Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/98

 76 HISTORY OF GREECE. first assembly hell in the Pnyx. The archons, the senate ot Five Hundred, etc., were renewed : after which many other abseil heavy arms should be of the Five Thousand, should belong of right to that body. which is something different from being eligible into the number of the Five Thousand, either by lot, rotation, or otherwise. The language of Thucydide's, when he describes, in the passage referred to by Dr. Arnold, c. 93, the pro- jected formation of the Four Hundred by rotation out of the Five Thousand, is very different : Kdi EK TOVTUV ev fispsi rot)f reTpaKoaiovf eoecr&ai, etc M. Boeckh (Public Economy of Athens, bk. ii, ch. 21, p. 268, Eng. Tr.) is rot satisfactory in his description of this event. The idea which I conceive of the Five Thousand, as a number existing from the commencement only in talk and imagination, neither realized nor intended to be realized, coincides with the full meaning of this passage of Thucydides, as well as with everything which he had before said about them. I will here add that o-oaoi OTT^O. irapexovrai means persons furnishing arms, not for themselves alone, but for others also (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 4,15.) As to the second point, the signification of vofio&era^ I stand upon the general use of that word in Athenian political language : see the explana tion earlier in this History, voL v, ch. xlvi, p. 373. It is for the commenta- tors to produce some justification of the unusual meaning which they assign to it : '' persons to model the constitution ; commissioners who drew up the new constitution," as Dr. Arnold, in concurrence with the rest, translates it. Until some justification is produced,! venture to believe that voftoderai is a word which would not be used in that sense with reference to nominees chosen by the democracy, and intended to act with the democracy ; for it implies a final, decisive, authoritative determination ; whereas the Zvyypafyels _ or " commissioners to draw up a constitution," were only invested with the function of submitting something for approbation to the public assembly or competent authority ; that is, assuming that the public assembly remained an efficient reality. Moreover, the words not ru/./la would hardly be used in immediate se- quence to vo//o#eraf, if the latter word meant that which the commentators suppose : " Commissioners for framing a constitution, and the other things towards the constitution." Such commissioners are surely far too prominent and initiative in their function to be named in this way. Let us add, that the most material items in the new constitution, if we are so to call it, have already been distinctly specified as settled by public vote, before the; vopo- &erai are even named. It is important to notice, that even the Thirty, Avho were named six years afterwards to draw up a constitution, at the moment when Sparta was mis- tress of Athens, and when the people were thoroughly put down, are nol t, but are named by a circumlocution equivalent to