THE ATHENIAN ASSEMBLY AND COUNCIL: CONTINUING PROBLEMS1

P. J. Rhodes

University of Durham

The council with its limited membership and the assembly open to all citizens were important elements in the public life of Athens, and indeed of most Greek cities, and how they functioned is an important part of what we need to know in order to understand their public life; but there are still questions to which we do not have certain answers, and in this paper I focus on them. Knowing about the mechanisms is not all that we need to know; but for a city whose mechanisms were well developed, as those of Athens were, knowing about the mechanisms, and the opportunities and the limitations which they provided for the men active in politics, is an important part of what we need to know – as M. H. Hansen has emphasised in an article in which he justifies his approach against the criticisms of scholars who think other kinds of question more important.2Hansen 1989a = 1989b, 263–269, replying to such studies as Connor 1971, 4–5; Ober 1989.

I begin with the assembly. After persistent and thorough work in the past century by Hansen,3Especially the articles on particular problems collected in Hansen 1983b and 1989b, and his summary volume published in 1987.we know far more than our predecessors knew about how the Athenian assembly functioned. But there are still some questions on which uncertainty and disagreement persist.

One long-running disagreement does seem at last to have been resolved, on the relationship between demos, assembly and lawcourts. Many scholars have maintained, in substantial agreement but with different particular formulations, that “the Athenians regarded both courts and assembly as representative in their own way of the demos, and were probably not conscious of [an] opposition between courts and demos.”4This was my own formulation in Rhodes 1981, 545, cf. 318, 489; but it is a view which has been widely expressed.Hansen has insisted against this that the Athenians used the word demos of the assembly but not of the courts, that demos and the courts are not to be assimilated, and that in the fourth century, thanks to such procedures as the graphe paranomon, ultimate power resided not in the demos = assembly but in the courts.5First in Hansen 1974, 19–21; cf. 1978 = 1983b, 139–158(–160).On the substance I should stress that in the great majority of its decisions the assembly was not challenged in a lawcourt but its decision was accepted as final; that, although a lawcourt was sometimes invited in a graphe paranomon to overturn a decision of the assembly, and sometimes did overturn a decision, in most cases that did not happen, and therefore it is an acceptable simplification to describe the assembly as the ultimate decisionmaking body in Athens. Beyond that, Hansen’s most recent study of the subject has made it clear that much of the argument was about language rather than substance: the Athenians did associate the word demos with the assembly in such a way and to such an extent that they could not similarly associate it with the lawcourts, but although we cannot regard both assembly and lawcourts as “representing or embodying the demos” he will let us regard both as “representing or embodying the polis.”6Hansen 2010, esp. 516–519.So it is still right to say that we should not think of the assembly and the lawcourts as opposed to each other, but, while they had distinct roles, they were two institutions through which the Athenian people, the Athenian polis, governed itself.

There has been debate concerning the Pnyx, south-west of the agora and Areopagus and west of the acropolis, where the assembly met.7For what was known and believed half a century ago, see Travlos 1971, 466–476. Forsén and Stanton 1996 is a collection of recent studies.Archaeologically, three phases can be detected. The first phase probably belongs to the end of the sixth century, and can reasonably be associated with the increased importance of the assembly after the ending of the Pisistratid tyranny.8A date c. 460 was suggested by H. A. Thompson 1982, 136–137, but the dating to the end of the sixth century is accepted by Camp 2001, 46–47.The second phase belongs to the end of the fifth century, and normally scholars have believed the statement of Plutarch that in 404–403 the Thirty reversed the orientation of the Pnyx, so that speakers should face north, away from the sea, rather than south, towards the sea9Plut. Them. 19.6.(which of course meant that citizens sitting in the auditorium experienced a change from facing north to facing south). However, it has reasonably been objected by R. A. Moysey that the Thirty were not in power for long and are not likely to have had much interest in refashioning the meetingplace of the democratic assembly, so it is much more likely that Plutarch is wrong and that the refashioning of the Pnyx is the work of the restored democracy after 403.10Moysey 1981, cf. earlier Meyer 1951, 1116–1117. Hansen 1986b = 1989b, 143–152(–153), suggests a link with the introduction of payment for attendance at the assembly, after the restoration of the democracy.

The date of the third phase has long been disputed between the time of Lycurgus, in the 330’s BC, and the time of the Roman emperor Hadrian, in the second century AD. However, a thorough study has shown that much of the Roman pottery from the site is as late as the third century AD, and is not evidence for the third phase but is a later intrusion on the site; the similarity of the retaining walls of this phase to walls at Panopaeus in Phocis points (if walls can be dated so precisely) to a date c. 346–338.11Rotroff and Camp 1996.It is possible that the work was planned in the 340’s but actually done in the 330’s.12Cf. Aeschin. 1. Timarchus 81–84 with Fisher 2001, 217–218.This third phase was left unfinished, and it has been suggested that the reason for this is that the new theatre of Dionysus was found to be a more convenient meeting-place for the assembly.13Camp 1996, 45–46; cf. earlier de Laix 1973, 173–174, and Poll. 8.132–133.That was being built c. 330 and was finished in 320/319.14C. 330, Rhodes and Osborne 2007, no. 94 = IG II3 352.15–20; 320/319, Papastamati-von Moock 2014.

Scholars have also asked how many men attended the assembly, and how many men the Pnyx in its different phases could accommodate. Textual evidence for attendance is limited. The oligarchs in 411 are said to have claimed that attendance never reached five thousand,15Thuc. 8.72.1.but that may not have been true, and even if it was true it will have applied to the special circumstances of the last years of the Peloponnesian War, when Athens’ navy was based at Samos, and not to more normal circumstances. In the fourth century Athens had perhaps half the number of citizens it had had before the beginning of the Peloponnesian War.16Hansen 1988, 14–28.A law was enacted, perhaps in the 380’s, which required decrees awarding Athenian citizenship to be ratified by at least 6,000 voters at the next meeting of the assembly;17[Dem.] 59. Neaera 89–90 with Osborne 1981–1983, IV, 161.and there is no indication that there was ever an occasion when the 6,000 votes were not obtained, so we can assume that attendance of 6,000 or more (out of a total of about 30,000 citizens) was normal in the fourth century.18Hansen 1976 = 1983b, 1–20(–23).However, Hansen argues from the fact that by the time of the Athenaion Politeia, in the 330’s–320’s, payment for attending the assembly was higher than payment for attending the lawcourts, an attendance of 6,000 was not easily achieved and the normal attendance was not much more than 6,000.19Rates of pay, Ath. Pol. 62.2.

