The Greek City 7 Its Institutions by Glotz

Author:Glotz [Glotz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Ancient, General, Social Science, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781317845904
Google: Ee5kAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-12-19T17:11:34+00:00

Chapter V

The Magistrates

I

DEMOCRACY AND ITS MAGISTRATES

EVEN with the aid of its permanent Council the people could only secure the execution of its orders by delegating a portion of its sovereignty to certain magistrates. It was thus led to distinguish among the public offices magistracies properly so called, of a governmental or political nature (ἀρχαί), and purely administrative functions (ἐπιµελείαι), without counting the minor offices (ὑπηρεσίαι) which might be given to metics and slaves as well as to citizens.

By virtue of this delegation of sovereignty the great magistrates possessed, within their several spheres, the following powers:1 (1) The right of acting on their own initiative in accordance with the laws which qualified them, or of consulting the Assembly or the Council with regard to new decisions (βουλεύσασθαι); (2) the fundamental right of giving orders and of passing obligatory measures (ἐπιτάξαι), which implied the right of punishing the delinquent (ἐπιβολὰς ἐπιβάλλειν) by the imposition of a fine whose maximum varied, according to the magistrature, from fifty to five hundred drachmas, or else of sending him before the courts for severer punishment;2 (3) judical competence in specified cases (κρῖναι), a competence which no longer carried the right of decision, but only that of receiving pleas, of making investigation and of presiding over the tribunal (ἡγεµονία).

Since the power of the magistrates emanated from popular sovereignty, democratic principle demanded that every citizen should be able to exercise it. But one must not apply to this precept the hackneyed interpretation which there is a temptation to give to it to-day. It did not merely signify that everyone had the right to attain to the exercise of the highest public functions; it proclaimed that everyone ought to attain to it as far as possible. “The first characteristic of liberty,” says Aristotle, “is that all should command each and each in his turn all” (τὸ ἐν µἐρει ἄρχεσθαι καὶ ἄρχειν).3 It is also, according to the author of the Menexenus, the first condition of equality; for “among brothers born of a common mother, there are neither slaves nor masters.”4 The result is that in a democracy, “no one is compelled to obey unless he may in his turn command: thus liberty and equality are combined.”5 No citizen, therefore, was excluded from honours, whatever his birth or fortune; such was actual fact. The only superiority which might be recognized was that of merit and ability, with the result that the republic would be governed by an aristocracy with the assent of the people: such was the ideal.6

In order to accelerate the alternating movement which was to bring citizens to offices of State and then send them back into the ordinary ranks, magistracies were of short duration. Most of them were annual. As a general rule citizens were forbidden to exercise the same function in several successive years or to hold more than one in the same year.7 These two rules were, however, capable of exceptions. A man might sit for two years in the Council, while with military offices, especially with that of the strategos, power might be renewed from year to year indefinitely.

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