After the archonship of Solon all Athenians over the age of eighteen were eligible to attend the assembly, save those who for some reason had suffered atimia (loss of civil rights). To prevent the presence of any disqualified persons, six lexiarchs with thirty assistants were present with the deme-rolls in their hands. These officers superintended the payment in the 4th century and probably the toxotae (police) also, whose duty it was before the introduction of pay to drive the people out of the Agora into the Ecclesia with a rope steeped in red dye which they stretched out and used as a draw net (see Aristoph. Acharn. 22 and Eccles. 378). The introduction of pay, which belongs to the early years of the 4th century and by the Constitution (c. 41 ad fin.) is attributed to Agyrrhius, a statesman of the restored democracy, was a device to secure a larger attendance. The rate rose from one to two obols and then to three obols (Aristoph. Eccles. 300 sqq.), while at the time of Aristotle it was one and a half drachmas for the κυρία ἐκκλησία and one drachma for other meetings. Probably those who were late did not receive payment.
Procedure.—The proceedings opened with formalities: the purification by the peristiarchs, who carried round slain sucking pigs; the curse against all who should deceive the people; the appointment (in the 4th century) of the proedri and their epistates (see [Boulē]); the report as to the weather-omens. The assembly was always dismissed if there were thunder, rain or an eclipse. These formalities over, the Prytaneis communicated the probouleuma of the council, without which the Ecclesia could not debate. This recommendation either submitted definite proposals or merely brought the agenda before the assembly. Its importance lay largely in the fact that it explained the business in hand, which otherwise must often have been beyond the grasp of a miscellaneous assembly. After the reading, a preliminary vote was taken as to whether the council’s report should be accepted en bloc. If it was decided to discuss, the herald called upon people to speak. Any person, without distinction of age or position, might obtain leave to speak, but it seems probable that the man who had moved the recommendation previously in the council would advocate it in the assembly. The council was, therefore, a check on the assembly, but its powers were to some extent illusory, because any member of the assembly (1) might propose an amendment, (2) might draw up a new resolution founded on the principal motion, (3) might move the rejection of the motion and the substitution of another, (4) might bring in a motion asking the council for a recommendation on a particular matter, (5) might petition the council for leave to speak on a given matter to the assembly. Voting usually was by show of hands, but in special cases (ostracism, &c.) by ballot (i.e. by casting pebbles into one of two urns). The decision of the assembly was called a psephism and had absolute validity. These decisions were deposited in the Metroön where state documents were preserved; peculiarly important decrees were inscribed also on a column (stēlē) erected on the Acropolis. It has been shown that the power of the council was far from sufficient. The real check on the vagaries of amateur legislators was the Graphē Paranomōn. Any man was at liberty to give notice that he would proceed against the mover of a given resolution either before or after the voting in the Ecclesia. A trial in a Heliastic court was then arranged, and the plaintiff had to prove that the resolution in question contravened an existing law. If this contention were upheld by the court, when the case was brought to it by the Thesmothetae, the resolution was annulled, and the defendant had to appear in a new trial for the assessment of the penalty, which was usually a fine, rarely death. Three convictions under this law, however, involved a certain loss of rights; the loser could no longer move a resolution in the Ecclesia. After the lapse of a year the mover of a resolution could not be attacked. In the 4th century the Graphē Paranomōn took the place of Ostracism (q.v.). In the 5th century it was merely an arrangement whereby the people sitting as sworn juries ratified or annulled their own first decision in the Ecclesia.
Revision of Laws.—In the 4th century, the assembly annually, on the eleventh day of Hecatombaeon (the first day of the official year), took a general vote on the laws, to decide whether revision was necessary. If the decision was in favour of alteration, it was open to any private citizen to put up notice of amendments. The Nomothetae, a panel selected by the Prytaneis from the Heliaea, heard arguments for and against the changes proposed and voted accordingly. Against all new laws so passed, there lay the Graphē; Paranomōn. Thus the Nomothetae, not the Ecclesia, finally passed the law.
Judicial Functions.—The Ecclesia heard cases of Probolē and Eisangelia (see [Greek Law]). The Probolē was an action against sycophants and persons who had not kept their promises to the people, or had disturbed a public festival. The verdict went by show of hands, but no legal consequences ensued; if the plaintiff demanded punishment he had to go to the Heliaea which were not at all bound by the previous vote in the Ecclesia. Cases of Eisangelia in which the penalty exceeded the legal competence of the council came before the Ecclesia in the form of a probouleuma. To prevent vexatious accusations, it was (at some date unknown) decided that the accuser who failed to obtain one-fifth of the votes should be fined 1000 drachmas (£40). (For the procedure in case of [Ostracism] see that article.)
