Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/91

.NINE .UICIIOXS AT ATHENS. 70 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 thesmothetae 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 thesmotheta3, all the nine archons were entitled to be so called, 1 though the first three had especial designations of their own : the word thesmoi, analogous to the themistes 2 of Homer, includes in its meaning both general laws and particular sentences, the two ideas not being yet discriminated, and the general law being con- ceived 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. In the later and better-known times of Athenian law, we find these archons deprived in great measure of their powers of 1 'We read the decuoderuv avuKptcic in Demosthen. cont. Eubnlidem, c. 17, p. 1319, and Pollux, viii, 85 ; a scries 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 deauoderuv avunpiais may reasonably be understood to apply to all the nine archons, as, indeed, we find the words rot'f ivvea. upxavrat jvaKpive-e shortly afterwards, p. 1320. 8 Respecting the word Qefnarf^ in the Homeric sense, sec above, vol. ii, th. xx. Both Aristotle (Polit. ii, 9, 9) and Demosthenes (contr. Euerg. et Mnesi- bul. c. 18, p. 1161) call the ordinances of Drako vopoi, not -dea/toi. Ando- kides distinguishes the tfrcrt/ot of Drako and the vopm of Solon (De Mysteriis, p. 11). This is the adoption of a phrase comparatively modern; Solon called his own laws deauoi. The oath of the ^epi-ol.oi iQrjpoi (the youth who formed the armed police of Attica during the first two years of their military age), as given in Pollux (viii, 106), seems to contain at least many ancient phrases : this phrase, ical roZc #e<r^oZf rolf iApvpivot? xtiaovai, is remarkable, as it indicates the ancient association of religious sanction which adhered to the word dterfioi; for itipveadat is the word employed in reference to the establishment and domiciliation of the gods who protected the country, &ea-&ai. vopovf is the later expression for making laws. Com- pare Stobaius De Republic, xliii, 48, ed. Gaisford, and Demosthen. cont Mitkartat c. 13. p. 10G9.