Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/168

 iM) HISTORY OF GREECE. sensibly lessened by the change of party, until it came to be gradually filled by fresh archons springing from the bosom of the Kleisthenean constitution. But during this important interval, the new-modelled Senate of Five Hundred, and the popular assembly, stepped into that ascendency which they never after- wards lost. From the time of Kleisthenes forward, the Areopa- gites cease to be the chief and prominent power in the state : yet they are still considerable ; and when the second fill of the (lemocratical tide took place, after the battle of Plataea, they became the focus of that which was then considered as the party of oligarchical resistance. I have already remarked that the archons, during the intermediate time (about 509-477 B.C.), were all elected by the ekklesia, not chosen by lot, and that the fourth (or poorest and most numerous) class on the census were by law then ineligible ; while election at Athens, even when every citizen without exception was an elector and eligible, had a natural tendency to fall upon men of wealth and station. We thus see how it happened that the past archons, when united in the Senate of Areopagus, infused into that body the sympathies, prejudices, and interests of the richer classes. It was this which brought them into conflict with the more democratical party headed by Perikles and Ephialtes, in times when portions of the Kleisthenean constitution had come to be discredited as too much imbued with oligarchy. One other remarkable institution, distinctly ascribed to Kleis- thenes, yet remains to be noticed, the Ostracism ; upon which I have already made some remarks, 1 in touching upon the mem- orable Solonian proclamation against neutrality in a sedition. It is hardly too much to say that, without this protective process, none of the other institutions would have reached maturity. By the ostracism, a citizen was banished without special accu- sation, trial, or defence, for a term of ten years, subsequently diminished to five. His property was not taken away, nor his reputation tainted ; so that the penalty consisted solely in the banishment from his native city to some other Greek city. Aa to reputation, the ostracism was a compliment rather than other wise ; 2 and so it was vividly felt to be, when, about ninety yenry 1 See above, chap, xi, vol. iii, p. 145.
 * Aristcides Rhetor. Oral. xlvi. vol ii, x>. "U7, ed. Dindorf