EKKLESIA, OR PUBLIC ASSEMBLY. 139 vote by their epistates, or chairman ; but the nine representatives ff the non-prytanizing tribes were always present as a matter of course, and seem, indeed, in the days of the orators, to have ac quired to themselves the direction of it, together with the right of putting questions for the vote, 1 setting aside wholly or par- tially the fifty prytanes. When we carry our attention back, however, to the state of the ekklesia, as first organized by Kleis- thenes (I have already remarked that expositors of the Athe- nian constitution are too apt to neglect the distinction of times, and to suppose that what was the practice between 400-330 B.C. had been always the practice), it will appear probable that he provided one regular meeting in each prytany, and no more ; giving to the senate and the strategi power of convening special meetings if needful, but establishing one ekklesia during each prytany, or ten in the year, as a regular necessity of state. How often the ancient ekklesia had been convoked during the interval between Solon and Peisistratus, we cannot exactly say, proba- bly but seldom during the year. But under the Peisistratids, its convocation had dwindled down into an inoperative formality ; and the reestablishment of it by Kleisthenes, not merely with plen- ary determining powers, but also under full notice and prepara- tion of matters beforehand, together with the best securities for orderly procedure, was in itself a revolution impressive to the mind of every Athenian citizen. To render the ekklesia effi cient, it was indispensable that its meetings should be both fre quent and free. Men thus became trained to the duty both of speakers and hearers, and each man, while he felt that he exer- cised his share of influence on the decision, identified his own safety and happiness with the vote of the majority, and became familiarized with the notion of a sovereign authority which he neither could nor ought to resist. This is an idea new to the Athenian bosom ; and with it came the feelings sanctifying free speech and equal law, words which no Athenian citizen ever afterwards heard unmoved : together with that sentiment of the entire commonwealth as one and indivisible, which always over- 1 See the valuable treatise of Schomann, De Comitiis, passim ; also bin Antiq. Jur. Publ. Gr. ch. xxxi ; Harpokration, v, Kvpia 'ExK^ijaia ; Foliar, riii, 95.
