3.4 Coming of Age in Athens

Socrates’ borough or deme was Alopece, located in the immediate suburbs of Athens to the southeast. In his constitutional reforms of 508 BC, Cleisthenes identified and distributed the hundred and thirty-nine demes among ten administrative “tribes,” replacing four mutually hostile kinship tribes. He designed the new mapping to break up family dynasties and regional interest groups, so as to force people from different regions of Attica to work together (ch. 2*). The new tribes were given important political functions; for instance, each tribe annually elected a general to serve as one of the commanders of the Athenian armed forces for that year. Each tribe also contributed fifty members to the Council every year, and each deme received proportionate representation within their tribe’s cohort of members. Socrates’ Alopece, belonging to the tribe of Antiochis, sent ten citizens to the Council annually. Socrates himself would serve his deme as a Council representative in the year 407/6 BC (see ch. 19*). <a href="https://medium.com/the-first-philosophers/3-4-coming-of-age-in-athens-835ec87084a7">Visit Now</a>