thrown open by Aristides to all the Athenian citizens, the “upper council” still retained its former tone of feeling. Moreover, besides these changes in its constitution, Solon altered and extended its functions. Before his time it was only a criminal court, trying cases of “wilful murder and wounding, of arson and poisoning,” whereas he gave it extensive powers of a censorial and political nature. Thus we learn that he made the council an “overseer of everything, and the guardian of the laws,” empowering it to inquire how any one got his living and to punish the idle; and we are also told that the Areiopagites were “superintendents of good order and decency,” terms as unlimited and undefined as Solon not improbably wished to leave their authority. When heinous crimes had notoriously been committed, but the guilty parties were not known, or no accuser appeared, the Areiopagus inquired into the subject, and reported to the demus. The report or information was called _apophasis_. This was a duty which they sometimes undertook on their own responsibility, and in the exercise of an old established right, and sometimes on the order of the demus. Nay, to such an extent did they carry their power, that on one occasion they apprehended an individual (Antiphon), who had been acquitted by the general assembly, and again brought him to a trial, which ended in his condemnation and death. Again, we find them revoking an appointment whereby Aeschines was made the advocate of Athens before the Amphictyonic council, and substituting Hyperides in his room. They also had duties connected with religion, one of which was to superintend the sacred olives growing about Athens, and try those who were charged with destroying them; and in general it was their office to punish the impious and irreligious. Independent, then, of its jurisdiction as a criminal court in cases of wilful murder, which Solon continued to the Areiopagus, its influence must have been sufficiently great to have been a considerable obstacle to the aggrandisement of the democracy at the expense of the other parties in the state. Accordingly, we find that Pericles, who was opposed to the aristocracy, resolved to diminish its power and circumscribe its sphere of action. His coadjutor in this work was Ephialtes, a statesman of inflexible integrity, and also a military commander. They experienced much opposition in their attempts, not only in the assembly, but also on the stage, where Aeschylus produced his tragedy of the Eumenides, the object of which was to impress upon the Athenians the dignity, sacredness, and constitutional worth of the institution which Pericles and Ephialtes wished to reform. Still the opposition failed: a decree was carried by which, as Aristotle says, the Areiopagus was “mutilated,” and many of its hereditary rights abolished, though it is difficult to ascertain the precise nature of the alterations which Pericles effected. The jurisdiction