Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/90

/4 HISTORY OF GREECE. the orators have most frequent occasion to allude to its decisions on matters of trial. But its functions were originally of the widest senatorial character, directive generally as well a * judicial. And although the gradual increase of democracy at Athens, as will be hereafter explained, both abridged its powers and con- tributed still farther comparatively to lower it, by enlarging the direct working of the people in assembly and judicature, as well as that of the senate of Five Hundred, which was a permanent adjunct and adminicle of the public assembly, yet it seems to have been, even down to the time of Perikles, the most important body in the state. And after it had been cast into the back- ground by the political reforms of that great man, we still find it on particular occasions stepping forward to reassert its ancient powers, and to assume for the moment that undefined interference which it had enjoyed without dispute in antiquity. The attach- ment of the Athenians to their ancient institutions gave to the senate of areopagus a constant and powerful hold on their minds, and this feeling was rather strengthened than weakened when it ceased to be an object of popular jealousy, when it could no longer be employed as an auxiliary of oligarchical pre- tensions. Of the nine archons, whose number continued unaltered from G38 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 Arc/ion ; the archon basileus (king), or more frequently, the basileus ; and the polemarch. The remaining six passed by the general title of Thesmothetje. Of the first three, each possessed exclusive judicial competence in regard to certain special matters : the thesmothetoe were in this respect all on a par, acting sometimes as a board, sometimes individually. The archon eponymus de- termined all disputes relative to the family, the gentile, and the phratric relations : he was the legal protector of orphans and widows. 1 The archon basileus, or king archon, enjoyed compe- tence in complaints respecting offences against the religious sentiment and respecting homicide. The poleruarch, speaking of times anterior to Kleisthenes, was the leader of the military 1 Pollux, viii, 89-91.