Phil 2510: Roster As-D

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Augustine of Hippo
Cleisthenes: Athenian statesman, from the famous family of Alcmaeonids. Late in the tyranny of Hippias Cleisthenes was banished from Athens. He was said to have bribed the priestess at Delphi into guaranteeing that the oracle would advise all Spartans to overthrow the tyranny in Athens. (See Pisistratus.) Delphi, in return, got Cleisthenes' promise to help bankroll the renovation of the temple. The priestess took the bribe, the Spartans took the advice, Hippias was overthrown and Cleisthenes returned to Athens (511/10 B.C.E. to head one of two aristocratic factions. When the rival faction, headed by Isagoras, got the upperhand, the ever resourceful Cleisthenes appealed to the people and succeeded in passing a sweeping set of democratic reforms that included redefinition of the tribes of Athens (a sort of ancient gerrymandering), granting of sweeping powers to the Council of 500 (BOULE,) empowering of the Assembly of all citizens (EKKLESIA,) and instituting ostracism, the curious Athenian law by which the citizens could vote to excile for ten years, with or without cause, one of their fellow citizens.
Isagoras was not pleased by these developments. It was his turn to look to Sparta for assistance, but the small Spartan force, raised up by the Spartan King Cleomenes' appeal to the hereditary curse on the Alcmaeonids (Seven Against Thebes and all that,) was unwilling to engage in a long struggle against the resistance of common Athenians whose lot had improved considerably under Cleisthenes' leadership.
The threat of war with Sparta caused Athens to turn to Persia for assistance. The terms negotiated by their representatives were ignominiously rejected by the citizens back home in Athens. (Within fifteen years Athens was in fact at war with Persia.) It is possible that Cleisthenes may have had some part in this Persian misadventure, because little is heard of him after about 504, but he was given a public tomb at his death and his democratic reforms stood. He was generally credited with having established real democracy in Athens (real, that is, for the adult male citizens.)
Cratylus: A younger contemporary of Socrates and, according to Aristotle, Plato's first philosophy teacher. Cratylus developed an extreme and radical Heracliteanism according to which there is no fixity in anything. Where Heraclitus had held that you cannot step into the same river twice, Cratylus argued that you can't do it even once. Aristotle reports that Cratylus came eventually to abandon speach, since constant change renders meaningful discourse impossible, and thereafter limited his commentary to wagging his finger. (Metaphy., 4.5 1010a10-15 = DK 65A4 ) Plato also treats this theme of the impossibility of language on the assumptions of radical Heracliteanism in a famous passage (Theaetetus, 179d-180c.)
Democritus of Abdera: The pupil of Leucippus, who developed and elaborated his teacher's theory of atomism. Democritus must have been about ten years young than Socrates, which would put his birth sometime around 470 B.C.E. He lived a long life (perhaps over 100 years) and was, therefore, a contemporary of Plato's, probably alive when Aristotle studied at the Academy. He travelled widely, including outside of Greece. (Abdera, his hometown, was on the southern coast of Thrace near present-day Thessaloniki.) He was a prolific author. More than 70 titles have come down to us, on ethics, natural philosophy, mathematics, the arts, travel, and technical writings on medicine, farming, military science, etc.) He was known in the ancient world as the "laughing philosopher" but there has been some dispute as to whether this was because he found human foibles funny or because of his ethical ideal of "cheerfulness" EUTHUMIA. More fragments of Democritus than of any other so-called Presocratic philosopher have survived. (Strictly speaking, of course, Democritus cannot be called "pre-socratic.") Most of the extant fragments deal with ethical topics and not with the atomism for which he and Leucippus are most famous. Aristotle did not think much of this atomic theory and he is the source of a great many of our Democritean fragments. The atomists have been better thought of since the Renaissance than by their contemporaries and immediate successors. Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics seem not to have been much impressed by Democritus' thought.
Demosthenes
Draco: By tradition and 5c. and 4c. B.C.E. reports, Draco was named lawgiver during the archonship of Aristaechmus (621/20??) when he is supposed to have issued the first written laws of Athens, established the so-called hoplite constitution, and established severe penalties (often death) for a variety of criminal offences. 20c C.E. scholars have questioned the degree to which these reports may have been exaggerated by 5c and 4c B.C.E. propagandists. One 4c orator even claimed he used blood instead of ink to write his laws.

Revised September 24, 1996

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