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 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. 2. 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 FOEDUSp. 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.)

(δημιουργοί). A general term among the Greeks for tradesmen, among whom they included artists and physicians. In old times they formed, at Athens, the third order, the other two being the Eupatridae and Geomori (see these names). In some States, Demiurgi was the name of the public officials: in the Achaean League, for instance, the ten Demiurgi were among the highest officers of the confederacy.