To distinguish this Solonian constitution from the democracy which followed it, is essential to a due comprehension of the progress of the Greek mind, and especially of Athenian affairs. That democracy was achieved by gradual steps, which will be hereafter described: Dêmosthenês and Æschinês lived under it as a system consummated and in full activity, when the stages of its previous growth were no longer matter of exact memory; and the dikasts then assembled in judgment were pleased to hear the constitution to which they were attached identified with the names either of Solon, or of Theseus, to which they were no less partial. Their inquisitive contemporary Aristotle was not thus misled: but even the most common-place Athenians of the century preceding would have escaped the same delusion. For during the whole course of the democratical movement from the Persian invasion down to the Peloponnesian war, and especially during the changes proposed by Periklês and Ephialtês, there was always a strenuous party of resistance, who would not suffer the people to forget that they had already forsaken, and were on the point of forsaking still more, the orbit marked out by Solon. The illustrious Periklês underwent innumerable attacks both from the orators in the assembly and from the comic writers in the theatre; and among these sarcasms on the political tendencies of the day, we are probably to number the complaint breathed by the poet Kratinus, of the desuetude into which both Solon and Drako had fallen. “I swear,[219] said he, in a fragment of one of his comedies, by Solon and Drako, whose wooden tablets (of laws) are now employed by people to roast their barley.” The laws of Solon respecting penal offences, respecting inheritance and adoption, respecting the private relations generally, etc., remained for the most part in force; his quadripartite census also continued, at least for financial purposes until the archonship of Nausinikus in 377 B. C.; so that Cicero and others might be warranted in affirming that his laws still prevailed at Athens: but his political and judicial arrangements had undergone a revolution[220] not less complete and memorable than the character and spirit of the Athenian people generally. The choice, by way of lot, of archons and other magistrates, and the distribution by lot of the general body of dikasts or jurors into pannels for judicial business, may be decidedly considered as not belonging to Solon, but adopted after the revolution of Kleisthenês;[221] probably, the choice of senators by lot also. The lot was a symptom of pronounced democratical spirit, such as we must not seek in the Solonian institutions. [219] Kratinus ap. Plutarch. Solon. 25.— Πρὸς τοῦ Σόλωνος καὶ Δράκοντος, οἷσι νῦν Φρύγουσιν ἤδη τὰς κάχρυς τοῖς κύρβεσιν.