The Territorial Basis of the Attic Demes

Symbolae Osloenses Vol. LX. 1985, 5-15

THE TERRITORIAL BASIS OF THE ATTIC DEMES MERLE K. LANGDON

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University of Washington

It is a basic assumption upon which the writings of virtually all modern Attic topographers1 are predicated that Kleisthenes approached the political reorganization o f Attica in large part as a problem in territorial division and that the demes, each with clearly defined boundaries, were the means by which he carved up the countryside into many separate units and effected this division. In a previous volume of Symbolae Osloenses Wesley Thompson2 re-examined the status of the Attic demes and came to the opposite conclusion, arguing that Kleisthenes identified the demes as local units without precise boundaries. My belief is that Kleisthenes was thinking o f land parcels and that he did define the demes in terms of specific units of land within clearly defined boundaries. My object in this study is to present the case in favor of a territorial basis of the demes. Since topographers until now have not adequately done this, it is hoped that an explicit statement in support of the territorial view will help to exonerate their approach and shift the burden of the argument back to the other side. An impressive number of epigraphists and historians3 have joined Thompson in opposing topographers concerning the nature o f the demes. Therein lie important differences in attitude and experiences which have served to give rise to two opposing camps. The topographers come to know the land intimately and to them Kleisthenes' task of dividing Attica up into territorial units was not formidable. The Attic landscape is no less varied than that of other districts of Greece. It contains its share of gullies, hills, mountains and sea coasts, the kinds of natural features which served as boundaries between ancient states4 and which could just as well have been used to define intrastate subdivisions. Thus it strikes the topographer that the ingredients for division are plentifully abundant in Attica, so that parcelling

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out the land to create the original demes would have required neither decades o f time nor dozens o f land surveyors for its realization. Epigraphists and historians, more often at work in a library or an epigraphical museum, so consequently less appreciative of landforms, despair at the supposed magnitude o f the task of creating a large number o f territorially based demes. To accomplish the j o b they imagine a protracted cadastral survey of all o f Attica; they imagine numerous cases o f disagreement among the people o f a given area about whether a certain piece of land belonged within the area o f deme Χ , Υ or Z; they imagine careful surveying to fix deme boundaries once the haggling and disputes were at last settled; finally, they imagine complicated cartographic exercises leading to the production o f a series of large, detailed maps of Attica - in all a process taking a great many years, too many to harmonize with Kleisthenes' desire for speedy implementation of his reforms. The task facing Kleisthenes would have been time consuming indeed had the creation of the demes proceeded in this fashion. In my opinion the demes were not formed in this way. There was no need for a great amount of fieldwork, because most of the demes already had territorial existence.4» Generally peaceful and prosperous conditions obtained in Attica throughout the Iron Age and Archaic period, so that by the time o f Kleisthenes the picture was one of numerous settled communities, most in their own topographically defined areas. Kleisthenes had but to direct that a board of όρισαί5 travel throughout Attica in order to ascertain from locals the territorial extent o f the landholdings o f each community's inhabitants. This was readily accomplished, for the state was simply legitimizing territorial circumstances which had existed for generations. There was no need for elaborate surveying or mapmaking. Notes recording the physical features which each community regarded as defining the limits of its territory sufficed. There were probably few disputes. Only in some of the larger plains might disagreements have arisen over where to draw boundaries. To these disputes Kleisthenes would have given top priority to finding solutions. Other areas had no previous history. The land was unclaimed, and habitation was not extensive. Kleisthenes and his assistants had no trouble in

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drawing up boundaries o f new demes in these places and creating settlements from the scattered populations.6 In both kinds of demes, those with past histories and those without, the end result was the same: units composed of villages plus land within official boundaries. I envision a period o f months rather than years for this deme framework to be established. Kleisthenes was soon ready to turn his attention to the phylai and trittyes and assignment of the demes to them. When we turn to the literary sources for information on the nature of the demes our search does not yield much evidence. The one direct reference, Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 21, clarifies the place and function of the demes within the Kleisthenic structure but leaves obscure the question of whether the demes were taken principally as population centers or units of land. The sentence beginning Ath. Pol. 21.4, διένειμε (sc. Κλεισθένης) δέ και την χώραν κατά δήμους τριάκοντα μέρη...., is not decisive, because it could apply equally well to demes as people or as land. A more potentially helpful sentence is 21.5, but it is a crux. After relating the place of the demes in the general reform, Aristotle states that Kleisthenes προσηγόρέυσε δέ των δήμων τους μεν από των τόπων, τους δέ από των κτησάντων. οό yap άπαντες ύπήρχον ετι τοις τόποις. Some refer άπαντες in the last clause back to δήμων and translate "for the people did not all still correspond to the places." Others refer it to κτησάντων and render the clause "for not all the founders still existed in their places." In other words, either the people who constituted some demes were no longer living in the places associated with the eponymous founders of their villages,7 in which case the artificial territorial nature of the demes newly created by Kleisthenes is demonstrated, or else not all places had people who still remembered or honored their founders,8 in which case there is nothing opposing the conclusion that the demes had definite territorial identity. The uncertainties of interpretation which plague this passage disqualify it as evidence for either side of the argument. We fare better when we turn our attention to the epigraphical evidence. The information derived from this source reflects mostly in an indirect fashion on the question of the nature of the

