# Cleisthenes — Histories character guide

> Cleisthenes in Histories by Herodotus.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** the Athenian Cleisthenes

**First appearance:** 0006-book-v-terpsichore

## Snapshot

The reformer who redraws Athens' tribes and rituals, breaking the old noble grip on power and giving the city its first taste of rule by the many.

## Who they are

Cleisthenes belongs to the Alcmaeonid clan, a family already stained by the Cylon affair and hungry for a comeback after the tyrant Peisistratos' sons are expelled. Facing rivals who want a narrow oligarchy, he courts the common people instead, reorganizing tribes, demes, and cults so that old kinship loyalties lose their bite. His reforms give Herodotus' Athenian narrative its turning point: a city that suddenly punches above its weight because its citizens now have a stake in it.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/histories_se/characters/cleisthenes_athenian
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