of Five Hundred, whose place of meeting | was in a lower part of Athens, called the Ceramicus. Its high antiquity may be inferred from the legends respecting the causes brought before it in the mythical age of Greece, among which is that of Orestes, who was tried for the murder of his mother (Eschylus, Eumen.); but its authentic history commences with the age of Solon. There is indeed as early as the first Messenian war something like historical notice of its great fame, in the shape of a tradition preserved by Pausanias (iv. 51), that the Messenians were willing to commit the decision of a dispute between them and the Lacedæmonians, involving a case of murder, to the Areopagus. We are told that it was not mentioned by name in the laws of Dracon, though its existence in his time, as a court of justice, can be distinctly proved. (Plutarch, Sol. c. 19.) It seems that the name of the Areopagites was lost in that of the Ephetæ, who were then the appointed judges of all cases of homicide, as well in the court of Areopagus as in the other criminal courts. (Müller, History of the Dorians, vol. i. p. 352, English translation.) Solon, however, so completely reformed its constitution, that he received from many, or, as Plutarch says, from most authors, the title of its founder. It is therefore of the council of Areopagus, as constituted by Solon, that we shall first speak; and the subject possesses some interest from the light which it throws on the views and character of Solon as a legislator. It was composed of the archons of the year and of those who had borne the office of archon. The latter became members for life; but before their admission they were subjected, at the expiration of their annual magistracy, to a rigid scrutiny into their conduct in office and their morals in private life. Proof of criminal or unbecoming conduct was sufficient to exclude them in the first instance, and to expel them after admission. Various accounts are given of the number to which the Areopagites were limited. If there was any fixed number, it is plain that admission to the council | was not a necessary consequence of honourable discharge from the scrutiny. But it is more probable that the accounts which

limit the number are applicable only to an earlier period of its existence. (See the anonymous argument to the oration of Demosthenes against Androtion.) It may be proper to observe, that modern histories of this council do not commonly give the actual archons a seat in it. They are, however, placed there by Lysias the orator (Areop. p. 110, 16-20), and there is no reason to think that in this respect any change had been made in its constitution after the time of Solon. To the council thus constituted Solon intrusted a mixed jurisdiction and authority of great extent, judicial, political, and censorial. As a court of justice, it had direct cognizance of the more serious crimes, such as murder and arson. It exercised a certain control over the ordinary courts, and was the guardian generally of the laws and religion. It interfered, at least on some occasions, with the immediate administration of the government, and at all times inspected the conduct of the public functionaries. But, in the exercise of its duties as public censor for the preservation of order and decency, it was armed with inquisitorial powers to an almost unlimited extent.

It should be observed, that in the time of Solon, and by his regulations, the archons were chosen from the highest of the four classes into which he had divided the citizens. Of the archons so chosen, the council of Areopagus was formed. Here, then, was a permanent body, which possessed a general control over the state, composed of men of the highest rank, and doubtless in considerable proportion of Eupatridæ, or nobles by blood. The strength of the democracy lay in the ecclesia, or popular assembly, and in the ordinary courts of justice, of which the dikasts, or jurors, were taken indiscriminately from the general body of the citizens; and the council of Areopagus exercised authority directly or indirectly over both. The tendency of this institution to be a check on the popular part of that mixed government given by Solon to the Athenians, is noticed by Aristotle (Polit. ii. 9, and v. 3, ed. Schneid.). He speaks indeed of the council as being one of those institutions which Solon found and suffered to remain: but he can hardly

mean to deny what all authority proves, that in the shape in which it existed from the time of the legislator, it was his institution.

The council, from its restoration by Solon to the time of Pericles, seems to have remained untouched by any direct interference with its constitution. But during that interval two important changes were introduced in the general constitution of the state, which must have had some influence on the composition of the council, though we may not be able to trace their effects. The election of the chief magistrates by suffrage was exchanged for appointment by lot, and the highest offices of state were thrown open to the whole body of the people. But about the year B.C. 459, Pericles attacked the council itself, which never recovered from the blow which he inflicted upon it. All ancient authors agree in saying that a man called Ephialtes was his instrument in proposing the law by which his purpose was effected, but unfortunately we have no detailed account of his proceedings. Aristotle and Diodorus state generally that he abridged the authority of the council, and broke its power. (Aristotle, Polit. ii. 9; Diodorus, xi. 77.) Plutarch, who has told us more than others (Cim. c. 15; Pericl. c. 7), says only that he removed from its cognizance the greater part of those causes which had previously come before it in its judicial character, and that, by transferring the control over the ordinary courts of law immediately to the people, he subjected the state to an unmixed democracy. Little more than this can now be told, save from conjecture, in which modern compilers have rather liberally indulged. Among the causes withdrawn from its cognizance those of murder were not included; for Demosthenes states (Contr. Aristocr. p. 641-42), that none of the many revolutions which had occurred before his day had ventured to touch this part of its criminal jurisdiction. There is no reason to believe that it ever possessed, in matters of religion, such extensive authority as some have attributed to it, and there is at least no evidence that it lost at this time any portion of that which it had previously exercised. Lysias observes