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demes, but it is in my opinion decisive. In the 4th-century B.C. deme decree IGII21214, the demesmen o f Piraeus honor Kallidamas o f Cholleidai and exempt him from paying the έγκτητικόν (lines 26-28), a tax levied by a deme on citizens o f other demes who owned land within its territory. Absentee ownership was common in ancient Attica, so common in fact that B . Haussoullier 9 considered the proceeds from the έγκτητικόν to have been the demes' largest source of revenue. Yet unless demes were composed o f definite areas of land defined by official boundaries, it is difficult to see how this tax could have been properly levied. Without deme boundaries who was to say what deme had jurisdiction over any given piece of land which did not happen to lie within the immediate environs o f a village? The έγκτητικόν required the existence o f deme boundaries so that possibilities o f ambiguity over taxing rights would not arise. The 4th century is the only period for which we have evidence o f the έγκτητικόν,10 but it is not likely that deme boundaries were established only when the tax was first devised, probably in this or the preceding century. Had this been the case, it is puzzling that the ancient sources have nothing to say about it. Such an important redefinition o f Attic territory would hardly have escaped mention. It is simplest to conclude that the demes were already territorial units with official boundaries when the έγκτητικόν was initiated. The creation o f this territorial basis belongs naturally to the period of Kleisthenes' reforms. On a more general epigraphical level, those Attic inscriptions which deal with land - poletai records, deme leases, rationes centesimarum - are most instructive in revealing to us that "all the territory of Attica, with few exceptions, must have been associated theoretically, if not actually, with one deme or another."" The association is in fact not theoretical but real. Land is so habitually referred to by deme locations in Attic inscriptions that we are compelled to conclude that the demes were defined by boundaries, else the demotic designations would be meaningt: less and open to disputes. Again the evidence is predominantly from the 4th century, but there is no reason to conclude that Kleisthenic Attica was organized on a different basis than that revealed by inscriptions for later times.

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In the face of the strong, albeit circumstantial, case for deme boundaries we must now consider Thompson's major argument against them, the absence of boundary stones. Thompson points to the numerous examples of boundary stones for roads, mines, temene, the Athenian Agora, etc. in contrast to the absence of deme boundary stones. The obvious conclusion, according to Thompson, is that there are no horoi of demes because there were no deme boundaries. I favor the opposite conclusion: there were boundaries between demes, but they were not normally defined by markers. Deme boundaries were based on natural features of the landscape which were mutually agreed on and which did not need special markers, whereas mines, temene, the Agora, etc. were areas with arbitrarily drawn boundaries which required horoi to make their limits clear. So naturally we possess an appreciable number of horoi for these latter subdivisions but none for demes. The possibility cannot be ruled out that deme boundaries were defined by markers but of a different form. We know that cairns served to mark at least part of the border between Hermione and Epidauros;13 the same device could have been used for the demes of Attica. After the Athenian constitution and the political organization of Attica were abandoned in later antiquity, such cairns would have fallen apart leaving no trace of their previous existence.14 But in view of the Athenian habit of using inscribed markers when defining spatial limits, this alternative seems less attractive. Another possibility to be considered is that inscribed markers of demes do in fact exist. The Attic Corpus numbers almost two dozen inscriptions consisting of the single word δρος, and more examples increase this number all the time. Most of them may be regarded as candidates for boundary stones. Unfortunately, their laconism leaves their function, which could differ from example to example, undeclared. Also, the one certain determinant, discovery in situ, seldom applies. So for those horoi that are portable stelai it has to remain only an unverifiable possibility that any of them served as boundary markers of Attic demes. We may hold out more hope for evidence from rupestral exam-