How many men the Pnyx could accommodate depends not only on the size of the auditorium but also on how tightly the Athenians would accept being packed at a crowded meeting. Hansen has argued for maximum capacities of about 6,000 in phase 1, 8,000 in phase 2 and 13,800 in phase 3; G. R. Stanton, who allows less space per person, for the higher figures of 10,400 in phase 1, 14,800 in phase 2 and 24,100 in phase 3.20See Hansen 1996; Stanton 1996. The theatre of Dionysus could seat 15,000 or more: Camp 2001, 145–146.Here I suspect that Hansen’s lower figures are more realistic for most meetings, but that Stanton’s higher figures might have been achieved for a few meetings that were exceptionally well attended.

In the 420’s citizens were herded from the agora to the Pnyx by men carrying a rope dipped in red dye, and those who were marked by the rope but failed to attend could be fined.21Ar. Ach. 21–22 with scholia.After the democratic restoration in 403 payment for attendance was introduced.22Ath. Pol. 41.3.It is clear from Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazusae that men who arrived too late were not paid;23Ar. Eccl. 185–188, 282–292, 380–391.and it seems that those who were paid were a fixed number, perhaps the 6,000 who were required on some occasions to make a decision valid. P. Gauthier in studying an inscription from Iasus, in Caria, noticed that there those who were paid were not a fixed number but those who arrived by a fixed time, and he suggested that the aim was to encourage punctual attendance rather than a larger attendance, and that the same applied to Athens even though in Athens it was the number that was fixed rather than the time.24SEG XL 959 = Rhodes and Osborne 2007, no. 99, with Gauthier 1990, 439–441; 1993.Hansen in reply has noted that aims for punctuality and for larger numbers are not incompatible;25Hansen 1996, 30.it still seems to me that the timing of the introduction of assembly pay, shortly after the democratic restoration, points to numbers rather than punctuality as the more important consideration, that the aim was to ensure that the assembly would be well attended, and could not be persuaded to vote to abolish the democracy, as the assembly had done in 411 and in 404.

An argument which continues concerns how frequently the assembly met, a matter which is important for our understanding of the role played by the assembly in Athens. The Athenaion Politeia does not have a section devoted directly to the assembly, but in the course of its section on the council it gives details of four meetings of the assembly in each prytany (each period of a tenth of the year during which the fifty members of the council from one of the ten tribes acted as a standing committee), with particular business assigned to particular meetings.26Ath. Pol. 43.3–6.The traditional view, which I believe to be right, is that the designation of one of the four as ekklesia kyria, principal assembly (not necessarily the first of the four assemblies in the prytany), is a survival from a time when the ekklesiai kyriai were the only regular meetings,27This is accepted by Hansen: e.g. 1988, 25.that the increase from one assembly in each prytany to four was made some time after the reforms of Ephialtes in 462/461, but probably before the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in 431, and that there could always be extraordinary meetings, ekklesiai synkletoi, in addition to the regular meetings. An assembly which met as frequently as that was very much engaged in Athens’ business.

Against this Hansen has argued28Hansen 1977a = 1983b, 35–62(–72), extended to the Hellenistic period in 1979b = 1983b, 73–80(–81).that until c. 355 the ekklesia kyria was the only regular meeting, but the use of the assembly to decide eisangeliai required varying numbers of extraordinary meetings; and after that there were for a time not four regular meetings in each prytany but three.29Argued from Dem. 24. Timocrates 25 cf. law ap. §21.By 347/346, he believes, the three regular meetings had been increased to four (he argues for four meetings in the eighth prytany of 347/346, when other people have thought there must have been more than four), and extraordinary meetings were now not possible.30Argued from Dem. 19. Embassy 154, Aeschin. 2. Embassy 61, 72.But ekklesiai synkletoi are attested for 347/346, and he argues that these must be not extraordinary meetings, additional to the regular meetings, but regular meetings which were summoned in an extraordinary way, not at five days’ notice.31Five days’ notice normal, Phot. π 1281 Theodoridis πρ?πεμπτα.In the debate which this prompted the traditional view has been championed particularly by E. M. Harris.32First in Harris 1986 = 2006, 81–101. Cf. Rhodes 1981, 521–522; Osborne 2012, 34, n. 6.

Here I think Hansen has not succeeded in establishing his case. He himself believes that extraordinary meetings must have been possible when the assembly was used to decide eisangeliai, and since there was always a possibility of urgent business I find it hard to envisage a reform which forbade extraordinary meetings. In the passages in Demosthenes’ Against Timocrates, the “third assembly” is counted as the third within the prytany only in the inserted law,33And perhaps not even there: το?? πρυτ?νει? ?φ’ ?ν ?ν ? ?πιχειροτον?α γ?νηται ποιε?ν περ? τ?ν ?ποχειροτονηθ?ντων τ?ν τελευτα?αν τ?ν τρ?ων ?κκλησι?ν, “the prytaneis under whom the vote takes place shall hold the last of the three assemblies on the laws voted out” (§21), might simply be careless drafting.which is possibly to be rejected as a forgery, while in Demosthenes’ own words it is the third assembly from the original diacheirotonia: that may be the third by exclusive counting, the third after the diacheirotonia, as it is understood by M. Canevaro; but even if the counting is inclusive, and the meaning is the second assembly after the diacheirotonia, this tells us nothing about how many assemblies there were in a prytany in the 350’s.34Canevaro 2013; cf. Canevaro with Harris 2013, 94–102; Canevaro 2018. The authenticity of the law in §§20–23 is defended by Hansen 2016, 467–468: he takes the counting to be inclusive, and Demosthenes’ own meaning in §25 to be the same as the law’s meaning in §21, the third assembly of the prytany.On the spring of 346 what Demosthenes and Aeschines say does not prove that no assemblies could be held in addition to the regular ones;35See also MacDowell 2000, 266–267.and, unless one regards the assemblies of 18 and 19 Elaphebolion as a single assembly spread over two days,36Hansen 1977a, 59 = 1983b, 51, agrees that Aeschin. 2. Embassy 61, 65 and other texts referring to “two assemblies” look more reliable than ?κκλησ?αν ?π? δ?ο ?μ?ρα? (“an assembly over two days”) in Aeschin. 2. Embassy 53.it is difficult to maintain from the evidence that we have that there were only four assemblies in the eighth prytany of 347/346.

