The Athenian Revolution of 508/7 B.C.E.

Abstract

Abstract THE periodization of history is, of course, a product of hindsight, and most historians realize that any past era can accurately be described as an “age of transition.’’ The problem of fixing the end of the archaic period and the transition to the classical is thus a historiographic problem, one that reflects contemporary scholarly inclinations more than it does ancient realities. Nevertheless, since historians cannot work without periodization, and since English-language historiography seems to be entering a post-Annales phase characterized by a renewed interest in the significance - especially the symbolic and cultural significance - of events,’ it may be worthwhile to look at a series of events that can be taken as the beginning of a new phase of Greek history. The events we choose to mark the transition will be different for any given region or polis, but for those interested in Athenian political history, the end of the archaic and the beginning of something new may reasonably be said to have come about in the period from ca.