History of the Peloponnesian War

It was at this crisis that Peisander and his colleagues arrived and immediately applied themselves to the work that still remained to be done. First they called the popular assembly together and proposed a resolution that ten men should be chosen as commissioners, with full powers, for the drafting of laws, and that these men, after drafting such laws, should bring before the assembly on an appointed day a proposal embodying provisions for the best administration of the state.

In the second place, when the day came they convened the assembly at Colonus, which is a precinct sacred to Poseidon lying at a distance of about ten stadia outside the city, and the commissioners brought in no other measure except the bare proposal that any Athenian should be permitted with impunity to offer any motion he pleased; and if anyone should move to indict the speaker for making an illegal proposal[*](The γραφὴ παρανόμων, regarded as the great safeguard of the Attic constitution, was provided for annulling an illegal decree or law, and also for punishing the proposer. The latter could be held personally responsible only for a year from the time of the proposal of a decree or the enactment of a law; after a year the decree or law could be attacked and annulled by the same process as that against the proposer. Whoever brought a γραφὴ παρανόμων bound himself by oath to prosecute the case; after the oath was taken a decree or law was suspended if already enacted, and a προβούλευμα could not be brought before the assembly until the suit had been tried and settled. The proposer, if the court decided against him, was punished by death or fine. See Schoemann, Gr. Alt. i, 497 ff. (2nd ed.).) or should in any other manner seek to do him harm, they imposed severe penalties upon him.

After that, the proposal was at length offered without concealment that no one should any longer hold office under the constitution as at present established or receive a salary, and that they should choose five men as presidents, and these should choose one hundred, and each of the hundred three others in addition to himself; then these, being four hundred, should enter the senate-chamber and govern as they should judge best, being clothed with full powers, and they should convene the Five Thousand whenever it seemed to them advisable.[*](cf. 8.65.3. There had been talk of limiting the franchise to 5000, and it was resolved at this same assembly to appoint 100 men to draw up a list of the 5000 (Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ., ch. xxix. ad fin.). But the list was never published. See 8.92.11 and Ἀθ. Πολ. ch. xxxii. For the somewhat divergent account of Aristotle, see Aristot. Ἀθ. Πολ. xxix.- xxxii.)