Demokrates e demokratia, o delle certezze apparenti

It is now established opinion that the personal name Demokrates presupposes the noun demokratia and that in Athens Lysis (I) gave his son the name Demokrates with the aim to take a democratic political stand. This paper questions such a view by arguing that the name was a traditional one, well suited to ‘non-democratic’ political contexts such as 6th-century Thasos and also to the scions of very notable families such as the hippotrophic house of Lysis and the well-off one of Simylos. Nothing leads us to think that the name was meant to advertise ‘the power of the people’ instead of the notion of predominance within the community. Alfred Debrunner’s linguistic analysis of Demokrates and demokratia fits well the social background of the Athenian élite groups which made use – most probably not later than the 470’s – of the name Demokrates. Later on, when a new political culture came to emphasize the agency of the demos, the truly new term demokratia was coined.