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The Original Function of the Boule at Athens

N. L. Ingle

The Classical Review / Volume 25 / Issue 08 / December 1911, pp 236 - 238 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00047429, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00047429

How to cite this article: N. L. Ingle (1911). The Original Function of the Boule at Athens. The Classical Review, 25, pp 236-238 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00047429

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 193.61.135.80 on 16 Apr 2015 236 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW be thought that my hypothetical Early- proved in the case of the mainland. Colonial culture is as supposititious as Archaeology does not forbid Homer to Mr. Lang's Achaean world. There is have anachronised from his own age; this difference: the soil of Greece, and it does forbid him to have given a true of many outlying places, has been raked description of the civilisation of the over almost to exhaustion, and has Achaeans. Until excavation has shown yielded nothing which bears Mr. Lang's that the Ionians of 900 enjoyed a culture required characteristics. The shores of unlike the Homeric, this seems to me Asia Minor and the great islands are the account to accept. We thereby practically untouched; the spade has escape the impossible task of accommo- hardly gone below the middle-historical dating Homer to material evidence, and period. Even Mr. Hogarth's temple- the equally impossible duty of com- offerings at Ephesus are not dated pelling archaeology to admit a period earlier than 700 B.C. Here therefore for which it has no place. the negative cannot be proved as it is T. W. ALLEN.

THE ORIGINAL FUNCTION OF THE BOULE AT ATHENS. THE 'Ad. TTOX. C. 4 § 3 attributes to as in the first instance a probouleutic Draco the institution of a fiovXrj of assembly, and this is the view adopted 401 members, chosen by lot from the by Bury (c. iv.). It was undoubtedly an whole body of citizens over thirty years important function of the Boule in later of age. This is the only notice we have times to prepare business for the of a Draconian Council; and scholars Ecclesia; but can it have been the sole are more inclined to believe that the or the chief reason of its creation in Boule was first instituted as part of 594 B.C. ? In the sixth century the the Solonian constitution. BOVXTJV S' Ecclesia was not engaged in the civil eVoiT/o-e TeTpaKocrLovs, says Aristotle,and criminal legislation which occupied 'A0. 7ro\. c. 8 § 4; and, as Dr. Sandys it in the fifth century. Its two chief points out, these words could hardly duties were to elect certain public have been used if it was meant that officials and to call them to account at Solon merely substituted a new Boule the end of their year of office—XoXcov of 400 for the Draconian Boule of 401. eoi/ce rr/v dvay/caiordT^v airo&iBovcu ra> This view is further supported by Bi'ificp hvvap.LV, TO Ta? dp%a<; aipelaOau Plutarch's statement, Solon, c. 19. Kal eidvveiv (Ar. Pol. II. 12. 1274a 16) j What was the original function of the and none of our authorities suggests Boule in Solon's constitution? It is that in Solon's time the powers of the noteworthy that Aristotle in 'A6. irok. Ecclesia went further. It does not, I.e. gives us no certain information on then, seem probable that the main object that point. He does indeed contrast the of the establishment of the new Council new Council with the already existing by Solon was to prepare for the intro- Boule of the Areopagus, but only to say duction of these two pieces of business that the latter was appointed eVt TO into the Ecclesia. For how could a vop.ov 7roXniKa>v Bceri]pet. It took magistrates submitted to the evdvva in cognisance, too, of cases of high treason. the Ecclesia, it can have been a merely Plutarch says more definitely that Solon formal act, except in the case of the assigned to the 400 the duty of pre- financial officials ('Aff. iroX. c. 45). As paring measures for the people—epeadai. natural that the smaller and more expe- Grote (c. xi.) regarded the Council ditious body should act as a committee THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 237 of reference, and that its probouleutic cracy in its judicial aspect in the fifth duties should become the most promi- century ? nent feature in the work of the Boule. • Now Aristotle says nothing of the Ed. Meyer (Gesch. d.Altert. II. §409) judicial competence of the Boule, when has suggested that the Solonian Boule he speaks of its institution under Solon was only a further development of the (c. 8), but when he comes to describe older fiovXr) T7)86v with © and judicia® l functions were transferred to for 6, t for %, and retains the use of the the popular law-courts shortly after the early letter o (Koppa), leads Wilamowitz restoration of the democracy in 403 B.C. to the conclusion that the stone was Of the judicial competence of the inscribed circa 600 B.C., earlier rather ftovki) in the fifth and fourth centuries than later. Its special interest is that it we know that elo-ayye\[,cu were laid defines the powers of a fiovXr]popularl y before it, and that it could also deal elected, as at Athens, at a time ante- with cases of evSetft?, airaywyrj and cedent to the traditional date of Solon's (jbao-i?; but it could not inflict any fine legislation. Sixteen lines are preserved above 500 drachmae. Demosthenes complete, and these read: (24 § 144) quotes a clause from the y3ov\6UTt/co? op/cos, limiting the Boule's w e? fid\r)P TTJP SJ?/IOO-W?I> * rf;power of imprisonment, which he attri- 'JiftSofiauov /3o\r) dyepecrdco r/ > butes to Solon. But Aristotle ('A0, TTOX. / i-7ri8coio<; XexTtj 7rei'TJ?ooi>T dirb c. 22) expressly states that the form of v[rai, T]5 Koaioi), was first introduced i' 'E/o/io- 7racra? eV. . . KpeovTo<; apxovTos, 501/0 B.C. Possibly Here the fiovXrj is a representative some limitation of the judicial powers assembly chosen from the whole citizen of the Boule was a part of the reforms body, 50 from each tribe, as at Athens. of Cleisthenes, which was not put into The addition, STJIUHTIT), implies the effect before 501 B.C. existence of another ftovXr)—the fiovXr] This is all we know of the judicial yepovTav, as we find it in Homer, corre- competence of the Boule. Nor do we sponding to the fiov\r) eg 'Apeiov irdyov hear of its taking part in any political in Athens. This fiovXrjmus t meet once or legislative action during the sixth a month, and it is charged with a general century B.C. Yet its popular and demo- administration of the affairs of the cratic nature is revealed by the fact that people. But, what is most noteworthy it was prominent in resisting the attempt for our purpose, its main function is of Cleomenes and Isagoras to overthrow obviously judicial: it appears as a the Constitution in the interests of the popular tribunal, with power to super- oligarchic faction ('A0. iro\. c. 20). sede even the sentence of a magistrate. The conclusions suggested by a con- May we transfer the analogy to Athens, sideration of these statements about the and suppose that originally the principal powers of the Boule are: that the function of the Boule was to act as a democratisation of the Athenian Consti- judicial court, representative of the whole tution developed pari passu with the people, just as the BiKao-Trjpiov of 201devolution of the judicial powers origin- judges represented the Athenian demo- ally monopolised by the Council of the 238 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW Areopagus; and that the elective and original mode of their election is un- legislative functions of both ftovXrj and known ; at the same time the ffkiaia was eKKXijcria followed on their judicial. The constituted as a court of appeal against Council of the Areopagus — itself a the decision of a magistrate. First the survival of the Homeric assembly of Boule gained judicial powers at the ex-