(Areop. p. 110, 46), that it was in his time charged especially with the preservation of the sacred olive-trees; and we are told elsewhere that it was the scourge of impiety. It possessed, also, long after the time of Pericles, in some measure at least the powers of the censorship. (Athenæus, 4, 64, ed. Dindorf.)

Pericles was struggling for power by the favour of the people, and it was his policy to relieve the democracy from the pressure of an adverse influence. By increasing the business of the popular courts, he at once conciliated his friends and strengthened their hands. The council possessed originally some authority in matters of finance, and the appropriation of the revenue; though Mr. Mitford and others, in saying that it controlled all issues from the public treasury, say perhaps more than they can prove. In later times the popular assembly reserved the full control of the revenue exclusively to itself, and the administration of it was committed to the popular council, the senate of five hundred. It seems that, at first, the Areopagites were invested with an irresponsible authority. Afterwards they were obliged, with all other public functionaries, to render an account of their administration to the people. (Eschines, Contr. Ctes. p. 56, 30.) Both these changes may, with some probability, be attributed to Pericles. After all, the council was allowed to retain a large portion of its former dignity and very extensive powers. The change operated by Pericles seems to have consisted principally in this: that, from having exercised independent and paramount authority, it was made subordinate to the ecclesia. The power which it continued to possess was delegated by the people, but it was bestowed in ample measure. Whatever may have been the effect of this change on the fortunes of the republic, it is probable that too much importance has been commonly attached to the agency of Pericles. He seems only to have accelerated what the irresistible course of things must soon have accomplished. It may be true that the unsteady course of the popular assembly required some check, which the democracy in its unmitigated form could not supply, but the existence

of an independent body in the state, such as the council of Areopagus as constituted by Solon, seems hardly to be consistent with the secure enjoyment of popular rights and public liberty; which the Athenian people, by their naval services in the Persian war, and the consequences of their success, had earned the right to possess and the power to obtain. It ought not, however, to be concluded that institutions unsuitable to an altered state of things were unskilfully framed by Solon, or that he surrounded the infancy of a free constitution with more restrictions than were necessary for its security. He may still deserve the reputation which he has gained of having laid the foundation of popular government at Athens.

With respect to the censorship, we can show, by a few instances of the mode in which it acted, that it could have been effectually operative only in a state of society from which the Athenians were fast emerging before the time of Pericles. The Areopagites paid domiciliary visits, for the purpose of checking extravagant housekeeping. (Athenæus, 6, 46.) They called on any citizen at their discretion to account for the employment of his time. (Plutarch, Sol. c. 23.) They summoned before their awful tribunal, and condemned, a boy for poking out the eyes of a quail. (Quintilian, Instit. Orator. 5, 9. 13.) They fixed a mark of disgrace on a man who had dined in a tavern. (Athenæus, 13, 21.) Athens, in the prosperity which she enjoyed during the last fifty years before the Peloponnesian war, might have tolerated the existence, but certainly not the general activity of such an inquisition.

It appears from the language of contemporary writers, that while there were any remains of public spirit and virtue in Athens the council was regarded with respect, appealed to with deference, and employed on the most important occasions. (Lysias, Contr. Theomnest. p. 117, 12; De Evandr. p. 176, 17; Andoc. p. 11, 32; Demosthenes, Contr. Aristocr. p. 641-2.) In the time of Isocrates, when the scrutiny had ceased or become a dead letter, and profligacy of life was no bar to admission into the council, its moral influence was still such as to be an effectual restraint on the conduct of its own

members. (Isocrates, Areop. p. 147.) Ju the corruption of manners and utter degradation of character which prevailed at Athens, after it fell under the domination of Macedonia, we are not surprised to find that the council partook of the character of the times, and that an Areopagite might be a mark for the finger of scorn. (Athenæus, 4, 64.) Under the Romans it retained at least some formal authority, and Cicero applied for and obtained a decree of the council, requesting Cratippus, the philosopher, to sojourn at Athens and instruct the youth. (Plutarch, Cic. c. 24.) It long after remained in existence, but the old qualifications for admission were neglected in the days of its degeneracy, nor is it easy to say what were substituted for them. Later times saw even a stranger to Athens among the Areopagites.

