heiresses, or successions to hereditary priesthoods.
When the three years are completed they fall into
the ordinary body of citizens. So much for registra-
tion on the civic roll and the military training of
youth. 1
43. All magistrates that have to manage ordinary
business are appointed by lot, except the treasurer of
1 With this we may compare the two years' course of train-
ing of English officers for the line and the scientific corps of
the army, at Sandhurst and Woolwich, between the ages re-
spectively of 17 and 23, and 16 and 20.
F2
68 ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS
the military chest, the disburser of the theatrical
dole, and the curator of fountains. 1 These are
appointed by open election, and hold office from
Panathenaic festival to Panathenaic festival, i.e. from
the first of Hekatombaion or mid-July to the middle
of the following July. Open election is also the
mode of appointment to military command.
The senate of 500 is appointed by lot, fifty being
taken from each tribe. The Prutany or Presidency
is held in turn by each tribe in the order determined
by lot : the first four prutanies lasting for thirty-six
days each, the last six for thirty-five. For [instead
of the number of days which it takes the sun to
make an apparent revolution, i.e. to return to the
same place in the zodiac] the number of days it
takes the moon to make twelve revolutions is their
measure of the length of the year [which thus only
consists of 354 days ; and the error is corrected, and
the months made to denote the same seasons, by
intercalary years of thirteen lunar cycles or 384 days,
when the prutanies consist of thirty-eight and thirty-
nine days]. The Prutaneis for the time being mess
together in the Tholos or Rotunda, 2 receiving an
1 Or as Mr. W. Headlam suggests, with a slight change of
reading, the minister of finance.
2 The Tholos or Skias, the office of the Prutaneis and hall
where they dined, is to be distinguished from the adjacent
ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS 69
allowance from the state. They convoke the senate
and the commons, the senate every day excepting
holidays, the commons four times in each prutany.
They put out a program of the business to be
transacted by the senate each day, and another for
the ekklesia or assembly of the commons. At the
first or stated session the commons vote on the
conduct of the magistrates, on the supply of corn,
and the defence of the country ; they hear impeach-
ments of magistrates for maladminstration, and listen
to the recital of the register of confiscations and the
list of suits respecting inheritances and heiresses, so
that no inheritance may be vacant without the cog-
nizance of the commons. In the sixth prutany,
besides the above-mentioned business, the question
is put to the vote whether a case has arisen for
applying the power of ostracism; and indictments
against sycophants are heard, limited to three against
Athenians and three against resident foreigners, and
impeachments for non-fulfilment of promises made
to the state.
The second session is assigned to supplications or
Prutaneion, the palace where guests of the state, ambassadors,
and distinguished citizens, e.g. priests of Eleusis, descendants
of Harmodios arid Aristogeiton, or Olympic victors, were enter-
tained at the public expense. Both buildings lay to the north
of the Acropolis. K. F. Hermann, Greek Antiquities, 127.
70 ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS
petitions, and gives an opportunity to all persons on
depositing an olive branch upon the altar to petition
the commons on any matter, whether public or
private.
The third and fourth sessions are devoted to other
business ; and the law directs three audiences to be
given to heralds and embassies, three debates to be
allotted to religion, and three to secular matters.
Debates are sometimes permitted without previous
vote of the senate or notice on the program. Heralds
and embassies are admitted to audience of the
Prutaueis before they are introduced to the commons,
and despatches brought by messengers are delivered
into the hands of the Prutaneis.
44. A chairman of the Prutaneis is appointed by
lot, whose office lasts a night and a day and cannot
be held for a longer time nor more than once. He
is custodian of the keys of the temples containing
the public treasures and the public records, 1 and
keeps the public seal, and must stay in the Rotunda
with a third of the Prutaneis, whom he chooses at
will. On every convocation by the Prutaneis of the
senate or commons, he appoints by lot nine Proedroi
or Presiders, taking one from every tribe except the
presiding tribe, and out of these selects by lot a
chairman, and delivers to them the program of
1 These were kept in the Metroon or temple of Demeter.
ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS 71
business for the commons. They receive it and
superintend the order of business, propose the ques-
tions for deliberation, take the votes, supervise all
other proceedings, and have power to dismiss the
assembly. The chairmanship of the Proedroi cannot
be held more than once a year ; the function of
Proedros may be discharged once in each prutany.
