Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/391

 CHANGES AT ATHENS UNDER PERIKLES. 367 people with the public money, says Plutarch, in order to make head against Kimon, who bribed them out of his own private purse : as if the pay were the main feature in the case, and as if all which Perikles did, was to make himself popular by paying the dikasts for judicial service, which they had before rendered gratuitously. The truth is, that this numerous army of dikasts, distributed into ten regiments and summoned to act systematical- ly throughout the year, was now for the first time organized : the commencement of their pay is also the commencement of their regular judicial action. "What Perikles really did, was to sever for the first time from the administrative competence of the mag- istrates that judicial authority which had originally gone along with it. The great men who had been accustomed to hold these offices were lowered both in influence and authority : i while on the other hand a new life, habit, and sense of power, sprang up among the poorer citizens. A plaintiff, having cause of civil ac- tion, or an accuser, invoking punishment against citizens guilty of injury either to himself or to the state, had still to address himself to one or other of the archons, but it was only with a view of ul- timately arriving before the dikastery, by whom the cause was to be tried. While the magistrates acting individually were thus restricted to simple administration and preliminary police, they experienced a still more serious loss of power in their capacity of • Arist Polit. iv, 5, 6. e~4 d' ol rale upxals syKaTvOvvTEQ tov Srjfiov (paoi Selv Kpiveiv 6 <J' uff/zevuf (5e;^;£-aj rr/v TzponXTjcnv ugte KaraAvovrai Truaai ai apxai, etc.; compare vi. 1, 8. The remark of Aristotle is not justly applicable to the change effected by PerikleSjWhich transferred the power taken from the magistrates, not to the peo- ple but to certain specially constituted, though numerous and popular dikaste- ries, sworn to decide in conformity with known and written laws. Nor is the separation of judicial competence from administrative, to be characterized as " dissolving or extinguishing magisterial authority." On the contrary, it is confoi-mable to the best modern notions. Pei-ikles cannot be censiu*ed for having effected this separation, however persons may think that the judicature which he constituted was objectionable. Plato seems also to have conceived administrative power as essentially accompanied by judicial (Legg. vi, p. 767) — Travra apxovra uvayKolov koI diKaar'ijv Eivai rivuv — an opinion, doubtless, perfectly just, up to a certain narrow limit : the separation between the two sorts of powers cannot be rendered abiolvtdy complete.