Note 469 — Chapter LXVI · FROM THE RESTORATION OF THE DEMOCRACY TO THE DEATH OF ALKIBIADES.

Andokidês de Mysteriis, s. 83. Ὁπόσων δ᾽ ἂν προσδέῃ (νόμων), οἵδε ᾑρημένοι νομοθέται ὑπὸ τῆς βουλῆς ἀναγράφοντες ἐν σάνισιν ἐκτιθέντων πρὸς τοὺς ἐπωνύμους, σκοπεῖν τῷ βουλομένῳ, καὶ παραδιδόντων ταῖς ἀρχαῖς ἐν τῷδε τῷ μηνί. Τοὺς δὲ παραδιδομένους νόμους δοκιμασάτω πρότερον ἡ βουλὴ καὶ οἱ νομοθέται οἱ πεντακόσιοι, οὓς οἱ δημόται εἵλοντο, ἐπειδὴ ὀμωμόκασιν.

Putting together the two sentences in which the nomothetæ are here mentioned, Reiske and F. A. Wolf (Prolegom. ad Demosthen. cont. Leptin. p. cxxix), think that there were two classes of nomothetæ; one class chosen by the senate, the other by the people. This appears to me very improbable. The persons chosen by the senate were invested with no final or decisive function whatever; they were simply chosen to consider what new propositions were fit to be submitted for discussion, and to provide that such propositions should be publicly made known. Now any persons simply invested with this character of a preliminary committee, would not, in my judgment, be called nomothetæ. The reason why the persons here mentioned were so called, was, that they were a portion of the five hundred nomothetæ, in whom the power of peremptory decision ultimately rested. A small committee would naturally be intrusted with this preliminary duty; and the members of that small committee were to be chosen by one of the bodies with whom ultimate decision rested, but chosen out of the other.