The Greek City and its Institutions

THE COUNCILLORS

THE demos was sovereign, its functions were universal and its powers unlimited. But, according to the maxim of Lincoln which a penetrating scholar of antiquity has very aptly applied to Athenian democracy, one can secure that a part of the people shall govern all the time, or that all the people shall govern part of the time, but one will never succeed in enabling all the people to govern all the time.¹ To enable the demos to make its decisions, it was necessary for its work to be prepared, for decrees to be given a regular form before being submitted to it, in order that it might vote upon precisely worded and carefully considered texts. Moreover it could not be in permanent session to ensure the detailed execution of its will, and to supervise public administration, nor could it as a body conduct negotiations with representatives of foreign powers. It was compelled, therefore, to delegate a part of its sovereignty to a body invested with deliberative power (βονλεύειν) and placed at the head of the executive (άρχειν). It was this body to which the Athenians gave the name of Council, Boule, and which they regarded as the first magistracy, the first άρχή, of the republic. If, therefore, one seeks in the Athenian constitution anything approximating to the representative system of modern Parliaments, it is not in the Ecclesia that one must look, but in the Boule.

When Cleisthenes replaced the old Council of the Four Hundred by that of the Five Hundred (ή βουλη oi πεντακόσιοι), he gave it an organization which, slightly modified in 501, endured for centuries.² It had become so thoroughly assimilated into the regime by 465 that in that year Athens imposed it upon the Erythreans, and the decree issued on this occasion 3 is the oldest document from which we derive detailed knowledge of it. The five hundred seats of the councillors were divided among the demes according to their importance and in the proportion of fifty to each tribe :⁴ in the official lists the bouleutai are always classified by tribes and demes. It may be truly said, therefore, that the Boule was the great Council of the communes, and it is for this reason that the demes, even when they were deprived of the right of intervening in the election by lot of the magistrates, nevertheless did not lose their right of sending representatives to the Council. The councillors were elected by lot “by the bean” (oί απο του κυάμου βουλευταί)⁵ from the demotai above thirty years of age⁶ who presented themselves as candidates. To each of them was attached by the same drawing of lots a substitute (ειλαγων) in case the seat for any reason should fall vacant.⁷ It would be wrong to think that there was a scramble for the position of councillor, for it entailed the devotion of a whole year to affairs of state. Certainly they were paid, but the remuneration cannot have been high in the fifth century, and in Aristotle’s day it only amounted to five obols a day for the ordinary bouleutai and a drachma for the prytaneis⁸ (half the day’s earnings of a workman). Moreover, ambitious men whose lives were not irreproachable dared not put themselves forward as candidates, because they feared the interrogation of the dokimasia conducted by the Council in office and the action which might ensue.⁹ Thus one is not surprised to find that people of humble family and small fortune were far from forming a majority in the Boule.¹⁰ Even the leisured classes and the rich would hardly regret that they were prohibited by law from being a councillor more than twice,¹¹ and this deviation from the ordinary rule which prohibited the repeated performance of civil functions seems to indicate that some difficulty was experienced in finding five hundred new bouleutai every year. When one thinks how many were required in thirty or forty years, one realizes that every reputable Athenian of moderate means could, if he desired, form part of the Council for at least one year of his life.

Before entering upon their office the bouleutai had to take an oath. In 501-0 the formula of the oath still in force in the time of Aristotle was fixed.12 From the fragments which have survived it appears that it alluded to each function and to each duty of the office. The future councillor swore to exercise his function in conformity with the laws and in the best interests of the community, to maintain secrecy on affairs of the State, to respect the liberty of the individual by permitting citizens to escape physical constraint by allowing bail, except in certain cases specifically determined, and to proceed to the dokimasia of the bouleutai and the archons for the following year. To this formula were added, when circumstances demanded and for a long or short period, certain special promises. The decree of Demophantus, which, after the fall of the Four Hundred, placed outside the pale of the law the author of any attempt against democracy, imposed an oath binding on all citizens, and in a special degree on the bouleutai. At the same time the bouleutai swore to observe a new regulation: to occupy in the Bouleuterion the place assigned to each by lot. After the restoration of 403 they swore to observe the amnesty by receiving no denunciation or warrant of arrest save in respect of infringement of outlawry.¹³