The Proedroi conduct in the ecclesia the election of
generals, hipparchs, and other military commanders,
subject to the direction of the commons. The
Prutaneis of the first prutany after the sixth in
which the omens are favourable conduct these
elections, which are preceded by a preliminary vote
of the senate.
45. The senate in former times had authority to
fine and imprison or put to death ; but Lusimachos,
who had been delivered by its order to be led away
by the executioner, and was already bound and on the
point of being executed, was rescued by Eumeleides
of Alopeke, who said it was not right that any citizen
should be put to death except by judgment of a
court of law ; and on a trial in the supreme court or
Heliaia, Lusimachos was acquitted, and was after-
wards surnamed the unbastinadoed. On the same
occasion the commons deprived the senate of the
power of death, imprisonment, and fine, and passed a
law that if anyone should be sentenced or fined by
72 ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS
the senate, the sentence or fine should be brought
by the Thesmothetai before the Heliaia, and the
judgment of the jurors of that court should be final.
The judgment upon the administration of most
magistrates, particularly of those who handle money,
appertains to the senate, but is not final, being sub-
ject io appeal to the Heliaia or high court of the
commons. Any magistrate may be impeached before
the senate by a private person for violating the law,
but can appeal to the popular court if condemned by
the senate. The scrutiny of the qualifications of the
senators for the following year and of the nine
archons also belongs to the senate. In former times
its finding of disqualification was final, but now there
is an appeal to the people in the Heliaia. Here, then,
the senate has only subordinate authority. It has to
pass a previous vote on all motions to be brought
before the commons; and without a previous vote
of the senate and introduction into the program
by the Prutaneis no motion can be put to the
vote of the commons, 1 and neglect of either of
these requirements renders an orator who carries
his motion liable to an indictment for violating the
constitution.
46. The senate has the supervision of triremes
and naval stores and dockyards ; and builds new
1 But see chapter 43.
ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS 73
ships, either triremes or quadriremes, 1 as the
commons may vote, and provides new stores and
dockyards. The choice of naval architects is a
business of the commons and made by open voting.
If the senate fail to deliver the ships duly finished
to their successors they forfeit the donation of a
golden crown, which is not received till their
successors are in office. They provide for the
construction of new triremes by appointing ten
ship -builders from the general body of Athenians.
The senate is inspector of all public edifices, and if
it discovers any offence denounces the offender to
the ecclesia, and on a provisional finding of his guilt
brings him before the popular court.
47. The senate is associated with most of the
functions of other magistrates. There are the ten
treasurers of Athene appointed by lot, one from
each tribe, to be taken exclusively from the Penta-
cosiomedimnoi by Solon's law which is still in force,
but the office is really held by anyone on whom the
lot falls, though he may be ever so poor. They
1 This omission to mention quinquiremes proves, as Mr.
Cecil Torr has pointed out, that the treatise before us
was published before 325 B.C., when qiiinquiremes began to be
built. Mr. Kenyon had observed that the mention of Kephiso-
phon as archon eponumos in chapter 54 shows that it was
written after the year 329-328 B.C. Aristotle died in the year
322 B.C.
74 ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS
'assume the custody of the statue of the goddess, the
Victories, the other works of art, and the treasures
in the presence of the senate.
Then there are the ten sale commissioners, ap-
pointed by lot, one from each tribe, who lease all the
undertakings that are to be leased, and sell the right
to work the mines. They ratify in the presence of
the senate, conjointly with the treasurers of the
military chest and the commissioners of the theatric
fund, the grant of the right to collect the taxes to
the persons whose tenders are accepted by the senate,
and the leases of mines for a term of three years,
and the licences to for three years ; and
sell the estates of criminals banished by the Areo-
pagus, and the property of state debtors, in the
presence of the senate and with the ratification of
the nine archons. They register on gypsumed
tablets the taxes that are sold for a year, with the
name of the purchaser and the price to be paid, and
deliver the tablets to the senate. They register on
ten different tablets the payments to be made in
each prutany, and on other tablets the payments to
be made at the end of the year, each instalment on
its own tablet, and on other tablets the payments to
be made in the ninth prutany. They also record
the lands and houses condemned and sold by direc-
tion of the Heliaia and themselves conduct the sale.
ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS 75
The prices of houses are to be paid in five years,
those of land in ten, and the payments are made in
the ninth prutany. The king-archon delivers to the
senate, recorded on gypsum tablets, the leases which
he has granted of the sacred groves. These leases
are for terms of ten years, and these payments also
are made in the ninth prutany, so that most revenue
reaches the treasury at this period. The tablets
specifying the payments that are due are deposited
in the senate house in the custody of the public
slave,, and when a money payment is made he hands
to the receivers for cancellation only the very coupon
payable on the day, and keeps the others back, so
that they cannot be cancelled before they are paid.
48. There are ten receivers appointed by lot, one
from each tribe. They take the tablets in the senate
house in the presence of the senate, cancel the sums
that are paid, and restore the tablets to the public
slave. They record any default in payment and its
cause, and payment is enforced on penalty of im-
prisonment, power to enforce payment by imprison-
ment being given by law to the senate. On a
certain day the receivers receive the money and
distribute it to the magistrates : on the following day
they bring in a tablet on which the distribution is re-
corded and deposit it in the senate house. The senate
receive any accusation of fraud against magistrates
7<> ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS
or private persons in connection with the distribution,
and vote in condemnation or acquittal.
They also appoint by lot out of their own
body ten accountants to take the accounts of the
magistrates in every prutany, and ten auditors, one
from each tribe, with two assessors to each. The
auditors must sit in the markets at the statue of
the Eponumos hero of each tribe, and whoever
wishes within three days from the time when any
magistrate has rendered his accounts in the Heliaia
to require a further account on his own prosecution,
writes his own name on a whited tablet, that of the
accused, the offence he charges, and the penalty he
claims, and delivers the tablet to the auditor. The
auditor, if on hearing the statement of the facts he
is of opinion that the charge is well founded, when
the suit is civil, delivers it to the local judges who
introduce the suits of the tribe ; when it is criminal,
delivers a record to the Thesmothetai. If the
Thesmothetai receive it, they bring the accounts
of the accused again before the Heliaia, and the
judgment of the Heliaia is final.
49. The inspection of cavalry horses is a work of
the senate. If a cavalry soldier with an allowance
for his horse's keep starves his horse he is mulcted
of the allowance. A horse that cannot gallop or
cannot stand still is branded with a circle on the
ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS 77
jaw as disqualified. They review the guides and
reject incompetent horsemen. They inspect the
foot soldiers intended to move with cavalry and
reject the unserviceable. The cavalry are levied by
ten recruiters elected by the ecclesia. These deliver
the recruits to the hipparchs and phularchs, who
take them before the senate. There they open
sealed giblets which contain the names of the
cavalry, cancel the names of those already on the
list, who declare on oath that they are disabled by
bodily infirmity from serving ; summon the new
levies, and dismiss those who declare on oath that
they are disabled from serving by bodily infirmity or
want of means. The senate then pronounce on the
fitness or unfitness for service of those who do not
swear to their incapacity ; and those whom they
pronounce to be fit are enrolled, those whom they
pronounce unfit are dismissed.
The selection of the architectural plans to be
adopted for public buildings and of the maidens
who are to weave the sacred Peplos to be carried
in the Panathenaic procession, used to belong to
the senate, but now is the duty of a chamber
of jurors determined by lot, as the senators
were believed to be guilty of favouritism. The
sculpture of the victories and fabrication of the
prizes to be assigned at the Panathenaic contests
78 ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS
are under the joint management of the senate and
the treasurers of the military chest.
The examination of the claims of cripples belongs
to the senate, for a law directs that all who have
less than three minas of revenue and are crippled
and disabled from maintaining themselves by any
occupation shall be examined by the senate, and
allowed two obols a day from the public funds ; and
a paymaster for this purpose is appointed by lot.
