Aristotle: Athenian Constitution

Glossary

• Agroeci, Demiurgi, and Eupatridae a reference to classes of people: the peasants, the artisans and tradespeople, and the nobility, respectively
• ancient Ionian race broadly speaking, the Greeks who were Aristotle's ancestors
• Eritrea country in the Horn of Africa on the Red Sea
• deme a country district or village, part of a city-state (polis)
• glozing flattering
• King's Porch the seat of the archon (king)
• Ion, Medon, Acastus, and Codrus a reference to various reputed leaders of Athens: Ion was commander in chief of the Athenian army under the archaic mythological king Erechtheus. Medon was the son of Codrus (the last of Athens's legendary kings) and the first archon of Athens. Acastus was the successor to Medon.
• Lycurgus Spartan lawgiver of the eighth century BCE
• marriage of the King's wife to Dionysus a ceremony during which the king's wife was symbolically married to the god Dionysus
• Naucrari subdivisions of the population of the Athenian state
• Pheidon king of Argos in the eighth century bce who instituted a system of standard measurements
• the Eleven the panel in charge of prisoners and executions—a group with immense discretion in determining who was arrested and in ordering summary executions
• Thermaic gulf gulf in the Aegean Sea now called the Gulf of Salonika
• Thesmothetae the six junior archons