Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/127

IV of the constitution must have proceeded gradually and rationally, as it also continued to do in later stages of its growth, until complete democracy was reached. There are few surprises in Athenian political history: the constitution grows with the growing intelligence of the people, whose love of order and sterling good sense is obvious throughout.

With the aid of the recently discovered Aristotelian tract on the Athenian constitution, we may now believe the change from monarchy to aristocracy to have been in outline as follows. Codrus, the last king in the full sense of the word, was succeeded by a line of Basileîs who held the kingship for life, but not by simple hereditary right. This line, the Medontidæ, or family of Medon, son of Codrus, remained the kingly family; but any member of it might be selected to fill the kingly office, and this selection was in the hands of the aristocracy. How this selection was managed, whether by lot or by voting in the council of nobles meeting on the hill of Ares, we do not at present know. But it is plain that we have here, in the new expedient of selection, the first appearance of something like a constitutional magistracy, as distinguished from the traditional and hereditary power of the king. And this is seen still more plainly in the fact — if such it be — which we have but just discovered, that the king has now to share his powers with other authorities, to whom we can give no other name but that of magistrate. A Polemarch was appointed to help the king in war; and later on an Archon, who