I douloi/perioikoi di Argo: per una riconsiderazione della tradizione letteraria

This paper focuses on the historiographical tradition regarding the political and social changes in Argos after the battle of Sepeia (494 BC), when the Argives were compelled to admit to citizenship people of inferior political status and gave way to a democratic evolution. Our sources are ambiguous about both the people involved (douloi or perioikoi) and the nature of the changes (revolution or naturalization). As our tradition is contradictory and clearly biased, modern scholars have reconstructed the historical events in different ways. Interpretations seem, however, to be unsatisfactory and to require a deeper analysis of historiographical data. Therefore, the article attempts to show that Herodotus’ version probably reflects an aristocratic tradition, whereas democratic tendencies emerge, in a more or less radical way, on the one hand, in Diodorus, and, on the other, in Aristotle and Plutarch. Aristotle, whose account sounds less involved in the ancient, highly polemic debate than other sources, seems to be preferable.