BŎŌNAE (βοῶναι), persons in Athens who purchased oxen for the public sacrifices and feasts. They are spoken of by Demosthenes in conjunction with the ἱεροποιοί and those who presided over the mysteries. BORĔASMUS (βορεασμός or βορεασμοί), a festival celebrated by the Athenians in honour of Boreas, which, as Herodotus seems to think, was instituted during the Persian war, when the Athenians, being commanded by an oracle to invoke their γαμβρὸς ἐπίκουρος, prayed to Boreas. But considering that Boreas was intimately connected with the early history of Attica, we have reason to suppose that even previous to the Persian wars certain honours were paid to him, which were perhaps only revived and increased after the event recorded by Herodotus. The festival, however, does not seem ever to have had any great celebrity. BOULĒ (βουλή--ἡ τῶν πεντακοσίων). In the heroic ages, represented to us by Homer, the _boulé_ is simply an aristocratical council of the elders amongst the nobles, sitting under their king as president, which decided on public business and judicial matters, frequently in connection with, but apparently not subject to an _agora_, or meeting of the freemen of the state. [AGORA.] This form of government, though it existed for some time in the Ionian, Aeolian, and Achaean states, was at last wholly abolished in these states. Among the Dorians, however, especially among the Spartans, this was not the case, for they retained the kingly power of the Heracleidae, in conjunction with the _Gerousia_ or assembly of elders, of which the kings were members. [GEROUSIA.] At Athens on the contrary, the _boulé_ was a representative, and in most respects a popular body (δημοτικόν). The first institution of the Athenian _boulé_ is generally attributed to Solon; but there are strong reasons for supposing that, as in the case of the _Areiopagus_, he merely modified the constitution of a body which he found already existing. But be this as it may, it is admitted that Solon made the number of his _boulé_ 400, 100 from each of the four tribes. When the number of the tribes was raised to ten by Cleisthenes (B.C. 510), the council also was increased to 500, fifty being taken from each of the ten tribes. The _bouleutae_ (βουλευταί) or councillors were appointed by lot, and hence they are called councillors made by the bean (οἱ ἀπὸ τοῦ κυάμου βουλευταί), from the use of beans in drawing lots. They were required to submit to a scrutiny or _docimasia_, in which they gave evidence of being genuine citizens, of never having lost their civic rights by _atimia_, and also of being above 30 years of age. They remained in office for a year, receiving a drachma (μισθὸς βουλευτικός) for each day on which they sat: and independent of the general account (εὐθύναι), which the whole body had to give at the end of the year, any single member was liable to expulsion for misconduct by his colleagues. The senate of 500 was divided into ten sections of fifty