As for ekklesiai synkletoi, lexicographers and scholiasts regularly understand them to be additional meetings.37E.g. Schol. Dem. 24. Timocrates 20 (53 Dilts).Although they write with reference to the early Hellenistic period, when there were not ten tribes but twelve and there seem to have been three regular meetings in each month / prytany, and although they use varying language to refer to the regular meetings, that does not invalidate their basic point. It is possible that Hansen may be right to claim that any assembly not summoned in the regular way may have qualified for the label synkletos, but if that is right then some assemblies may have been synkletoi both in that sense and in the sense of being extraordinary assemblies additional to the ordinary assemblies.

A further complication was added when R. M. Errington argued that the schedule of four regular assemblies in each prytany was an innovation of the 330’s, but I think he was seriously mistaken in interpreting the evidence, and I have argued against that view.38Errington 1994; answered by Rhodes 1995. On the use of ekklesia kyria and other labels in places other than Athens see Errington 1995; Rhodes with Lewis 1997, 505–506.

The Athenaion Politeia specifies particular items of business for particular assemblies out of the four regular assemblies of each prytany: for the kyria ekklesia a vote of confidence in the officials, grain, defence, confiscations, inheritances, and in the sixth prytany ostracism and probolai; for a second assembly, supplications; for the other two, other business, under the headings “three items of sacred business, three for heralds and embassies, and three of secular business.”39Ath. Pol. 43.4–6.Hansen and I agreed that those were requirements that particular items must be dealt with on the specified occasions, and not that they must not be dealt with on other occasions;40Rhodes 1981, 523, 528; Hansen 1988, 27–28; confirmed by inscriptions which indicate that a decree was enacted at an ekklesia kyria or at an assembly which was not an ekklesia kyria; but contrast Errington 1994, 146.but Errington in his article took the requirements to be restrictive, that particular items could be dealt with only at the meetings for which they are specified and not at other meetings. It is hard to maintain this in the face of the epigraphic evidence, and it is hard to believe that one of the four regular assemblies of each prytany was devoted to nothing except supplications.

A typical meeting of the assembly will have considered many items of business (particularly an ekklesia kyria, which had a longer list of prescribed items). Questions have been raised about the business prescribed for the third and fourth meetings, “three items of sacred business, three for heralds and embassies, and three of secular business.” For the last of those categories the term used by the Athenaion Politeia is hosia, and it has been generally agreed that when contrasted with hiera, sacred, hosia, righteous, does mean secular (but still not offensive to the gods). A passage mentioning the same categories in the context of the oligarchy of 411 uses not hosia but ta alla, other matters; but the one other text which mentions these categories, a passage in Aeschines’ Against Timarchus, uses hosia.41Ath. Pol. 30.5; Aeschin. 1. Timarchus 23.Recently J. H. Blok has argued that hosia always retained the meaning of acceptable to the gods, and that the categories of the later passage in the Athenaion Politeia and of Aeschines do not cover all the assembly’s business, but there was also a category of secular business which was not hosia, and which was not prescribed for particular meetings of the assembly.42Blok 2011, 252–253; 2017, 84–86.There is much in her view of the religious dimension as an important part of what was involved in belonging to the Athenian citizen body which I am sure is right, but I still think that in contexts such as this hosia had in fact come to mean secular, and it seems to me very unlikely that there was a further category of secular business which was distinct from hosia and was not included in these schedules.

There has been disagreement also about the number of items of business to be dealt with. The other texts which use those categories do not state a number, but this passage in the Athenaion Politeia specifies three of each category. Hansen takes the three to be a minimum;43E.g. Hansen 1977a, 51 = 1983b, 43; 1988, 92–93.but it would not necessarily happen that as many as three items in each category would be put forward on each occasion. In the schedule for the ekklesia kyria of the sixth prytany what is attested for probolai against Athenians and against metics is “up to three of each kind,” and I suspect that for these items also three is to be considered not a minimum but a maximum.44Ath. Pol. 43.5. On problems arising from this, see Rhodes 1981, 526–527.U. von Wilamowitz noted that in the “future constitution” of 411 items for debate were to be chosen by lot, and as we shall see below he interpreted the procedure of procheirotonia as a democratic way of choosing which items to debate and in what order to debate them when the council put forward more than three. Whether or not that is right, I suspect that if it were thought necessary in special circumstances the Athenians would be willing to break their own rule and consider more than three items in one category.45Hansen is in some circumstances willing to believe in such breaches of the rules (e.g. 1979a, 38–39 = 1983b, 179–205(–206) at 190–191, on the distinction between laws and decrees; 1988, 71, on the ban on interrupting speakers); but as we have seen above in his refusal to allow for extraordinary assemblies after c. 355 he insists on observance of the rules.

One passage of Demosthenes, which contrasts Athenian practice with that of despotic régimes, says that in Athens everything has to follow due procedure: the council must make a probouleuma (a preliminary resolution to be forwarded to the assembly) when heralds and embassies are on the agenda, and then an assembly must be held when the laws prescribe.46Dem. 19. Embassy 185.We have no other evidence that the council had particular business prescribed for particular days, and I suspect that here Demosthenes is simply putting together pieces of procedural information to produce the maximum contrast between law-abiding Athens and other kinds of régime. It can be added that, when grants of citizenship needed to be ratified at a second assembly (cf. above), that was regularly said to be at the “first” or the “following” meeting, without any reference to the particular business for particular meetings mentioned in the Athenaion Politeia.47[Dem.] 59. Neaera 89, cf. e.g. IG II2 109.b.16–19 = Osborne 1981–1983, D 11.51–54.