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pies o f όρος. Indeed, very recently several rupestral horoi have been interpreted as marking deme boundaries. In one case John Traill15 has published a convincing interpretation o f a previously known series o f rupestral horoi east of the Attic community o f Vari. They are best seen as demarcating the boundary between Upper and Coastal Lamptrai. A second example is provided by Hans Lauter,16 who recently discovered a single horos cut into bedrock on the ridge of Kaminia west of Vari. We can readily accept Lauter's arguments that the horos marks a deme boundary, but we need not share his hesitation about the identity of the demes which it divides. Halai Aixonides lay to the west of the ridge, and there is no good reason to abandon the assignment of Anagyrous to the east of it. Lauter's horos thus denotes the ridge of Kaminia as the boundary between these two demes. On the basis o f letter forms both Traill and Lauter date their horoi to the 4th century. They both believe that some dispute over territorial jurisdiction may have led to the defining o f the boundary by means of rupestral horoi. Before this time there were presumably no horoi in either place but only the bare ridges serving as boundaries between neighboring demes. In sum, the reforms of Kleisthenes should be seen as built around two elements. For purposes of bouleutic representation and other governmental activities the population of the deme centers, where the majority of the citizenry lived, was the important element. Certain tax situations, lease agreements and the like brought into prominence the other important element, the land associated with these centers. Kleisthenes had both in mind when he set about his reforms. There was no need to validate the deme centers; their tangible existence was a reality that needed no confirmation. It was necessary, on the other hand, to legitimize each community's territory, so that everyone would know where one deme ended and another began. This Kleisthenes did by cataloguing the natural geographical features which separated one area from another and letting them function as boundaries. Giving the negative evidence its full value we must conclude that it was not part of the plan to mark deme boundaries by means of any artificial devices. That occured subsequently only when special circumstances required it.

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APPENDIX

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The Urban Deme Boundaries of Athens The subject of deme boundaries within the city wall o f Athens calls for special treatment. Because of the density of population in the asty the majority o f scholars, Thompson included, admit the necessity of specific boundaries for the urban demes. The number o f demes in the asty is not certainly known, but there is general agreement in placing at least five demes within the walls: Koile, Kollytos, Kydathenaion, Melite and Skambonidai. There is also more or less o f a consensus on their location: Kydathenaion and Skambonidai to the north, Melite and Koile to the west and southwest, and Kollytos to the south of the Acropolis. This is not the place to review the evidence, nor, since there is no new evidence, to add another deme map of the city.to those that now exist.17 Instead we will turn our attention to the features used as deme boundaries within the city. The obvious place to begin is at the city's periphery, where the enceinte easily served as the outward boundary of all the urban demes. This was not the case before 480, when a much smaller enceinte, built by Peisistratos, enclosed a greatly circumscribed area, probably only the Acropolis, Areopagus and their slopes.18 At that time the later urban demes were all separate communities," and the military dictates which determined the course of the Peisistratid wall probably left some land of each of them within the wall and some without. The post-Persian circuit took in a greatly enlarged area, reflecting the expansion of the asty which by now had swallowed up the settlements in the environs of the Acropolis. The course of the new circuit was determined in large part by the same topographic features which no doubt previously helped define at least one side of each community's land. While it is not impossible that some of the new urban demes extended beyond the post-Persian enceinte, and several of the urban deme maps listed in note 17 show them doing this, there is no compelling reason to believe that they did. The enceinte should instead be seen as corresponding to their outward boundaries.

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Within the circuit the Acropolis is the most prominent natural feature. It was not part of any deme but served to demarcate two, Kollytos and Kydathenaion. The Agora, also not included in any deme, performed the same function. Although not a natural feature, it was a large, regular space defined by horoi. Of the five demes placed in the asty all but Koile were in part contiguous with the Agora, so segments o f their inward boundaries were fixed by it. For the rest, where not determined by the city wall, Acropolis or Agora, the configuration of the urban demes was most probably formed by city streets designated as boundary lines. Only one scholar, A. Andrewes,20 has resisted the temptation to grant this function to city streets. He agrees with Thompson that the demes were formed by having each citizen simply report to his nearest district center. This, Andrewes believes, would result in ragged borders among the urban demes, not the regular edges which streets produce. If, however, the situation was as I have argued, and the territory of each urban deme already had regular boundaries when its village center was an independent community, city streets could very easily be applied to the boundary system. There may have been some slight territorial readjustments among the urban demes when they were all incorporated into the asty, but o f this we have no evidence. Andrewes also argues that roads would not have made suitable boundary lines because they tend to unify rather than divide. This would not have been true of the Panathenaic Way, always an exceptionally wide avenue, which by Roman times had acquired a width o f almost 20 meters. It was easily a major line o f division within the city, forming the boundary between Melite to the south and probably Skambonidai21 to the north. More normal ancient Athenian streets, usually three meters wide or less, may also be accepted without hesitation as potential boundary lines between demes, especially those streets running from an important point such as the Acropolis or Agora to one of the city gates.- Just as in Rome where streets performed this function when Augustus divided the city into the 14 regiones? or Paris where streets are the boundaries o f the 20 arrondissements, or an American city whose political wards are determined

