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Updated: June 4, 2025
This was the natural consequence of the facts that the Archons were elected under qualifications of birth and wealth, and that the Areopagus was composed of those who had served as Archons; for which latter reason the membership of the Areopagus is the only office which has continued to be a life-magistracy to the present day. Part 4
Life seems no longer to offer anything for poetry to celebrate, or for history to record." The history of Athens, therefore, may be said to begin with the institution of the nine annual archons in 683 B.C. These possessed all authority, religious, civil, and military.
The Council also examines those who are to be its members for the ensuing year, and likewise the nine Archons. Formerly the Council had full power to reject candidates for office as unsuitable, but now they have an appeal to the law-courts. In all these matters, therefore, the Council has no final jurisdiction.
In short, the old constitution was restored, except that the franchise was restricted to 5000 citizens, and payment for the discharge of civil functions abolished. In subsequent assemblies, the Archons, the Senate, and other institutions were revived; and a vote was passed to recall Alcibiades and some of his friends.
Hollow trees were sounded, walls pulled down, the most unlikely corners examined, and a skeleton which was discovered still girt with a belt containing Venetian sequins was gathered up with the utmost care. The archons of the town were arrested and tortured in the hope of discovering buried treasure, the clue to which had disappeared along with the owners.
The number of the areopagites depending upon the number of the archons, was necessarily fluctuating and uncertain. An archon was not necessarily admitted to the areopagus. He previously underwent a rigorous and severe examination of the manner in which he had discharged the duties of his office, and was liable to expulsion upon proofs of immorality or unworthiness.
Both jurisdictions were substantially transferred in the end to the Heliæa, the High Court of Popular Justice, and the functions of the Archons and of the Areopagus became either merely ministerial or quite insignificant.
Not a sparrow falls to the ground, nor an angel wings his flight, but in subserviency to the arrangements of an omniscient mind. Deborah was a judge, as well as a prophetess; and a ruler over some, if not all their tribes. Some have supposed, that judges among the ancient Israelites resembled the Archons among the Athenians, and the Dictators among the Romans.
Medon's reign, thus freed from the more stirring spirits of his time, appears to have been prosperous and popular; it was an era in the ancient world, when the lameness of a ruler was discovered to be unconnected with his intellect! Then follows a long train of archons peaceable and obscure.
His insurrection, however, failed, and he was treacherously put to death by one of the archons, which led to the expulsion of the whole body, and a change in the constitution. Intrusted with absolute power, he abstained from abusing it—a patriot in the most exalted sense, as well as a poet and philosopher.
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