The Ecclesia of Athens.
127. The Rule of Democracy in Athens.—The Ecclesia, or Public
Assembly, of Athens is something more than the chief governmental organ
in the state. It is the great leveling engine which makes Athens a
true democracy, despite the great differences in wealth between her
inhabitants, and the marked social pretensions of “the noble and the
good”—the educated classes. At this time Athens is profoundly wedded
to her democratic constitution. Founded by Solon and Clisthenes,
developed by Themistocles and Pericles, it was temporarily overthrown
at the end of the Peloponnesian War; but the evil rule then of the
“Thirty Tyrants” has proved a better lesson on the evils of oligarchic
rule than a thousand rhetoricians’ declamations upon the advantages of
the “rule of the many” as against the “rule of the few.” Attica now
acknowledges only one Lord—_King Demos_—“King Everybody”—and until the
coming of bondage to Macedon there will be no serious danger of an
aristocratic reaction.
128. Aristocracy and Wealth. Their Status and Burdens.—True, there are
old noble families in Athens,—like the Alcmæonidæ whereof Pericles
sprang, and the Eumolpidæ who supply the priests to Demeter, the Earth
Mother. But these great houses have long since ceased to claim
anything but _social_ preëminence. Even then one must take pains not
to assume airs, or the next time one is litigant before the dicastery,
the insinuation of “an undemocratic, oligarchic manner of life” will
win very many adverse votes among the jury. Nobility and wealth are
only allowed to assert themselves in Athens when justified by an
extraordinary amount of public service and public generosity.
Xenophon in his _Memorabilia_ makes Socrates tell Critobuls, a wealthy
and self-important individual, that he is really so hampered by his
high position as to be decidedly poor. “You are obliged,” says
Socrates, “to offer numerous and magnificent sacrifices; you have to
receive and entertain sumptuously a great many strangers, and to feast
[your fellow] citizens. You have to pay heavy contributions towards
the public service, keeping horses and furnishing choruses in peace
times and in war bearing the expense of maintaining triremes and paying
the special war taxes; and if you fail to do all this, they will punish
you with as much severity as if you were caught stealing their money.”
129. Athenian Society Truly Democratic up to a Certain Point.—Wealth,
then, means one perpetual round of public services and obligations,
sweetened perhaps with a little empty praise, an inscription, an
honorary crown, or best of all, an honorary statue “to the public
benefactor” as the chief reward. On the other hand one may be poor and
be a thoroughly self-respecting, nay, prominent citizen. Socrates had
an absurdly small invested fortune and the gods knew that he did little
enough in the way of profitable labor.[*] He had to support his wife
and three children upon this income. He wore no chiton. His himation
was always an old one, unchanged from summer to winter. He seems to
have possessed only one pair of good sandals all his life. His rations
were bread and water, save when he was invited out. Yet this man was
welcome in the “very best society.” Alcibiades, leader of the fast,
rich set, and many more of the gilded youth of Athens dogged his heels.
One meets not the slightest evidence that his poverty ever prevented
him from carrying his philosophic message home to the wealthy and the
noble. There is no snobbishness, then, in this Athenian society.
Provided a man is not pursuing a base mechanic art or an ignoble trade,
provided he has a real message to convey,—whether in literature,
philosophy, or statecraft,—there are no questions “who was your
father?” or “what is your income?”[+] Athens will hear him and accept
his best. For this open-mindedness—almost unique in ancient
communities—one must thank King Demos and his mouthpiece, the Ecclesia.
[*] Socrates’s regular income from invested property seems to have been
only about $12 per year. It is to be hoped his wife, Xanthippe, had a
little property of her own!
[+] Possibly the son of a man whose parents notoriously had been slaves
in Athens would have found many doors closed to him.
Athenians are intensely proud of their democracy. In Æschylus’s
_Persians_, Atossa, the Barbarian queen, asks concerning the
Athenians:—
“Who is the lord and shepherd of their flock?”
Very prompt is the answer:—
“They are not slaves, they bow to no man’s rule.”
Again in Euripides’s _Supplicants_ there is this boast touching
Athens:—
“No will of one
Holdeth this land: it is a city and free.
The whole folk year by year, in parity of service is our king.”
