EUPATRIDAE, the ancient nobility of Attica (the Greek word means "sons of noble fathers"). Tradition ascribes to The seus, whom it regards as the author of the synoecism (DvvoecIopos), the union of Attica round Athens as a political centre, the division of the Attic population into three classes, Eupatridai, Geomoroi, and Demiourgoi. The Eupatridae are described as the autoch thonous population (see AUTOCHTHONES), the dwellers in the city, the descendants of the royal stock. After the time of the synoe cism the nobles were obliged to reside in Athens, now the seat of government ; and at the beginning of Athenian history the noble clans form a class which has the monopoly of political privilege. It is possible that in very early times the Eupatridae were the only full citizens of Athens.
The exact relation of the Eupatridae to the other two classes has been a matter of dispute. It seems probable that the Eupatri dae were the governing class, the recognized nobility, the Geomoroi the country inhabitants of all ranks, and the Demiourgoi the com mercial and artisan population. It seems certain from the little known of the early constitutional history of Athens that the Eupa tridae represented the only nobility that had any political recogni tion in early times. The political history of the Eupatridae is that of a gradual curtailment of privilege. They were at the height of their power in the period during the limitation of the monarchy. They alone held the two offices, those of polemarch and archon, which were instituted during the 8th century B.C. to restrict the powers of the kings. In 712 B.C. the office of king (13aoeXEin) was itself thrown open to all Eupatrids (see ARCHON) . They thus had the entire control of the administration and were the sole dispen sers of justice in the State. At this latter privilege, which perhaps formed the strongest bulwark of the authority of the Eupatridae, a severe blow was struck (c. 621 B.C.) by the publication of a criminal code by Draco (q.v.), which was followed by the more detailed and permanent code of Solon (c. 594 B.e.), who further threw open the highest offices to any citizen possessed of a certain amount of landed property (see SoLoN), thus putting the claims of the Eupatridae to political influence on a level with those of the wealthier citizens of all classes. By the middle of the 6th century the political influence of birth was at an end.
The name Eupatridae survived in historical times, but the Eupatridae were then excluded from the cult of the Sernnai at Athens, and also held the hereditary office of "expounder of the law" (EEnynr,)s) in connection with purification from the guilt of murder. Isocrates says of Alcibiades that his grandfather was a Eupatrid and his grandmother an Alcmaeonid, which suggests that in the 5th century the Eupatrids were a single clan, like the Alc maeonids, and that the name had acquired a new signification. This "Eupatrid" clan seems to have traced its origin to Orestes, "the benefactor of his father." See also AREOPAGUS, ARCHON.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-G. Busolt, Die griechischen Staats- and RechtsBibliography.-G. Busolt, Die griechischen Staats- and Rechts- altertuemer (Munich, 1892) ; G. Gilbert, Greek Constitutional An tiquities (Eng. trans., 1895) ; for Eupatridae in historical times; J. Topffer, Attische Genealogie (1889) ; L. Whibley, Companion to Greek Studies (1923).