The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Athenian Constitution, by Aristotle

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Title: The Athenian Constitution

Author: Aristotle

Translator: Frederic G. Kenyon

Release Date: July 21, 2008 [EBook #26095]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATHENIAN CONSTITUTION ***

Produced by Al Haines

THE ATHENIAN CONSTITUTION

by

Aristotle

Translated by Sir Frederic G. Kenyon

Part 1

...[They were tried] by a court empanelled from among the noble
families, and sworn upon the sacrifices. The part of accuser was taken
by Myron. They were found guilty of the sacrilege, and their bodies
were cast out of their graves and their race banished for evermore. In
view of this expiation, Epimenides the Cretan performed a purification
of the city.

Part 2

After this event there was contention for a long time between the upper
classes and the populace. Not only was the constitution at this time
oligarchical in every respect, but the poorer classes, men, women, and
children, were the serfs of the rich. They were known as Pelatae and
also as Hectemori, because they cultivated the lands of the rich at the
rent thus indicated. The whole country was in the hands of a few
persons, and if the tenants failed to pay their rent they were liable
to be haled into slavery, and their children with them. All loans
secured upon the debtor's person, a custom which prevailed until the
time of Solon, who was the first to appear as the champion of the
people. But the hardest and bitterest part of the constitution in the
eyes of the masses was their state of serfdom. Not but what they were
also discontented with every other feature of their lot; for, to speak
generally, they had no part nor share in anything.

Part 3

Now the ancient constitution, as it existed before the time of Draco,
was organized as follows. The magistrates were elected according to
qualifications of birth and wealth. At first they governed for life,
but subsequently for terms of ten years. The first magistrates, both in
date and in importance, were the King, the Polemarch, and the Archon.
The earliest of these offices was th