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Eucleides
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<h2 id="archonship">Archonship</h2> <p>During his archonship Athens abandoned the <a href="/facts/Archaic_Greek_alphabets/hkBDo1WD">Attic alphabet</a> in favour of the <a href="/facts/Ionic_alphabet/8bLa0nuo">Ionic alphabet</a>, which included the letters <a href="/facts/Eta_(letter)/jnxIHnSd">eta</a>, <a href="/facts/Phi/pUzerkKk">phi</a>, <a href="/facts/Psi_(Greek)/AUdz70Lq">psi</a>, and <a href="/facts/Omega/1CrSPtKM">omega</a>, but lacked <a href="/facts/Heta/B9KPqfhW">heta</a>. This alphabet had already been employed unofficially in inscriptions and other texts for some years, but was now adopted for official Athenian inscriptions.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:1" href="#fn:1"><sup>1</sup></a> Although some Athenian inscriptions from before Eucleides' archonship already used the Ionian alphabet and others use the old Attic alphabet after it, the majority reflect the switch and Eucleides' archonship is thus an important milestone for dating Athenian inscriptions.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a> </p><p>According to the historian <a href="/facts/Theopompus/uwtkztk8">Theopompus</a>, the decree which introduced the new alphabet was passed by <a href="/facts/Archinus/l2rGw58C">Archinus</a>. It was probably connected to political efforts to end civil strife and reform the constitution in the aftermath of the Athenian defeat in the <a href="/facts/Peloponnesian_War/Dgbc4cCE">Peloponnesian War</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> <a href="/facts/Armand_D%27Angour/wYKHhYTw">Armand D'Angour</a> proposes that the Ionic alphabet had been associated with aristocratic <a href="/facts/Oligarchy/1PjREsee">oligarchs</a> in late fifth century BC Athens and that its adoption as the official alphabet was part of a policy of reconciliation by victorious Athenian democrats after they overthrew the short-lived oligarchic governments of the <a href="/facts/Athenian_coup_of_411_BC/Iyrra1Ek">Four Hundred</a> and the <a href="/facts/Thirty_Tyrants/yPzjIPr0">Thirty Tyrants</a>. He also suggests that the archon Eucleides is identical with a secretary who was responsible for having a decree (<i><a href="/facts/Inscriptiones_Graecae/YBeEyRIt">IG</a></i> I3 110) inscribed in the Ionic alphabet in 408/7 BC and with a Eucleides mentioned in <a href="/facts/Aristotle/U2bDlBFW">Aristotle</a>'s <i><a href="/facts/Poetics/rxWS5lKY">Poetics</a></i> (1458b5-15) as having criticised poets who changed the <a href="/facts/Vowel_length/BhBqJJu3">vowel length</a> to fit <a href="/facts/Poetic_meter/uIzxuQHA">poetic meters</a>. From there, D'Angour proposes that Eucleides was thus personally supportive of Archinus' decree.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> </p> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>D'Angour, A.J. (1999). "Archinus, Eucleides and the reform of the Athenian alphabet". Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. 43: 109–130. doi:10.1111/j.2041-5370.1999.tb00481.x. <a href="/wiki/Armand_D%27Angour" target="_blank">/wiki/Armand_D%27Angour</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Guarducci, Margherita (1967). Epigrafia greca (in Italian). Istituto poligrafico dello Stato, Libreria dello Sato. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=LWqkHLY78l0C" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=LWqkHLY78l0C</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>D'Angour, A.J. (1999). "Archinus, Eucleides and the reform of the Athenian alphabet". Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. 43: 109–130. doi:10.1111/j.2041-5370.1999.tb00481.x. <a href="/wiki/Armand_D%27Angour" target="_blank">/wiki/Armand_D%27Angour</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>D'Angour, A.J. (1999). "Archinus, Eucleides and the reform of the Athenian alphabet". Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. 43: 109–130. doi:10.1111/j.2041-5370.1999.tb00481.x. <a href="/wiki/Armand_D%27Angour" target="_blank">/wiki/Armand_D%27Angour</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>