\paperw3990 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 \fs22 ATHENS - In the archaic era Athens was ruled by a government of aristocrats, the College of nine archons, and by the A
reopagus, an important council of aristocrats that took all the decisions. There was also the ekklesia, an assembly made up of small landowners and the DEMOS as well as nobles. However the first two classes were excluded from any other public post, and t
his inevitably led to major clashes with the aristocracy, which in fact held all the power. In 594 Solon was called on to reconcile these conflicts, introducing radical reforms in an attempt to bring about a broader participation of citizens in political
life. The population was divided into four classes, no longer on the basis of birth but on that of wealth. Yet \b \cf2 \ATXht19 Solon\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 's constitution did not remove all disagreements, since it still placed the government in the hands of
a small number of wealthy persons, excluding the mass of people with no property.\par
Taking advantage of this difficult situation, tyranny was imposed on Athens as well, and was brought to an end only with the new constitution of \b \cf2 \ATXht3 Cleist
henes\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 in 510 BC. \par
Cleisthenes classified the Athenians in a new way, dividing them up on the basis of their place of residence. Thus he created ten phylae or tribes, each of which sent its own representatives to the central organs o
f government. To ensure that the phylae were represented equally, Cleisthenes raised the number of members of all the magistratures to ten, divided the army into ten cohorts, and set up ten tribunals. Finally he created the boule, or Council of Five Hund
red, which exercised all the most important functions and whose members were chosen by lot, fifty for each phyle. However proposed laws had to be submitted to the ekklesia, whose authority was thus strengthened to the point where it became the chief orga
