Demiurge (magistrate)

This article is about Ancient Greek magistrate. For other uses, see Demiurge (disambiguation).

A demiurge was a magistrate in Peloponnesian and other Ancient Greek city-states, including Corinth, Mantinea and Argos, and in their colonies, such as the Doric colony of Cnidus in Asia Minor. The English word for the title is an Anglicisation of Attic-Ionic δημιοργός, but because it was most commonly used by Doric Greek speakers, the original word in Greek has various alternate spellings (see below).

In the Achaean League, the assembly of members was presided over by ten elected demiourgoi; Corinth sent epidemiourgoi annually to Potidaea to report to the Spartan harmosts. The term is variously rendered δαιμουργός (daimourgos), δαιμωργός (daimorgos), and δαμιεργός (damiergos) in Doric Greek, and δημιοργός (demiorgos) in Ionic Greek on the island of Samos. In the Archaic Argolid, the demiurge seems to have served as a judge, and when one was lacking, his role could be fulfilled by a hierogrammat, according to an inscription from Mycenae recorded in the Inscriptiones Graecae IV, 493.

References

Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Demiurge". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Perseus Project electronic A Greek–English Lexicon entry

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