We shall conclude this article with a few words on the forms observed by the council in its proceedings as a court of justice in criminal cases. The court was held in an uninclosed space on the Areopagus, and in the open air; which custom, indeed, it had in common with all other courts in cases of murder, if we may trust the oration (De Cade Herodis, p. 130) attributed to Antiphon. The Areopagites were in later times, according to Vitruvius, accommodated with the shelter of a roof. The prosecutor and defendant stood on two separate rude blocks of stone, and, before the pleadings commenced, were required each to take an oath with circumstances of peculiar solemnity: the former, that he charged the accused party justly; the defendant, that he was innocent of the charge. At a certain stage of the proceedings, the latter was allowed to withdraw his plea, with the penalty of banishment from his country. (Demosthenes, Contr. Aristocr. p. 642-3.) In their speeches both parties were restricted to a simple statement, and dry argument on the merits of the case, to the exclusion of all irrelevant matter, and of those various contrivances known under the general name of paraskeue (араσKEVN), to affect the passions of the judges, so shamelessly allowed and practised in the other courts. (Or. Lycurg. p. 149, 12-25; Lucian, Gymn. c. 19.) Of the existence

of the rule in question in this court, we have a remarkable proof in an apology of Lysias for an artful violation of it in his Areopagitic oration (p. 112, 5). Advocates were allowed, at least in later times, to both parties. Many commentators on the New Testament have placed St. Paul as a defendant at the bar of the Areopagus, on the strength of a passage in the Acts of the Apostles (xvii. 19). The apostle was indeed taken by the inquisitive Athenians to the hill, and there required to expound and defend his new doctrines for the entertainment of his auditors; but in the narrative of Luke there is no hint of an arraignment and trial.

Some of our readers may perhaps be surprised that we have made no mention of a practice so often quoted as peculiar to the Areopagites, that of holding their sessions in the darkness of night. The truth is, that we are not persuaded of the fact. It is, indeed, noticed more than once by Lucian, and perhaps by some other of the later writers; but it is not supported, we believe, by any sufficient authority, whilst there is strong presumptive evidence against the common opinion. It was, as it should seem, no unusual pastime with the Athenians to attend the trials on the Areopagus as spectators. (Lysias, Contr. Theomn. p. 117, 10.) We suspect that few of this light-hearted people would have gone at an unseasonable hour in the dark to hear such speeches as were there delivered, and see nothing. Perhaps there may be no better foundation for the story than there is for the notion, till lately so generally entertained, that the same gloomy custom was in use with the celebrated Vehmic tribunal of Westphalia.

ARISTOCRACY, from the Greek aristocrátia (ápioтокρaтíα), according to its etymology, means a government of the best or most excellent (ǎpioroi). This name, which, like optimates in Latin, was applied to the educated and wealthy class in the state, soon lost its moral and obtained a purely political sense: so that aristocracy came to mean merely a government of a few, the rich being always the minority of a nation. When the sovereign power does not belong to one

person, it is shared by a number of persons either greater or less than half the community: if this number is less than half, the government is called an aristocracy, if it is greater than half, the government is called a democracy. Since, however, women and children have in all ages and countries (except in cases of hereditary succession) been excluded from the exercise of the sovereign power, the number of persons enumerated in estimating the form of the government is confined to the adult males, and does not comprehend every individual of the society, like a census of population. Thus, if a nation contains 2,000,000 souls, of which 500,000 are adult males, if the sovereign power is lodged in a body consisting of 500 or 600 persons, the government is an aristocracy: if it is lodged in a body consisting of 400,000 persons, the government is a democracy, though this number is considerably less than half the entire population. It is also to be remarked, that where there is a class of subjects or slaves who are excluded from all political rights and all share in the sovereignty, the numbers of the dominant community are alone taken into the account in determining the name we are to give to the form of the government. Thus, Athens at the time of the Peloponnesian war had conquered a number of independent communities in the islands of the Ægean Sea and on the coasts of Asia Minor and Thrace, which were reduced to different degrees of subjection, but were all substantially dependent on the Athenians. Nevertheless, as every adult male Athenian citizen had a share in the sovereign power, the government of Athens was called not an aristocracy, but a democracy. Again, the Athenians had a class of slaves four or five times more numerous than the whole body of citizens of all ages and sexes; yet as a majority of the citizens possessed the sovereign power, the government was called a democracy. In like manner, the government of South Carolina in the United States of America is called a democracy, because every adult freeman, who is a native or has obtained the rights of citizenship by residence, has a vote in the election of members of the