Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/190

166 see that the decisions of the Ecclesia were properly carried out; in a word, the whole of the ordinary business of the State passed through its hands. The preparation of all such business, as well as the execution of Acts of Parliament, is in our own constitution the work of permanent officials, skilled men whose lives are given up to it as a profession — statesmen, permanent secretaries, judges, magistrate and inspectors. At Athens all this work was done by the ordinary Athenian elected to the Council, who brought only his native intelligence and reasonableness to bear upon it. Secondly, it was hardly possible for any councillor to shirk this business; for the Council did not usually sit as a whole, but in successive sections of fifty relieving each other during ten divisions of the year. A member's absence might easily be unnoticed in a large assembly, but he would be missed if he failed often to be present in a committee of fifty only.

To the 500 members of Council who thus became familiar, for/ a time at least, with the most important practical side of public business, we must now add the whole number of officials who assisted the Council in administrative work in its minutest details. It would be tedious to enumerate these; but the point to notice is that the Athenians entrusted these details, not to single individuals, but to boards. There were nine Archons, ten Strategi or Generals, and other boards for finance, education,