INTRODUCTION

To the First Philippic

WE know that Philip was opposed in his design of passing into Greece through Thermopylae, and obliged to retire. The danger they had thus escaped deeply affected the Athenians. So daring an attempt, which was in effect declaring his purposes, filled them with astonishment; and the view of a power which every day received new accessions drove them even to despair. Yet their aversion to public business was still predominant. They forgot that Philip might renew his attempt, and thought they had provided sufficiently for their security by posting a body of troops at the entrance of Attica, under the command of Menelaus, a foreigner. They then proceeded to convene an assembly of the people, in order to consider what measures were to be taken to check the progress of Philip; on which occasion Demosthenes, for the first time, appeared against that prince, and displayed those abilities which proved the greatest obstacle to his designs.

At Athens the whole power and management of affairs were placed in the people. It was their prerogative to receive appeals from the courts of justice, to abrogate and enact laws, to make what alterations in the state they judged convenient; in short, all matters, public or private, foreign or domestic, civil, military, or religious, were determined by them.

Whenever there was occasion to deliberate the people assembled early in the morning, sometimes in the forum or public place, sometimes in a place called Pnyx, but most frequently in the theatre of Bacchus. A few days before each assembly there was a programma or placard fixed on the statues of some illustrious men erected in the city, to give notice of the subject to be debated. As they refused admittance into the assembly to all persons who had not attained the necessary age, so they obliged all others to attend. The lexiarchs stretched out a cord dyed with scarlet, and by it pushed the people towards the place of meeting. Such as received the stain were fined; the more diligent had a small pecuniary reward. These lexiarchs were the keepers of the register in which were enrolled the names of such citizens as had a right of voting; and all had this right who were of age, and not excluded by a personal fault. Undutiful children, cowards, brutal debauchees, prodigals, debtors to the public, were all excluded. Until the time of Cecrops women had a right of suffrage, which they were said to have lost on account of their partiality to Minerva in her dispute with Neptune about giving a name to the city.

In ordinary cases all matters were first deliberated in the Senate of five hundred, composed of fifty senators chosen out of each of the ten tribes. Each tribe had its turn of presiding, and the fifty senators in office were called prytanes; and, according to the number of the tribes, the Attic year was divided into ten parts, the first four containing thirty-six, the other thirty-five days, in order to make the lunar year complete, which, according to their calculation, contained three hundred and fifty-four days. During each of these divisions ten of the fifty prytanes governed for a week, and were called proedri; and of these he who in the course of the week presided for one day was called the epistate; three of the proedri being excluded from this office.

The prytanes assembled the people; the proedri declared the occasion, and the epistate demanded their voices. This was the case in the ordinary assemblies: the extraordinary were convened as well by the generals as the prytanes; and sometimes the people met of their own accord, without waiting the formalities.

The assembly was opened by a sacrifice, and the place was sprinkled with the blood of the victim. Then an imprecation was pronounced, conceived in these terms: "May the gods pursue that man to destruction with all his race, who shall act, speak, or contrive anything against this state!" This ceremony being finished, the proedri declared the occasion of the assembly, and reported the opinion of the Senate. If any doubt arose, a herald, by commission from the epistate, with a loud voice, invited any citizen, first of those above the age of fifty, to speak his opinion; and then the rest according to their ages. This right of precedence had been granted by a law of Solon, and the order of speaking determined entirely by the difference of years. In the time of Demosthenes this law was not in force. It is said to have been repealed about fifty years before the date of this oration. Yet the custom still continued out of respect to the reasonable and decent purpose for which the law was originally enacted. When a speaker had delivered his sentiments he generally called on an officer, appointed for that purpose, to read his motion, and propound it in form. He then sat down, or resumed his discourse, and enforced his motion by additional arguments: and sometimes the speech was introduced by his motion thus propounded. When all the speakers had ended the people gave their opinion, by stretching out their hands to him whose proposal pleased them most: and Xenophon reports, that, night having come on when the people were engaged in an important debate, they were obliged to defer their determination till next day, for fear of confusion when their hands were to be raised.

"Porrexerunt manus," saith Cicero (pro Flacco), "et psephisma natum est." And to constitute this psephisma or decree, six thousand citizens at least were required. When it was drawn up, the name of its author, or that person whose opinion had prevailed, was prefixed: whence, in speaking of it, they called it his decree. The date of it contained the name of the archon, that of the day and month, and that of the tribe then presiding. The business being over, the prytanes dismissed the assembly.