Ionic and hereditary divisions of four
tribes, many ancient associations and ties between the poorer and the
nobler classes were necessarily formed. By one bold innovation, the
whole importance of which was not immediately apparent, Clisthenes
abolished these venerable divisions, and, by a new geographical
survey, created ten tribes instead of the former four. These were
again subdivided into districts, or demes; the number seems to have
varied, but at the earliest period they were not less than one
hundred--at a later period they exceeded one hundred and seventy. To
these demes were transferred all the political rights and privileges
of the divisions they supplanted. Each had a local magistrate and
local assemblies. Like corporations, these petty courts of
legislature ripened the moral spirit of democracy while fitting men
for the exercise of the larger rights they demanded. A consequence of
the alteration of the number of the tribes was an increase in the
number that composed the senate, which now rose from four to five
hundred members.

Clisthenes did not limit himself to this change in the constituent
bodies--he increased the total number of the constituents; new
citizens were made--aliens were admitted--and it is supposed by some,
though upon rather vague authorities, that several slaves were
enfranchised. It was not enough, however, to augment the number of
the people, it was equally necessary to prevent the ascension of a
single man. Encouraged by the example in other states of Greece,
forewarned by the tyranny of Pisistratus, Clisthenes introduced the
institution of the Ostracism [248]. Probably about the same period,
the mode of election to public office generally was altered from the
public vote to the secret lot [249]. It is evident that these
changes, whether salutary or pernicious, were not wanton or uncalled
for. The previous constitution had not sufficed to protect the
republic from a tyranny: something deficient in the machinery of
Solon's legislation had for half a century frustrated its practical
intentions. A change was, therefore, necessary to the existence of
the free state; and the care with which that change was directed
towards the diminution of the aristocratic influence, is in itself a
proof that such influence had been the shelter of the defeated
tyranny. The Athenians themselves always considered the innovations
of Clisthenes but as the natural development of the popular
instit