Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/156

138 HISTORY OF GREECE. had performed the same function before, and who were no* retained only for subordinate services. The duties of the apo- dektae were afterwards limited to receiving the public income, and paying it over to the ten treasurers of the goddess Athene, by whom it was kept in the inner chamber of the Parthenon, and disbursed as needed ; but this more complicated arrangement cannot be referred to Kleisthenes. From his time forward too, (he Senate of Five Hundred steps far beyond its original duty of preparing matters for the discussion of the ekklesia : it em- braces, besides, a large circle of administrative and general superintendence, which hardly admits of any definition. Its sittings become constant, with the exception of special holidays, and the year is distributed into ten portions called Prytanies, the fifty senators of each tribe taking by turns the duty of con- siant attendance during one prytany, and receiving during that time the title of The Prytanes : the order of precedence among the tribes in these duties was annually determined by lot. In the ordinary Attic year of twelve lunar months, or three hun- dred and fifty-four days, six of the prytanies contained thirty-five days, four of them contained thirty-six : in the intercalated years of thirteen months, the number of days was thirty-eight and thirty-nine respectively. Moreover, a farther subdivision of the prytany into five periods of seven days each, and of the fifty tribe-senators into five bodies of ten each, was recognized : each body of ten presided in the senate for one period of seven days, drawing lots every day among their number for a new chairman, called Epistates, to whom during his day of office were confided the keys of the acropolis and the treasury, together with the city seal. The remaining senators, not belonging to the prytanizing tribe, might of course attend if they chose ; but the attendance of nine among them, one from each of the remaining nine tribes, was imperatively necessary to constitute a valid meeting, and to insure a constant representation of the collective people. During those later times known to us through the great ora- tors, the ekklesia, or formal assembly of the citizens, was con- voked four times regularly during each prytany, or oftener if necessity required, usually by the senate, though the strategi had also the power of convoking it by their own authority. It was presided over by the prytanes, and questions were put to th*