Note 224 — Chapter LVII · SICILIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXTINCTION OF THE GELONIAN DYNASTY.

Thucyd. vi, 9-14. Καὶ σὺ, ὦ πρύτανι, ταῦτα, εἴπερ ἡγεῖ σοι προσήκειν κήδεσθαί τε τῆς πόλεως, καὶ βούλει γενέσθαι πολίτης ἀγαθός, ἐπιψήφιζε, καὶ γνώμας προτίθει αὖθις Ἀθηναίοις, νομίσας, εἰ ὀῤῥωδεῖς τὸ ἀναψηφίσαι, τὸ μὲν λύειν τοὺς νόμους μὴ μετὰ τοσῶνδ’ ἂν μαρτύρων αἰτίαν σχεῖν, τῆς δὲ πόλεως κακῶς βουλευσαμένης ἰατρὸς ἂν γενέσθαι, etc.

I cannot concur in the remarks of Dr. Arnold, either on this passage or upon the parallel case of the renewed debate in the Athenian assembly, on the subject of the punishment to be inflicted on the Mitylenæans (see above, vol. vi, ch. 1, p. 338, and Thucyd. iii, 36). It appears to me that Nikias was here asking the prytanis to do an illegal act, which might well expose him to accusation and punishment. Probably he would have been accused on this ground, if the decision of the second assembly had been different from what it actually turned out; if they had reversed the decision of the former assembly, but only by a small majority.

The distinction taken by Dr. Arnold between what was illegal and what was merely irregular, was little marked at Athens: both were called illegal, τοὺς νόμους λύειν. The rules which the Athenian assembly, a sovereign assembly, laid down for its own debates and decisions, were just as much laws as those which it passed for the guidance of private citizens. The English House of Commons is not a sovereign assembly, but only a portion of the sovereign power: accordingly, the rules which it lays down for its debates are not laws, but orders of the House: a breach of these orders, therefore, in debating any particular subject, would not be illegal, but merely irregular or informal. The same was the case with the French Chamber of Deputies, prior to the revolution of February, 1848: the rules which it laid down for its own proceedings were not laws, but simply le réglement de la Chambre. It is remarkable that the present National Assembly now sitting (March, 1849) has retained this expression, and adopted a réglement for its own business; though it is in point of fact a sovereign assembly, and the rules which it sanctions are, properly speaking, laws.

Both in this case, and in the Mitylenæan debate, I think the Athenian prytanis committed an illegality. In the first case, every one is glad of the illegality, because it proved the salvation of so many Mitylenæan lives. In the second case, the illegality was productive of practical bad consequences, inasmuch as it seems to have brought about the immense extension of the scale upon which the expedition was projected. But there will occur in a few years a third incident, the condemnation of the six generals after the battle of Arginusæ, in which the prodigious importance of a strict observance of forms will appear painfully and conspicuously manifest.