The Athenian Constitution

In the earliest days of Athens the city was ruled by a tightly‑knit aristocracy, and ordinary citizens lived as serfs tied to the land of a few powerful families. When a sacrilegious scandal erupted, the noble courts met, pronounced guilt, and ordered the offenders’ exile, prompting a city‑wide purification led by the Cretan sage Epimenides. This episode laid bare the stark divide between the privileged few and the disenfranchised masses, whose lives were bound to relentless rent, debt slavery, and a lack of any political voice.

Aristotle then maps the succession of magistracies that structured Athenian governance. The king, the polemarch (military commander), and the archon each emerged at different stages, their offices initially lifelong and later limited to ten‑year or annual terms. The Thesmothetae kept public records of legal decisions, while the Areopagus, composed of former archons, wielded sweeping authority to protect the laws and mete out punishments.

The narrative reaches the moment when Draco, a lawgiver of austere reputation, codified the existing customs into a formal constitution, extending the franchise in a limited way and setting the stage for the reforms that would follow.