The Political Institutions of the Ancient Greeks

by Basil Edward Hammond

(1) The ἐκκλησία or general assembly had supreme power in all the most important matters: it consisted of all Athenian citizens who had attained the age of manhood: its meetings were held on the Pnyx, a hillside in the open air: four ordinary meetings were held on fixed days in each prytany, and other meetings for special business could at any time be summoned by proclamation[165]. Though the assembly had supreme power to make laws and pass resolutions determining the policy of the city, it submitted to certain restraining formalities. No law could be proposed in the assembly till it had been considered and sanctioned by the council of five hundred[166]: and any resolution or any new law passed by the assembly might afterwards be indicted before a popular law-court on the ground that it violated or contradicted some existing law or was contrary to the Athenian constitution. If the law or resolution was condemned by the law-court it was ipso facto cancelled. Moreover, if proceedings were taken within a year after the vote of the assembly, the proposer as well as the proposition might be indicted, and if the court decided against him he was subject to a heavy fine. The Greek name for the indictment was Graphê Paranomôn which may be translated literally Indictment for Illegality[167]. The Graphê Paranomôn was, beyond all doubt, the best bulwark of the Athenian constitution: though there were occasions, as we shall see, when it did not save the constitution from being violated.

The council consisted of five hundred citizens taken by lot. It was a committee to manage the details of the business of the assembly. It met on every day in the year except the religious festivals or holidays and it drew up the list of business for the assembly, determining what business ought and what ought not to be brought forward. All business intended for the assembly passed through the hands of the council; and sometimes, in cases that demanded immediate action, (as in the accusation brought against the commanders at Arginusæ which will be described further on,) it had to come to important provisional decisions. The fifty councillors belonging to a tribe were presidents during a tenth part of the year: and if, during their presidency, a special meeting of the assembly was required, it was their business to summon it[168].

(2) The chief servants of the sovereign assembly were the ten generals and the nine archons. The generals were elected and not like the rest of the officers of the state taken by lot: this might be inferred from the constant occurrence among the generals of the names of distinguished men, but it is completely proved by the fact that in the year 430 B.C. the Athenians though they were many of them angry with Pericles yet re-elected him general because his services could not be dispensed with[169]. The ten generals levied troops, managed the revenue allotted to military purposes, and named trierarchs to command the ships[170]. In the battle of Marathon and in an expedition to Samos in 440 B.C. all ten generals acted as commanders: in most cases the assembly appointed a convenient number, usually three, of the generals to conduct an enterprise abroad, while the rest remained at home to manage the ordinary business of their office.

The nine archons, taken yearly by lot from among a number of men who had declared themselves to be candidates, and had submitted the respectability of their characters to a public examination, had duties of a ceremonial character and attended to the routine of some business of state, but had no political influence[171]. There were also some other functionaries for the supervision of markets and of the supply of corn, and for the preservation of order, of whom it is not necessary to speak further.

(3) The judicial bodies alone at Athens were independent of the political assembly. Jurisdiction, except in those few cases which were still brought before the semi-religious court of the Areopagus or before the first Archon, belonged to the popular law-courts which had been first founded by Solon. A large number of citizens were taken every year to serve as jurymen: they were divided into bodies varying in number from two hundred to a thousand[172], and each of these bodies sat collectively as judges to decide such cases as might be submitted to them. They sat without any professional judge to inform them about the condition of the law or the relevance of arguments: the advocate on either side cited such laws as favoured his contentions, and could use any reasoning which he thought likely to influence the court. The citizens were not only willing but eager to render their services as dicasts, partly because they received as daily pay three obols, a sum equal to half a modern franc, and partly because they enjoyed the business of the court and the importance which it conferred on them[173].

(4) The records of some of the meetings of the assembly of citizens will serve to illustrate the nature of their business. Just before the Peloponnesian war the Corcyræans requested the Athenians to protect them with armed force: the body to whom the Corcyræan envoys made their request was the assembly of citizens; on the first day the Athenians heard the arguments of the Corcyræans and of their enemies the Corinthians: on the second day they debated what answer they should give; on the third they resolved to grant what the Corcyræans desired and thereby made the great war inevitable[174]. Again in 415 B.C. the ambassadors from Egeste in Sicily, sent to ask aid from Athens, were heard in the assembly, and it was agreed on the same day to send an expedition of sixty ships[175]. In the case of the Peace of Nicias in 423 B.C. the negotiations were carried on by the ten generals, but the Treaty became binding on Athens only when it was ratified by the assembly of the people[176].