The senate is also associated in most functions of
other magistrates : such, then, is an enumeration
of their principal duties.
50. Sortition is also the mode of appointing ten
repairers of sacred edifices, who receive thirty
minas apiece from the receivers to be spent on
the sacred buildings that stand most in need of
repair : and ten city- wardens, five for the Peiraieus,
five for the metropolis, who supervise female per-
formers on the flute or harp or lyre, and see that
they do not charge more than two drachmas for an
engagement, and, when several persons want to
engage the same performer, decide by casting lots
which is to have the preference.
It is also their duty to hinder scavengers from
discharging sewage near the city wall, and to pre-
vent people from building on public ways or putting
fences across a road, or pouring water through open
ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS 79
ditches into the highway, or constructing windows
to open on the public streets : and they provide
for the interment of the destitute who die within the
precincts of the metropolis, 1 for which purpose they
have the assistance of subordinates paid by the
public.
51. Sortition is the mode of appointing ten
market overseers, five for Peiraieus, five for the
metropolis, who are directed by law to supervise all
commodities offered for sale, and see that they are
pure and unadulterated.
Sortition appoints ten inspectors of measures, five
for the city, five for Peiraieus, to supervise all mea-
sures and weights, and see that those used by
vendors agree with the standards.
Ten corn-wardens used to be appointed by lot,
five for Peiraieus, five for the city; now there are
twenty for the city, fifteen for Peiraieus; whose
functions are to see, firstly, that the unground corn
is offered for sale in the market without fraud ;
secondly, that the price asked by millers for barley-
meal corresponds to the price of barley, and that
the price asked for bread by bakers corresponds to
1 The demarch had to see that everyone who died in a deme
was duly buried, Demosthenes, Macartatos, 58. The astu-
nomoi seem to have had the same functions in Athens and
Peiraieus. Perhaps the text requires emendation.
80 ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS
the price of wheat ; and that loaves have the
weight which they have prescribed, for the law
directs the weight of loaves to be fixed by the
corn-wardens.
Ten mart-commissioners are appointed by lot to
supervise the mart or emporium, and compel the
importers of corn to convey two-thirds of all that
reaches the corn-exchange to the market of the
metropolis.
52. The appointment of the eleven gaol-com-
missioners is by lot. Their duties are to have
charge of the prisoners ; to put to death all
thieves, kidnappers, and highway robbers brought
before them for summary process if they confess ;
to bring them before the Heliaia if they plead not
guilty; 1 discharge them if they are acquitted, put
them to death if they are convicted. They bring
before the Heliaia claims in the name of the state
of lands or houses in the possession of private
persons, and if they are pronounced by the jurors
1 A writer in the Saturday Review of March, and in the
Quarterly Review of April, suggests that the alternatives are
not confession and a plea of not guilty, but the unanimity and
disagreement of the judges. This, however, is inconsistent
with Lysias adversus Andocidem, 14, and JSschines in
Timarchum, 91; where nearly the same expressions are used,
and the contrast is clearly between the pleas of guilty and not
guilty.
ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS 81
to be confiscated, deliver them to the sale-com-
missioners. They also bring informations before
the Heliaia, for this is a function which they share
with the Thesmothetai.
Sortition is the mode of appointing five intro-
ducers, one for every two tribes, who introduce
monthly suits to the court ; suits, that is to say,
that must be decided within a month from their
commencement. Monthly suits are brought to
recover a marriage portion if the husband refuse to
restore it, or interest of a drachma per mina per
month (12 per cent, per annum), or relate to a
market business carried on with borrowed stock, or
to merchandise, or to friendly societies, or club sub-
scriptions, or to disputes arising out of partnership,
or to slaves, or to beasts of burden, or to trier-
archies, or to dealings with bankers. The intro-
ducers are either final judges in these cases or
introduce them as monthly suits to the Heliaia.
Suits by or against farmers of the taxes are dealt
with by the receivers, who are final judges up to
the value of ten drachmas, and above that value
introduce them to the Heliaia with the condition
that judgment is rendered in a month.
