GEROUSIA ([Greek: gerousia], Doric [Greek: gerôïa]), the ancient council of elders at Sparta, corresponding in some of its functions to the Athenian Boule. In historical times it numbered twenty-eight members, to whom were added _ex officio_ the two kings and, later, the five ephors. Candidates must have passed their sixtieth year, i.e. they must no longer be liable to military service, and they were possibly restricted to the nobility. Vacancies were filled by the Apella, that candidate being declared elected whom the assembly acclaimed with the loudest shouts--a method which Aristotle censures as childish (_Polit._ ii. 9, p. 1271 a 9). Once elected, the _gerontes_ held office for life and were irresponsible. The functions of the council were among the most important in the state. It prepared the business which was to be submitted to the Apella, and was empowered to set aside, in conjunction with the kings, any "crooked" decision of the people. Together with the kings and ephors it formed the supreme executive committee of the state, and it exercised also a considerable criminal and political jurisdiction, including the trial of kings; its competence extended to the infliction of a sentence of exile or even of death. These powers, or at least the greater part of them, were transferred by Cleomenes III. to a board of _patronomi_ (Pausanias ii. 9. 1); the gerousia, however, continued to exist at least down to Hadrian's reign, consisting of twenty-three members annually elected, but eligible for re-election (_Sparta Museum Catalogue_, Nos. 210, 612 and Introduction § 17). Fuller discussions of the gerousia will be found in Aristotle, _Politics_, ii. 9, 17-19: Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 5, 26; G. F. Schömann, _Antiquities of Greece; The State_ (Eng. trans.), p. 230 ff.; G. Gilbert, _Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens_ (Eng. trans.), p. 47 ff.; C. O. Müller, _History and Antiquities of the Doric Race_ (Eng. trans.), iii. c. 6, §§ 1-3; G. Busolt, _Die griechischen Staats- und Rechtsaltertümer_ (Iwan Müller's _Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_, iv. 1), § 89; _Griechische Geschichte_, 2te Auflage i. 550 ff.; A. H. J. Greenidge, _Handbook of Greek Constitutional History_, 100 ff.; H. Gabriel, _De magistratibus Lacedaemoniorum_, 31 ff. (M. N. T.) GERRESHEIM, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine Province, 6 m. by rail E. of Düsseldorf. It contains a fine Romanesque church, dating from the 13th century, which forms a portion of an ancient nunnery (founded in the 10th century and secularized in 1806), and has extensive glass manufactures and wire factories. Pop. (1905) 14,434.