In a certain sense, popular participation in decision-taking probably had a long history in the Greek world. As we have seen (pp. 127-34), the authority of the basileus was inherently unstable and depended on a reciprocal relationship between leader and followers. This makes it highly likely that residents of the small settlements that existed in the Dark Age would have attended gatherings presided over by the community’s chief and that the latter would have endeavored to take decisions by consensus. In the Homeric epics, the massed ranks of warriors are expected to ratify by verbal assent the decisions taken by their leaders, who debate proposals in open council. Whether these onlookers are permitted actually to participate in discussion is less clear. After haranguing Agamemnon, Thersites, “the ugliest man who came to Troy,” is soundly beaten by Odysseus (Il. 2.265-69). It could be that the tone of his complaint was judged offensive: Odysseus chastises him for having slandered the expedition’s commander with insolent abuse. But the fact that Odysseus then thrashes Thersites with his scepter - an insignia traditionally held by those who wish to address Homeric councils - probably indicates that Thersites’ crime was not that he had addressed his superiors impertinently but that he had addressed them at all.
With the development of a state machinery in the hands of the aristocracy, the role of the non-elite members of the community, however restricted, seems to have been formalized. The damos (a Doric form for demos) is explicitly mentioned in the Sacred Law from Tiryns (SEG 30.380), as is a body called the aliaia, sometimes thought to also have had a popular constituency. Of particular interest is a trachyte stele or slab, now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, but found near Tholopotami in the south of Chios (ML 8 = Fornara 19). All four faces of the stele were inscribed with what appears to be a single law that, on the basis of letter forms, can be dated to ca. 575-550. Three faces of the slab are extremely fragmentary, though the text refers to enactments of the demos as well as to two magistracies - that of the basileus and that of the demarkhos (the latter, presumably, charged with representing the interests of the demos against aristocratic office-holders). The back of the stele is better preserved and records the right of appeal to a popular council (boule demosie), which is to assemble on the third day after the monthly festival of the Hebdomaia in honor of Apollo and which consists of fifty elected men from each of the four tribes (phylai). There is mention of a fine, though it is unclear whether the popular council is itself able to levy fines or whether it is subject to a fine if it fails to meet on the ordained day. The inscription continues by stating that the council will deal with other business involving the demos and especially cases of appeal.
The fact that the term boule is qualified by the adjective demosie makes it virtually certain that this is a second, presumably more recently instituted council, in addition to an aristocratic council whose forerunner is the Homeric council of elders. The Chios inscription therefore lends some credence to the sometimes suspected testimony that Solon introduced a second council of 400 at Athens, alongside the already existing council of the Areopagus (Aristotle, AC 8.4). Like its counterpart on Chios, the Athenian council was recruited from each of the four “Ionian” tribes - though, in this case, each phyle contributed one hundred rather than fifty councilors. Plutarch (Sol. 19.1) adds that the Solonian council served as a “probouleutic” body, preparing business for the full assembly, though the information could be based on the function of the later “Cleisthenic” council of 500. It is, however, of considerable interest that the popular council on Chios is charged primarily with hearing judicial appeals since Solon is also credited with establishing the right of appeal to popular jury-courts even if these courts are regarded as distinct from the council of 400 (AC 9.1; Sol. 18.2).
The probouleutic and judicial functions of popular councils are likely to represent an expansion of a far more fundamental role played by the demos in decision making. An inscription from Olympia (SEG 41.392), dating to the end of the sixth century, proclaims the sanctity of written law by ordaining that if someone judges contrary to a written law, the sentence will be nullified. But it then continues by stating that a popular decree will have the force of law provided that it is approved by both the council of 500 and the “full” demos. The most conspicuous example, however, of the demos playing a critical role in decision making appears in a Spartan document that is conventionally known as the “Great Rhetra” (Document 8.1). Plutarch is our only source for the wording
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