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by street boundaries, so too in ancient Athens the unifying tendency o f city streets was easily superceded by the needs of civic organization. For urban deme boundaries there is some literary evidence to consider. A passage in Strabo (1.4.7) is often taken as proof that they were marked with horoi. Thompson points out that the passage reveals just the opposite. The same is revealed by a scholium to Aristophanes, Aves 997: οδτως μέρος τι νΰν σύνηΒες γέγονε το Κολωνόν καλεΐν το δπισΒεν της Μακράς Στοας. αλλ' ουκ εστν Μελίτη γαρ άπαν ¿κείνο, ώς έν τοις Όρισμοΐς γέγραπται της πόλεοχ;.2* Obviously the areas of Kolonos and Melite were confused because there were no visible boundary markers. Despite this, the area behind the Long Stoa was definitely part of Meute "as it is written in the Horismoi o f the city." This last clause is of great importance, for it tells us that written records were kept o f urban deme boundaries.23 The situation in Athens is likely to reflect that in rural Attica. Attic deme boundaries were not generally marked, but records o f them were kept in the central archive in Athens.

NOTES 1 Prime examples include C. W. J. Eliot, Coastal Demes of Attica, A Study in the Policy of Kleisthenes, Phoenix, Suppl. V, Toronto 1962; the two essays by E. Kirsten in A. Philippson, Die griechischen Landschaften, I, Der Nordosten der griechischen Halbinsel, Teil III, Atlika und Megaris, Frankfurt 1952, pp. 971-1036; the writings of Eugene Vanderpool, too numerous to list here. 2 "The Deme in Kleisthenes' Reforms," SO 46, 1971, 72-79. 3 Read, for example, the comments of D. M. Lewis in his review of Eliot's book. Gnomon 35, 1963, 724, 3rd paragraph; also A. Andrewes. CQ, N. S., 27, 1977, 241-248; P. J . Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia, Oxford 1981, 251-252. However, field of specialization does not always determine which view a scholar maintains. Recently a German historian with apparently little topographical experience has written a book in which the demes are treated as blocks of land with established boundaries. P. Siewert, Die Trittyen Attikas und die Heeresreform des Kleisthenes, Munich 1982. 4 Inscriptions which define interstate borders frequently itemize physical features as border points: IG IV· 1, 71, 11. 10-31 (Corinth-Epidauros); IG IV :

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1, 75, 11. 10-19 (Hennione-Epidauros); IG IV2 1, 76, 11. 17-27 (TroizenArsinoe); IG I X 2, 205, 11. 3-12 (Meliteia-Pereia); BCH 102, 1978, 347-48, 11. 4-29 (probably Orchomenos-Torthyneion), to name but a few. 4a The best discussion of the Attic demes in pre-Kleisthenic times is that of A. E. Raubitschek, Dedications from the Athenian Acropolis. Cambridge, Mass. 1949, pp. 467-478. 5 'Ορισταί are attested for Athens no earlier than the latter 5th century, cf. IG Ρ, 84 1. 7, so their existence at the time of Kleisthenes must remain speculative. Yet the task facing the reformer of creating the demes required some such officials, if only appointed as an ad hoc committee. 6 The number of new settlements is put at around 30 by J . S. Traill, The Political Organization of Attica, Hesperia, Suppl. XIV, Princeton 1975, 101, n. 100. Thompson does not take these new creations into account when he argues that Kleisthenes created the demes simply by ordering all citizens to their home village qua deme for enrollment. 7 The interpretation of Traill (n. 6 above) 101, 103; also J . E. Sandys, Aristotle's Constitution of Athens. 2nd. ed, London 1912, 86-87. 8 The majority of scholars admit that this interpretation makes better sense: K. von Fritz and E. Kapp. Aristotle's Constitution of Athens and Related Texts. New York and London 1950, 165, n. 53; J . M. Moore, Aristotle and Xenophon on Democracy and Oligarchy, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1975, 240; P. Lévēque and P. Vidal-Naquet, Clisthène l'Athénien. Paris 1964, 70, η. 3; P. J . Rhodes (n. 3 above) 258. English translations can also lead to obscurities. Rhodes, for example, places Moore among those who equate άπαντες with δήμων. This must be an inference based on the pronouns in Moore's translation. Rhodes must have overlooked Moore's commentary where άπαντες is clearly understood as χτήσαντες. 9 La vie municipale en Attique. Paris 1884. 78-79. In reading Thompson one gets the opposite impression: "the jurisdiction of demes was primarily concerned with their own demotai so that the registers of citizens were more important than boundaries...." (n. 2 above) 75, n. 16. 10 Two other deme decrees of the 4th century allude to the tax: IG II2 1187, 1. 16. and 1204. 1. 12. with grants οι τελεία mentioned. Also. Demosthenes 50. Against Polykles. 8. mentions οί έγκεκτημένοι.Andrewes' brief consideration of o γκεκτημένοι (η. 3 above. 243) greatly oversimplifies the matter in my opinion. 11 J . Traill (n. 6 above) 73. n. 6. The same sentiments are expressed by Siewert (n. 3 above) 85. 12 Contrast Thompson (n. 2 above) 73. n. 3: "Again the fact that a piece of property is listed as. e.g., 'Aλ σι. does not prove that the deme Halai had exact boundaries." True, it does not prove it. but that is the most logical and economical conclusion. 13 They are called ßoλεoi in inscriptions (IG IV2 1, 75, 1. 33; AthMitt 59. 1934. 48. 1.16) and literature (Pausanias 2.36.3). 14 This is exactly what happened to the Hermione-Epidauros cairns: cf. M. H. Jameson, Hesperia 22, 1953. 162. η. 37.

