Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/448

 442 THE REVOLUTIONS. BOOK IV. as in a well-constituted raonarcliy, the monarch is sur- rounded with safeguards against his own caprices and errors, this democracy also had invariable rules, to which it submitted. The assembly was convoked by the prytanes or the strategi. It was holden in an enclosure consecrated by religion ; since morning the priests Iiad walked around the Pnyx, immolating victims and calling down the protection of the gods. The people were seated on stone benches. Upon a sort of platform were the prytanes, and in front of them the proedri, who pre- sided over the assembly. An altar stood near the speaker's stand, and the stand itself was reckoned a fiort of altar. When all were seated, a priest (xj'joi;?) proclaimed, "Iteep silence, religious silence (eicpijfjlu)^ pray the gods and goddesses [here he named the prin- cipal divinities of the country] that all may pass most prosperously in the assembly for the greatest advan- tage of Athens and the happiness of its citizens." Then the people, or some one in their name, replied, "We invoke the gods that they may j^rotect the city. May the advice of the wisest prevail. Cursed be lie who shall give us bad counsel, who shall attempt to change the decrees and the law, or who shall reveal our secrets to the enemy." ' Then the herald, by order of the presidents, declared the subjects with which the assembly was to occupy itself A question, before being presented to the peo- ple, was discussed and studied by the senate. The people had not what is called, in modern language, the ' iCschines, I. 23; III. 4. Deinarclius, II. 14. Demosthe- nes, in Aristocr., 97. Aristophanes, Acha7'n.,A3, 44, and Scho- liast, Thesmoph., 295-310.