Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

440 ECCLESIA. ECCLESIA.
being to call from the country into the city. The Athenian people, just as " John Buli " is of the
ordinary assemblies were called vdciljoL or iKcpta, English, calls that character Aibaos rIvKl'VIrS, or
according to the Scholiast on Aristophanes (Achar. Demus of the (parish of) Pnyx: a joke by which
19), who, moreover, informs us that there were that place is represented as the home of the
three such in every nzonth. But according to the Athenians. The situation of it was to the west
best-informed grammarians who followed Aristotle, of the Areiopagus, on a slope connected with
the name Kvpia was appropriated to the first only Mount Lycabettus, and partly at least within the
of the regular assemblies of each prytany. Such, walls of the city. It was semicircular in fornm,
at least, is the account given by Pollux (viii. 96) with a boundary wall, part rock and part masonry,
and Harpocration, the former of whom asserts that and an area of about 12,000 square yards. On the
the third of the regular assemblies in each prytany north the ground was filled up and paved with
was partly devoted to the reception of ambassadors large stones, so as to get a level surface on the
from foreign states. slope; from which fact some grammarians derive
Aristophanes, however, in the Acharnians (61), its name (wrapa T-v T', XAi'0ev 7ruKvP'T-rTa). Torepresents ambassadors who had just returned wards this side, and close to the wall, was the
from Persia and Thrace, as giving an account of bemza (3/ra), a stone platform or hustings ten or
their embassy in a ivpia sK'Kt lXa, which, ac- eleven feet high, with an ascent of steps; it was
cording to Pollux, would be not the third but the cut out of the solid rock, whence it is sometimes
first of the regular assemblies. With a view of called 6 A'Ios, as in Aristophanes (Pax, 680) we
reconciling these discrepancies, Schimann (De read CorTs KpaTe Y, TO,' i ov 0o ro,'rV IIUlcVI.
Coemit. c. i.) supposes, that Solon originally ap- The position of the besma was such as to command
pointed one regular assembly, called vupia, to be a view of the sea from behind (on which account
held on a certain day of every prytany, and that the thirty tyrants are said to have altered it),
afterwards additional assemblies were instituted, and of the flposrhXaLa and Parthenon in front,
appropriated respectively to particular purposes, though the hill of the Aeiopagus lay partly bethough the term covpia was still reserved for the tween it and the Acropolis. Hence Demosthenes
assembly formerly so called. If, however, the re- (ITepl vVTra~. 174), when reminding the Athenians
presentation of Aristophanes is in agreement with from this very bemla of the other splendid works
the practice of his age, we must further suppose, of their ancestors, says emphatically Ilpo7rrhAao.
what is very probable, that the arrangements for Tavr'a: and we may be sure that the Athenian
business, as described by Pollux, were not always orators would often rouse the national feelings of
observed even in the time of the poet; and since a their hearers by pointing to the assemblage of
few years after Aristotle's time many changes took magnificent edifices, " monuments of Athenian
place in the constitution of Athens, it may have gratitude and glory," which they had in view
happened that the name of'iupia was then given from the Pnyx. (Cramer, Ancient Greece, vol. ii.
to all, the regular assemblies, ii which case the p. 335; Wordsworth, Athens and Attica. In the
Scholiast probably identified the customs and latter of these works are two views of the reterms of a late age with those of an earlier period. mains of the Pnyx.) That the general situation
Moreover, the number of prytanies in each year, of the place was elevated is clear from the phrase
originally ten, one for each tribe, was, on the in- &;eaCaiveL Eess rT'~, EKK;LTmaV, and the words waas
crease in the number of the tribes at Athens, o ajjos' caP Ka0I'0o, applied to a meeting of the
raised to twelve; so that the prytaiies would people in the Pnyx. (Dem. De Cor. p. 285.)
then coincide with the months of the year, a fact After the great theatre of Dionysus was built, the
which, taken in conjunction with other circiim- assemblies were frequently held in it, as it afforded
stances (Schhmann, ii. 44), seems to show, that spatc and convenience for a large multitude; and
the authorities who speak of three regular as- in sone particular cases it was specially deter.
semblies in each month, had in view the times mined by law that the people should assemble
when a prytany and a month were the same thing. there. (Dem. c. Ieid. p. 517.) Assemblies were
Some authors have endeavoured to determine the also held in the Peiraeeus, and in the theatre at
particular days on which the four regular assem- Muunychia. (Dem. De Fals. Leg. p. 359; Lysias,
blies of each prytany were held, but Sch nnmmn (ii. c. Agor. p. 133; Thucyd. viii. 93.)
47) has proved almost to demonstration, that there The right of convening the people generally
were no invariably fixed days of assembly; and vested in the prytanes or presidents of the council
at any rate, even if there were, we have not suffi- of Five Hundred [BouLE]; but in cases of sudcient data to determine them. Ulpian (ad De- den emergency, and especially during wars, the
mnostl. Timoc. p. 706) says, in allusion to the strategi also had the power of calling extraorditimes when there were three assemblies in every nary meetings. for which, however, if we niay
month, that one was held on the eleventh, another judge by the form in which several decrees are
abouat the twentieth, a third about the thirtieth drawn up, the consent of the senate appears to
of each month; and it is of course not impro- have been necessary. (Dem. De Cor. p. 249.)
bable that they were always held at nearly equal Thle four ordinary meetings of every prytany
intervals. were, nevertheless, always convened by the pryThe place in which the assemblies were anciently tanes, who not only gave a previous notice (7rpo.
held was, we are told by Harpocration (s. v.?ypcdpev'r-v?E1IcAsnavr) of the day of assembly,
1Id,3c7,los'AppoNTa7-), the ayopd. Afterwards they and published a programme of the subjects to be
were transferred to the Pnyx, and at last to the discussed, but also, as it appears, sent a crier round
great theatre of Dionysus, and other places. Thus to collect the citizeIls (ovdy-ewv "/E alpov, PolThucydides (viii. 97) speaks of the people being lux, viii. 95; Harpocrat. s. v. Kvpia'EtcXmcLea;
summoned to the Pnyx, the usual place of assembly Dem. c. Aristog. p. 772.) At any rate, whenever
in his times; and Aristophanes (Equit. 42), in the strategi wished to convene one of the extradescribing " Demus," the representative of the ordinary assemblies, notice was certainly given of