Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/373

 SENATE AND PUBLIC ASSEMBLY. 357 Rtely preceded and resolved upon the Peloponnesian war. Here, in addition to the serious hazard of the case, and the general caution of a Spartan temperament, there was the great personal weight and experience of king Archidamus opposed to the war, though the ephors were favorable to it. 1 .The public assembly, under such peculiar circumstances, really manifested ah opinion 1 " and came to a division. But, for the most part, it seems to have been little better than an inoperative formality. The general rule permitted no open discussion, nor could any private citizen speak except by special leave from the magistrates. Perhaps even the general liberty to discuss, if given, might have been of no avail, for not only was there no power of public speaking, but no habit of canvassing public measures, at Sparta ; nothing was more characteristic of the government than the .eslcenie^jecrecy of i{s_j)roceedings. 2 The propositions brought forward by thlT magistrates were either accepted or rejected, without any license of amending. There could be no attraction to invite the citizen to be present at such an assembly : and we may gather from the language of Xenophon that, in his time, it consisted only of a certain number of notables specially summoned in addition to the senate, which latter body is itself called " the lesser Ekklc- sia. 3 " Indeed, the constant and formidable diminution in the number of qualified citizens was alone sufficient to thin the attend- ance of the assembly, as well as to break down any imposing force which it might once have possessed. 1 Thucyd. i. 67, 80, 87. S-vTiA-oyov afyuv aiiruv TOV dudo-a. 2 Thucyd. iv. 68. TJJ<; TrohiTeiaf TO KPVXTOV : compare iv. 74 ; also, his remarkable expression about so distinguished a man as Brasidas, TJV 6e OVK utivvaroc, o>c AaKedaifioviof, tixelv, and iv. 24, about the Lacedaemonian envoys to Athens. Compare Schomann, Antiq. Jur. Pub. Grsec. iv. 1, 10, p. 122. Aristotel. Polit. ii. 8, 3. 3 Tf/v fii/cpav KatovfiEVTjv eKK/.r/aiav (Xenoph. Ilellcn. iii. 3, 8), which means the -yepovrsf, or senate, and none besides, except the ephors, who con- voked it. (See Lachmann, Span. Verfass. sect. 12, p. 216.) What is still more to be noted, is the expression ol EKK?^IJTOI as the equivalent of r> eKKTirj- cia (compare Ilellen. v. 2, 11 ; vi. 3, 3), evidently showing a special and limited number of persons convened : fee, also, ii. 4, 38 ; iv. 6, 3 ; v. 2, 33 ; Thucyd. v. 77. The expression ol EKH^TITOL could never have got into use as an equivalent for the Athenian ecclesia.