Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/89

Rh Athens, however accomplished, had taken place at least by B.C. 800. Another traditional change cannot have taken place much later. Athens had been ruled by kings till the death of Codrus. Tradition said that he devoted himself to death in obedience to an oracle which had announced that in a certain war that side would win whose king was slain, and that the people in gratitude would elect no king to succeed him, though for certain religious purposes the title was still retained. We only know the semimythical account of this change, which is one, however, that took place in many other states at about the same period, and we may accept the fact of the change itself. In place of the king, or basileus, an archon was appointed, at first for life and after B.C. 753 for ten years. At first the office was con- fined to one clan, the Medontidae, but afterwards was opened to all men of .noble birth, or Eupatrids. After B.C. 684 nine archons were appointed annually. The year was named after the first, who was called archon Eponymous; the second was called King Archon (Archon basileus). and had jurisdiction in cases concerned with religion and the care of orphans. The third was called Polemarchos. His duties were originally connected with the armed levy, and till some time after B.C. 490 he took command in the field. Eventually his duty was to prepare cases connected with aliens for the courts. The remaining six archons were called Thesmothetae, "givers of dooms," whose duties were always judicial: but these duties were afterwards confined to preliminary investigations,—they prepared cases for the