Entry into office took place, for one century, at the beginning of the official year: this was the year of 360 days, the one which Cleisthenes had brought into conformity with his decimal system and which, in spite of intercalary years, did not coincide with the civil year.¹⁴ For this reason in 411-0 the Council entered upon its duties on the 14th of the last month.¹⁵ But in 408-7 this anomaly was brought to an end by the suppression of the special calendar. On their first day of office the councillors offered an inaugural sacrifice (εισιτήρια) and put on the wreath of myrtle which was the sign of their inviolability.¹⁶ From that moment they were entitled to receive payment, but since they were not always constant in attendance 17 they received only presence-tokens (σύμβολα) which had to be changed later into money.¹⁸ Besides these emoluments they had certain prerogatives: they were exempt from military service during the year of office and they occupied places of honour in the theatre.¹⁹

These privileges were compensation for special obligations and responsibilities. The body exercised over its members a disciplinary power. If one of them committed a punishable act he might be excluded on the score of unworthiness. For this kind of vote olive leaves were employed; hence the name for this summary exclusion was ekphyllophoria. The member thus ejected might appeal from the Boule to an informed Boule : then a formal law suit began. In case of condemnation the Boule might inflict a fine within the limits of its competence. If it considered that the penalties which it was empowered to inflict were inadequate it might send the accused before the popular tribunals.²⁰ At the end of its period of office the whole Council had to render account to the people, and, although it was regarded as an ordinary magistracy, its rendering of account followed a special procedure. Each year the Assembly gave to the retiring Council an official token of its pleasure or displeasure : it either bestowed on it a crown of gold to dedicate to some sanctuary, or it withheld the gift. Until 343-2 the matter was inserted in the order of the day by the persons concerned ; after that date it was done by their successors. In the discussion which took place concerning the crown the whole administration of the Council was surveyed. There was one case in which the law formally forbade the honouring of the retiring councillors, namely when they had not constructed the prescribed number of war ships. The refusal of the reward only involved a moral stigma; but all the personal responsibilities which were brought to light in the discussion were submitted to the examination of a tribunal.²¹

The Council was convened by the prytaneis who posted the “ agenda”²² and the place of meeting. In cases of emergency the summons was made by proclamation of the herald or by trumpet blasts. When the State was in danger the Council sat in permanent session : there were occasions when it passed the whole night on the Acropolis, save for the prytaneis who remained in the Tholos. In normal times it sat every day, except on holidays and inauspicious days. The ordinary sessions were held in the Bouleuterion, situated to the south of the agora. But there were extraordinary meetings held in the Eleusinion of the city after the celebration of the mysteries, in the arsenal of the Piræus for deliberations on naval constructions and armaments, on the great sea-wall for the departure of the fleet, or again on the Acropolis.23

As a general rule the sessions were open to the public. The listeners were only separated from the councillors by a barrier. When secret sessions²⁴ were held the prytaneis sent out archers with orders to thrust back the barrier and keep the crowd at a distance. Private individuals were not admitted to the Council unless they were introduced by prytaneis for reasons of public interest or contrived to get in, so malicious tongues said, by means of bribes.²⁵ There was an exceptional case in 40.3-2 when a general revision of the laws was being embarked upon ; then all citizens were authorized by decree of the people to go there and state their opinions.²⁶ For the magistrates the rule was the same; but it goes without saying that there were great facilities for them to introduce themselves into the Council and, in any case, to present to it their reports. The strategoi in particular were in constant communication with it; they were summoned to the Bouleuterion, and had free admission of right.²⁷

In the interior of the Bouleuterion was a sacred place where, around the altar dedicated to Hestia Boulaia, stood statues of Zeus Boulaios, Hera Boulaia and Athena Boulaia. It was there that the councillors performed the preliminary formality of conciliating all the deities “of wise counsel”by an offering and a prayer and by the proclamation through a herald of a curse against proposers of misleading motions.28 Then they seated themselves on benches facing the tribune. Since the experience of the oligarchic coup d’état of 411 had taught the Athenians that grouping by parties was unfavourable to liberty of speech, places were assigned to the bouleutai by tribes, and each one swore to occupy no other seat than his own.²⁹ The prytaneis constituted the committee of the Council, and their epistates was the president of the session. On the order of the day, in addition to the questions which were to be brought forward at the next meeting of the Assembly, were included those connected with the previous resolutions of the Council or with the decrees of the people. For the rest the Council always retained control over its agenda. The presiding body had at its command very stringent standing orders. Any word or act contrary to these was liable to be punished, when the session had risen, by a fine of fifty drachmas. If it were an offence meriting a severer penalty, the prytaneis passed a resolution to this effect and referred the matter to the next session, when a decision was taken by means of the secret ballot.³⁰ We must remember that permanent exclusion might be pronounced against thç delinquent.

THE PRYTANEIS

We have reached the point when the directing committee of the Boule, the prytaneis whom we have seen at work in many different circumstances, must be examined in greater detail. No more than the Ecclesia could the Boule of the Five Hundred sit uninterruptedly throughout a whole year. It required for the expediting of current affairs and the preparation of its work a committee which might make for stability, a directing committee. But the democratic principle could not allow the Council, the epitome of the Ecclesia, to have the same leaders for a whole year. Hence it was composed of ten sections each of which corresponded to a tribe. What could be more simple, more in harmony with the constitutional ideas of Cleisthenes than to allow each tribe in turn to exercise the prytaneia ? To each one a tenth of the year. The order in which the tribes were to be thus honoured was determined by lot : but we do not know whether it was fixed for the whole year at the moment when the Council entered into office or successively at the beginning of the nine first prytanies.31 In the official calendar the year could be exactly divided into ten prytanies : the 360 days of the ordinary years and the 390 days of the intercalary years gave exactly 36 or 39 days for each tribe. But when in 408-7 the civil year of 354 or 384 days was adopted for public affairs equal partition became impossible. According to Aristotle it was decided that the four first prytanies should be of 36 (or 39) days and the six last of 35 (or 38); but that rule is only followed in some of the documents that we have,³² whilst the others present a great variety in the allotment of the surplus days.³³

The prytaneis were housed in a special building near the Bouleuterion, the Skias, which was also called, because of its circular form, the Tholos. They took their meals there, and as this meant extra expense for them they received an obol a day more than the other bouleutai (a drachma in all), and the epistates a further ten obols.³⁴ On the altar erected in the Skias they offered up sacrifices for the safety of the people.³⁵ But a connection must not be established between the title of the prytaneis and the name of the Prytaneum, the building where the “common hearth” was and to which the city invited those whom it wished to honour, nor must it be imagined that residence in the Skias was rigorously demanded of the fifty prytaneis : the tribe was comprised of three trittyes, and it was by thirds in rotation that the prytaneis mounted guard.³⁶

The epistates of the prytaneis was elected by lot every day. He exercised his high office from sunset to sunset and could only be called to it once. Of the fifty prytaneis, therefore, thirty-five at least and sometimes thirty-nine attained to the presidency. That is to say that the average Athenian, since he had full opportunity to enter the Council if he wished, had almost as great a chance of being the president of the Republic for one day in his life—for the position was nothing less than that. The epistates of the prytaneis, president of the Boule and the Ecclesia, had in his possession for a day and a night the keys of the temples where the treasure and the archives were kept, as well as the seal of the State. He retained these privileges even when, in 378-7, he yielded the presidency of the deliberative assemblies to the epistates of the nine proedroi drawn by lot from the bouleutai of the non-prytanic tribes.

It will soon be seen, from the powers of the Boule, what those of the permanent committee were. It was through the medium of the prytaneis that the Boule was brought into touch with the Ecclesia, the magistrates and the ordinary citizens, with foreign ambassadors and heralds. They summoned in case of emergency the Council, the Assembly and the strategoi;37 they introduced into the Council persons whose presence the people or they themselves thought desirable; before them, as a general rule, were presented all who brought letters or communications which were of public import;³⁸ while the policing forces which they had at their disposal were not only for the maintenance of good order in the Council and the Assembly but also for the making of arrests necessitated by flagrant offences prejudicial to the well-being of the city.³⁹ On the injunction of the Assembly they were commissioned, as proxies of the Boule, to denounce the strategoi to the tribunals and to ensure the restitution of money borrowed by the State.⁴⁰

On account of these various functions the tribe which exercised the prytanship was not only involved in the common responsibility of the Boule; it was also responsible for its own acts, and each prytanis for his personal actions. Hence, at the close of the fourth century, the Boule and the people adopted the practice of conferring on the prytanic tribes an additional recompense, not to all indiscriminately, as was done later, but to the one which had “carried off the victory” by deserving the best of the city. 41 But, on the other hand, the direction of the debates of the Assembly exposed the committee to grave criticisms and even to formal accusations.⁴² Decrees always mentioned the name of the epistates in order that he might be identified even after the vote had been taken. But the prytaneis were not bound by indissoluble bonds. Socrates proved in terrible circumstances that each of them might dissociate himself from actions which he considered unworthy of himself, and Demosthenes tells us that the fact of offering libations and sacrifices in common did not prevent the good from distinguishing themselves from the bad.⁴³

In order to execute its manifold powers the Boule nominated by show of hands or by drawing of lots special commissions, some for the duration of the year, others for the period necessary for the accomplishment of their mission. Of this number were the “ assemblers “ or syllogeis of the people. They were elected for a year and were thirty in number, three from each tribe, one from each trittys. Under the presidency of the prytanic tribe they co-operated with the six lexiarchs to control entries into the Assembly. Their function was extended in the fourth century, when they were made responsible for distributing to the citizens who arrived in time the attendance tokens which enabled them to receive the three obols. In addition they represented the Boule, though for what reason we can hardly tell, at the Olympic festival at Athens and at certain sacrifices in honour of Athena. At all events they contrived to earn titles of honour by their “ spirit of justice.”⁴⁴ For the supervision of marine administration, one of its principal functions, the Boule nominated from its number two commissions: the one (that of the ten τριηροποίοί) controlled, with the assistance of “archite” or engineers chosen by the people, the constructions in progress and saw that the contractors were paid from a special fund by its treasurer;⁴⁵ the other (the έτημελόνμενοι τον νεωρίον) was in communication with the directors of the maritime arsenals, the vewpoi’ who were in charge of ships in service and who had under their command five hundred wardens.46 Ten commissioners of accounts, the logistai, were elected by lot during each prytany to audit the accounts of all the officials who were responsible for monetary transactions. This partial and provisional auditing was a preliminary to the total and final rendering of accounts which took place at the end of their period of office before special magistrates, but in which ten commissioners, the “correctors” or euthynoi, participated,each assisted by two assessors, the whole thirty being elected by lot by the Boule.⁴⁷ In the inscriptions of the fifth and especially of the fourth century appear also numerous commissions of hieropoioi whose duty it was to preside at various ceremonies : at the feasts of Hephaestus, at the sacrifices offered at Eleusis for the consecration of the first fruits or the celebration of the mysteries, at a festival of Dionysus where victims were immolated for the safety of the Council and the people. This kind of commission was usually taken from the whole of the Boule, but once however from the section exercising the prytanship.⁴⁸

The prytaneis and the commissioners required, as did the councillors in general, a secretary of the archives who was acquainted with the diplomatic forms necessary for the drawing up of decrees and in whom one might have confidence for the publication, the classification and the guarding of official documents. Until about the year 367 this functionary was “the secretary of the Boule” (ό γραμματενς τής βονλής). He was elected by the Boule from the councillors who had not yet exercised the prytanship and, consequently, for one prytany. The popular vote conferred this duty on persons of the greatest nobility and integrity.⁴⁹ But though the name of the secretary figured in the preamble and the title of decrees, along with the names of the prytanic tribe and the epistates, it was not out of respect for this dignitary, but for the purpose of dating and authenticating acts, and for convenience of reference. In the same way the name of a Boule was indicated by the name of the secretary during the first prytany.50 In the temple of the Mother of the Gods, the Metroon, were stored tablets and papyri in the midst of which the secretary of the Boule was enthroned. There were accumulated the originals of decrees and laws, a mass of accounts and judicial dossiers and even, since the time of Lycurgus’ administration, official copies of great tragedies.⁵¹ The secretary, however, did not keep the key of the Metroon, which passed from day to day into the hands of the epistates, and he was of necessity compelled, since he had not time to acquire the necessary experience, to rely upon the actual master within, the public slave attached to the archives.

Between 368-7 and 363-2 the secretaryship was completely reformed. It became a veritable magistracy, annual and filled by lot from the citizens. By a strange paradox the new secretary received the title which properly belonged to the old one, he was called “secretary of the prytany” (γραμματευς κατά πρυτανείαν).⁵² Although the period of his office was extended he had not the same prestige as he had had in the days when he was chosen from the bouleutai. In order to avoid competition between tribes he was selected in turn from each one, at first following an order determined by lot, and, at the close of the year 356-5, following the official order.⁵³ As keeper of public documents and commissioned to take care of decrees enacted and to make copies of all other documents, the secretary of the prytany necessarily attended the sessions of the Council, although he formed no part of it. He had as auxiliary and subordinate the “ secretary of the decrees “ or “ of the laws “ (γραμματεύς επί τα ψηφίσματα, επί τούς νόμους), who was likewise elected by lot and had entry to the Council, since it was his duty to make copies of decrees and laws.⁵⁴

In addition to these secretaries of the archives there was a secretary of the records, “ the secretary of the people “ or “ of the city “ (γραμματευς του δήμου, τής ττολεως), whose sole function was to read documents to the Assembly and the Council. As it was essential that he should have a good voice he was an elected official.55 For proclamations to be made in the Assembly the prytaneis had also at their command a herald appointed by the Council (κήρνξ τής βουλής) and who remained in office indefinitely.⁵⁶

III

THE POWERS OF THE COUNCIL

At once a preparatory commission, an executive commission and a supreme magistracy the Boule had three channels for the exercise of its various powers : it sent to the Assembly probouleumata which served as the basis for the decrees of the people; it issued itself independent decrees in order to secure the detailed execution of decisions made; it collaborated more or less directly, in counsel or action, with the other magistracies.

We have seen that the Assembly of the people imposed upon itself the absolute obligation not to deliberate upon any project save those sent down by the Council, with or without definite conclusions.⁵⁷ A decree of the people always supposed a probouleuma of the Boule. Sometimes it happened that the probouleuma was mentioned explicitly in the decree ;⁵⁸ but most often it was simply alluded to in the formula “ it has pleased the Boule and the people “ (έτωι£ τήι βουλήι καί τωι Βήμωι). Even the discussion of a project elaborated by a special commission of syngrapheis, even the nomination of nomothetai charged with the revision of a law, even the annual meetings for elections commenced with the reading of a probouleuma. Each Boule was responsible for all the propositions which it had made to the Assembly and only for those; as a consequence any probouleuma which the Boule had not had time to introduce before the people lapsed with it.

Current affairs called for immediate decisions in a great number of cases which it was not worth while to submit to the Assembly.⁵⁹ The Boule, therefore, drew up executive “decrees” (ψηφίσματα) without any other formality.60 There was implicit authorization for this in its responsibility for ensuring the application of the decrees and the laws of the people. In extraordinary circumstances it was invested with full powers (κυρία, αύτοκράτωρ) to complete the provisions of a particular decree.⁶¹ Nevertheless it had to remain within the limits of its powers and to be careful not to transgress the laws and decrees whose application, was entrusted to it ; if it failed to do this it was liable to prosecution under the law of illegality.⁶²

Finally, the Boule held from the people a general power of attorney which gave it authority over the magistrates. It is in connection with the Boule, as being its subordinates, that Aristotle enumerates a long list of officials; from the greatest to the smallest it supervised them all, administered in conjunction with them, received their reports, gave them their instructions. In short nothing which concerned the city escaped its notice.⁶³

In its capacity of intermediary between Athens and foreign States the Boule gave audience to ambassadors before introducing them to the Assembly, and negotiated with them before submitting to the people the result of these conversations in the form of probouleumata.⁶⁴ It also gave necessary instructions to Athenian embassies, and sometimes, by order of the Assembly, it appointed them;⁶⁵ in addition it received their correspondence. It apprised States which were affected of decrees of the people and pledged in the name of the city treaties of peace or alliance.⁶⁶ It was expressly charged to receive with all due honour guests of the people, not only ambassadors but also proxenoi and euergetai. One can imagine, therefore, that the Boule would have a particularly active part to play when Athens was at the head of a confederation. In the fifth century it intervened in the fixing of tributes and prepared, on the motion of the syngrapheis, projects which concerned the towns, the districts, indeed the whole of the federal domain.67 In the fourth century it was the link which connected the Athenian Ecclesia and the federal Synedrion. One fact is sufficient for the realization of the importance of the power exercised by the Boule in foreign policy: it was almost always for the discussion of questions of this order that it sat in secret session.

The Boule was in continual communication with the strategoi upon questions of foreign policy and still more so because of its military functions. It exercised ceaseless vigilance over the defence of the city. It had certainly in the fifth century the right of supervising the list of hoplites, seeing that in the fourth century it superintended the working of the ephebic institution, controlled the list of epheboi and received the report of the kosmetor.⁶⁸ It concerned itself especially with the cavalry. Every year the list of knights was completed either by the hipparchs, or, in the time of Aristotle, by special recruiters or katalogeis, who passed it on to the hipparchs; the work of both was submitted for the approval of the councillors. They voted upon each name and struck out those who declared upon oath that they were not physically or pecuniarily in a position to serve on horse. The Boule undertook likewise the inspection of the horses; if it considered that any one was under-nourished it deprived its owner of the allowance for feeding; it sold off vicious horses, having them marked with a wheel on the jaw.⁶⁹

But, in a city which set much greater store upon its fleet than upon its army, the Boule had as one of its principal functions the supervision of marine administration.⁷⁰ It attended to matters both of equipment and personnel. Since it was responsible for naval constructions and reparations it had its representatives in the building yards of the Piræus in the form of the commission of trieropoioi and it was empowered to lay down administrative regulations. It was especially for the competent discharging of this duty that the people awarded it an honorific decree, and that reward could not be given if it had not constructed the regulation number of ships. The making and the keeping in repair of hulls and tackle were equally the objects of its care, and only on its authorization could rejected parts be sold. For the recruitment of equipment the bouleutai of each tribe acted in concert with the demarchs. The directors of building yards and arsenals and the trierarchs fell within the jurisdiction of the Boule: it might punish them within the limits of its competence or hand them over to justice, and it was empowered to double the penalties of trierarchs, condemned by the tribunals to replace a ship or tackle, if they did not fulfil the conditions within the appointed time. Whenever a squadron was got under weigh the bouleutai were there on the mole with the strategoi and, later, with the apostoleis elected for the purpose. The Ecclesia authorized them in that circumstance to apply the rigour of the law to defaulting trierarchs, or it might even go so far as to order the prytaneis to bring a capital action against strategoi who failed in their duty.71

To consider only administrative organization the Boule possessed still more extensive functions in the matter of finance. Of that department one can assert that until the time of Lycurgus it would have been in a state of unmitigated chaos, with a multitude of magistrates in charge of receipts, expenses and the treasury, had there not been the Boule to establish a little order and a semblance of unity.

The Boule again it was which saw to it that the necessary resources for the budget were procured, especially in time of war.⁷² In its presence were made, by the poletai, all State contracts which were called “ sales “ and, likewise, real sales. Such was the case for the farming of taxes, the dossiers of which were remitted to the Boule carefully classified; for tenders for mining concessions which were definitively allotted by vote by show of hands ; for the sale of property accruing to the State in virtue of judicial condemnations or claimed and recognized by judgment of the courts as public property; for the letting of sacred lands, the registers of which, written on tablets, were brought to it, not by the poletai, but by the king, the high-priest of the city. All these accounts, arranged in the order in which they fell due, were entrusted to a public slave. On the days of expiration the apodektai or general receivers had them brought before them again and, in the hall of the Bouleuterion itself, they cancelled the amounts paid or noted the default of the debtor and doubled the arrears. The law in this case gave the Boule the right of securing payment or of putting the defaulters in prison.73 The bouleutai, who were thus responsible for the collection of dues, received even voluntary gifts and supervised the payment and sale of the cereals due as first-fruits of the Eleusinian goddesses.⁷⁴ At the time of the first maritime confederation in concert with the taktai they fixed the tribute to be paid by the allied towns, and it was in their presence that it was received by the apodektai at the festival of Dionysus and transmitted to the hellenotamiai.

Throughout the year the Boule closely scrutinized the use made of public funds. By law it was required to investigate the claims of the indigent who applied for the daily allowance of two obols; it was enjoined by a special decree to reduce the costs of a building to the minimum.⁷⁵ One of its main concerns was to see that the budgetary law was strictly observed. On their entry into office the apodektai received the whole of the cash balance and apportioned it among the different magistrates; the next day they brought into the council-chamber the appropriations inscribed on a tablet; they then read them article by article and asked the Council whether anyone had knowledge of any magistrate or individual having been guilty of any irregularity in the assessment; in this case they demanded an immediate vote on the question of culpability.⁷⁶ In the course of the financial year the Boule forbade the transfer and extension of credit; in the fourth century it settled with the nomothetai questions of expenses not foreseen in the budget.⁷⁷ It is not, therefore, surprising that each prytany it appointed a commission to examine the books of all accountable magistrates and that the inventory of the sacred treasures and their transmission were under its control.⁷⁸

We have just seen that the Boule included within its financial competence the expenses of public works. But in such matters its powers were much more extensive. It was concerned with everything connected with the construction and maintenance of public buildings. If the construction of a large building Was contemplated, decrees of the Council and the people were first necessary for the drawing up of the estimates by an architect and for the laying down of the specifications; for works of lesser importance, for the conducting of water, for the erection of an altar or a statue, the people referred the matter to the Council.79 All the contracts were made by the poletai in the presence of the Council,⁸⁰ and the latter supervised all the works in course of execution through the agency of special epistatai. In case of any breach of contract on the part of the architect or the contractor it addressed a statement to the Ecclesia and, if it resulted in a conviction, the matter was referred to a tribunal.⁸¹ Certain accounts of public works make the activity of the Council stand out in bold relief. Those of the Parthenon are dated by the numbers of the Councils which had succeeded each other since the opening of the stone-yard: we have, for example, the accounts of the “ fourteenth Boule.” A decree issued in the ordinary form settles whether the temple of Athena Nike shall have a door of bronze, of gold or ivory; another, proposed by the Boule in agreement with the epistatai and the architect, fixes the salary of the artist.⁸²

Finally, the Boule watched over the administration of religion. It took care of the temples as of other buildings, and helped in the annual transmission of the silver, the statues, the ornaments and all the sacred material to the treasurers of Athena and the other gods. The great festivals gave it much to do. For the Panathenæa it had for long to choose the design of the tapestry which was to adorn the robe of the goddess; but it was accused of partiality in its judgments and was, therefore, deprived of this duty which was assigned to a tribunal appointed by lot. Nevertheless it continued to superintend the fabrication of the golden Victories offered to the goddess and to concern itself with the prizes awarded in the Panathenæic contests.83 It maintained order at the Dionysian games;⁸⁴ it chose from its own number theoroi as delegates to the Pythian games and various commissions of hieropoioi.⁸⁵ An inscription of the fifth century shows it appointing heralds to send to the confederate towns and other towns of Greece to demand that the first-fruits of corn should be sent to Eleusis, receiving a statement on the first- fruits of oil and punishing, by request of the king, the crimes committed on the sacred territory of the Pelargicon. Another inscription of the fourth century shows us the Boule busy with the fixing of boundaries and with the supervision of the Eleusinian Orgas and delegating one of its members to consult the oracle of Delphi about this interdicted land.⁸⁶

In virtue of the general delegation which it held from the sovereign people and which made it a supreme magistracy, the Boule had powers of police and justice.

We have already noted that in certain circumstances it exercised the right of censure, of dohimasia. Let us assemble here the cases in which it exercised it. The enrolment of adult Athenians on the civic registers was not definitive until it had received the approval of the Boule and, if it was ascertained that any name had been illegally inscribed, it ordered it to be erased and condemned the demotai responsible for the fraud to pay a fine. It controlled also the annual enrolments on the lists of knights and cavalry scouts, and passed to the examination of the beasts as well as the men. The same control was exercised over the list of disabled appealing for public assistance. The Boule examined, moreover, at the end of its period of office the bouleutai and the archons designated for the succeeding year. It possessed at first a definitive right of exclusion; but later the excluded were allowed to appeal to the tribunal.⁸⁷

When the Boule received from Cleisthenes and then from Ephialtes the political functions exercised hitherto by the Areopagus, it inherited at the same time as the right of control over the execution of the laws, the jurisdiction pertaining to it. Since it supervised the administration of officials, especially of financial officials, it was qualified to summon them to appear before it and to try them, if they were guilty of neglecting the duties of their office or of infringement of the law.

The penal jurisdiction of the Boule was originally furnished with unlimited sanctions ; it included then the sovereign right of inflicting fines, imprisonment and even death, but it had been reduced to a petty fine, the epibole. Henceforth the Boule could not condemn without appeal to a fine of more than five hundred drachmas; beyond that sum all sentences pronounced by it were taken by the thestiiothetai before the popular tribunal, whose decision alone was sovereign.88 A time came when appeal might even be made against fines inflicted by the Boule within the limits of its competence.⁸⁹ Aristotle recounts the circumstances in which the first and the chief of these changes was made. One day, he says, a certain man Lysimachus, delivered by the Boule to the executioner, was already at the place of execution, when he was snatched from death by Eumelides of Alopeke, who declared that no citizen might be put to death without a judgment of the people; he was led before the Heliæa and absolved. Unfortunately we do not know the date of this dramatic incident. It seems probable, however, that the supreme jurisdiction with which the Boule had been invested by Cleisthenes was taken away from it before the Persian wars, perhaps in the year 501-0 which witnessed the institution of the oath of the bouleutai: the Boule, therefore, would thus lose at the same time judicial sovereignty, which went back to the Heliæa, and diplomatic sovereignty, which was seized by the Ecclesia. At all events the beginning of the fifth century saw the proclamation of the principle: “ No penalty of death without the decision of the people gathered together in assembly,” (άυευ τον δήμου ττληθύοντος μη είναι θάνατον).⁹⁰ Though violated by the oligarchs of 411 and 404, and even by the democracy restored in 403, this principle was again in force before 368,⁹¹ and this time for ever.

The Boule, however, made frequent use of its right of coercion within the limits imposed by law. It punished, on the request of the king, anyone who violated the sanctity of the Pelargicon; and it punished, on its own initiative, trierarchs who were not at their post, architects who made faults in the repairing of walls, buyers and sellers who employed illicit weights and measures or metronomoi who neglected their duties.92 Although deprived of the right of delivering capital sentences, the Boule was for long able to issue in its own right writs of arrest in serious cases of neglect of duty or of high treason ; it did this for example in 406 against the generals who had failed in their duty and, in the following year, against the demagogue Cleophon. But by employing this procedure it exposed itself to virulent criticism and to dangerous attacks. In this sphere also its powers were reduced. In 403 the oath of the bouleutai still implied the right of proceeding to arrest; half a century later the same oath guaranteed the liberty of citizens, with the exception of traitors, of conspirators and of tax farmers guilty of malversation, on condition of furnishing three middle class guarantors.⁹³

In place of acting in concert with a magistrate or of bringing an action itself, the Boule might be set in motion by a private individual. It heard complaints against magistrates who violated the laws.⁹⁴ Sometimes the summary actions of apagoge and endeixis were used before it : these were prosecutions undertaken without a formal citation, by means of an arrest made by the accuser or a bailiff, against those who were caught in some flagrant breach of the law or were notoriously guilty of certain offences against public order, for example against anyone who entered a public place or participated in a public contract in violation of atimia.⁹⁵ On other occasions recourse might be had to the jurisdiction of the Five Hundred by means of a written denunciation, a phasis: it was the means ordinarily adopted to safeguard the interests of the treasury and of property and to suppress infringements of the customs and commercial laws.⁹⁶ Finally, the Boule played a prominent part in the summary procedure adopted in cases of crimes against the State, the eisangelia.

Formerly the Areopagus had judged by eisangelia attempts against the constitution; a law of Solon assigned to it this right.97 But as early as the time of the Persian wars the Assembly of the people had taken to itself jurisdiction over actions involving the safety of the city, such as treason or the crime of deceiving the people.⁹⁸ After the reform of Ephialtes all crimes falling within the range of eisangelia, crimes against the safety of the State or extraordinary crimes not provided for by law, might be deferred either to the Council or to the Assembly. When the Council dealt with eisangelia it began by determining the question of guilt.⁹⁹ If the question were settled in the affirmative a fresh discussion was embarked upon to decide whether the penalty at the disposal of the Council was adequate (and what was the highest within the legal limits of the epibole) or whether the affair ought to be transferred by the thesmothetai to the Assembly or the popular tribunal for a severer penalty. When the eisangelia was carried directly to the Assembly the latter, likewise, did not enter upon the prosecution until a vote had been taken upon the question of acceptance or rejection. In the case of acceptance it charged the Council to draw up a bill for a decree upon the question of whether it should judge the case itself or send it before a tribunal.

After Cleisthenes had made the deme the constitutional unit of the political body the Council which represented the demes became the central organ of Athenian democracy. Ephialtes increased its authority by making it fill the place occupied by the Areopagus in the “ ancestral constitution.” It was after this decisive reform that, in the preamble of decrees, the words “ it has pleased the people “ were replaced by the formula “ it has pleased the Boule and the people.” Aristotle recognizes, therefore, that the Boule had at first held a prominent place in democracy, but he adds that power had fallen away from it since the people had begun to be paid for their attendance at the Assembly; “for,” he says, “the people on whom one lavishes misthos attracts all power to itself.”100 Thus there seem to have been two quite distinct periods in the history of the Council.

The historians of our day have often protested against such a distinction.¹⁰¹ In actual fact the Athenians of the fourth century still said that their city was founded on three essential institutions, the Assembly and the Heliæa, in which the people acted directly, and the Boule to which it sent its representatives.¹⁰² In all times politicians found in the Boule an excellent position from which to control government and administration. There were always there, as in the Assembly, a mass of silent listeners (the ίδίώται) and a few orators (the éyovt€ç);¹⁰³ if a party leader obtained a majority in the Council of the Five Hundred he could be almost certain of winning over the people and imposing his ideas on all the magistrates. It was as a bouleutes that Cleon began, in 428-7, his astonishing career as demagogue and Demosthenes hoped to play a more prominent part in the negotiations of 346.¹⁰⁴

But does it necessarily follow that Aristotle was misled by his prejudices and that there was, in truth, no serious difference between the Boule of the fifth century and that of the fourth ? A closer examination of the facts does not lead one to that conclusion. Certainly the Council elected by lot and furnished with the misthos remained, until the revolutions which marked the close of the Peloponnesian wars, the mainspring of Athenian government. When Thucydides wishes to indicate democracy as opposed to oligarchy he uses this expression: “the demos and the Boule elected by the bean.”¹⁰⁵ In fact it was the first care of the oligarchs, when they triumphed in 411, to dismiss the Boule of Five Hundred in order to replace it by a Boule of Four Hundred very carefully selected and unpaid. Though the Council of Five Hundred was re-established by the party of Theramenes, democracy was not considered victorious until the day when it was once more appointed by the drawing of the bean.¹⁰⁶ In the fourth century we do not see the Boule playing so important a part in internal affairs. Doubtless the people was forced to refer to it upon questions of foreign policy, and on this count one must admit that the historians are right who adduce the secret sessions of the Boule in refutation of the assertion that its powers had declined from the time of Pericles to that of Demosthenes. But in all other matters one henceforth sees it closely subordinated to the Assembly of the people, and for this reason Aristotle, who considers only the internal life of the cities, was equally not mistaken when he declared that to pay the Assembly is to weaken the Boule.