The Athenaion Politeia ends its survey of the assembly’s business with the frustrating remark, “[s]ometimes they transact business without a procheirotonia,”48Ath. Pol. 43.6.but without giving any other indication of what the procheirotonia was or when it was used: the word ought to denote a “preliminary vote” of some kind. There are two mentions of procheirotonia in surviving speeches,49Dem. 24. Timocrates 11–12; Aeschin. 1. Timarchus 23.and a fragment from a speech of Lysias claims that when a probouleuma was brought from the council to the assembly a procheirotonia was used to decide whether it should be debated or simply accepted.50Lys. fr. 227 Carey.Scholarly opinion has varied: some have accepted what the fragment says,51E.g. Busolt and Swoboda 1920–1926, II, 996.some have reversed it, to believe that the choice was between debating the probouleuma and rejecting it,52E.g. Lipsius 1896.and others have reinterpreted it, noticing that in the “future constitution” of 411 it was envisaged that items for debate should be picked by lot, and suggesting that when the council put forward too many items for debate the procheirotonia was a vote on which of them should be debated.53E.g. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1893, II, 254–256, comparing Ath. Pol. 30.5.I have hesitated to commit myself, but have shown some sympathy for the last view.54Rhodes 1972, 58, n. 4; 1981, 530–531.Hansen, citing procedure in the mass meetings known as Landsgemeinde in Switzerland, has argued strongly in favour of an interpretation of what the Lysias fragment says, as a way of dealing with business efficiently: if the probouleuma contained a specific recommendation (as not all probouleumata did), it would first be put to a procheirotonia, and if nobody voted against it the probouleuma would be accepted without debate but if at least one man did vote against it the probouleuma would have to be debated.55Hansen 1983b, 123–130; cf. earlier de Laix 1973, 182.There has not as far as I know been another discussion of procheirotonia since then, and in my more recent edition of the Athenaion Politeia I state the different views without committing myself to a preference:56Rhodes 2016, 324; 2017, 353.in the state of our evidence there is no account which can be proved correct, but Hansen’s account is credible and it does justice to our most specific piece of evidence.

When a subject for debate had been introduced to the assembly, the herald proclaimed, τ?? ?γορε?ειν βο?λεται; (“Who wishes to speak?”).57E.g. Ar. Ach. 45; Dem. 18. Crown 170, 191.Two passages in Aeschines suggest that at one time men over fifty were invited to speak first but at some time between 345 and 330 this was abandoned.58Aeschin. 1. Timarchus 24; 3. Ctesiphon 4.Hansen is among those who have accepted this.59E.g. Hansen 1988, 91.But there is no good evidence of any occasion when that priority invitation to older citizens was issued,60Hdt. 7.142.1, cited by Hansen, is not good evidence: it refers to speeches by the older men but does not state that they were invited to speak first.and R. J. Lane Fox has suggested that it was simply invented by Aeschines.61Lane Fox 1994, 147–149.Others believe that it was prescribed in a law of Solon, but lapsed or ceased being enforced not later than the reforms of Ephialtes in 462/461.62E.g. Kapparis 1998.I think if this rule was enforced until the time of Aeschines we should expect to find clearer evidence of it, and we must choose between the other explanations, either that it was never a genuine rule but was invented by Aeschines, or that it was an early rule but ceased to be used not later than the time of Ephialtes. And I think Lane Fox’s suggestion that it was invented is more likely: there were positions for which Athens required a higher minimum age than eighteen, or even than thirty,63E.g. forty for the sophronistai of the epheboi, Ath. Pol. 42.2.but it is better not to postulate a law giving priority in the assembly to men over fifty which is mentioned by nobody except Aeschines and is not known ever to have been applied.

In a meeting of about six thousand men, how did one who wanted to speak attract the attention of the presiding officials and have himself called to the bema so that he could speak?64The presiding officials were perhaps the archons before the reforms of Ephialtes, the prytaneis (the fifty members of the council from one tribe) from then until perhaps the late 380’s, and a new board of proedroi comprising one member of the council from each tribe except the prytany after that (prytaneis, e.g. Thuc. 6.14, Xen. Hell. 1.7.14–15; proedroi, Ath. Pol. 44.2–3; cf. the evidence of inscriptions for the man acting as chairman).One of the regular speakers would perhaps accost one of the officials before the meeting, and say that he wanted to speak on a particular matter and would be sitting in his usual place, e.g. front left. But Hansen has made it clear that there were only a few regular speakers in the assembly and a much larger number who spoke and made proposals occasionally.65Hansen 1984 = 1989b, 93–125(–127).How did an occasional speaker manage to be called when he wanted? We do not know; all that we can say is that there is no text in which a man claims that he wanted to speak but could not because he was not called.

It was presumably the responsibility of the presiding officials to decide how many speakers to call and when to end the debate. Hansen notes that there was no legal limit to the number of speakers or to the length of speeches (whereas in the lawcourts there were time limits);66Hansen 1988, 91.Thucydides uses such formulations as “[m]any others came forward and spoke, taking either side in their opinions,”67E.g. Thuc. 1.139.4.before he proceeds to the one or two speeches from the debate which he chooses to report.

When the debate was ended, a vote had to be taken. How did the presiding officers decide on a motion to put to the vote? If the probouleuma made a specific recommendation, a vote would presumably be taken on that; and if amendments had been proposed they might be voted on individually, perhaps before the vote on the probouleuma. But what happened if in the course of the debate three or four different proposals were put forward by different speakers? Hansen writes that proposers had to submit a written proposal to the proedroi, and he cites three passages from Aeschines.68Hansen 1988? 91, with 171, n. 582 citing Aeschin. 2. Embassy 64–68, 83–84; 3. Ctesiphon 100.Probably, as in the lawcourts, there was a tendency to make greater use of written texts as the fourth century proceeded, and that tendency may at some time have been reinforced by a law, but we should take account also of a passage in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae, where Mica ends her speech, “[t]his is what I say openly; the rest I shall draw up with the secretary.”69Ar. Thesm. 431–432. Osborne 2012, 41–42, suggests that this would be normal when a proposal was not submitted in advance but was made during the debate.A. H. Sommerstein in his commentary on that passage suggests, “[i]t was not uncommon for an assembly speaker to wait until after he had spoken, and could judge the popular response to his views, before deciding whether to submit a formal motion with a view to a vote.”70Sommerstein 1984, 185, citing [Dem.] 17. Treaty with Alexander 30; Dem. 18. Crown 179. Cf. Austin and Olson 2004, 188.I think that even in the fourth century we have to allow for the possibility of proposals not submitted in advance but made in the course of the debate.

A single vote with multiple options is unlikely.71Cf. Piérart 1974, 140–142, on elections.Perhaps what happened in Athens is what happened in the Senate at Rome, of which R. J. A. Talbert writes:

When a number of conflicting proposals had been made, the president had sole discretion over the selection of those to be put to the vote and in what order. ... In normal circumstances he was hardly likely to ignore any proposal which had seemed to attract some support. ... It was perhaps usual to put forward sententiae in the order they had been made. Each was voted upon individually, and the first to gain the support of the majority was carried.72Talbert 1984, 281.

