[a. Gr. ἄρχων ruler, magistrate, pr. pple. of ἄρχ-ειν to rule.]
1. The chief magistrate, and, after the time of Solon, one of the nine chief magistrates of the Athenian republic.
1659. Pearson, Creed (1839), 104. Their annual archon [ἐπώνυμος], whose name they used in their distinction of years.
1754. Phil. Trans., XLVIII. 473. Solon … must have been about 52 the year that he was archon.
1874. Mahaffy, Soc. Life Greece, xii. 361. The chief archon had charge of heiresses and orphans. The king archon tried cases of impiety.
2. A ruler or president generally.
1735–8. Bolingbroke, Parties, viii. (T.). We might establish a doge, a lord Archon, a Regent.
1857. Livingstone, Trav., xiv. 256. The ancient physicians thought we all possessed an archon, or presiding spirit.
1862. Dana, Man. Geol., 573. Man … stands alone, the Archon of Mammals.
3. A power subordinate to the Deity, held by some of the Gnostics to have made the world.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Archontici, Certain subordinate powers called archontes or angels.
1868. trans. Hippolytus’ Ref. Heresies, VII. xiii. The great Archon … possesses an empire with limits extending as far as the firmament.
