Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/90

62 courts. The council, or boule, met in the open upon the Areopagus, and was of immemorial antiquity. Most of its functions were afterwards performed, as we shall see, by another council established by Solon, and remodelled by Cleisthenes. The archons from very early times were appointed by lot either directly from the four primitive tribes, or from a number of names selected by them. At first only the Eupatrids were eligible for the office, but this distinction gradually disappeared. Ability to furnish a man's own arms, and later on inclusion in the first assessment of Solon, took the place of birth, and later still it was thrown open to all citizens alike. Military commanders were from the first elected, and not chosen by lot. No doubt there were always some means of assembling and consulting the citizens, but we know nothing of the working of an assembly before the time of Solon, or of the internal state of the city. It was built round a fortified hill or Acropolis, but was not itself enclosed by walls, and the habits of the inhabitants seem to have been pastoral and agricultural rather than urban. An early division of the people into military men, or hoplites, labourers, or ergadeis, and a third class called Teleontes (the meaning of whose name is not clear), seems to show this, as does also another local division into "the men of the heights," "the men of the plain," and "the men of the sea-coast."

There must always have been the occasional necessity of defending themselves in arms, and the Athenians appear very early to have found their way upon the sea, either as fishermen or as merchants.