Hansen has argued persuasively that when the citizens voted by show of hands (as they did except when a quorum of 6,000 votes was required, and ballots were used so that it could be verified that the quorum had been achieved) there was no attempt to make a precise count, but there was simply an estimate of whether the majority was in favour or against.73Hansen 1977b = 1983b, 103-117(–121). The verb used of the proedroi in Ath. Pol. 44.3 is krinein, “judge.”If the result was uncertain or was challenged, I suspect that a second vote was taken, and it was hoped that in the second vote there would be a clear majority. Plato in his Laws on the election of military officers allows “disputes over elections up to two,” and by this he apparently means demands for a repeated vote, since he then provides a different procedure to be used if there is a third dispute.74Pl. Leg. 6 756b 2–6, cited by Hansen, 1977b, 129–130 = 1983b, 109–110.We are best informed by Xenophon’s account of the procedures after the battle of Arginusae in 406: the first meeting of the assembly to discuss the matter was closed without a decision, because “it was late and they would not have been able to see the hands;” in the second assembly the vote was originally in favour of the alternative proposal made by Euryptolemus, but a man called Menecles made an objection under oath, probably an objection to what the presiding officers declared to be the result, there was a second vote, and this time the council’s probouleuma which condemned all the generals collectively was accepted.75Xen. Hell. 1.7.7; 1.7.34. This interpretation of the objection under oath was proposed by Lipsius 1905–1915, 393–394, n. 73.

Meetings of the assembly began early in the morning.76E.g. Ar. Ach. 19–20; Eccl. 20–21; IG I3 68.30 = Osborne and Rhodes 2017, no. 152.29. But in Ar. Eccl. 740–741 nomos refers not to a law, as claimed by Hansen 1979c, 43 = 1983b, 131–137(–138) at 131, but to a musical composition.It has sometimes been thought that meetings lasted for the whole day,77On the basis of Xen. Hell. 1.7.7; Dem. 24. Timocrates 9: e.g. de Laix 1973, 185.but Hansen has argued that commonly a meeting would end by midday (and would be followed by a meeting of the council), and again he has cited procedure in the Swiss Landsgemeinde as a parallel.78Hansen 1979c = 1983b, 131–137(–138).On this I am sure he is right: a typical assembly would transact several items of business, but many of them would be uncontroversial and would be dealt with quickly – particularly if Hansen is right in regarding the procheirotonia as an opportunity to approve without debate a probouleuma from the council to which nobody was opposed.

We have a large number of inscribed decrees enacted by the Athenian assembly, but they still represent only a small fraction of the decrees which must have been enacted. It has normally been assumed that not all decrees were inscribed but only those which for some reason were thought particularly deserving of publicity.79E.g. Lambert 2004, 85 = 2012, 3–47 at 5–6, showing that Athens already had a habit of honouring its own citizens before it formed a habit of inscribing those honours.This has recently been challenged by M. J. Osborne, but S. D. Lambert has replied with a defence of the normal assumption, and I am sure that Lambert is right in principle, though such items as treaties and honours for important foreigners normally would be published (and I suspect that Osborne and Lambert are not as far apart in fact as would seem from their published articles).80Osborne 2012, 48–52; Lambert 2016 = 2018, 47–68.

I turn now to the council of five hundred, on which I wrote my own doctoral thesis.81Rhodes 1972.Here too there are interesting questions to which there is not yet a certain answer.

First there are questions about the membership of the council. The Athenaion Politeia tells us that there were fifty members from each of Athens’ ten tribes (and in fact in the Hellenistic period when there were more than ten tribes the size of the council was increased so that there should still be fifty members from each tribe).82Ath. Pol. 43.2; Hellenistic period, Rhodes 1972, 1.From the fourth century onwards we have many inscriptions which list all the members of the council, or all those from one tribe, and it is clear from these that there was a fixed number of members from the individual demes within the tribe: one member from small demes and several members from large demes.83Most of these inscriptions are collected in Meritt and Traill 1974. Occasionally a small deme was unable to supply a member and an adjustment had to be made.But there are only one or two such inscriptions from the fifth century: one is a list of the members from one tribe who made a dedication in 408/407, where it seems that there is not enough space for fifty members to have been listed, but only those who had joined in making the dedication were included; the other is perhaps a small part of a list of members of the whole council.84Agora XV 1 = IG I3 515 (408/407). Davies 1979 suggested that another inscription (now IG I3 1040, second half of fifth century, where the suggestion is accepted) is a fragment of a list of members of the council, with numbers the same as in the fourth century, but what survives is too little to prove that numbers were indeed the same.

The question inevitably arises, were the numbers of members from the different demes which we know from the fourth century the same as they had been since the institution of the council by Cleisthenes at the end of the sixth century? And, although there is no direct evidence, indirect evidence suggests that the answer must be no, the numbers were not the same since the beginning as we know from the fourth century.85Cf. Hansen 1983a, 230–232 = 1989b, 73–84(–91) at 76–78, cf. 85–86. Fourth century numbers, Traill 1975, Tables of Representation at the end of volume.Apart from the improbability that the relative populations of the different demes would have remained the same for more than a century, particularly after heavy losses from warfare and the plague, there are some specific indications: Piraeus, the harbour town of Athens, in the fourth century had nine members, but it was not established as the harbour town until the early fifth century,86Thuc. 1.93.3–8.and it will have taken some time to grow to a size which justified nine members; Atene, near Sunium in the south-east of Attica, in the fourth century had three members, but archaeological exploration has shown that that area was still unoccupied at the end of the sixth century.87Lohmann 1993, esp. I, 204; cf. his summary, Lohmann 1992.

In the fourth century the members were appointed by lot, and a citizen was allowed to serve in the council twice in his life, as an exception to the general rule that he could hold any particular civilian office only once (though of course he could hold different offices in different years).88By lot, Ath. Pol. 43.2; two years, 62.3.Had those rules applied since the establishment of the council by Cleisthenes? Here I think the answer should be possibly not, though we cannot be certain. For the appointment of the archons, a two-stage system of appointment by lot from a short list of elected candidates replaced a system of direct election in 487/486.89Ath. Pol. 22.5 (but the 500 candidates from the demes for nine archonships seem to result from a confusion between the archons and the council): a two-stage system had been introduced by Solon (8.1), but the Pisistratid tyranny had apparently reverted to direct election.The council was presumably being appointed by lot in the late 450’s when Athens imposed a council appointed by lot on Erythrae, one of the member states of the Delian League,90IG I3 14 = Osborne and Rhodes 2017, no. 121.9.but it is possible that originally it had been appointed by election.91Cf. Rhodes 1972, 6–7.

