in Athens. Source-critical and historical studies. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-631-37970-6 .
  • Gustav Adolf Lehmann : Oligarchic rule in classical Athens. On the crises and catastrophes of Attic democracy in the 5th and 4th centuries BC Chr. (= North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences. Lectures. G: Humanities. 346). Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1997, ISBN 3-531-07346-X , pp. 40-45.
  • Karl-Wilhelm Welwei : Classical Athens. Democracy and Power Politics in the 5th and 4th Centuries. Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 1999, ISBN 3-89678-117-0 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Aristotle , Athenaion politeia 8.4.
  2. ↑ Plutarch, Solon 19.1.
  3. ^ Karl-Wilhelm Welwei: The Greek Polis. Constitution and society in archaic and classical times. 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-07174-1 , p. 151.
  4. ↑ E.g. Charles Hignett: A History of the Athenian Constitution to the End of the Fifth Century BC Clarendon Press, Oxford 1952, pp. 92-96, (reprinted ibid 1975, ISBN 0-19-814213-7 ).
  5. ↑ Aristotle, Athenaion politeia 33, 1; Diodor 13, 36-37; Harpokration "Τετρακόσιοι"; Thucydides 8, 64.