130. The Voting Population of Athens.—Nevertheless when we ask about
this “whole folk,” and who the voters are, we soon discover that Athens
is very far from being a pure democracy. The multitudes of slaves are
of course without votes, and so is the numerous class of the important,
cultivated, and often wealthy metics. To get Athenian citizenship is
notoriously hard. For a stranger (say a metic who had done some
conspicuous public service) to be given the franchise, a special vote
must be passed by the Ecclesia itself; even then the new citizen may be
prosecuted as undeserving before a dicastery, and disfranchised.
Again, only children both of whose parents are free Athenian citizens
can themselves be enrolled on the carefully guarded lists in the deme
books. The status of a child, one of whose parents is a metic, is
little better than a bastard.[*]
[*] Of course women were entirely excluded from the Ecclesia, as from
all other forms of public life. The question of “woman’s rights” had
been agitated just enough to produce comedies like Aristophanes’s
_Parliament of Women_, and philosophical theories such as appear in
Plato’s _Republic_.
Under these circumstances the whole number of voters is very much less
than at a later day will appear in American communities of like
population. Before the Peloponnesian War, when the power of Athens was
at its highest point, there were not less than 30,000 full citizens and
possibly as many as 40,000. But those days of imperial power are now
ended. At present Athens has about 21,000 citizens, or a few more. It
is impossible, however, to gather all these in any single meeting. A
great number are farmers living in the remote villages of Attica; many
city dwellers also will be too busy to think the 3-obol (9-cent [1914
or $1.55 2000]) fee for attendance worth their while.[*] Six thousand
seems to be a good number for ordinary occasions and no doubt much
business can be dispatched with less, although this is the legal quorum
set for most really vital matters. Of course a great crisis, _e.g._ a
declaration of war, will bring out nearly every voter whose farm is not
too distant.
[*] Payment for attendance at the Pnyx seems to have been introduced
about 390 B.C. The original payment was probably only one obol, and
then from time to time increased. It was a sign of the relative decay
of political interest in Athens when it became needful thus to reward
the commonalty for attendance at the Assembly.
131. Meeting Time of the Ecclesia.—Four times in every prytany[*] the
Ecclesia must be convened for ordinary business, and oftener if public
occasion requires. Five days’ notice has to be given of each regular
meeting, and along with the notice a placard announcing the proposals
which are to come up has to be posted in the Agora. But if there is a
sudden crisis, formalities can be thrown to the winds; a sudden bawling
of the heralds in the streets, a great smoky column caused by burning
the traders’ flimsy booths in the Agora,—these are valid notices of an
extraordinary meeting to confront an immediate danger.
[*] “A prytany” was one tenth of a year, say 35 or 36 days, during
which time the 50 representatives of one of the ten Athenian tribes
then serving as members of the Council of 500 (each tribe taking its
turn) held the presidency of the Council and acted as a special
executive committee of the government. There were thus at least 40
meetings of the Ecclesia each year, as well as the extraordinary
meetings.
If this has been a morning when the Ecclesia has been in session,
nothing unusual has occurred at first in the busy Agora, except that
the jury courts are hardly in action, and a bright flag is whipping the
air from the tall flagpole by the Pnyx (the Assembly Place). Then
suddenly there is a shouting through the Agora. The clamor of traffic
around the popular flower stalls ceases; everybody who is not a slave
or metic (and these would form a large fraction of the crowd of
marketers) begins to edge down toward one end of the Agora. Presently
a gang of Scythian police-archers comes in sight. They have a long
rope sprinkled with red chalk wherewith they are “netting” the Agora.
The chalk will leave an infallible mark on the mantle of every tardy
citizen, and he who is thus marked as late at the meeting will lose his
fee for attendance, if not subject himself to a fine. So there is a
general rush away from the Agora and down one of the various avenues
leading to the Pnyx.