As for allowing men to serve twice in their lives, different Greek states used different rules to limit repetition without making it too difficult to find men who could be appointed: Drerus in seventh-century Crete banned reappointment to the office of kosmos within ten years; for the council imposed by Athens on Erythrae reappointment was banned within four years.92Drerus, Buck 116 = Meiggs and Lewis 1988, no. 2; Erythrae, IG I3 14 = Osborne and Rhodes 2017, no. 121.12.In Athens it is possible that allowing a man to serve twice was a concession needed in the fourth century when the number of citizens was only half of the number before the Peloponnesian War, and that originally men had been allowed to serve only once in their lives.93Cf. Rhodes 1972, 3. No instances of a man’s serving twice are known from the fifth century, but we have far less evidence from the fifth century than from later periods.When I wrote The Athenian Boule, there was no evidence that anybody had served more than twice until the second century AD, but more recently it has become clear that there were some men who served three times in the third century BC.94Second century AD, Rhodes 1972, 3 with n. 4; third century BC, Tracy 2003, 60, Rhodes 2006, 33 with n. 35, accepted by Byrne 2009. See also Lambert 2018, 261–262.Possibly the change was made when or soon after two additional tribes were created and the council was increased from 500 to 600, in 307/306, which would make it harder to find enough members.

It is often claimed that a man’s two years of service in the council could not be consecutive years,95E.g. Hansen 1986a, 51.and there is indeed no certain instance of a man who did serve in two consecutive years. However, the argument that immediate reappointment would be prevented by the need to undergo euthynai, the accounting period at the end of a term of office, is not a sufficient argument against consecutive years, since generals like other officials had to undergo euthynai but they were frequently reappointed for the next year.

There is a little evidence from the classical period that in addition to the 500 members further men were appointed as epilachontes, substitutes, who would fill the vacancy if, for instance, one of the men originally appointed was rejected in his dokimasia, the verification to which all men were subjected when they were appointed to any office in Athens: thus when Hyperbolus was appointed as a member for the year 421/420 a passage from the comedian Plato suggests that his epilachon was bound to become a member.96Plato Comicus fr. 182 PCG ap. Schol. Ar. Thesm. 808–809; cf. Aeschin. 3. Ctesiphon 62 with scholia (136 Dilts), [Dem.] 58. Theocrines 29, Harp. ε 102 Keaney and other lexica on ?πιλαχ?ν.Some have accepted it as a simple fact that a separate epilachon was appointed for each member, and therefore that each year 1,000 men eligible to serve were appointed as members or as epilachontes.97E.g. Hansen 1999, 248. Traill 1981 interprets Agora XV 492 as a list of 500 members + 250 epilachontes, and dates it c. 380–360.However, it is hard to believe that that actually happened, and I have wondered if a smaller number of epilachontes was appointed, each of them acting as the potential substitute for several members, or if epilachontes were in fact appointed only when there were more candidates than those who needed to be appointed.98Rhodes 1972, 7–8.

Almost every Greek city had an assembly open to all qualified citizens and a smaller council which prepared the business to be dealt with by the assembly. An important question, in Athens and in other cities, was the relationship between the two bodies: was the assembly the powerful body and the council its servant, or was the council the powerful body and the power of the assembly much more limited? One approach to this question is to see how much business and what kinds of business the assembly dealt with; and in Athens it is clear from inscribed decrees and from other evidence that the assembly met frequently and decided a great deal of business, small matters as well as large. The council did have some power to make decisions of its own, but these were decisions on subsidiary matters, and there are some decrees of the assembly which explicitly authorise the council to make supplementary decisions as long as these do not conflict with the decisions of the assembly.99Suggested fifth-century instances are problematic, but in IG I3 73.38–39 (424/423) the council may have been given such power, and in 136.37 (413/412?) the council was given power (made autokrator) in some respect. Fourth-century instances: SEG XIV 47.b.3–6 (365/364), IG II2 127 = Rhodes and Osborne 2017, no. 53.34–35 (356/355); II3 292.85–86 (352/351); 370 = Rhodes and Osborne 2017, nos. 100.264–269 (325/324: specifying that the supplementary decisions must not conflict with the decisions of the assembly); 404.7–9 (c. 345–320).

Particularly from the fourth century onwards, the Athenians in the texts of their decrees used language which enables us to distinguish between two types of decree enacted by the assembly: decrees where the assembly decided to accept a proposal put to it in the council’s probouleuma, and decrees where it did not do that, either because there was not a specific proposal in the probouleuma or because there was a specific proposal in the probouleuma but the assembly decided something different. In The Athenian Boule I studied the two types of decrees, and concluded that until the end of the Chremonidean War in 263/262 decrees of both kinds are plentiful, which suggests that both the council and the assembly played an active part in Athens’ decision making; but after that it seems to have been a matter of convention that decrees recommending that one of the prytanies of the council should be honoured were not proposed in the probouleuma, but otherwise almost all decrees of the assembly did accept a proposal in the probouleuma, which suggests that the assembly no longer played such an active part in the process.100Cf. Rhodes 1972, 64–81.

Applying this kind of analysis on a smaller scale, to a short period, is more hazardous, because the number of surviving decrees which can be reliably dated is smaller, but the attempt has sometimes been made, and as the body of material increases the attempt becomes more worthwhile.101My own attempt for different parts of the period 321/320–263/262: Rhodes 1972, 78–79, n. 3.G. J. Oliver has remarked that in the “oligarchic” period 322/321–319/318, when we might expect a more powerful council and a weaker assembly, it seems to have been the council which was weakened, and a majority of the assembly’s decrees did not accept a proposal from the council.102Oliver 2003, esp. 41–47.Earlier in the fourth century, while I had found that in the whole period of the restored democracy, 403/402–322/321, inscribed decrees were about equally divided between the two types, Lambert has noted that in the later part of this period, from 352/351 onwards, a majority of the inscribed decrees were again of the type in which the assembly did not accept a proposal from the council, and those in which it did accept a proposal from the council were mostly honorific decrees of a kind which were not likely to be controversial.103Lambert 2018, 227–271.

