Aspetti dell'ordinamento sociale corcirese

Through an analytical reading of the literary tradition and of other evidence, this paper aims at offer a contribution to a better knowledge of the corcyrean social order. Characterized by a strong aristocratic presence at the beginning of its history, in the last quarter of the V century BC, Corcyra presents a social and economic stratification more complex that the one of the opposition between oligoi and demos presented in the thucydidean narrative of the 427 BC civil strife. The exploitation of natural resources and a thoughtful economic management of its central position in the sea routes connecting Greece to Italy and to the Adriatic area might have allowed a certain degree of social mobility resulting in the extension of the original body of citizens and in a probable, gradual, transition from a genetic to a timocratic order, and then to a substantial political integration of the demos as part of a moderate democracy.