Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/187

VI people. When at last an election takes place, that feeling is expressed, and the new government is, for a time at least, in accordance with it. But this is very far from what the Greeks meant by — government by the people. We have borrowed their word, and given it a new meaning, as far less simple as our form of State is less simple than theirs.

When the Athenians called their constitution a, they meant literally what the word itself expressed, — that the people undertook itself the work of government. I must now try to explain briefly how this could be in any sense true; and I can best do so by considering three several points, viz. (1) the legislative and judicial power; (2) the magistrates and lesser officials, together with the council; (3) the manner in which these were elected.

1. I have already said that every Athenian citizen could sit and vote in the Ecclesia, and that all over thirty years of age could sit and vote in the law-courts. This meant, no doubt, that practically the dwellers in Athens and the Peiræus alone habitually did so; for not even in a City-State could democratic institutions be made absolutely perfect. They met in the open air, listened to orators debating the questions presented to them, and by their votes finally decided them. Their assembly thus constituted the sovereign body of the State, from which there was no further reference; their Dikasteria were also courts of final reference, from which there was likewise no appeal whatever. And to secure