Summary.—Thus it will be seen that the Ecclesia, with no formal organization, had absolute power save for the Graphē Paranomōn (which, therefore, constituted the dicasteries in one sense the sovereign power in the state). It dealt with all matters home and foreign. Every member could initiate legislation, and, as has been shown, the power of the council was merely formal. As against this it must be pointed out that it was by no means a representative assembly in practice. The phrase used to describe a very special assembly (κατάκλητος ἐκκλησία) shows that ordinarily the country members did not attend (κατακαλεῖν always involving the idea of motion from a distance towards Athens), and Thucydides says that 5000 was the maximum attendance, though it must be remembered that he is speaking of the time when the number of citizens had been much reduced owing to the plague and the Sicilian expedition. From this we understand the necessity of payment in the 4th century, although in that period the Ecclesia was supreme (Constitution of Athens, xli. 2). The functions of the Ecclesia thus differed in two fundamental respects from those which are in modern times associated with a popular assembly. (1) It did not exercise, at least in the period as to which we are best instructed, the power of law-making (νομοθεσία) in the strict sense. It must be remembered, however, in qualification of this statement that it possessed the power of passing psephismata which would in many cases be regarded as law in the modern sense. (2) The Ecclesia was principally concerned with the supervision of administration. Much of what we regard as executive functions were discharged by the Ecclesia.
With this article compare those on [Solon]; [Boule]; [Areopagus]; [Greek Law], and, for other ancient popular assemblies, [Apella]; [Comitia]. See also A.H.J. Greenidge, Handbook of Greek Constitutional History (1896); Gilbert, Greek Constitutional Antiquities (trans. Brooks and Nicklin, 1895); Schömann, De comitiis Atheniensium; L. Schmidt, “De Atheniensis reipublicae indole democratica” in Ind. Lect. (Marburg, 1865); J.W. Headlam, Election by Lot at Athens (Cambridge, 1891). See also the histories of Greece by Meyer, Busolt, Grote, Evelyn Abbott, and J.E. Sandys’ edition of the Constitution of Athens (1892); for a comparative study, E.A. Freeman, Comparative Politics.
(J. M. M.)
ECCLESIASTES (Heb. קהלת, Kohelet, “Koheleth”; Sept. ἐκκλησιαστής; Jerome concionator), one of the Wisdom Books of the Old Testament (see [Wisdom Literature]). The book, as it stands, is a collection of the discourses, observations and aphorisms of a sage called Koheleth, a term the precise meaning of which is not certain. The Greek ecclesiastes means one who takes part in the deliberations of an assembly (ecclesia), a debater or speaker in an assembly (Plato, Gorgias, 452 E), and this is the general sense of the Hebrew word. Its form (singular feminine) has been supposed to be the adoption or imitation of the Arabic employment of a fem. sing. as the designation of a high official person, as is the case in the title caliph (whence the rendering in the margin of the Revised Version, “Great orator”); but the adoption of an Arabic idiom is not probable. This usage is not Hebrew; it is not found either in the Old Testament or in the later (Mishnaic) Hebrew. The form may have been suggested by that of the Hebrew word for “wisdom.” Koheleth, however, is employed in the book not as a title of wisdom (for “wisdom” is never the speaker), but as the independent name of the sage. It is intended to represent him as a member of an assembly (Kahal)—not the Jewish congregation, but a body of students or inquirers, such as is referred to in xii. 9-11, a sort of collegium, of which he was the head; and as instructor of this body he gives his criticism of life. The author begins, indeed, with identifying his sage with King Solomon (i. 12-ii. 11, 12b); but he soon abandons this literary device, and speaks in his own name. The rendering “preacher” has a misleading connotation.
In the book as we have it there is no orderly exposition of a theory; it rather has the appearance of a collection of remarks jotted down by a pupil (somewhat after the manner of Xenophon’s Memorabilia), or of extracts from a sage’s notebook. It is, however, characterized throughout (except in some scribal additions) by a definite thought, and pervaded by a definite tone of feeling. The keynote is given in the classic phrase with which the discussion opens and with which it closes: “Vanity of vanities (i.e. absolute vanity), all[1] is vanity!” Life, says the author, has nothing of permanent value to offer. His attitude is one not of bitterness but of calm hopelessness, with an occasional tinge of disgust or contempt. He fancies that he has tried or observed everything in human experience, and his deliberate conclusion is that nothing is worth doing. He believes in an all-powerful but indifferent God, and is himself an observer of society, standing aloof from its passions and ambitions, and interested only in pointing out their emptiness.