Of the nine archons, whose number continued unaltered from 638 B. C. to the end of the free democracy, three bore special titles,—the archon eponymus, from whose name the designation of the year was derived, and who was spoken of as _The Archon_; the archon basileus (king), or more frequently, the basileus; and the polemarch. The remaining six passed by the general title of Thesmothetæ. Of the first three, each possessed exclusive judicial competence in regard to certain special matters: the thesmothetæ were in this respect all on a par, acting sometimes as a board, sometimes individually. The archon eponymus determined all disputes relative to the family, the gentile, and the phratric relations: he was the legal protector of orphans and widows.[125] The archon basileus, or king archon, enjoyed competence in complaints respecting offences against the religious sentiment and respecting homicide. The polemarch, speaking of times anterior to Kleisthenês, was the leader of the military force and judge in disputes between citizens and non-citizens. Moreover, each of these three archons had particular religious festivals assigned to him, which it was his duty to superintend and conduct. The six thesmothetæ seem to have been judges in disputes and complaints, generally, against citizens, saving the special matters reserved for the cognizance of the first two archons. According to the proper sense of the word thesmothetæ, all the nine archons were entitled to be so called,[126] though the first three had especial designations of their own: the word thesmoi, analogous to the themistes[127] of Homer, includes in its meaning both general laws and particular sentences,—the two ideas not being yet discriminated, and the general law being conceived only in its application to some particular case. Drako was the first thesmothet who was called upon to set down his thesmoi in writing, and thus to invest them essentially with a character of more or less generality. [125] Pollux, viii, 89-91. [126] We read the θεσμοθέτων ἀνάκρισις in Demosthen. cont. Eubulidem, c. 17, p. 1319, and Pollux, viii, 85; a series of questions which it was necessary for them to answer before they were admitted to occupy their office. Similar questions must have been put to the archon, the basileus, and the polemarch: so that the words θεσμοθέτων ἀνάκρισις may reasonably be understood to apply to all the nine archons, as, indeed, we find the words τοὺς ἐννέα ἄρχοντας ἀνακρίνετε shortly afterwards, p. 1320. [127] Respecting the word θέμιστες in the Homeric sense, see above, vol. ii, ch. xx.