Harpokration, Pollux, and Suidas, give substantially the same account of these magistrates, though none except Photius mentions the exact date of their appointment. There is no adequate ground for the doubt which M. Boëckh expresses about the accuracy of this statement: see Schömann, Antiq. Jur. Pub. Græc. sect. lxvi; and Cicero, Legg. iii, 20.
[688] See Xenophon, Hellenic. i, 7; Andokidês de Mysteriis, p. 40.
[689] Demosthen. cont. Timokrat. c. 20, pp. 725, 726. Ἆρ’ οὖν τῷ δοκεῖ συμφέρειν τῇ πόλει τοιοῦτος νόμος, ὃς δικαστηρίου γνώσεως αὐτὸς κυριώτερος ἔσται, καὶ τὰς ὑπὸ τῶν ὀμωμοκότων γνώσεις τοῖς ἀνωμότοις προστάξει λύειν; Ἐνθυμεῖσθε, ἀπὸ τοῦ δικαστηρίου καὶ τῆς καταγνώσεως οἷ διεπήδησεν (Timokratês) ἐπὶ τὸν δῆμον, ἐκκλέπτων τὸν ἠδικηκότα! Compare Demosthen. cont. Eubulid. c. 15.
See, about the nomothetæ, Schömann, De Comitiis, ch. vii, p. 248, seqq., and Platner, Prozess und Klagen bey den Attikern, Abschn. ii, 3, 3, p. 33, seqq.
Both of them maintain, in my opinion erroneously, that the nomothetæ are an institution of Solon. Demosthenês, indeed, ascribes it to Solon (Schömann, p. 268): but this counts, in my view, for nothing, when I see that all the laws which he cites for governing the proceedings of the nomothetæ, bear unequivocal evidence of a time much later. Schömann admits this to a certain extent, and in reference to the style of these laws,—“Illorum quidem fragmentorum, quæ in Timokrateâ extant, recentiorem Solonis ætate formam atque orationem apertum est.” But it is not merely the style which proves them to be of post-Solonian date: it is the mention of post-Solonian institutions, such as the ten prytanies into which the year was divided, the ten statues of the eponymi,—all derived from the creation of the ten tribes by Kleisthenês. On the careless employment of the name of Solon by the orators, whenever they desire to make a strong impression on the dikasts, I have already remarked.
[690] The privation of this right of public speech (παῤῥησία) followed on the condemnation of any citizen to the punishment called ἀτιμία, disfranchisement, entire or partial (Demosthen. cont. Neær. p. 1352, c. 9; cont. Meidiam, p. 545, c. 27). Compare for the oligarchical sentiment, Xenophon, Republ. Athen. i, 9.
[691] See Meier, Attisch. Prozess, p. 139. Andokidês mentions a trial under the indictment of γραφὴ παρανόμων, brought by his father Leogoras against a senator named Speusippus, wherein six thousand dikasts sat,—that is, the entire body of heliasts. However, the loose speech so habitual with Andokidês, renders this statement very uncertain (Andokidês de Mysteriis, p. 3, § 29).
See Matthiæ, De Judiciis Atheniensium, in his Miscellanea Philologica, vol. i, p. 252. Matthiæ questions the reading of that passage in Demosthenês (cont. Meideam, p. 585), wherein two hundred dikasts are spoken of as sitting in judgment: he thinks it ought to be πεντακοσίους instead of διακοσίους,—but this alteration would be rash.
[692] See on this question, Boëckh, Public Econ. of Athens, ch. xv, p. 233; K. F. Hermann, Griech. Staatsalt. § 134.
The proof which M. Boëckh brings to show, first, that the original pay was one obolus,—next, that Kleon was the first to introduce the triobolus,—is in both cases very inconclusive.