Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/318

 296 HISTORY OF GREECE. inspection before the statues of the eponymous heroes, jviihm th month then running. 1 The senate, and the entire body of five hundred nomothetae, were then to be convened, in order that each might pass in review, separately, both the old laws and the new propositions ; the nomothetae being previously sworn to decide righteously. While this discussion was going on, every private citizen had liberty to enter the senate, and to tender his opinion with reasons for or against any law. All the laws which should thus be approved, first by the senate, and afterwards by the nomo- thete, but no others, were to be handed to the magistrates, and inscribed on the walls of the portico called Poekile, for public notoriety, as the future regulators of the city. After the laws were promulgated by such public inscription, the senate of Areo- pagus was enjoined to take care that they should be duly observed and enforced by the magistrates. A provisional committee of twenty citizens was named, to be generally responsible for the city during the time occupied in this revision. 2 As soon as the laws had been revised and publicly inscribed 1 Andokides de Mysteriis, s. 83. 'Oxocruv ff uv irpoffder/, (vofiuv) olde vofiO'&ETai i)irb Tqf povhijf uva-ypa^ovTSf h> aavtait rovf iuvvftovf, anonelv TGJ /3ot>Ao/zV6>, KOI na.pa.Si.SovTui ralf apxalf sv ruSs ru nijvi. rodf de napa6i6ofifvovs vopovf 6oKi[j.aau,T(. xporepov i] flovhrj Kal ol vo fio-9 er ai o i irevraicooioi, ovf o 6 Tip 6 TO, i elhovro, txeidt) dftupoKaaiv. Putting together the two sentences in which the nomothetse are hei> mentioned, Reiske and F. A. Wolf (Prolegom. ad Demosthen. cont. Leptin p. cxxix), think that there were two classes of nomothetae ; one class chosec by the senate, the other by the people. This appears to me very improb- able. The persons chosen by the senate were invested with no final or decisive function whatever ; they were simply chosen to consider what new propositions were fit to be submitted for discussion, and to provide that such propositions should be publicly made known. Now any persons simply invested with this character of a preliminary committee, would not, in my judgment, be called nomothetae. The reason why the persons here mentioned were so called, was, that they were a portion of the five hundred nomothetae, in whom the power of peremptory decision ultimately rested. A small committee would naturally be intrusted with this preliminary duty; and the members of that small committee were to be chosen by one ol th bodies with whom ultimate decision rested, bat chosen out of the other.
 * Andokide~s de Mysteriis sections 81-85.