The Fall of the Athenian Empire-(A New History of the Peloponnesian War) Donald Kagan - (1987)

THE RESTORATION 255
members of the council to sit in seats assigned them by lot, with the
obvious intention of reducing the influence of factions sitting together. 30
The shifts from democracy to the oligarchy of the Four Hundred
to the rule of the Five Thousand had caused great confusion about the
laws of Athens.' 1 Their experience under the Four Hundred, moreover,
had shown the democrats that attacks on traditional law were a
threat to the survival of democracy. The Four Hundred had begun
their revolution by establishing a commission of syngrapheis to draft
new laws without the usual limitations on unconstitutional proposals."
Although some of them tried to disguise the radical novelty of their
proposals, few could have been deceived." Likewise, the Five Thousand
were committed to constitutional and legal innovation. One of
their first acts was to appoint a board of nomothetai." In the short
period of their existence, they do not seem to have accomplished anything,
and we cannot be sure what function they were meant to perform,
but some revision of traditional law was probably part of it."
If the draft constitution for the future reproduced by Aristotle represents
their thinking, these men were prepared to institute a new
constitution and laws of a highly novel and theoretical nature, casting
aside traditional law and procedure." Although we think of the full
Athenian democracy as "radical" in its devotion to complete popular
government and full political participation by all citizens, we must
remember that in 410 it was a century old, the traditional government;
no living Athenian had known any other form until the revolution of
41 1. By the late fifth century, the legislation of Draco and Solon,
whatever its true nature, had become part of the democratic tradition
in the popular mind, and its creators were seen as founding fathers of
JoPhilochorus, FGrH Ill, p8, Fr. 140. Jacoby (FGrH Illb, 5 II) says that "events
since the establishment of the probouloi must have shown the people that the sitting
together of political sympathizers was not a mere formality."
11
Dem. 24.154·
328.57. I.
HCleitophon's rider attached to the proposal of Pythodorus urged the examination
of the laws of Cleisthenes, which he suggested were compatible with those of Solon
(Ath. Pol. 29. 3). Whatever its other purposes, it was also meant to remove the glare
from the revolutionary novelty of what was happening. The establishment of the council
of Four Hundred was described as kata ta patria, "in accordance with ancestral tradition"
(Ath. Pol. 31. 1). This must have been an attempt to link this entirely new institution
with the entirely different council of Four Hundred established by Solon.
)48·97·2.
nsee HCT V, 330.
J 6 Ath. Pol. 30.