The Athenian Constitution   

Aristodicus of
Tanagra. In this way was the Council of Areopagus deprived of its
guardianship of the state.

Part 26

After this revolution the administration of the state became more
and more lax, in consequence of the eager rivalry of candidates for
popular favour. During this period the moderate party, as it
happened,
had no real chief, their leader being Cimon son of Miltiades, who
was a comparatively young man, and had been late in entering public
life; and at the same time the general populace suffered great
losses by war. The soldiers for active service were selected at that
time from the roll of citizens, and as the generals were men of no
military experience, who owed their position solely to their family
standing, it continually happened that some two or three thousand of
the troops perished on an expedition; and in this way the best men
alike of the lower and the upper classes were exhausted.
Consequently in most matters of administration less heed was paid to
the laws than had formerly been the case. No alteration, however,
was made in the method of election of the nine Archons, except that
five years after the death of Ephialtes it was decided that the
candidates to be submitted to the lot for that office might be
selected from the Zeugitae as well as from the higher classes. The
first Archon from that class was Mnesitheides. Up to this
time all the
Archons had been taken from the Pentacosiomedimni and Knights, while
the Zeugitae were confined to the ordinary magistracies,
save where an
evasion of the law was overlooked. Four years later, in the
archonship
of Lysicrates, thirty 'local justices', as they as they were called,
were re-established; and two years afterwards, in the archonship of
Antidotus, consequence of the great increase in the number of
citizens, it was resolved, on the motion of Pericles, that no one
should admitted to the franchise who was not of citizen birth by
both parents.

Part 27

After this Pericles came forward as popular leader, having first
distinguished himself while still a young man by prosecuting Cimon
on the audit of his official accounts as general. Under his auspices
the constitution became still more democratic. He took away some of
the privileges of the Areopagus, and, above all, he turned the
policy of the state in the direction of sea power, which caused the
masses to acquire confidence in themselves and consequently to take
the conduct of affairs more and more into their own hands. Moreover,
forty-eight years after the battle of Salamis, in the archonship of
Pythodorus, the Peloponnesian war broke out, during which
the populace
was shut up in the city and became accustomed to gain its livelihood
by military service, and so, partly voluntarily and partly
involuntarily, determined to assume the administration of the state
itself. Pericles was also the first to institute pay for service in
the law-courts, as a bid for popular favour to counterbalance the
wealth of Cimon. The latter, having private possessions on a regal
scale, not only performed the regular public services magnificently,
but also maintained a large number of his fellow-demesmen. Any
member of the deme of Laciadae could go every day to Cimon's
house and
there receive a reasonable provision; while his estate was guarded
by no fences, so that any one who liked might help himself to the