It has been suggested that the demesdid originally number exactly a hundred, and that new demes were added as the population increased.
The demes were undoubtedly primitive divisions of Attica; Herodotus (ix.
The Constitution of Athens says nothing of the ten-deme-to-each-tribe arrangement, and there is no sufficient reason for supposing that the demes originally were exactly a hundred in number.
Thus the city itself had six demes in five different tribes, and the other five tribes were represented in the suburbs and the Peiraeus.
This theory, however, presupposes that the demes were originally equal in numbers.
The most logical conclusion perhaps is that Cleisthenes, while he did create the demes which Athens itself comprised, did not create the country demes, but merely gave them definition as political divisions.
The problem of establishing this decimal system in connexion with thedemes and trittyes is insoluble.
In the meantime the Peloponnesians, as the Athenians did not come out to engage them, broke up from Acharnae and ravaged some of the demes between Mount Parnes and Brilessus.
The demeswere local divisions of Attica, like our parishes; the tribes were groupings, independent of locality, of these demes into ten divisions for administrative purposes.
In the time of Demosthenes about a century and a half after Cleisthenes the assemblies of the demeswere fully organised bodies and had plenty of business to employ them[157].
Cleisthenes established his demes as local divisions in lieu of the naucrariæ, in each deme he set up a demarchus or president of the deme, and the demarchi took over the functions which the naucrari had hitherto discharged[152].
That the country festivals to the wine-god in the different demeswere held on different dates, we learn from the fact that companies of actors went out from Athens to make the tour of these provincial festivals.
In the passage from the Acharnians just cited, there is no statement that this is the season when the demes were accustomed to hold their annual Bacchic celebrations.
The numerous fugitives expelled by this order, distributed themselves partly in Peiræus, partly in the variousdemes of Attica.
Each new tribe comprised a certain number of demes or cantons with the enrolled proprietors and residents in each of them.
The demes taken altogether, included the entire surface of Attica.
Formerly they were thirty in number, and they went on circuit through the demesto hear causes; but after the oligarchy of the Thirty they were increased to forty.
They also bring up the examinations of all magistrates, and the rejections by the demes and the condemnations by the Council.
He also instituted Demarchs, who had the same duties as the previously existing Naucrari,--the demes being made to take the place of the naucraries.
The historical demes were organised by Cleisthenes, on a local basis.
The demes had two parts, military under democrats, and civil, or political, under demarchs.
In the sixth century," says Professor Bury, "the outbreaks of the demes represent a last struggle for municipal independence, on which it is the policy of imperial absolutism to encroach.
The two demes then declared themselves united, and having no answer from the praefect whose house they surrounded, they set fire to the praetorium, and then in the night spread the fire over the imperial quarter.
A more critical investigation has shown that the demes ([Greek: demoi]) or parties were organised bodies intimately connected with the court and the municipality.
When at last his reign ended in a revolution and a flight, it was the people of Constantinople, the demes and the factions of the Circus, who gave him to death, and placed the imperial crown on the head of Phocas, his successor.
The heads of each faction were officers of the court and the army, and the demes were fully organised for military purposes.
To the demes or factions were allowed privileges which seemed the last relics of the ancient freedom of the Greek cities.
A hundred demessimilarly organized would determine the general movement of the commonwealth.
As a plan of government it rested upon territory which was necessarily permanent, and upon property which was more or less localized; and it dealt with its citizens, now localized in demes through their territorial relations.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "demes" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
