NAUCRARY

This article appears in Volume V19, Page 276 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: NAN-NEW

NAUCRARY , a subdivision of the people of Attica, which was certainly among the most primitive in the Athenian state. The word is derived either (I) from vans (a ship) and describes the duty imposed upon each naucrary, of providing one ship and two (or, more probably, ten) horsemen; or (2) from valets (to dwell), in which case it has to do with a householder

census

CENSUS (from Lat. censere, to estimate or assess; connected by some with centum, i.e. a count by hundreds)

. The former is generally accepted in view of the fact that the naucraries were certainly the units on which the Athenian

fleet

FLEET

was based. The view once held (on the strength of a fragment of

Aristotle

ARISTOTLE
ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.)

, quoted carelessly by Photius) that the naucrary was invented by Solon may now be regarded as obsolete (see the Aristotelian Constitution, viii. 3). Each of the four Ionian tribes was divided into three trittyes (" thirds "), each of which was subdivided into four naucraries; there were thus 48 naucraries. The earliest mention of them is in Herodotus (v. 7r), where it is stated that the Cylonian conspiracy was put down by the " Prytaneis (

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

men) of the Naucraries." Although it is generally recognized that in this passage we can trace an attempt to shift the responsibility for the murder of the suppliants from the archon Megacles, it is highly improbable that the Prytaneis of the Naucraries did not play a part in the tragedy.

Thucydides

THUCYDIDES (OovavMns)

is probably right, as against Herodotus, in asserting that the nine archons formed the Athenian executive at this period. It may be conjectured, however, 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. It is certainly remarkable that the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens does not connect the naucrary with the

fleet

FLEET

or the army; from chapter viii. it would appear that its importance was chiefly in connexion with finance (&pxi) rera',',AV7i 7rpnS re Tp5 EIOYaopaS Kai r&S 8a7r&vas). The naucrary consisted of a number of villages, and was, therefore, a local unit very much in the power of the naucraros, who was selected by reason of wealth. The naucraros superintended the construction of, and afterwards captained, the ship, and also assessed and administered the taxes in his own area. In the reforms of

Cleisthenes

CLEISTHENES

, the naucraries gave place to the demes as the political unit. In accordance with the new decimal

system

SYSTEM

, their number was- increased to fifty. Whether they continued (and if so, how

long

LONG, GEORGE (1800-1879)
LONG, JOHN DAVIS (1838– )

) to

supply

SUPPLY (through Fr. from Lat. supplere, to fill up)

one ship and two 1 (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 before the Persian Invasion, the Athenian fleet numbered only fifty sail.
See Photius (s.v.), who is clearly using the Atli. Pol. (he quotes from it the last part of his article totidem verbis) ; Schumann, Antiq. (p. 326, Eng. trans.)quoted by J. E. Sandys (Ath. Pol.. viii., 13)refutes Gilbert, Greek Constitutional Antiquities (Eng. trans., 1895), and in Jahrb. Class. Phil. cxi. (1875) pp. 9 seq.; A. H. J. Greenidge, Handbook of Greek Const. Hist. p. 134; history of

Greece

GREECE

in general; for derivation of name, G. Meyer, Curtius' Studien (vii. 175), where Wecklein is refuted. (J. M. M.)

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