[267] Plutarch, Kimon, c. 15. τὴν ἐπὶ Κλεισθένους ἐγείρειν ἀριστοκρατίαν πειρωμένου: compare Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 2, and Isokratês, Areopagiticus, Or. vii, p. 143, p. 192, ed. Bek.
[268] Herodotus speaks of Kallimachus the Polemarch, at Marathon, as ὁ τῷ κυάμῳ λαχὼν Πολέμαρχος (vi, 110).
I cannot but think that in this case he transfers to the year 490 B. C. the practice of his own time. The polemarch, at the time of the battle of Marathon, was in a certain sense the first stratêgus; and the stratêgi were never taken by lot, but always chosen by show of hands, even to the end of the democracy. It seems impossible to believe that the stratêgi were elected, and that the polemarch, at the time when his functions were the same as theirs, was chosen by lot.
Herodotus seems to have conceived the choice of magistrates by lot as being of the essence of a democracy (Herodot. iii, 80).
Plutarch also (Periklês, c. 9) seems to have conceived the choice of archons by lot as a very ancient institution of Athens: nevertheless, it results from the first chapter of his life of Aristeidês,—an obscure chapter, in which conflicting authorities are mentioned without being well discriminated,—that Aristeidês was chosen archon by the people,—not drawn by lot: an additional reason for believing this is, that he was archon in the year following the battle of Marathon, at which, he had been one of the ten generals. Idomeneus distinctly affirmed this to be the fact.—οὐ κυαμευτὸν, ἀλλ᾽ ἑλομένων Ἀθηναίων (Plutarch, Arist. c. 1).
Isokratês also (Areopagit. Or. vii, p. 144, p. 195, ed. Bekker) conceived the constitution of Kleisthenês as including all the three points noticed in the text: 1. A high pecuniary qualification of eligibility for individual offices. 2. Election to these offices by all the citizens, and accountability to the same after office. 3. No employment of the lot.—He even contends that this election is more truly democratical than sortition; since the latter process might admit men attached to oligarchy, which would not happen under the former,—ἔπειτα καὶ δημοτικωτέραν ἐνόμιζον ταύτην τὴν κατάστασιν ἢ τὴν διὰ τοῦ λαγχάνειν γιγνομένην· ἐν μὲν γὰρ τῇ κληρώσει τὴν τύχην βραβεύσειν, καὶ πολλάκις λήψεσθαι τὰς ἀρχὰς τοὺς τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας ἐπιθυμοῦντας, etc. This would be a good argument if there were no pecuniary qualification for eligibility,—such pecuniary qualification is a provision which he lays down, but which he does not find it convenient to insist upon emphatically.
I do not here advert to the γραφὴ παρανόμων, the νομοφύλακες, and the sworn νομόθεται,—all of them institutions belonging to the time of Periklês at the earliest; not to that of Kleisthenês.
[269] See above, chap. xi. vol. iii. p. 145.
[270] Aristeidês Rhetor. Orat. xlvi. vol ii. p. 317, ed. Dindorf.
[271] Plutarch (Nikias, c. 11; Alkibiad. c. 13; Aristeid. c. 7): Thucyd. viii, 73. Plato Comicus said, respecting Hyperbolus—