Kylonian

1. alternativenot comparableAlternative spelling of Cylonian.

   The Kylonian conspirators who had taken sanctuary in the temple of Athena on the Acropolis were persuaded by the archon Megakles ‘to come down for trial’.

   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 94

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   Of his [Solon’s] early poems hardly anything is preserved; the few lines which remain seem to manifest a jovial temperament which we may well conceive to have been overlaid by the political difficulties against which he had to contend—difficulties arising successively out of the Megarian war, the Kylonian sacrilege, the public despondency healed by Epimenidês, and the task of arbiter between a rapacious oligarchy and a suffering people.

   1847, George Grote, “Solonian Laws and Constitution”, in History of Greece, volume III (part II (Continuation of Historical Greece)), London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, pages 209–210

   The Kylonian affair bears witness to a subtle but noteworthy transformation: the Athenians were developing from passive members of a social hierarchy into active shareholders in a political community.

   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 78

plural Kylonians

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of Cylonian.

   There still remained, if not a considerable Kylonian party, at least a large body of persons who resented the way in which the Kylonians bad been put to death, and who became in consequence bitter enemies of Megaklês the archon, and of the great family of the Alkmæônidæ, to which he belonged.

   1847, George Grote, “Ionic Portion of Hellas.—Athens before Solon.”, in History of Greece, volume III (part II (Continuation of Historical Greece)), London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 110

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   The same process of evolution perhaps is discernible in two other signs of territorial awareness in this general period: the boundaries of Attika sworn to be guarded by the ephēboi and the decision of the Athenians to cast the bodies of deceased Alkmeonids, the family polluted by their role in the murder of the Kylonians, “beyond the borders” of Attika (hyper tous horous: Plut. Sol. 12.3, cf. Ath. Pol. 1).

   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 81

   According to Plutarch, after the killing (and until, it seems, the exile of the Alkmaionids and the religious reforms of Epimenides) there occurred a prolonged civil and religious crisis: the Kylonian pollution agitated the city-state for a long time, the constant conflict between the surviving Kylonians and the Alkmaionids divided the people (demos), and the city-state was visited with superstitious fears, strange appearances, and pollutions.

   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 93