Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/330

 308 HISTORY OF GREECE. naturally therefore be tardy in a commission which did ndk promise much credit to him in its result. These remarks tend to show that the necessity of a fresh collec- tion and publication, if we may use that word, of the laws, had been felt prior to the time of the Thirty. But such a project could hardly be realized without at the same time revising the laws, as a body, removing all flagrant contradictions, and rectifying what might glaringly displease the age, either in substance or in style. Now the psephism of Tisamenus, one of the first measures of the renewed democracy after the Thirty, both prescribed such revis- ion and set in motion a revising body ; but an additional decree was now proposed and carried by Archinus, relative to the alpha- bet in which the revised laws should be drawn up. The Ionic alphabet that is, the full Greek alphabet of twenty-four letters, as now written and printed had been in use at Athens univer- sally, for a considerable time, apparently for two generations ; but from tenacious adherence to ancient custom, the laws had still continued to be consigned to writing in the old Attic alphabet of only sixteen or eighteen letters. It was now ordained that this scanty alphabet should be discontinued, and that the revised laws, as well as all future public acts, should be written up in the full Ionic alphabet. 1 Partly through this important reform, partly through the re- vising body, partly through the agency of Nikomachus, who was still continued as anagrapheus, the revision, inscription, and pub- lication of the laws in their new alphabet was at length completed. But it seems to have taken two years to perform, or at least two years elapsed before Nikomachus went through his trial of accountability. 2 He appears to have made various new proposi- tions of his own, which were among those adopted by the nomothetae : for these his accuser attacks him, on the trial of accountability, as well as on the still graver allegation, of having corruptly falsified the decisions of that body ; writing up what 1 See Taylor, Vit. Lysiae, pp. 53, 54 ; Franz, Element Epigrap'jice Grac. Introd. pp. 18-24. 3 Lysias cont. Nikom. sect. 3. His employment had lasted six years alto- gether : four years before the Thirty, two years after them, sect. 7. At least this seems the sense of the orator.