Note 102 — Chapter LXII · TWENTY-FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. — OLIGARCHY OF FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS. (continued 2)

Thucyd. viii, 97. Καὶ ἐκκλησίαν ξυνέλεγον, μίαν μὲν εὐθὺς τότε πρῶτον ἐς τὴν Πνύκα καλουμένην, οὗπερ καὶ ἄλλοτε εἰώθεσαν, ἐν ᾗπερ καὶ τοὺς τετρακοσίους καταπαύσαντες τοῖς πεντακισχιλίοις ἐψηφίσαντο τὰ πράγματα παραδοῦναι· εἶναι δὲ αὐτῶν, ὁπόσοι καὶ ὅπλα παρέχονται· καὶ μισθὸν μηδένα φέρειν, μηδεμιᾷ ἀρχῇ, εἰ δὲ μὴ, ἐπάρατον ἐποιήσαντο. Ἐγίγνοντο δὲ καὶ ἄλλαι ὕστερον πυκναὶ ἐκκλησίαι, ἀφ᾽ ὧν καὶ νομοθέτας καὶ τἄλλα ἐψηφίσαντο ἐς τὴν πολιτείαν.

In this passage I dissent from the commentators on two points. First, they understand this number Five Thousand as a real definite list of citizens, containing five thousand names, neither more nor less. Secondly, they construe νομοθέτας, not in the ordinary meaning which it bears in Athenian constitutional language, but in the sense of ξυγγραφεῖς (c. 67), “persons to model the constitution, corresponding to the ξυγγραφεῖς appointed by the aristocratical party a little before,” to use the words of Dr. Arnold.

As to the first point, which is sustained also by Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. Gr. ch. xxviii, vol. iv, p. 51, 2d ed.), Dr. Arnold really admits what is the ground of my opinion, when he says: “Of course the number of citizens capable of providing themselves with heavy arms must have much exceeded five thousand: and it is said in the defence of Polystratus, one of the Four Hundred (Lysias, p. 675, Reisk.), that he drew up a list of nine thousand. But we must suppose that all who could furnish heavy arms were eligible into the number of the Five Thousand, whether the members were fixed on by lot, by election, or by rotation; as it had been proposed to appoint the Four Hundred by rotation out of the Five Thousand (viii, 93).”

Dr. Arnold here throws out a supposition which by no means conforms to the exact sense of the words of Thucydidês—εἶναι δὲ αὐτῶν, ὁπόσοι καὶ ὅπλα παρέχονται. These words distinctly signify, that all who furnished heavy arms should be of the Five Thousand, should belong of right to that body, which is something different from being eligible into the number of the Five Thousand, either by lot, rotation, or otherwise. The language of Thucydidês, when he describes, in the passage referred to by Dr. Arnold, c. 93, the projected formation of the Four Hundred by rotation out of the Five Thousand, is very different: καὶ ἐκ τούτων ἐν μέρει τοὺς τετρακοσίους ἔσεσθαι, etc. M. Boeckh (Public Economy of Athens, bk. ii, ch. 21, p. 268, Eng. Tr.) is not satisfactory in his description of this event.

The idea which I conceive of the Five Thousand, as a number existing from the commencement only in talk and imagination, neither realized nor intended to be realized, coincides with the full meaning of this passage of Thucydidês, as well as with everything which he had before said about them.

I will here add that ὁπόσοι ὅπλα παρέχονται means persons furnishing arms, not for themselves alone, but for others also (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 4, 15.)

As to the second point, the signification of νομοθέτας, I stand upon the general use of that word in Athenian political language: see the explanation earlier in this History, vol. v, ch. xlvi, p. 373. It is for the commentators to produce some justification of the unusual meaning which they assign to it: “persons to model the constitution; commissioners who drew up the new constitution,” as Dr. Arnold, in concurrence with the rest, translates it. Until some justification is produced, I venture to believe that νομοθέται, is a word which would not be used in that sense with reference to nominees chosen by the democracy, and intended to act with the democracy; for it implies a final, decisive, authoritative determination; whereas the ξυγγραφεῖς, or “commissioners to draw up a constitution,” were only invested with the function of submitting something for approbation to the public assembly or competent authority; that is, assuming that the public assembly remained an efficient reality.

Moreover, the words καὶ τἄλλα would hardly be used in immediate sequence to νομοθέτας, if the latter word meant that which the commentators suppose: “Commissioners for framing a constitution, and the other things towards the constitution.” Such commissioners are surely far too prominent and initiative in their function to be named in this way. Let us add, that the most material items in the new constitution, if we are so to call it, have already been distinctly specified as settled by public vote, before these νομοθέται are even named.

It is important to notice, that even the Thirty, who were named six years afterwards to draw up a constitution, at the moment when Sparta was mistress of Athens, and when the people were thoroughly put down, are not called Νομοθέται, but are named by a circumlocution equivalent to Ἔδοξε τῷ δήμῳ, τριάκοντα ἄνδρας ἑλέσθαι, οἳ τοὺς πατρίους νόμους συγγράψουσι, καθ᾽ οὓς πολιτεύσουσι.—Αἱρεθέντες δὲ, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ τε συγγράψαι νόμους καθ᾽ οὕστινας πολιτεύσοιντο, τούτους μὲν ἀεὶ ἔμελλον ξυγγράφειν τε καὶ ἀποδεικνύναι, etc. (Xenophon, Hellen. ii, 3, 2-11.) Xenophon calls Kritias and Chariklês the nomothetæ of the Thirty (Memor. i, 2, 30), but this is not democracy.

For the signification of Νομοθέτης (applied most generally to Solon, sometimes to others, either by rhetorical looseness or by ironical taunt), or Νομοθέται, a numerous body of persons chosen and sworn, see Lysias cont. Nikomach. sects. 3, 33, 37; Andokidês de Mysteriis, sects. 81-85, c. 14, p. 38, where the nomothetæ are a sworn body of Five Hundred, exercising, conjointly with the senate, the function of accepting or rejecting laws proposed to them.