DEMIURGI
DEMIURGI (
δημιουργοί).
1. In the heroic age
δημιουργοὶ are not
merely “skilled artisans,” but “artists,”
including the highest forms of professional skill in every department
[p. 1.613]then practised; not only carpenters, but
sooth-sayers, surgeons, and bards (
Hom. Od.
17.383), as well as heralds (ib. 19.135). Cf. Schömann,
Antiq. 1.42 f., E. T.
2. The name of one of the inferior classes in early Attica. [
GEOMORI]
3. Magistrates, described by some grammarians as peculiar to Dorian states;
but perhaps on no authority, except the form
δαμιουργοί. Müller (
Dorians, vol.
ii. p. 145) observes, on the contrary, that “they were not uncommon in
the Peloponnesus, but they do not occur often in the Dorian
states.” They existed among the Eleians and Mantineians, with whom
they seem to have been the chief executive magistracy (
Thuc. 5.47.10). A distinction may here be
noted; at Mantineia it is
οἱ δημιουργοὶ καὶ ἡ
βουλή, at Elis
οἱ δ. καὶ οἱ τὰ
τέλη ἔχοντες καὶ οἱ ἑξακόσιοι. This constitution
belongs to a period of moderate reform, after the fall of the Eleian
oligarchy and before the rise of unmixed democracy (Schömann,
Antiq. 1.172, E. T.). We also read of demiurgi in the
Achaean league, who probably ranked next to the strategi. [
ACHAICUM FOEDUS p. 9
b.] Officers named
Epidemiurgi, or upper demiurgi, were sent by the Corinthians
to manage the government of their colony at Potidaea. (
Thuc. 1.56.)
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R.W] [
W.W]