Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/161

AOMISSIBILITY TO OFFICE. -THE LOT. 143 various other individual functionaries, had come to be chosen by lot, moreover, all citizens were legally admissible, and might give in their names to be drawn for by lot, subject to what was called the dokimasy, or legal examination into their status of citizen, and into various moral and religious qualifications, be- fore they took office ; while at the same time the function of the archon had become nothing higher than preliminary examina- tion of parties and witnesses for the dikastery, and presiderice over it when afterwards assembled, together with the power of imposing by authority a fine of small amount upon inferior offenders. Now all these three political arrangements hang essentially together. The great value of the lot, according to Grecian democratical ideas, was that it equalized the chance of office between rich and poor. But so long as the poor citizens were legally inadmissible, choice by lot could have no recommenda- tion either to the rich or to the poor ; in fact, it would be less democratical than election by the general mass of citizens, be- cause the poor citizen would under the latter system enjoy an important right of interference by means of his suffrage, though he could not be elected himself. 1 Again, choice by lot coulc 1 1 Aristotle puts these two together ; election of magistrates by the mass of the citizens, but only out of persons possessing a high pecuniary qualifi- cation ; this he ranks as the least democratical democracy, if one may USP the phrase (Politic, iii, 6-11), or a mean between democracy and oligarchy, an upiaroKpaTia, or TroAtreaz, in his sense of the word (iv, 7, 3). He puts the employment of the lot as a symptom of decisive and extreme democracy, such as would never tolerate a pecuniary qualification of eligibility. So again Plato (Legg. iii, p. 692), after remarking that the legislator of Sparta first provided the senate, next the ephorn, as a bridle upon the -Uings, says of the ephors that they were " something nearly approaching to im authority emanating from the lot," olov ipuXtov ivefia/.ev avT-fj TJIV ruv 'ipopuv dvvafiiv, yyi>c rrj<; /cP.^pwr^f ayayuv Swafteuf. Upon which passage there are some good remarks in Schomann's edition /f Plutarch's Lives of Agis and Kleomenes (Comment, ad Ag. c. 8, p. 119), i i is to be recollected that the actual mode in which the Spartan ephors 'fferc chosen, as I have already stated in ,ny first volume, cannot be clearly made out, and has been much debated by critics : " Mihi haec verba, quum illud quidem manifestnm faciant, quod etiam rliunde constat, sorte captos ephoros non esse, turn hoc alterum, quod Her- mannus statuit, creationem sortition! non absimilem fuisse, nequaquaa