So what Oliver noticed in the oligarchic period from 321 to 318 was not so much an unexpected weakening of the council but the continuation of a practice which had prevailed in the previous thirty years of the democracy: the council, owing to the way in which it was recruited from the members of the demes, was a cross-section of the citizen body which changed every year, while the assembly, in which the most influential citizens could remain active year after year, was the body in which serious matters and matters on which there might be disagreement were decided. By contrast, Lambert found that between 229/228 and 198/197 (after Athens had escaped from dependence on the Antigonids of Macedon), as I had found earlier, it was much more frequent for the assembly to accept proposals from the council, and the council was much more important and the assembly less important in the decision-making process.

Another question about the council concerns the “trittys (third) of the prytaneis.” The Athenaion Politeia tells us that the epistates of the prytaneis, the chairman for the day, remained on duty in the tholos, the headquarters of the prytaneis, for the whole twenty-four hours during which he was chairman, and with him “a trittys of the prytaneis ordered by him.”104Ath. Pol. 44.1.But what was a trittys of the prytaneis? If it was an approximation to a mathematical third,105E.g. Gilbert 1895, 272.it cannot have been an exact third, because neither fifty nor forty-nine (if we exclude the epistates) can be divided by three. Except in this passage, the only context in which we encounter trittyes in Athens is the trittyes of the tribes. Each of the ten tribes instituted by Cleisthenes was divided into three trittyes, one located in the city region of Attica, one in the coastal region and one in the inland region,106Ath. Pol. 21.3–4 (the four old tribes were divided into trittyes too).and the most obvious interpretation is that the Athenaion Politeia means the prytaneis from one of those trittyes;107E.g. Busolt and Swoboda 1920–1926, II, 973 with n. 2.but we know from the membership of the council in the fourth century and later that, although each of the tribes supplied fifty members, the trittyes like the individual demes were not at all equal in size.

In some tribes the arrangement of fourth-century lists of members of the council has shown signs of a pattern which might reflect a more equal division of the tribe’s fifty members of the council into three groups, and some people have seen here a “trittys of the prytaneis” different from the trittyes of the tribes.108First suggested by W. E. Thompson 1966; discussed sympathetically by Rhodes 1971; rejected by Eliot 1967, esp. 83–84, n. 18.This is a view with which I used to have some sympathy, but there is not enough regularity in the inscriptions to make a strong case for it. Hansen has suggested that we have here a sign of the revision of the council’s membership in the fourth century, that in the original scheme of Cleisthenes the trittyes of the tribes were approximately equal, and that in the revision of the fourth century some demes located in the coastal or inland region were reassigned to a city trittys in order to preserve that equality.109Hansen 1990. Traill 1978 originally believed in a reorganisation in the fourth century, but in an addendum on p. 109 he suggested that the equal trittyes were the trittyes of Cleisthenes, but in order to achieve that Cleisthenes did not locate each trittys entirely in one of the three regions.Here I think we can only guess: while it is likely that the numbers of members of the council from individual demes were different at first from the numbers in the fourth century, we cannot estimate what the original numbers may have been, and I doubt whether demes were reassigned to different trittyes for the sake of equality. I now think it likely that “a trittys of the prytaneis” means the prytaneis from one of the three regional trittyes into which the tribes were divided, and I agree with C. W. J. Eliot that if that was sometimes more than a third and sometimes less than a third it did not matter.110Eliot 1967, 84.M. H. Chambers suggests that the epistates would normally call on the members from the trittys to which he himself belonged.111Chambers 1990, 353–354.

The Athenaion Politeia claims that in the past the council as a lawcourt had had unlimited power to impose penalties, including even the death penalty; but, after an episode in which one man insisted on a trial in a lawcourt for a man whom the council had condemned to death, the assembly decided that penalties which the council wanted to impose must be confirmed in a court.112Ath. Pol. 45.1. Cf. the limits to the council’s powers mentioned in the laws about the council republished at the end of the fifth century, IG I3 105 = Osborne and Rhodes 2017, no. 183.B.31–32, 36. For extended treatments of this matter see Cloché 1920; Rhodes 1972, 179–207.We know from other evidence that in the fourth century the council could still impose fines up to a limit of 500 drachmae, as individual officials could impose fines up to a lower limit in matters with which they were concerned,113500 drachmae limit for council, [Dem.] 47. Evergus & Mnesibulus 43; right of officials to impose fines (epibolai), e.g. Lys. 30. Nicomachus 3; law ap. Dem. 43. Macartatus 75 (the archons).and probably this was an absolute right and those fines were not subject to appeal.114Harrison 1968–1971, II, 4–6, against Lipsius 1905–1915, 196–198 (who is followed by Chambers 1990, 356). On summary penalties across the Greek world, see Rubinstein 2018.Also it could in some circumstances have men imprisoned, not as a punishment but as a precaution to prevent them from absconding before they were brought to trial or had paid a penalty.115Imprisonment, Dem. 24. Timocrates 144–148; Ath. Pol. 48.1.

But when did it have the unlimited right which the Athenaion Politeia claims for the past? The Athenaion Politeia in connection with the last of its eleven “changes” in the constitution states, “For also the judgments of the council have come to the demos,”116Ath. Pol. 41.2.and some scholars including P. Cloché supposed that to mean that the council did not lose its unlimited powers until the fourth century; but the evidence does not support the view that the council’s powers were unlimited in the late fifth century, and it is better to read that statement as a comment not on the eleventh change but on the whole development of the Athenian constitution from the beginning to the eleventh change. It is hard to believe that Solon’s council of four hundred, in the sixth century, had that power. Some people have thought that Cleisthenes’ council of five hundred was a powerful body when first created, but its powers were reduced only a few years later, when its oath of office was instituted in 501/500;117Ath. Pol. 22.2, with e.g. Larsen 1955, 15–18.but I think that the oath of office is better interpreted as the culmination of Cleisthenes’ reform rather than as a significant modification of it.118Cf. Peremans 1941.I am not convinced that the council had any powers of punishment before powers were taken from the Areopagus by Ephialtes in 462/461,119See esp. Ath. Pol. 25.2, Plut. Cim. 15.2; Per. 9.5.and I believe that the powers which it was given then were limited from the beginning. The council never had the unlimited powers which are said to have been taken away from it; but ancient Greeks may have concluded, as some modern scholars have concluded, from clauses in the members’ oath undertaking not to do certain things that until the oath was imposed the council had done those things, and the story of the man saved from execution is either a story originally told in connection with the Areopagus or a total invention, which has been used to explain the undertaking in the members’ oath.

