Kylon

K5Y4L1O1N1

A form of Cylon — Cylon of Athens, an Athenian noble who attempted a coup in either 636 BCE or 632 BCE.

OriginAncient Greek Κῠ́λων →
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Meanings

proper noun
  1. alternativeAlternative spelling of Cylon.

    What we can say is that the transition from Kylon to Epimenides has in the historical tradition been shaped by the same imaginative articulation that produced the Orestes myth.

    1994, Richard Seaford, “Reciprocal Violence at Athens”, in Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, published 2003 (reprint), →ISBN, chapter 3 (Death Ritual and Reciprocal Violence in the Polis), page 98
    2 more examples

    We may however follow the course of ideas under which Solon was induced to write this sentence on his tables, and we may trace the influence of similar ideas in later Attic institutions. It is obvious that his denunciation is confined to that special case in which a sedition has already broken out: we must suppose that Kylon has seized the Acropolis, or that Peisistratus, Megaklês, and Lycurgus, are in arms at the head of their partisans.

    1847, George Grote, “Solonian Laws and Constitution”, in History of Greece, volume III (part II (Continuation of Historical Greece)), London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 190

    Initial indications appear in the story surrounding “the first certain event of Athenian history”—the attempted coup d’état of the nobleman Kylon. In about 630 Kylon, a recent Olympic victor and powerful aristocrat, stormed the Athenian Akropolis with the aim of making himself tyrant.

    1990, Philip Brook Manville, “Laws, Boundaries, and Centralization”, in The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, published 1992 (2nd printing), →ISBN, page 77

Origin

  1. Ancient GreekΚῠ́λων
  2. EnglishKylon

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek Κῠ́λων (Kŭ́lōn).

More words from Ancient Greek

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

Kylon. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Kylon

MLA

“Kylon.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Kylon. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Kylon,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Kylon.

Source: Kylon on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.