Two direct experiments with oligarchy had failed, and the old democracy had been restored. Yet even if the basic constitutional forms at Athens remained the same, seemingly minor changes over the next few decades imposed limits on the democracy and effectively shifted it towards the oligarchic end of the constitutional spectrum (on this, see Box 13.1). For example, the Assembly, instead of making its own erratic and hasty decisions, now sometimes requested the Council of the Areopagus first to submit an apophasis, a report, on the matter (e. g., Dinarchus, I 4-7). The gentlemen on the Council, mostly distinguished pillars of the community, took the time to reach a considered judgment, and the Assembly acted on their recommendations. An oligarchic “brake” was thus added back into the constitution.
The failure to raise the daily rate of pay for holding office achieved much the same in the early decades of the fourth century. With inflation, the three obols on offer per day since the 420s (Schol. Aristoph. Wasps, 88a) no longer sufficed to allow every Athenian male to hold an office or to sit on a jury. The effect on the jury rolls is especially noticeable. In the fifth century more than the necessary 6,000 placed their names on the rolls so that lots were cast to see who would serve on a given day (Arist., Pol. 1274a). In the fourth century this was no longer necessary ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 63) since fewer than 6,000 names stood on the rolls for the simple reason that poorer people could no longer afford to serve. Office, according to the oligarchic ideal, once again became a benefaction rendered to the community since the pittance which one received for service was mostly a token. It was a second oligarchic brake on the democracy.
Special importance accrued to the men on the jury rolls in these days because of their role in making laws - as distinct from decrees. The Assembly enacted and revoked decrees at will (see, for example, the Mytilenaean Debate in chap. 13), but laws ideally were permanent, and the Assembly could not act contrary to them. Therefore a carefully crafted law could dramatically constrain the Assembly’s ability to make policy.
In the fourth century Nomothetai, appointed by lot from the jury rolls (Andocides I 84; Dem. XXIV 26) made laws in a special vote designed as a trial of the old law. Any adult male citizen might suggest a new law and “prosecute” the old one. The Assembly appointed five syndikoi to “defend” the old law, and at the end of the trial the Nomothetai voted either to “convict” the old law (i. e., to replace it with the new one) or to “acquit” it (Dem. XXIV 21, 23, 25, and 33). The decision of the Nomothetai could be challenged, but in the law-courts by bringing against the law’s author a charge of “making an inappropriate law” ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 59). Controlling the entire procedure, then, were those on the jury rolls. Since for practical reasons only the wealthy placed their names on the rolls, from a certain point of view the making and judging of laws had been ceded to an oligarchy within the larger framework of a democracy.
The law which made it a capital offense to move a decree contrary to law (a graphe paranomon) in the Assembly safeguarded this oligarchy’s powers. The first attestation of such a law is in 411 (Thuc. VIII 67; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 29), but such prosecutions became commonplace during the fourth century, and they made it difficult for any politician to get around a law which was tying the Assembly’s hands (e. g., Demosthenes at I 19-20). The most famous of all Greek orations - Demosthenes’ On the Crown - is actually a defense against a charge of having made a graphe paranomon.
While the democratic forms, as known from the fifth century, all remained, behind the facade over the course of the fourth century much changed to make the democracy less “democratic” and more “oligarchic.” The oligarchic criticisms of the democracy found their concrete expression in this way rather than in an actual oligarchy.
World History
