CONSTITUTIONAL AND JUDICIAL CHANGES AT ATHENS UNDER PERIKLES.
First establishment of the democratical judicial system at Athens. — Union, in the same hands, of functions both administrative and judicial in early Athens — great powers of the magistrates, as well as of the senate of Areopagus. — Magistrates generally wealthy men — oligarchical tendencies of the senate of Areopagus — increase of democratical sentiment among the bulk of the citizens. — Political parties in Athens. — Periklês and Ephialtês democratical: Kimon, oligarchical or conservative. — Democratical Dikasteries, or Jury-courts, constituted by Periklês and Ephialtês. — How these dikasteries were arranged. — Pay to the dikasts introduced and made regular. — The magistrates are deprived of their judicial and confined to administrative functions. — Senate of Areopagus — its antiquity — semi-religious character — large and undefined controlling power. — Large powers of the senate of Areopagus, in part abused, became inconsistent with the feelings of the people after the Persian invasion. — New interests and tendencies then growing up at Athens. — Senate of Areopagus — a centre of action for the conservative party and Kimon. — Opposition between Kimon and Periklês — inherited from their fathers. — Character and working of Periklês. — Reserved, philosophical, and business-like habits of Periklês — his little pains to court popularity — less of the demagogue than Kimon. — Ephialtês belonging to the democratical party, and originally equal to Periklês in influence. — Efforts of Ephialtês against magisterial abuse. — Kimon and his party, more powerful than Ephialtês and Periklês, until the time when the Athenian troops were dismissed from Laconia. — Ostracism of Kimon. — Measures carried by Ephialtês and Periklês to abridge the power of the senate of Areopagus as well as of individual magistrates. — Institution of the paid dikasteries. — Separation of judicial from administrative functions. — Assassination of Ephialtês by the conservative party. — Commencement of the great ascendency of Periklês, after the death of Ephialtês. Compromise between him and Kimon. — Brilliant success of Athens, and era of the maximum of her power. — Other constitutional changes. — The Nomophylakes. — The Nomothetæ — distinction between laws and psephisms, or special decrees — process by which laws were enacted and repealed. — Procedure in making or repealing of laws assimilated to the procedure in judicial trials. — Graphê Paranomôn — indictment against the mover of illegal or unconstitutional propositions. — Working of the Graphê Paranomôn. — Conservative spirit in which it is framed. — Restraint upon new propositions, and upon the unlimited initiative belonging to every citizen. — Abusive extension of the Graphê Paranomôn afterwards. — It was often used as a simple way of procuring the repeal of an existing law — without personal aim against the author of the law. — Numbers and pay of the dikasts, as provided by Periklês. — The Athenian democracy, as constituted by Periklês, remained substantially unaltered afterwards down to the loss of Athenian independence — excepting the temporary interruptions of the Four Hundred and the Thirty. — Working of the numerous dikasteries — their large numbers essential to exclude corruption or intimidation — liability of individual magistrates to corruption. — The Athenian dikasteries are jury-trial applied on the broadest scale — exhibiting both its excellences and its defects in an exaggerated form. — The encomiums usually pronounced upon the theory of jury-trial would apply yet more strongly to the Athenian dikasteries. — Imperfections of jury-trial — exaggerated in the procedure of the dikasteries. — Powerful effects of the dikasteries in exercising and stimulating the intellect and feelings of individual citizens. — Necessity of learning to speak — growth of professional teachers of rhetoric — professional composers of speeches for others. — Rhetors and Sophists. — Polemics of Sokratês, himself a sophist, against the sophists generally. — Sophists and rhetors were the natural product of the age and of the democracy. — The dikasteries were composed, not exclusively of poor men, but of middling and poorer citizens indiscriminately.
HISTORY OF GREECE.
PART II.
CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
FROM THE BATTLE OF MARATHON TO THE MARCH OF XERXES AGAINST GREECE.
In the last chapter but one of the preceding volume, I described the Athenian victory at Marathon, the repulse of the Persian general Datis, and the return of his armament across the Ægean to the Asiatic coast. He had been directed to conquer both Eretria and Athens: an order which he had indeed executed in part with success, as the string of Eretrian prisoners brought to Susa attested,—but which remained still unfulfilled in regard to the city principally obnoxious to Darius. Far from satiating his revenge upon Athens, the Persian monarch was compelled to listen to the tale of an ignominious defeat. His wrath against the Athenians rose to a higher pitch than ever, and he commenced vigorous preparations for a renewed attack upon them, as well as upon Greece generally. Resolved upon assembling the entire force of his empire, he directed the various satraps and sub-governors throughout all Asia to provide troops, horses, and ships, both of war and burden. For no less than three years the empire was agitated by this immense levy, which Darius determined to conduct in person against Greece.[1] Nor was his determination abated by a revolt of the Egyptians, which broke out about the time when his preparations were completed. He was on the point of undertaking simultaneously the two enterprises,—the conquest of Greece and the reconquest of Egypt,—when he was surprised by death, after a reign of thirty-six years. As a precaution previous to this intended march, he had nominated as successor Xerxes, his son by Atossa; for the ascendency of that queen insured to Xerxes the preference over his elder brother Artabazanes, son of Darius by a former wife, and born before the latter became king. The choice of the reigning monarch passed unquestioned, and Xerxes succeeded without opposition.[2] It deserves to be remarked, that though we shall meet with several acts of cruelty and atrocity perpetrated in the Persian regal family, there is nothing like that systematic fratricide which has been considered necessary to guarantee succession in Turkey and other Oriental empires.