144 HISTORY OF GEEECK. never under any circumstances be applied to those posts -*-lier special competence, and a certain measure of attributes pos- sessed only by a few, could not be dispensed with without ob- vious peril, nor was it ever applied, throughout the whole history of democratical Athens, to the strategi, or generals, who ^ere always elected by show of hands of the assembled citizens. Accordingly, we may regard it as certain that, at the time vl.en the archons first came to be chosen by lot, the superior and resjxjnsible duties once attached to that office had been, or were in course of being, detached from it, and transferred either to the popular dikasts or to the ten elected strategi : so that there remained to these archons only a routine of police and adminis- tration, important indeed to the state, yet such as could be executed by any citizen of average probity, diligence, and capacity. At least there was no obvious absurdity in thinking eo ; and the dokimasy excluded from the office men of notori- ously discreditable life, even after they might have drawn the successful lot. Perikles, 1 though chosen strategy, year after year successively, was never archon ; and it may even be doubted whether men of first-rate talents and ambition often {rave in their names for the office. To those of smaller aspira- tions 2 it was doubtless a source of importance, but it imposed troublesome labor, gave no pay, and entailed a certain degree of peril upon any archon who might have given offence to pow- demonstrare videntur. Nimirum nihil aliud nisi prope accedere ephororum magistrates ad cos dicitur, qui sortito capiantur. Sortitis autem magistrati- Inis hoc maxime proprium est, ut promiscue non ex genere, censu, dignitate a quolibet capi possint: quamobrem quum ephori quoque fere promiscue fierent ex omni multitudine civium, poterat baud dubie magistratus eorum lyyvf rf/r K%.t]p<jrfic Svvafieug esse dici, etiamsi aiperol essent h. e. suffragiis crcati. Et video Lachmannum quoque, p. 165, not. 1, de Platonis loco sim iliter jndicarc." The employment of the lot, as Schomann remarks, implies universal ad- missibility of all citizens to office: though the converse does not hold good, the latter does not of necessity imply the former. Now, as we know that universal admisibility did not become the law of Athens until after the hattlc of P.-.ie, so we may conclude that the employment of the lot hud no place before that epoch, i. e. had no place under the constitution of Kleisthenes. 1 Plutarch, Perikle's, c. 9-16.
- See a passage about such characters in Plato., Republic, v, p. 475 B.
