as on the acts. Litigants pleaded their own case, though alitigant could go to a man learned in the law, get him to writea speech and read it himsel. The Greeks were great believ-ers in law, both written and unwritten. But the democratsbelieved not only in the theory o law, but in the principles o equity and we can dene equity as what would seem right ina given case in the minds o 500 citizens chosen by lot romamong the Athenian population.No ExpertsHe would be a very bold man who would say that that systemo justice was in any way inerior to the modern monstrosi-ties by which lawyers mulct the public, cases last intermina-bly, going rom court to court, and matters o grave impor-tance are decided by the position o ull stops and commas(or the absence o them) in long and complicated laws andregulations which sometimes have to be traced throughhundreds o years and hundreds o law books. When the Rus-sian Revolution took place and was in its heroic period, theBolsheviks experimented with People’s Courts. But they weretimid and in any case, none o these experiments lasted orvery long. The essence o the Greek method, here as else-where, was the reusal to hand over these things to experts,but to trust to the intelligence and sense o justice o thepopulation at large, which meant o course a majority o thecommon people.The Organization or GovernmentWe must get rid o the idea that there was anything primi-tive in the organization o the government o Athens. Onthe contrary, it was a miracle o democratic procedure whichwould be beyond the capacity o any modem body o politi-cians and lawyers, simply because these believe that whenevery man has a vote, equality is thereby established. The as-sembly appointed a council o 500 to be responsible or theadministration o the city and the carrying out o decisions.But the council was governed by the same principle o equal-ity. The city was divided into 10 divisions and the year wasdivided into 10 periods. Each section o the city selected bylot 50 men to serve on the council. All the councillors o eachsection held oce or one tenth o the year. So that 50 peo-ple were always in charge o the administration. The orderin which the group o 50 councillors rom each section o thecity should serve was determined by lot. Every day, the 50who were serving chose someone to preside over them andhe also was chosen by lot. I on the day that he was presid-ing, the ull assembly met, he presided at the assembly.The council had a secretary and he was elected. But he waselected only or the duration o one tenth o the year. And(no doubt to prevent bureaucracy) he was elected not romamong the 50, but rom among the 450 members o thecouncil who were not serving at the time.When members had served on the council, they were orbid-den to serve a second time. Thus every person had a chanceto serve. And here we come to one o the great benets o the system. Ater a number o years, practically every citizenhad had an opportunity to be a member o the administra-tion. So that the body o citizens who ormed the public as-sembly consisted o men who were amiliar with the businesso government.No business could be brought beore the assembly except ithad been previously prepared and organized by the council.When decisions had been taken, the carrying out o themwas entrusted to the council. The council supervised all themagistrates and any work that had been given to a privatecitizen to do.The Greeks had very ew permanent unctionaries. Theypreerred to appoint special boards o private citizens. Eacho these boards had its own very careully dened sphere o work. The coordination o all these various spheres o work was carried out by the council. A great number o specialcommissions helped to carry out the executive work. For ex-ample, there were 10 members o a commission to see aternaval afairs, and 10 members o a commission to hear com-plaints against magistrates at the end o their term. One veryinteresting commission was the commission or the conducto religious ceremonies. The Greeks were a very religiouspeople. But most o the priests and ocials o the templeswere elected and were or the most part private citizens. TheGreeks would not have any bunch o Bishops, Archbishops,Popes and other religious bureaucrats who lived by organ-izing religion. Some o these commissions were elected romthe council. But others again were appointed by lot.At every turn we see the extraordinary condence that thesepeople had in the ability o the ordinary person, the grocer,the candlestick maker, the carpenter, the sailor, the tailor.Whatever the trade o the individual, whatever his educa-tion, he was chosen by lot to do the work the state required.And yet they stood no nonsense. I a private individual madepropositions in the assembly which the assembly consideredrivolous or stupid, the punishment was severe.Democratic DramaHere is some idea o the extent to which the Greeks believedin democracy and equality. One o the greatest estivals inGreece, or rather in Athens, was the estival o Dionysus, theclimax o which was the perormance o plays or our days,rom sunrise to evening. The whole population came out tolisten. Ocials chose the diferent playwrights who were tocompete. On the day o the perormance, the plays were per-ormed and, as ar as we can gather, the prizes were at rstgiven by popular applause and the popular vote. You mustremember that the dramatic companies used to rehearse orone year and the successul tragedians were looked uponas some o the greatest men in the state, receiving immensehonor and homage rom their ellow citizens. Yet it was thepublic, the general public, o 15 or 20 thousand people thatcame and decided who was the winner.Later, a committee was appointed to decide. Today such acommittee would consist o proessors, successul writersand critics. Not among the Greeks. The committee consistedrst o a certain number o men chosen by lot rom eachsection o the city. These men got together and chose by lotrom among themselves 10 men. These 10 men attended
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