numerous juries, beginning first with the aggregate body of sworn
citizens above thirty years of age, and subsequently dividing them
into separate bodies or pannels, for trying particular causes, became
gradually more frequent and more systematized: until at length, in
the time of Periklês, it was made to carry a small pay, and stood out
as one of the most prominent features of Athenian life. We cannot
particularize the different steps whereby such final development was
attained, and the judicial competence of the archon cut down to the
mere power of inflicting a small fine; but the first steps of it are
found in the revolution of Kleisthenês, and it seems to have been
consummated by the reforms of Periklês. Of the function exercised by
the nine archons as well as by many other magistrates and official
persons at Athens, in convoking a dikastery, or jury-court, bringing
on causes for trial,—and presiding over the trial,—a function
constituting one of the marks of superior magistracy, and called the
Hegemony, or presidency of a dikastery,—I shall speak more at length
hereafter. At present, I wish merely to bring to view the increased
and increasing sphere of action on which the people entered at the
memorable turn of affairs now before us.
[255] Herodot. vi, 109-111.
The financial affairs of the city underwent at this epoch as complete
a change as the military: in fact, the appointment of magistrates
and officers by tens, one from each tribe, seems to have become the
ordinary practice. A board of ten, called Apodektæ, were invested
with the supreme management of the exchequer, dealing with the
contractors as to those portions of the revenue which were farmed,
receiving all the taxes from the collectors, and disbursing them
under competent authority. The first nomination of this board is
expressly ascribed to Kleisthenês,[256] as a substitute for certain
persons called Kôlakretæ, who had performed the same function
before, and who were now retained only for subordinate services.
The duties of the apodektæ were afterwards limited to receiving
the public income, and paying it over to the ten treasurers of
the goddess Athênê, by whom it was kept in the inner chamber of
the Parthenon, and disbursed as needed; but this more complicated
arrangement cannot be referred to Kleisthenês. From his time forward
too, the Senate of Five Hundred steps far beyond its original
duty of preparing matters for the discussion of the ekklesia: it
embraces, besides, a large circle of administrative and general
superintendence, which hardly admits of any definition. Its sittings
become constant, with the exception of special holidays, and the year
is distributed into ten portions called Prytanies,—the fifty senators
of each tribe taking by turns the duty of constant attendance
during one prytany, and receiving during that time the title of
The Prytanes: the order of precedence among the tribes in these
duties was annually determined by lot. In the ordinary Attic year
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