The Naucrary ( grc, ναυκραρία, naukraria) was a subdivision of the people of
Attica
Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean S ...
,
among the most ancient in the
Athenian
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
state. Each was led by an official called a naucrarus ( grc, ναύκραρος, naukraros) All sources for the institution date from after it had ceased to be particularly important and thus the nature of the naucraries is highly disputed in modern scholarship. They seem to have played a role in fiscal management and naval organisation.
Etymology
The word is derived either from ''naus'' (ναῦς "a ship") and describes the duty imposed upon each naucrary, of providing one ship and two (or, more probably, ten) horsemen; or from ''naio'' (ναίω "I dwell"), in which case it has to do with a householder census. The former is generally accepted in view of the fact that the naucraries were certainly the units on which the Athenian fleet was based.
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History
The institution was most important in the Archaic period, when they seem to have been key magistrates of local administration. Three ancient sources offer explicit definitions of the naucrary. The second-century BC grammarian, Ammonius of Alexandria states:
In the ninth-century AD, ''Lexicon'' of Photius, the naucrari are defined as
According to the Aristotlean '' Constitution of the Athenians'' (8.3), in the sixth century BC, each of the four Ionian tribes of Athens was divided into three ''trittyes'' ("thirds"), each of which was subdivided into four naucraries; there were thus 48 naucraries.[
The earliest mention of the term is in ]Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
(v. 71), where it is stated that the Cylonian conspiracy in 632 BC was put down by the "Prytaneis (chief men) of the naucraries."[
The ]Encyclopedia Britannica
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articl ...
conjectured that the military forces of Athens were organized on the basis of the naucraries, and that it was the duty of the presidents of these districts to raise the local levies. But it notes that the ''Athenaion Politeia'' does not connect the naucrary with the fleet or the army, observing that "from chapter 8 (of the text) it would appear that its importance was chiefly in connection with finance,"[ and concludes:
In the reforms of Cleisthenes, the naucraries gave place to the ]deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) 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 ear ...
s as the political unit. In accordance with the new decimal system, their number was increased to fifty. Whether they continued (and if so, how long) to supply one ship and two (or ten) horsemen each is not certainly known. Cheidemus in Photius asserts that they did, and his statement is to a certain extent corroborated by Herodotus (vi. 89) who records that, in the Aeginetan War
Aegina (; el, Αίγινα, ''Aígina'' ; grc, Αἴγῑνα) is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina (mythology), Aegina, the mother of the hero Aeacus, who was born ...
before the Persian Invasion, the Athenian fleet numbered only fifty sail.[
]
See also
* Trierarchy A trierarchy ( gr, τριηραρχία, trierarchia) was a type of obligation called a liturgy, a debt similar to a tax on the very wealthy in Ancient Athens. The person (or persons) up on whom the duty fell is called a trierarch. The trierarch w ...
Further reading
* The Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens. By Gustav Gilbert. P
133
Sources
*Photius, who is clearly using the '' Ath. Pol.'' (he quotes from it the last part of his article ''totidem verbis'')
* Schomann, ''Antiq.'' (p. 326, Eng. trans.) — quoted by JE Sandys (''Ath. Pol.'', viii., 13) — refutes Gilbert, ''Greek Constitutional Antiquities'' (Eng. trans., 1895), and in ''Jahrb. Class. Phil.'' cxi. (1875) pp. 9 seq.
* AHJ Greenidge, ''Handbook of Greek Const. Hist.'' p. 134
*for derivation of name, G Meyer, ''Curtius Studien'' (vii. 175). where Wecklein is refuted.
{{Types of administrative country subdivision
Government of ancient Athens
Navy of ancient Athens
Archaic Athens
Types of administrative division