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15 Studies in Attic Epigraphy. History and Topography Presented to Eugene Vanderpool, Hesperia. Suppl. XIX, Princeton 1982, 162-171. 16 AA 1982, 299-315. 17 There is no more recent comprehensive treatment of the evidence for the urban demes than W. Judeich, Topographie von Athen, 2nd. ed., Munich 1931, 165-175. There are additional comments in Traill (n. 6 above) and Siewert (n. 3 above). There are numerous deme maps of Athens. Besides those of the three authors just mentioned some recent ones include E. Kirsten and W. Kraiker, Griechenlandskunde I, Heidelberg 1967, 97; Westermann Grosser Atlas zur Weltgeschichte. 10th ed., Braunschweig 1978, 12, map VI; Atlas historique Larousse, Paris 1978, p. 15; N. G. L. Hammond, Atlas of the Greek and Roman World in Antiquity, Park Ridge, New Jersey, map beside map 9a; P. J . Rhodes (n. 3 above) 764. 18 See F. E. Winter in Studies in Attic Epigraphy, History and Topography Presented to Eugene Vanderpool, Hesperia, Suppl. XIX, Princeton 1982, 199-204; for the date of the pre-Persian city wall, cf. Eugene Vanderpool in ΦΟΡΟΣ, Tribute to B. D. Meritt. Locust Valley, New York 1974, 156-60. 19 The evidence is collected by P. J . Bicknell, Historia 23, 1974, 147; and P. Siewert (n. 3 above), 133. 20 See n. 3 above. 21 Most of the maps err, in my opinion, in placing this deme in northeastern Athens. I believe that Kydathenaion must be allowed to encompass all this, from the Acropolis north and east to the city wall. It sent 12 representatives to the Boule, so it clearly took in a large, populous area. Skambonidai. which sent only three representatives to the Boule, occupied a smaller area north of the Agora, between the Panathenaic Way and the road from the Agora to the Achamian gate. I am not convinced by Siewert's proposal (n. 3 above, 29, n. 140) to extend Kerameis into the asty along the Panathenaic Way. 22 I would draw urban deme boundaries with reference to the road system shown in the map of Athens in J . Travlos. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens. New York 1971. 169,fig.219. 23 For the evidence see A. von Gerkan. BJ 149. 1949. 5-65, esp. 34-54. amplifying the data presented in H. Kiepert and Chr. Hülsen, Formae urbis Romae amiquae. 2nd. ed., Berlin 1912. The outward boundaries of the regiones corresponded to the limits of the pomerium, then the Aurelian wall when it was built. The Augustan regiones were succeeded by seven regiones ecclesiasticae. for which enceinte and streets were also used as boundaries. 24 F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Leiden 1964, III B, no. 375. 25 Thompson (η. 2 above) 74, η. 13 downplays the importance of the scholium, perfunctorily dismissing it and misrepresenting Jacoby. In his commentary Jacoby clearly expresses his belief that the Horismoi of the city, while itself a product of antiquarian interest, was based on official records.