The Marriage of First Cousins in Athenian Society

Abstract

SEVERAL YEARS AGO in this Journal T. L. Shear, Jr. presented a fascinating reconstruction of the complex genealogy of the Alkmeonidai.1 In interpreting the ancient testimonia he was obliged to conclude that Megakles, the son of Hippokrates, married his uncle's daughter, that is, his first cousin. While students of Attic law have always recognized that such unions were legal, no attempt has yet been made to determine whether they were a regular feature of Athenian life or occurred only rarely. To fill this gap I have made a survey of prosopographical data from Athens and present the results here, along with some discussion of possible reasons for marriages between first cousins.2 First we can summarize the evidence for such a union among the Alkmeonidai. We know from Ps-Andokides (4.34) that Alkibiades' maternal grandfather, Megakles, was ostracized.3 He must have been Megakles, son of Hippokrates, of the deme Alopeke, who according to Aristotle (Ath. Pol. 22.5) was ostracized in 487/6. According to a speech of Isokrates (16.26) Alkibiades had Kleisthenes as a great-grandfather on his mother's side. Thus Kleisthenes and Hippokrates are his two greatgrandfathers on that side and consequently the two grandfathers of Alkibiades' mother. We learn from Herodotus (6.131.2) that Kleisthenes and Hippokrates were brothers, the sons of another Megakles, which gives us the following stemma: