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III. Athenian Democracy . Deliberation These strange indictments suffice to show how real was the limited democracy that functioned under the supposed dictatorship of Pericles. We must study this democracy carefully, for it is one of the outstanding experiments in the history of government. It is limited, first, by the fact that only a small minority of the people can read. It is limited physically by the difficulty of reaching Athens from the remoter towns of Attica. The franchise is restricted to those sons, of two free Athenian parents, who have reached the age of twentyone and only they and their families enjoy civil rights, or directly bear the military and fiscal burdens of the state. Within this jealously circumscribed circle of , citizens out of an Attic population of ,, political power, in the days of Pericles, is formally equal each citizen enjoys and insists upon isononia and isegorfaequal rights at law and in the Assembly. To the Athenian a citizen is a man who not only votes, but takes his turn, by lot and rote, as magistrate or judge he must be free, ready, and able to serve the state at any time. No one who is subject to another, or who has to labor in order to live, can have the time or the capacity for these services and therefore the manual worker seems to most Athenians unfit for citizenship, though, with human inconsistency they admit the peasant proprietor. All of the , slaves of Attica, all women, nearly all workingmen, all of the , quotmeticsquot or resident aliens, The Greek word, metoikoi, means quotsharing the home.quot The figures are from A. W. Gomme, The Population of Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries b.c., pp. , , . They are frankly conjectural. The total figure includes the wives and minor children of the citizens. and consequently a great part of the trading class, are excluded from the franchise. The voters are not gathered into parties, but are loosely divided into followers of the oligarchic or the democratic factions according as they oppose or favor the extension of the franchise, the dominance of the Assembly, and the governmental succor of the poor at the expense of the rich. The active members of each faction are organized into clubs called hetaireiai, companionships. There are clubs of all kinds in Periclean Athens religious clubs, kinship clubs, military clubs, workers clubs, actors clubs, political clubs, and clubs honestly devoted to eating and drinking. The strongest of all are the oligarchic clubs, whose members are sworn to mutual aid in politics and law, and are bound by a common passionate hostility to those lower enfranchised ranks that press upon the toes of the landed aristocracy and the moneyed merchant class. Against them stand the relatively democratic party of small businessmen, of citizens who have become wage workers, and of those who man the merchant ships and the Athenian fleet these groups resent the luxuries and privileges of the rich, and raise up to leadership in Athens such men as Cleon the tanner, Lysicles the sheep dealer, Eucrates the tow seller, Cleophon the harp manufacturer, and Hyperbolas the lampmaker. Pericles holds them off for a generation by a subtle mixture of democracy and aristocracy but when he dies they inherit the government and thoroughly enjoy its perquisites. From Solon to the Roman conquest this bitter conflict of oligarchs and democrats is waged with oratory, votes, ostracism, assassination, and civil war. Every voter is of right a member of the basic governing body the ekklesia, or Assembly there is at this level no representative government. Since transportation is difficult over the hills of Attica, only a fraction of the eligible members ever attend any one meeting there are rarely more than two or three thousand. Those citizens who live in Athens or at the Piraeus come by a kind of geographical determinism to dominate the Assembly in this way the democrats gain ascendancy over the conservatives, who are for the most part scattered among the farms and estates of Attica. The Assembly meets four times a month, on important occasions in the agora, in the theater of Dionysus, or at the Praeus, ordinarily in a semicircular place called the Pnix on the slope of a hill west of the Areopagus in all these cases the members sit on benches under the open sky, and the sitting begins at dawn. Each session opens with the sacrifice of a pig to Zeus. It is usual to adjourn at once in case of a storm, earthquake, or eclipse, for these are accounted signs of divine disapproval. New legislation may be proposed only at the first session of each month, and the member who offers it is held responsible for the result of its adoption if these are seriously evil another member may within a year of the vote invoke upon him the graphe paranomon, or writ of illegality, and have him fined, disfranchised, or put to death this is Athens way of discouraging hasty legislation. By another form of the same writ a new proposal may be checked by a demand that before its enactment one of the courts shall pass upon its constitutionalityi.e., its agreement with existing law.quot Again, before considering a bill, the Assembly is required to submit it to the Council of Five Hundred for preliminary examination, very much as a bill in the American Congress, before discussion of it on the floor, is referred to a committee presumed to have especial knowledge and competence in the matter involved. The Council may not reject a proposal outright it may only report it, with or without a recommendation. Ordinarily the presiding officer opens the Assembly by presenting a probouleuma, or reported bill. Those who wish to speak are heard in the order of their age but anyone may be disqualified from addressing the Assembly if it can be shown that he is not a landowner, or is not legally married, or has neglected his duties to his parents, or has offended public morals, or has evaded a military obligation, or has thrown away his shield in battle, or owes taxes or other money to the state. Only trained orators avail themselves of the right to speak, for the Assembly is a difficult audience. It laughs at mispronunciations, protests aloud at digressions, expresses its approval with shouts, whistling, and clapping of hands, and, if it strongly disapproves, makes such a din that the speaker is compelled to leave the bema, or rostrum. Each speaker is allowed a given time, whose lapse is measured by a clepsydra or water clock. Voting is by a show of hands unless some individual is directly and specially affected by the proposal, in which case a secret ballot is taken. The vote may confirm, amend, or override the Councils report on a bill, and the decision of the Assembly is final. Decrees for immediate action, as distinct from laws, may be enacted more expeditiously than new legislation but such decrees may with equal expedition be canceled, and do not enter into the body of Athenian law. Above the Assembly in dignity, inferior to it in power, is the boule, or Council. Originally an upper house, it has by the time of Pericles been reduced in effect to a legislative committee of the ekklesia. Its members are chosen by lot and rote from the register of the citizens, fifty for each of the ten tribes they serve for a year only, and receive, in the fourth century, five obols per day. Since each councilor is disqualified for reelection until all other eligible citizens have had a chance to serve, every citizen, in the normal course of events, sits on the boule for at least one term during his life. It meets in the bouleuterion, or council hall, south of the agora, and its ordinary sessions are public. Its functions are legislative, executive, and consultative it examines and reformulates the bills proposed to the Assembly it supervises the conduct and accounts of the religious and administrative officials of the city it controls public finances, enterprises, and buildings it issues executive decrees when action is called for and the Assembly is not in session and, subject to later revision by the Assembly, it controls the foreign affairs of the state. To perform these varied tasks the Council divides itself into ten prytanies, or committees, each of fifty members and each prytany presides over the Council and the Assembly for a month of thirtysix days. Every morning the presiding prytany chooses one of its members to serve as chairman of itself and the Council for the day this position, the highest in the state, is therefore open by lot and turn to any citizen Athens has three hundred presidents every year. The lot determines at the last moment which prytany, and which member of it, shall preside over the Council during the month or the day by this device the corrupt Athenians hope to reduce the corruption of justice to the lowest point attainable by human character. The acting prytany prepares the agenda, convokes the Council, and formulates the conclusions reached during the day. In this way, through Assembly, Council, and prytany, the democracy of Athens carries out its legislative functions. As for the Areopagus, its powers are in the fifth century restricted to trying cases of arson, willful violence, poisoning, or premeditated murder. Slowly the law of Greece has been changed quotfrom status to contract,quot from the whim of one man, or the edict of a narrow class, into the deliberate agreement of free citizens.