The Board only seems to have lasted for a short time at Athens, being named for a temporary purpose, at a moment of peculiar pressure and discouragement. During such a state of feeling, there was little necessity for throwing additional obstacles in the way of new propositions to be made to the people. It was rather of importance to encourage the suggestion of new measures, from men of sense and experience. A Board destined merely for control and hindrance, would have been mischievous instead of useful under the reigning melancholy at Athens.
The Board was doubtless merged in the Oligarchy of Four Hundred, like all the other magistracies of the state, and was not reconstituted after their deposition.
I cannot think it admissible to draw inferences as to the functions of this Board of Probûli now constituted, from the proceedings of the Probûlus in Aristophanis Lysistrata, as is done by Wachsmuth (Hellenische Alterthumskunde, i, 2, p. 198), and by Wattenbach (De Quadringentorum Athenis Factione, pp. 17-21, Berlin 1842).
Schömann (Ant. Jur. Pub. Græcor. v, xii, p. 181) says of these Πρόβουλοι: “Videtur autem eorum potestas fere annua fuisse.” I do not distinctly understand what he means by these words; whether he means that the Board continued permanent, but that the members were annually changed. If this be his meaning, I dissent from it. I think that the Board lasted until the time of the Four Hundred, which would be about a year and a half after its first institution.
[547] Thucyd. viii, 2, 3. Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ τὴν πρόσταξιν ταῖς πόλεσιν ἑκατὸν νεῶν τῆς ναυπηγίας ἐποιοῦντο, etc.; compare also c. 4—παρεσκευάζοντο τὴν ναυπηγίαν, etc.
[548] Thucyd. viii, 5. ὄντων οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ ὥσπερ ἀρχομένων ἐν κατασκευῇ τοῦ πολέμου: compare ii, 7.
[549] Thucyd. viii, 2: compare ii, 7; iii, 86.
[550] Thucyd. viii, 3.
[551] Thucyd. viii, 5.
[552] Thucyd. viii, 7-24.