DOLON THE WOLF.

WHEN Dolon sallied forth from the Xo. etV e'i TIP' dXkrjv dvrl TrjcrB' e£ Trojan camp he was not clad in j armour, but in the hide of a grey Ao. TTpeTrovaav epyto re wolf (K 334). He was bound upon a firjfiacriv. perilous adventure, where life might Xo. &o(f>ov vap' avBpbs XPV cocfiov n depend upon his speed of foot, and the fiavOdveiv • rattle of bronze might betray him. It Xe^ov Tt? ecrrai rovBe cra/mro? l VWTOV a/^ro/Mai Bopdv, a spy must guide himself mainly by the Kal ^do-fia 0T]pb<; d/M' ifi

glimmer of the thousand camp fires /cdpa, running in a long line from the ships to fidaiv re %6/act irpocrBlav icaOap- the Xanthos (@ 553 ff. K 12). Then there was always the chance of en- / countering a foeman bent on a similar Kal icaXa KtoXoK rerpdirovv enterprise, or disturbing some midnight crofuii pillager of the dead (387 f. 342, 343). \vicov KeXevdov, iroke/uoi'; Bvcev- Yet, when once he was clear of the perov, Trojan lines, he pressed eagerly on his TapoK TreXdgwv Kal vemv 1 /j-aaiv. way—ftrj 8' dv o8bv fiefiaax; (339), and orav 8' ep so heedlessly that he ran past Odysseus r§8 80X09. and Diomedes as they crouched among the heaps of the slain (349, 350). rfjBe crvyKeirai BoXoi—the wolf-skin is a Clearly, he had some plan in his mind. disguise. When he approaches the Homer does not tell us what it was; trenches of the enemy, he is to crawl on hands and knees, so that a Greek but the author of the Rhesus does. 1 Dolon, in the play, has just under- sentinel, happening to espy him in that taken his dangerous mission, and now dim light, will think of other shadowy he speaks to the Chorus of Trojan sen- four-footed forms he has observed tinels (201 ff.). gliding over the battlefield, and pay the less attention. But in the deserted Ao. f av • e\0a>v 8' 86/MVS spaces he may walk man-like on his €i