Eucleides () was

eponymous archon In ancient Greece the chief magistrate in various Greek city states was called eponymous archon (ἐπώνυμος ἄρχων, ''epōnymos archōn''). "Archon" (ἄρχων, pl. ἄρχοντες, ''archontes'') means "ruler" or "lord", frequently ...

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

for the year running from July/August 403 BC until June/July 402 BC. His year in office was marked by Athens' official adoption of the Ionic alphabet. There is some evidence that he may have been personally involved in this decision.

Archonship

During his archonship Athens abandoned the Attic alphabet in favour of the Ionic alphabet, which included the letters eta, phi, psi, and omega, but lacked heta. This alphabet had already been employed unofficially in inscriptions and other texts for some years, but was now adopted for official Athenian inscriptions. Although some Athenian inscriptions from before Eucleides' archonship already used the Ionian alphabet and others use the old Attic alphabet after it, the majority reflect the switch and Eucleides' archonship is thus an important milestone for dating Athenian inscriptions. According to the historian Theopompus, the decree which introduced the new alphabet was passed by Archinus. It was probably connected to political efforts to end civil strife and reform the constitution in the aftermath of the Athenian defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Armand D'Angour proposes that the Ionic alphabet had been associated with aristocratic oligarchs in late fifth century BC Athens and that its adoption as the official alphabet was part of a policy of reconciliation by victorious Athenian democrats after they overthrew the short-lived oligarchic governments of the Four Hundred and the Thirty Tyrants. He also suggests that the archon Eucleides is identical with a secretary who was responsible for having a decree ('' IG'' I³ 110) inscribed in the Ionic alphabet in 408/7 BC and with a Eucleides mentioned in

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

's '' Poetics'' (1458b5-15) as having criticised poets who changed the

vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual length (phonetics), duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels. On one hand, many ...

to fit poetic meters. From there, D'Angour proposes that Eucleides was thus personally supportive of Archinus' decree.

References

{{s-end 5th-century BC Athenians 5th-century BC births 4th-century BC deaths Greek alphabet Year of birth unknown Place of birth unknown Year of death unknown Place of death unknown Eponymous archons