page_title: Deme
section_title: First period: 508 – 307/306 BC
hierarchical_section_title: Deme / Cleisthenes' reforms and its modifications / First period: 508 – 307/306 BC
caption_attribution_description: The Attic territory distribution after Clisthène's reform. (507-501 BC)
context_page_description: In Ancient Greece, a deme or demos was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and earlier, but did not acquire particular significance until the reforms of Cleisthenes in 508 BC. In those reforms, enrollment in the citizen-lists of a deme became the requirement for citizenship; prior to that time, citizenship had been based on membership in a phratry, or family group. At this same time, demes were established in the main city of Athens itself, where they had not previously existed; in all, at the end of Cleisthenes' reforms, Athens was divided into 139 demes. to which one should add Berenikidai, established in 224/223 BC, Apollonieis and Antinoeis. The establishment of demes as the fundamental units of the state weakened the gene, or aristocratic family groups, that had dominated the phratries.
  A deme functioned to some degree as a polis in miniature, and indeed some demes, such as Eleusis and Acharnae, were in fact significant towns.
context_section_description: Cleisthenes divided the landscape in three zones—urban (asty), coastal (paralia) and inland (mesogeia)—and the 139 demes were organized into 30 groups called trittyes ("thirds"), ten for each of the zones and into ten tribes, or phyle, each composed of three trittyes, one from the coast, one from the city, and one from the inland area.
  Cleisthenes also reorganized the Boule, created with 400 members under Solon, so that it had 500 members, 50 from each tribe, each deme having a fixed quota.
  The ten tribes were named after legendary heroes and came to have an official order: 
  Erechtheis (Ἐρεχθηΐς) named after Erechtheus
  Aigeis (Αἰγηΐς) named after Aegeus
  Pandionis (Πανδιονίς) named after Pandion
  Leontis (Λεοντίς) named after Leos, son of Orpheus
  Acamantis (Ἀκαμαντίς) named after Acamas
  Oineis (Οἰνηΐς) named after Oeneus
  Kekropis (Κεκροπίς) named after Cécrops
  Hippothontis (or Hippothoontis) (Ἱπποθοντίς) named after Hippothoon
  Aiantis (Αἰαντίς) named after Ajax
  Antiochis (Ἀντιοχίς) named after Antiochus, son of Heracles
caption: The division of Athens city-state into urban (pink), inland (green), and coastal (blue) zones by Cleisthenes
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