132. The Pnyx (Assembly Place) at Athens.—The Pnyx is an open space of
ground due west from the Acropolis. It originally sloped gently away
towards the northeast, but a massive retaining wall had been built
around it, in an irregular semicircle, and the space within filled with
solidly packed earth sloping inwards, making a kind of open air
auditorium. It is a huge place, 394 feet long, and 213 feet at the
widest. The earthen slope is entirely devoid of seats; everybody casts
himself down sprawling or on his haunches, perhaps with an old himation
under him. Directly before the sitters runs a long ledge hewn out of
the rock, forming, as it were, the “stage” side of the theater. Here
the rock has been cut away, so as to leave a sizable stone pulpit
standing forth, with a small flight of steps on each side. This is the
_Bema_, the orator’s stand, whence speak the “demagogues,”[*] the
molders of Athenian public opinion. In front of the Bema there is a
small portable altar for the indispensable sacrifices. In the rear of
the Bema are a few planks laid upon the rock. Here will sit the fifty
_Prytanes_ in charge of the meeting. There is a handsome chair for the
presiding officer upon the Bema itself. These are all the furnishings
of the structure wherein Athens makes peace and war, and orders her
whole civil and foreign policy. The Hellenic azure is the only roof
above her sovran law makers. To the right, as the orators stand on the
Bema, they can point toward the Acropolis and its glittering temples;
to the left towards the Peiræus, and the blue sea with the inevitable
memories of glorious Salamis. Surely it will be easy to fire all hearts
with patriotism!
[*] A “demagogue” ( = people-leader) might well be a great statesman,
and not necessarily a cheap and noisy politician.
133. The Preliminaries of the Meeting.—Into this space the voters
swarm by hundreds—all the citizens of Athens, from twenty years and
upward, sufficiently interested to come. At each crude entrance stands
a crops of watchful LEXIARCHS and their clerks, checking off those
present and turning back interlopers. As the entering crowds begin to
thin, the entrance ways are presently closed by wicker hurdles. The
flag fluttering on high is struck. The Ecclesia is ready for action.
Much earlier than this, the farmers and fishmen from the hill towns or
from Salamis have been in their places, grumbling at the slowness of
the officials. People sit down where they can; little groups and clans
together, wedged in closely, chattering up to the last minute, watching
every proceeding with eyes as keen as cats’. All the gossip left over
from the Agora is disposed of ere the prytanes—proverbially
late—scramble into their seats of honor. The police-archers move up and
down, enforcing a kind of order. Amid a growing hush a suckling pig is
solemnly slaughtered by some religious functionary at the altar, and
the dead victim carried around the circuit of the Pnyx as a symbolic
purification of the audience.
“Come inside the purified circuit,” enjoins a loud herald to the little
groups upon the edge.[*]
[*] Aristophanes’s _Acharnians_ (ll. 50 ff.) gives a valuable picture
of this and other proceedings at the Pnyx, but one should never forget
the poet’s exaggerations for comedy purposes, nor his deliberate
omission of matters likely to be mere tedious detail to his audience.
Then comes a prayer invoking the gods’ favor upon the Athenians, their
allies, and this present meeting in particular, winding up (the herald
counts this among the chief parts of his duty) with a tremendous curse
on any wretch who should deceive the folk with evil counsel. After
this the real secular business can begin. Nothing can be submitted to
the Ecclesia which has not been previously considered and matured by
the Council of 500. The question to be proposed is now read by the
heralds as a _Pro-bouleuma_—a suggested ordinance by the Council. Vast
as is the audience, the acoustic properties of the Pnyx are excellent,
and all public officers and orators are trained to harangue multitudes
in the open air, so that the thousands get every word of the
proposition.
134. Debating a Proposition.—“Resolved by the Boule, the tribe Leontis
holding the prytany, and Heraclides being clerk, upon the motion of
Timon the son of Timon the Eleusinian,[*] that”—and then in formal
language it is proposed to increase the garrison of the allied city of
Byzantium by 500 hired Arcadian mercenaries, since the king of Thrace
is threatening that city, and its continued possession is absolutely
essential to the free import of grain into Attica.
[*] This seems to have been the regular form for beginning a
_probouleuma_ although nearly all our information comes from the texts
of proposals _after_ they have been made formal decrees by the sovran
Demos.
There is a hush of expectancy; a craning of necks.
“Who wishes to speak?” calls the herald.
After a decent pause Timon, the mover of the measure, comes forward. He
is a fairly well-known character and commands a respectable faction
among the Demos. There is some little clapping, mixed with jeering, as
he mounts the Bema. The president of the prytanes—as evidence that he
has now the right to harangue—hands him a myrtle wreath which he
promptly claps on his head, and launches into his argument. Full
speedily he has convinced at least a large share of the audience that
it was sheer destruction to leave Byzantium without an efficient
garrison. Grain would soon be at famine prices if the town were taken,
etc., etc. The only marvel is that the merciful gods have averted the
disaster so long in the face of such neglect.—Why had the board of
strategi, responsible in such matters, neglected this obvious duty?
