457 BC

Archon

Athens opens the archonship to the zeugitai

The first beneficiary's name survives — Mnesitheides. The proposer's does not, and the main ancient source never mentions Pericles here at all.

What changed in 457/6

In the Athenian archon year 457/6 BCE — a civic year straddling two modern ones — Athens made members of the zeugitai eligible for the preliminary selection from which the nine archons were then chosen by lot.

Mnesitheides became the first recorded archon from that class. Until then the archons had come from the two wealthier Solonian classes, the pentakosiomedimnoi and the hippeis.

That is the whole of the documented measure: one group of offices opened to a third property class.

Not Pericles, and not 'common people'

The surviving account does not name a proposer. It names Pericles only later, for jury pay and the separate citizenship law of 451/0 — so calling this "Pericles' greatest reform" is unsupported, and no ancient source says it inaugurated a Golden Age.

The zeugitai were not Athens's poorest citizens. They were the third Solonian class, commonly associated with middling farmers and hoplite service, and they already held ordinary magistracies.

The poorest class, the thetes, remained formally ineligible, though later Athenians sometimes evaded the property rule.

An office that had already lost power

The change followed Ephialtes's reduction of the Areopagus's political authority in 462/1, and it widened access to an office whose practical power had already declined.

The specific proposer and any legislative debate are simply not recorded.

The main source, the fourth-century Constitution of the Athenians, is later than the event but supplies the office, the class and the first officeholder.

Sources

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How this was checked

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What the sources leave uncertain

The relevant Athenian civic year straddled modern calendar years and is conventionally written 457/6 BCE.
The main source, the fourth-century Constitution of the Athenians, is later than the event but gives the specific office, class, and first officeholder.
Pericles’ sponsorship is conjectural; the source does not name him.
The poorest Solonian class, the thetes, remained formally ineligible, although later Athenians sometimes evaded the property rule.