In 428 B.C. Mitylenê in Lesbos, a city allied to Athens under compulsion, broke loose from the alliance. This revolt was the work of the oligarchy, which ruled supreme in Mitylenê. In the summer of the next year Mitylenê had difficulty in withstanding the forces of the Athenians, and the rulers of the city found it desirable to give arms to the common folk. With arms went power. The common folk preferred to be ruled by Athens rather than by those among their fellow-citizens who happened to be wealthy, and declared they would surrender to Paches the Athenian commander. The surrender was effected, and the fate of the city was to be settled by the Athenians. The Athenian citizens were very angry that a city which had been in compulsory alliance with them had revolted, and, making no distinction between the oligarchical party who had led the revolt and the democrats who had restored the city to Athens, voted that every man in Mitylenê of military age should be put to death, and all the women and children sold into slavery; and they despatched a galley bearing their orders to Paches. After the vote they went home and repented of their cruelty: next day they met again, and after hearing Cleon on the side of severity and Diodotus for mercy they rescinded the order of the day before and despatched a second galley to carry the new orders. The crew of the first galley made no haste in rowing, because they disliked the work of conveying a cruel and unjust sentence: and the second galley arrived with the new orders before the first had taken any effect[177].

Judicial work at Athens belonged to the dicasteries and not to the general assembly: but the assembly also if it wished to inflict a punishment on an offender against the state could do so by a special legislative act which might be called in Latin a privilegium, and in English an attainder or bill of pains and penalties. Miltiades, after he had won the great victory of Marathon, was entrusted with the command of an expedition of which he did not disclose the object: he used it wrongfully and unsuccessfully against the Parians, and on his return Xanthippus proposed to the assembly that he should be put to death for having deceived the Athenians. The assembly showed mercy to him in gratitude for his services at Marathon, and let him off with a very heavy fine of fifty talents[178].

In the year 406 B.C. an Athenian fleet under the command of nine στρατηγοί or admirals won a great victory over a Spartan fleet at Arginusæ: several Athenian ships which had been disabled in the action were lost in a storm which came on afterwards, and it was suspected that the admirals had made no efforts to save them. The Athenians superseded all the admirals and summoned them to Athens. Six of the number obeyed the summons. One of them was first accused in a law-court of peculation and misconduct in his command, and the court ordered him to be kept in custody, with a view probably to any further proceedings which the general assembly might choose to take. The other five appeared before the council of five hundred, which acted as a sort of business committee to the assembly, and were committed to custody.

In a general assembly, held soon afterwards, a citizen who had himself held a subordinate command in the fleet complained of the conduct of the admirals and desired that they should be punished. They were allowed to speak briefly in their defence; and the assembly did not on that day pass any resolution except that the council of five hundred should consider what course the proceedings should take, and report their opinion at the next meeting. During the interval a festival occurred at which many citizens appeared ostentatiously in mourning for relatives who had been drowned in the neglected vessels. When the assembly met, the desire to punish the admirals had risen high: the council, bringing in its report, proposed that, as the accusation and the answers had been already heard, the assembly should proceed to an immediate vote whether or not the accused should be put to death. An objection was raised that the established practice required that a separate vote should be taken about each accused person: but it was met with a clamour that the people ought to be allowed to do what it likes. The objection based on established practice convinced some of the prytaneis or presiding councillors, but eventually all of them gave way to the clamour, except Socrates the philosopher. A formal proposal was then made by a citizen, who shared the views of Socrates, that a vote should be taken about each man separately. A division was taken on this proposal, and at first it was declared to be carried: but on a second scrutiny the proposal originally made by the council of five hundred was accepted. A vote was then taken on the proposal that the commanders should suffer death: the proposal was carried and the sentence executed on the six men who were in custody[179].