The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 03

by Unknown

It was now that Pericles and Ephialtes carried their important scheme of judicial reform. The senate of Areopagus was deprived of its discretionary censorial power, as well as of all its judicial competence, except that which related to homicide. The individual magistrates, as well as the senate of Five Hundred, were also stripped of their judicial attributes (except the power of imposing a small fine), which were transferred to the newly created panels of salaried dicasts, lotted off in ten divisions from the aggregate Heliæa. Ephialtes first brought down the laws of Solon from the Acropolis to the neighbourhood of the market-place, where the dicasteries sat—a visible proof that the judicature was now popularised.

In the representation of many authors, the full bearing of this great constitutional change is very inadequately conceived. What we are commonly told is, that Pericles was the first to assign a salary to these numerous dicasteries at Athens. He bribed the people with the public money (says Plutarch), in order to make head against Cimon, who bribed them out of his own private purse; as if the pay were the main feature in the case, and as if all which Pericles did was, to make himself popular by paying the dicasts for judicial service which they had before rendered gratuitously. The truth is, that this numerous army of dicasts, distributed into ten regiments and summoned to act systematically throughout the year, was now for the first time organised: the commencement of their pay is also the commencement of their regular judicial action. What Pericles really did was, to sever for the first time from the administrative competence of the magistrates that judicial authority which had originally gone along with it. The great men who had been accustomed to hold these offices were lowered both in influence and authority: while on the other hand a new life, habit, and sense of power, sprung up among the poorer citizens. A plaintiff having cause of civil action, or an accuser invoking punishment against citizens guilty of injury either to himself or to the state, had still to address himself to one or other of the archons, but it was only with a view of ultimately arriving before the dicastery by whom the cause was to be tried.

While the magistrates individually were thus restricted to simple administration, they experienced still more serious loss of power in their capacity of members of the Areopagus, after the year of archonship was expired. Instead of their previous unmeasured range of supervision and interference, they were now deprived of all judicial sanction beyond that small power of fining which was still left both to individual magistrates, and to the senate of Five Hundred. But the cognisance of homicide was still expressly reserved to them—for the procedure, in this latter case religious not less than judicial, was so thoroughly consecrated by ancient feeling, that no reformer could venture to disturb or remove it.

It was upon this same ground probably that the stationary party defended all the prerogatives of the senate of Areopagus—denouncing the curtailments proposed by Ephialtes as impious and guilty innovations. How extreme their resentment became, when these reforms were carried,—and how fierce was the collision of political parties at this moment,—we may judge by the result. The enemies of Ephialtes caused him to be privately assassinated, by the hand of a Bœotian of Tanagra named Aristodicus. Such a crime—rare in the political annals of Athens, for we come to no known instance of it afterwards until the oligarchy of the Four Hundred in 411 B.C.—marks at once the gravity of the change now introduced, the fierceness of the opposition offered, and the unscrupulous character of the conservative party. Cimon was in exile and had no share in the deed. Doubtless the assassination of Ephialtes produced an effect unfavourable in every way to the party who procured it. The popular party in their resentment must have become still more attached to the judicial reforms just assured to them, while the hands of Pericles, the superior leader left behind and now acting singly, must have been materially strengthened.

It is from this point that the administration of that great man may be said to date: he was now the leading adviser (we might almost say Prime Minister) of the Athenian people. His first years were marked by a series of brilliant successes—already mentioned—the acquisition of Megara as an ally, and the victorious war against Corinth and Ægina. But when he proposed the great and valuable improvement of the Long Walls, thus making one city of Athens and Piræus, the same oligarchical party, which had opposed his judicial changes and assassinated Ephialtes, again stood forward in vehement resistance. Finding direct opposition unavailing, they did not scruple to enter into treasonable correspondence with Sparta—invoking the aid of a foreign force for the overthrow of the democracy: so odious had it become in their eyes, since the recent innovations. How serious was the hazard incurred by Athens, near the time of the battle of Tanagra, has been already recounted; together with the rapid and unexpected reconciliation of parties after that battle, principally owing to the generous patriotism of Cimon and his immediate friends. Cimon was restored from ostracism on this occasion, before his full time had expired; while the rivalry between him and Pericles henceforward becomes mitigated, or even converted into a compromise, whereby the internal affairs of the city were left to the one, and the conduct of foreign expeditions to the other. The successes of Athens during the ensuing ten years were more brilliant than ever, and she attained the maximum of her power: which doubtless had a material effect in imparting stability to the democracy as well as to the administration of Pericles—and enabled both the one and the other to stand the shock of those great public reverses, which deprived the Athenians of their dependent landed alliances, in the interval between the defeat of Coronea and the Thirty Years’ Truce.

Along with the important judicial revolution brought about by Pericles, were introduced other changes belonging to the same scheme and system.

Thus a general power of supervision both over the magistrates and over the public assembly, was vested in seven magistrates, now named for the first time, called nomophylaces, or law-guardians, and doubtless changed every year. These nomophylaces sat alongside of the Proedri or presidents both in the senate and in the public assembly, and were charged with the duty of interposing whenever any step was taken or any proposition made contrary to the existing laws: they were also empowered to constrain the magistrates to act according to law.

Another important change, which we may with probability refer to Pericles, is the institution of the nomothetæ. These men were in point of fact dicasts, members of the six thousand citizens annually sworn in that capacity. But they were not, like the dicasts for trying causes, distributed into panels or regiments known by a particular letter and acting together throughout the entire year: they were lotted off to sit together only on special occasion and as the necessity arose. According to the reform now introduced, the ecclesia or public assembly, even with the sanction of the senate of Five Hundred, became incompetent either to pass a new law or to repeal a law already in existence; it could only enact a psephism—that is, properly speaking, a decree applicable only to a particular case; though the word was used at Athens in a very large sense, sometimes comprehending decrees of general as well as permanent application. In reference to laws, a peculiar judicial procedure was established. The thesmothetæ were directed annually to examine the existing laws, noting any contradictions or double laws on the same matter; and in the first prytany (tenth part) of the Attic year, on the eleventh day, an ecclesia was held, in which the first business was to go through the laws seriatim, and submit them for approval or rejection; first beginning with the laws relating to the senate, next coming to those of more general import, especially such as determined the functions and competence of the magistrates. If any law was condemned by the vote of the public assembly, or if any citizen had a new law to propose, the third assembly of the prytany was employed, previous to any other business, in the appointment of nomothetæ and in the provision of means to pay their salary.

The effect of this institution was to place the making or repealing of laws under the same solemnities and guarantees as the trying of causes or accusations in judicature.

As an additional security both to the public assembly and the nomothetæ against being entrapped into decisions contrary to existing law, another remarkable provision has yet to be mentioned—a provision probably introduced by Pericles at the same time as the formalities of law-making by means of specially delegated nomothetæ. This was the Graphe Paranomon—indictment for informality or illegality—which might be brought on certain grounds against the proposer of any law or any psephism, and rendered him liable to punishment by the dicastery. He was required in bringing forward his new measure to take care that it should not be in contradiction with any pre-existing law—or if there were any such contradiction, to give formal notice of it, to propose the repeal of that which existed, and to write up publicly beforehand what his proposition was—in order that there might never be two contradictory laws at the same time in operation, nor any illegal decree passed either by the senate or by the public assembly. If he neglected this precaution, he was liable to prosecution under the Graphe Paranomon, which any Athenian citizen might bring against him before the dicastery, through the intervention and under the presidency of the thesmothetæ.