3153 INTRODUCTION 1 7 



oracle, commanding Lycurgus to divide the people into 

 phylai and obai, to establish a senate of thirty members, to 

 call the Apella from time to time and there to introduce 

 and rescind measures, but to give to the people the deciding 

 voice and power.^° Thus " the aristocracy and the kings 

 steeped the city in blood through their quarrels and the con- 

 stitution of Lycurgus brought them into accord, giving to 

 the Assembly of the people the very power about which 

 they were in dispute."^^ 



However, the people in this Spartan Apella did not record 

 their will and wishes by individual vote but, like the Greeks 

 of Homeric and pre-Homeric times, by acclamation or mur- 

 murs. Still, K. O. Miiller is of the opinion that " this man- 

 ner of voting . . . has the merit of indicating in a fashion, 

 sufficiently exact . . . not only the number of those who 

 accept and reject, but also the intensity of their will."^- . 



In Athens the hereditary kingdom, passing through the 

 stages of government of the aristocracy and tyrants, de- 

 veloped into a pure democracy. " The people, assembled 

 in the agora ... or in the theatre, decided on peace or 

 war, received ambassadors, fixed taxes, disposed of public 

 revenues, appointed and recalled magistrates, . . . lodged 

 indictments, granted pardons, in short, it exercised directly 

 all the rights of the sovereign, except one — the making and 

 applying of the laws."" Here the process of expressing 

 popular favor or disfavor was that of individual marking 

 of the voting stone, the ostrakon, as described by Plutarch, 

 in his touching story of the plebiscite taken at the occasion 

 of the ostracism of Aristides.'^ 



In Sparta the office of the ephoroi, created 757-756, soon 



20 Plutarch, Lives, Lycurgus, VL 



2' HorKeaud, pp. 5-8. 



2^ K. O. Miiller, Geschichten Hellenischtr Stamme, Breslau, 1844, 

 vol. iii, p. 85. 



-" HorKeaud, pp. 13-14. 



-'* I'lutarcli, Lives, Thcmistocies and Aristides. For details on 

 the plebiscites in Rome and Greece, see BorReaud. Miiller, in the 

 book cited, has traced the democratic movement of more than twenty 

 Doric city states. 



