Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/165

ADMISSIBILITY LIMITED BY KLEISTHENES. 147 democracy of later Athens, though the people had then become passionately attached to the theory of equal admissibility of all citizens to office, yet, in practice, poor men seldom obtained offices which were elected by the general vote, as will appear more fully in the course of this history. 1 The choice of the strategi remained ever afterwards upon the footing on which Aristeides thus placed it. But the lot for the choice of archon must have been introduced shortly after his proposition of universal eligibility, and in consequence too of the same tide of democratical feeling, introduced as a farther cor- rective, because the poor citizen, though he had become eligible, was nevertheless not elected. And at the same time, I imagine, that elaborate distribution of the Heliaea, or aggregate body of dikasts, or jurors, into separate pannels, or dikasteries, for the decision of judicial matters, was first regularized. It was this change that stole away from the archons so important a part of their previous jurisdiction : it was this change that Perikles more fully consummated by insuring pay to the dikasts. But the present is not the time to enter into the modifications which Athens underwent during the generation after the battle of Plataea. They have been here briefly noticed for the purpose of reasoning back, in the absence of direct evidence, to Athens as it stood in the generation before that memorable battle, after the reform of Kleisthenes. His reform, though highly democratical, 1 So in the Italian republics of the twelfth and thirteenth century, the nobles long continued to possess the exclusive right of being elected to the consulate and the great offices of state, even after those offices had come to be elected by the people : the habitual misrule and oppression of the nobles gradually put an end to this right, and even created in many towns a reso- lution positively to exclude them. At Milan, towards the eni of the twelfth century, the twelve consuls, with the Podestat, possessed all the powers of government: these consuls were nominated by one hundred electors chosen by and among the people. Sismondi observes : " Cepen- dant le peuple imposa lui-meme <i ces electeurs, la regie fondamentale de choisir tous les magistrals dans le corps de la noblesse. Ce n'e"toit point encore la possession des magistratures que Ton contestoit aux gentilshom- mes : on demandoit seulement qu'ils fussent les mandataires immediats do la nation. Mais plus d'une fois, en depit du droit incontestable des cito- yens, les consuls regnant s'attribuercnt 1'elcction de leurs successeurs. iSjsmondi, Histoirc des R6publiques Italiennes, chap, xii, voL ii, p.