53. Sortition is the mode of appointing forty
municipal judges, four from each tribe, who give
leave to enter private suits for trial in the order
G
82 ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS
decided by lot. Originally (ch. 16) they were
thirty, and went on circuits through the muni-
cipalities to try their suits ; but after the oligarchy
of the Thirty their number was raised to forty. Up
to the value of ten drachmas they are final judges ;
when more than this value is at stake they hand
over the case to the arbitrators. They take it in
hand and, if they cannot reconcile the disputants,
deliver judgment ; and if both parties agree to abide
by their decision, there is an end of the suit ; but if
either party appeals to the Heliaia, the arbitrator
casts the depositions, citations, and laws appealed to
by plaintiff and defendant into two caskets, which he
seals up, appending a record of the decision of the
arbitrator, and delivers to those [four of the forty
municipal] magistrates who judge in the suits of the
defendant's tribe. They receive the caskets, bring
them into the Heliaia ; if the value in dispute is less
than 1000 drachmas, before 201 jurors; if above
1000, before 401. No law, deposition, nor citation
may be produced at the trial unless produced
before the arbitrator and deposited in the caskets.
Arbitrators must be sixty years old, and their age
is ascertained by the archon eponumos and age
eponumos l under whom they are inscribed on the
1 It appears from the text, which is the only account we
have of them, that the age eponumoi were a cycle of forty-two
ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS 83
civic list. For in addition to ten eponumous heroes
of the tribes there are forty-two age eponumoi.
The names of the cadets when enrolled among the
citizens used to be inscribed on gypsum tablets,
and above their names were inscribed the arch on
eponumos of the current year and the age eponumos
of those who acted as arbitrators in the preceding year.
Now they are inscribed on a brazen pillar, which
stands before the senate house near the statues of
the tribe eponumoi. The names of the citizens who,
forty-two years previously, when they were eighteen
years old, were inscribed under that of the age
eponumos who marks the now current year (who
consequently are now in their sixtieth year), are
ascertained by the forty municipal judges, who there-
mythical heroes, who corresponded to forty-two years in the
calendar, and denoted forty- two years of an individual's life,
i.e. those from his eighteenth to his sixtieth inclusive. A
citizen owed forty-one years of military service to his country,
i.e. those from his nineteenth to his fifty-ninth inclusive. In
his sixtieth year he was liable to perform the public service
of acting as arbitrator. This year was connected in the
calendar with the name of the age eponumos who had been
associated with his name when he was enrolled as a youth on
the civic list. It seems, then, that the name of the age eponumos
of the year preceding the year of enrolment was superscribed
over his name when it was entered on the civic roll. Perhaps
some likelier explanation may be forthcoming. The English
given is rather a paraphrase than a translation of the text.
- G2
84 ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS
upon distribute among them by lot the cases for
arbitration, and everyone of them must arbitrate
the cases so assigned. For the law visits whoever
fails to arbitrate when he is of proper age with the
penalty of infamy, unless he happen to hold some
other office during that year or to be out of the
country, for then he is excused from acting as
arbitrator. Impeachment before the board of arbi-
trators is the remedy for a wrong inflicted by a
single arbitrator ; 1 and if he is convicted he is
infamous, but he may appeal to the Heliaia.
The names of the age eponumoi are also used
for describing those who are called out for any
military service ; for when soldiers of a certain age
are sent on an expedition, the inferior and superior
limits of the age on which the service is imposed are
defined by the names of the. archontes eponumoi
and age eponumoi.
54. Sortition is also the mode of appointing the
following officials : five road makers, whose duty is,
with the help of workmen provided by the state, to
keep the roads in repair ; ten accountants and ten
advocates, to whom those who have held office must
deliver their accounts ; for they alone examine them
and introduce the audit to the Heliaia. If they
give convincing evidence of theft, the jurors find the
1 The reading and the meaning are doubtful.
ARISTOTLE'S CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS 85
official guilty of theft, and he has to pay ten times
the amount he has stolen ; if they give evidence of
bribery and the jurors convict, they estimate the