[Cheers intermixed with catcalls.] This was not the way the men who
won Marathon had dealt with dangers, nor later worthies like Nicias or
Thrasybulus. [More cheers and catcalls.] He winds up with a splendid
invocation to Earth, Sky, and Justice to bear witness that all this
advice is given solely with a view to the weal of Athens.
“He had Isocrates teach him how to launch that peroration,” mutters a
crabbed old citizen behind his peak-trimmed beard, as Timon descends
amid mingled applause and derision.
“Very likely; Iphicrates is ready to answer him,” replies a fellow.
“Who wishes to speak?” the herald demands again. From a place directly
before the Bema a well-known figure, the elderly general, Iphicrates,
is rising. At a nod from the president, he mounts the Bema and assumes
the myrtle. He has not Timon’s smooth tones nor oratorical manner. He
is a man of action and war, and no tool of the Agora coteries. A salvo
of applause greets him. Very pithily he observes that Byzantium will
be safe enough if the city will only be loyal to the Athenian alliance.
Athens needs all her garrisons nearer home. Timon surely knows the
state of the treasury. Is he going to propose a special tax upon his
fellow countrymen to pay for those 500 mercenaries? [Loud laughter and
derisive howls directed at Timon.] Athens needs to keep her strength
for _real_ dangers; and those are serious enough, but not at Byzantium.
At the next meeting he and the other strategi will recommend—etc.,
etc. When Iphicrates quits the Bema there is little left of Timon’s
fine “Earth, Sky and Justice.”
135. Voting at the Pnyx.—But other orators follow on both sides. Once
Timon, egged on by many supporters, tries to gain the Bema a second
time, but is told by the president that one cannot speak twice on the
same subject. Once the derision and shouting becomes so violent that
the president has to announce, “Unless there is silence I must adjourn
the meeting.” Finally, after an unsuccessful effort to amend the
proposal, by reducing the garrison at Byzantium to 250, the movers of
the measure realize that the votes will probably be against them. They
try to break up the meeting.
“I hear thunder!” “I feel rain!” they begin shouting, and such ill
omens, if really in evidence, would be enough to force an adjournment;
but the sky is delightfully clear. The president simply shrugs his
shoulders; and now the Pnyx is fairly rocking with the yell, “A vote!
A vote!”
The president rises. Taking the vote in the Ecclesia is a very simple
matter when it is a plain question of “yes” or “no” on a
proposition.[*]
[*] When an _individual_ had to be voted for, then ballots were used.
“All who favor the _probouleuma_ of Timon will raise the right hand!”
A respectable but very decided minority shows itself.
“Those who oppose.”
The adverse majority is large. The morning is quite spent. There is a
great tumult. Men are rising, putting on their himatia, ridiculing
Timon; while the herald at a nod from the president declares the
Ecclesia adjourned.
136. The Ecclesia as an Educational Instrument.—Timon and his friends
retire crestfallen to discuss the fortunes of war. They are not
utterly discouraged, however. The Ecclesia is a fickle creature. What
it withholds to-day it may grant to-morrow. Iphicrates, whose words
have carried such weight now, may soon be howled down and driven from
the Bema much as was the unfortunate litigant in the jury court.
Still, with all its faults, the Ecclesia is the great school for the
adults of Athens. All are on terms of perfect equality. King Demos is
not the least respecter of wealth or family. Sophistries are usually
penetrated in a twinkling by some coarse expletive from a remote corner
of the Pnyx. Every citizen understands the main issues of the public
business. _He is part of the actual working government_, not once per
year (or less often) at the ballot box, but at least forty times
annually; and dolt he would be, did he not learn at least all the
superficialities of statecraft. He may make grievous errors. He may
be misled by mob prejudice or mob enthusiasm; but he is not likely to
persist in a policy of crass blundering very long. King Demos may
indeed rule a fallible human monarchy, but it is thanks to him, and to
his high court held at the Pnyx, that Athens owes at least half of that
sharpness of wit and intelligence which is her boast.