A little later, questions arise about what the correct text of the Athenaion Politeia should be. “The council takes care of the triremes which have been built, the equipment and the shipsheds, and it builds new triremes or quadriremes, whichever the demos votes.”120Ath. Pol. 46.1.The Greek text says ποιε?ται καιν?? δ? τρι?ρει? ? τετρ?ρει?: the δ? in that position is certainly wrong, but should it simply be deleted, or is it a corruption of some other word — perhaps a numeral, meaning that the council was committed to building that number of new ships each year? On the basis of the different numeral systems used by the Greeks at different times, either 4 or 10 could have been corrupted to δ?.121δ? deleted Kenyon, δ? = 4 B. Keil, Δ or δ?κα = 10 W. Kolbe. Diod. Sic. 11.43.3 attributes to Themistocles a target of twenty ships a year in the fifth century, after the Persian Wars, and attempts have been made to find other targets in other texts.Certainly the requirement to have new ships built was taken seriously, and Androtion, when he proposed that the council in which he had served in (probably) 356/355 should be honoured although it had not satisfied the shipbuilding requirement, was prosecuted in a graphe paranomon, apparently unsuccessfully.122Dem. 22. Androtion, esp. 8–20.But neither Demosthenes’ speech for that prosecution nor any of the ancient commentaries on it claims that there was a regular number of ships which had to be built year after year. At the time when the Athenaion Politeia was written, in the 330’s–320’s, Athens’ navy was being modernised and enlarged, but the inscriptions listing ships do not suggest that there was a regular number of ships which had to be built each year.123See IG II2 1627.275–278; 1628.495–497; 1629.808–812, with Ashton 1979 on 1629.Shipbuilding programmes have been discussed by D. J. Blackman, who suggests that there were regular shipbuilding quotas at different times, but doubts whether there was a number in the text here.124Blackman 1969, 202–216 (on this passage, 204).I think, and M. H. Chambers in the most recent Teubner text thinks,125Rhodes 2016; 2017; Chambers 1986 (ad loc.).that here we should simply delete δ? and not restore a number.

A later chapter deals with various dokimasiai, verification processes, in which the council was involved. Together with these we are told that “The council used to judge the paradeigmata and the peplos; but now it is done by a lawcourt picked by sortition, since it was thought that the councillors were using favouritism in their judgment.”126Ath. Pol. 49.3.The peplos was the new robe made for the cult statue of Athena and taken in procession at the Great Panathenaea every four years;127Pl. Euthphr. 6c 2–3, lexica e.g. Harp. π 51 Keaney π?πλο?.but what is meant here by paradeigmata? The word can denote models or plans for buildings, sculptures, paintings or other works of skill,128E.g. Hdt. 5.62.3, Pl. Resp. 6. 500e 3–4, IG I3 476.258–259; 262; 342; II2 1668.95.and most commentators have taken the reference here to be plans for public works in general.129E.g. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1893, I, 212–213 with n. 50.Some, however, have linked the paradeigmata with the peplos, and have supposed the passage to mean that the council approved the design for the new peplos on each occasion — and F. Blass emended the text to express that meaning more clearly.130Blass 1892, reading κα? τ? παραδε?γματα τ? ε?? τ?ν π?πλον for κα? τ? παραδε?γματα κα? τ?ν π?πλον, approved by Kaibel 1893, 220.There is no other relevant evidence, and this is a difficult matter to decide. Originally I favoured the first interpretation, plans for public works in general, but in my editions of the Athenaion Politeia I have preferred the reference to the peplos, though without emending the text, and Chambers in his commentary takes the same position.131Rhodes 1972, 122; contra Rhodes 1981, 568–569; 2016, 342; 2017, 373; Chambers 1990, 369.

In other respects this is one of the passages in the Athenaion Politeia which are frustratingly brief: we should like to know when this duty was transferred from the council to a court, and whether that was a single reform or was part of a set of reforms; and in the new system we should like to know which officials were responsible for bringing the matter to a lawcourt. For the transfer from the council to a court, we can only guess. However, there is a later passage which states that of the many officials in Athens who were appointed by lot some used to be appointed from their tribes along with the archons, but others were distributed among the demes. But it was found that the demes were “selling” their offices, and so most of these were transferred to the whole tribe.132Ath. Pol. 62.1.This is a reform of the same kind as the transfer of decisions about the peplos from the council to a lawcourt because the council was showing favouritism: it would make sense if the two transfers were made at the same time, though of course it is not necessary that they should have been made at the same time; and the transfer of appointments can at least be dated before c. 370, because then a system of appointments using allotment machines (kleroteria) was introduced, which was based on the tribes and not on the demes.133See Kroll 1972, esp. the summary on 99–104.

As for the officials who brought these matters to a court, a later passage tells us that in the time of the Athenaion Politeia there were special officials known as athlothetai, who served not for one year but for four, so that each board was in charge of one celebration of the Great Panthenaea. Their responsibilities included the procession, in which the new peplos was carried to the acropolis, and we are explicitly told that they “have the peplos made.”134Ath. Pol. 60.1.The work was done by women referred to as ergastinai, and upper-class girls aged between seven and eleven known as arrephoroi were involved with it in some way,135See Parker 2005, 218–228. The significance of the word, found also in the form ersephoroi, is unknown.but the athlothetai presumably had overall responsibility. Once they had acquired that responsibility (their name suggests that originally they were responsible only for the contests136Davison 1958, 29–33 = 1968, 28–69 at 41–48 (dating the increase in their responsibility soon after 421/420).), they would be the obvious officials to bring the choice of the design for the peplos to court.

The Athenian democracy is a fascinating phenomenon, and one for which we have a good deal of evidence. It can be studied in various ways, and studying the formal institutions is one worthwhile way. As I have shown here with regard to the assembly and the council, there are still questions to which we should like to have answers but have not yet obtained answers about which we can be certain. Newly discovered and edited inscriptions continue to add to our body of evidence, and it is to be hoped that definitive answers to some of the questions will some time become available; but in the meantime it is important to be aware of questions which still await a definitive answer.

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