The Historians' History of the World 03

Another important change, which we may with probability refer to Pericles, is the institution of the nomothetæ. These men were in point of fact dicasts, members of the six thousand citizens annually sworn in that capacity. But they were not, like the dicasts for trying causes, distributed into panels or regiments known by a particular letter and acting together throughout the entire year: they were lotted off to sit together only on special occasion and as the necessity arose. According to the reform now introduced, the ecclesia or public assembly, even with the sanction of the senate of Five Hundred, became incompetent either to pass a new law or to repeal a law already in existence; it could only enact a psephism—that is, properly speaking, a decree applicable only to a particular case; though the word was used at Athens in a very large sense, sometimes comprehending decrees of general as well as permanent application. In reference to laws, a peculiar judicial procedure was established. The

thesmothetæ were directed annually to examine the existing laws, noting any contradictions or double laws on the same matter; and in the first prytany (tenth part) of the Attic year, on the eleventh day, an ecclesia was held, in which the first business was to go through the laws seriatim

, and submit them for approval or rejection; first beginning with the laws relating to the senate, next coming to those of more general import, especially such as determined the functions and competence of the magistrates. If any law was condemned by the vote of the public assembly, or if any citizen had a new law to propose, the third assembly of the prytany was employed, previous to any other business, in the appointment of nomothetæ and in the provision of means to pay their salary.

The effect of this institution was to place the making or repealing of laws under the same solemnities and guarantees as the trying of causes or accusations in judicature.

As an additional security both to the public assembly and the nomothetæ against being entrapped into decisions contrary to existing law, another remarkable provision has yet to be mentioned—a provision probably introduced by Pericles at the same time as the formalities of law-making by means of specially delegated nomothetæ. This was the Graphe Paranomon—indictment for informality or illegality—which might be brought on certain grounds against the proposer of any law or any psephism, and rendered him liable to punishment by the dicastery. He was required in bringing forward his new measure to take care that it should not be in contradiction with any pre-existing law—or if there were any such contradiction, to give formal notice of it, to propose the repeal of that which existed, and to write up publicly beforehand what his proposition was—in order that there might never be two contradictory laws at the same time in operation, nor any illegal decree passed either by the senate or by the public assembly. If he neglected this precaution, he was liable to prosecution under the Graphe Paranomon, which any Athenian citizen might bring against him before the dicastery, through the intervention and under the presidency of the thesmothetæ.

That this indictment, as one of the most direct vents for such enmity, was largely applied and abused at Athens, is certain. But though it probably deterred unpractised citizens from originating new propositions, it did not produce the same effect upon those orators who made politics a regular business, and who could therefore both calculate the temper of the people, and reckon upon support from a certain knot of friends. Aristophon, towards the close of his political life, made it a boast that he had been thus indicted and acquitted seventy-five times. Probably the worst effect which it produced was that of encouraging the vein of personality and bitterness which pervades so large a proportion of Attic oratory, even in its most illustrious manifestations; turning deliberative into judicial eloquence, and interweaving the discussion of a law or decree along with a declamatory harangue against the character of its mover. We may at the same time add that the Graphe Paranomon was often the most convenient way of getting a law or a psephism repealed, so that it was used even when the annual period had passed over, and when the mover was therefore out of danger, the indictment being then brought only against the law or decree.