ABSTRACT
The archonship and legislation of Solon in 594/3 did not mean the end of strife in Attica, though the conflict between the rich and the poor was certainly defused to a great extent. In subsequent decades, there were difficulties over the archonship in some years (doc. 3.36), and as this office was the privilege of the wealthy, both the eupatridai and noneupatridai, dissension amongst the wealthy must have been at the root of the problem. At the same time, even after Solon’s reforms, there remained a group of dissatisfied poor. Three important political figures emerged by the 560s: Megakles, Lykourgos and Peisistratos. According to Herodotos (doc. 4.1), there were three staseis (singular: stasis), which can be translated as factions or parties: those of the coast, ‘hoi paraloi’, under the leadership of Megakles the Alkmeonid, and those of the plain under Lykourgos, ‘hoi ek tou pediou’, while Peisistratos formed a third stasis, ‘hoi hyperakrioi’, meaning ‘those from beyond the hills’, also known by the Athenaion Politeia (doc. 4.2) as ‘hoi diakrioi’, ‘men of the diakria’. The coastal region, paralia, stretches from Phaleron to Sounion, the west coast of Attica; it is here that the Alkmeonidai would have had their adherents, with their main centre probably at Alopeke, south of Athens. The plain referred to is the central plain, the valley of the Kephissos river, which adjoins the city, and Lykourgos probably had his main centre at Boutadai. The diakrioi were the inhabitants of the diakria, the area from Parnes to Brauron, the hilly north-east part of Attica; this area is separated from the plain of Athens by intervening hills.
