Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/155

FINANCE. -SENATE OF FIVE HUNDRED. 137 been discontinued during the long coercion exercised by the super vening dynasty. But the outburst of popular spirit, which lent force to Kleisthenes, doubtless carried the people into direct action as jurors in the aggregate Helioea, not less than as voters in the ekklesia, and the change was thus begun which contributed to degrade the archons from their primitive character as judges, into the lower function of preliminary examiners and presidents of a jai'j". Such convocation of 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 Perikles, 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 Kleisthenes, and it seems to have been consummated by the reforms of Perikles. Of the function exer- cised by the nine archons as well as by many other magistrates and official persons at Athens, in convoking a dikastery, or jury- conrt, 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. 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 ApodektJE, 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 Kleisthe- nes, 1 as a substitute for certain persons called Kolakretae, who 1 Harpokratiou, v, '