Eucleides

Eucleides(Ancient Greek:Εὐκλείδης) waseponymous archonofAthensfor the year running from July/August 403 BC until June/July 402 BC. His year in office was marked by Athens' official adoption of theIonic Alpha bet.There is some evidence that he may have been personally involved in this decision.

Archonship

During his archonship Athens abandoned theAttic Alpha betin favour of theIonic Alpha bet,which included the letterseta,phi,psi,andOmega,but lackedheta.This Alpha bet had already been employed unofficially in inscriptions and other texts for some years, but was now adopted for official Athenian inscriptions.^[1]Although some Athenian inscriptions from before Eucleides' archonship already used the Ionian Alpha bet and others use the old Attic Alpha bet after it, the majority reflect the switch and Eucleides' archonship is thus an important milestone for dating Athenian inscriptions.^[2]

According to the historianTheopompus,the decree which introduced the new Alpha bet was passed byArchinus.It was probably connected to political efforts to end civil strife and reform the constitution in the aftermath of the Athenian defeat in thePeloponnesian War.^[1]Armand D'Angourproposes that the Ionic Alpha bet had been associated with aristocraticoligarchsin late fifth century BC Athens and that its adoption as the official Alpha bet was part of a policy of reconciliation by victorious Athenian democrats after they overthrew the short-lived oligarchic governments of theFour Hundredand theThirty Tyrants.He also suggests that the archon Eucleides is identical with a secretary who was responsible for having a decree (IGI³110) inscribed in the Ionic Alpha bet in 408/7 BC and with a Eucleides mentioned inAristotle'sPoetics(1458b5-15) as having criticised poets who changed thevowel lengthto fitpoetic meters.From there, D'Angour proposes that Eucleides was thus personally supportive of Archinus' decree.^[1]

References

^^a ^b ^cD'Angour, A.J.(1999). "Archinus, Eucleides and the reform of the Athenian Alpha bet".Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies.43:109–130.doi:10.1111/j.2041-5370.1999.tb00481.x.
^Guarducci, Margherita (1967).Epigrafia greca(in Italian). Istituto poligrafico dello Stato, Libreria dello Sato.

Preceded by Pythodorus	Eponymous archonof Athens 403 BC - 402 BC	Succeeded by Micon

[D'Angour-1] D'Angour, A.J.(1999). "Archinus, Eucleides and the reform of the Athenian Alpha bet".Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies.43:109–130.doi:10.1111/j.2041-5370.1999.tb00481.x.

[2] Guarducci, Margherita (1967).Epigrafia greca(in Italian). Istituto poligrafico dello Stato, Libreria dello Sato.

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