ARISTOCRACY. 5
said to have existed ; one smaller in number than the other.
But it is difficult to decide whether the larger council may
not have been the same as the assembly of all the citizens
having right of suffrage. In Elis the gcrnsia consisted of
ninety members ; in Cnidus, of sixty exempt from all con-
trol ; in Epidaurus, the council of the artyni, or artynw, was
a detachment or committee selected from a hundred and
eighty men, who would thus constitute the larger council; *
in Marseilles, a committee of fifteen from a body of six hun-
dred^ a number, which in so considerable a place would
scarcely contain the whole body of wealthy citizens. In other
places a body of a thousand is spoken of, which, if they did
not include the entire number "of citizens with full privilege,
would be a great council with at least one small council over
them. Besides these bodies which prepared business for one
another—the smaller for the larger—general assemblies of the
people are mentioned, which may have had very limited
powers, perhaps no right to originate measures. In some
oligarchies, again, a class of citizens, as the hoplitcs of the
Malians (Aristot. cited above), form a senate without regard
to number, but in so small a state these were without doubt few.
In others a senate of permanent, and a council of annual
members are found side by side. Such may have been the
eighty and the council (fiov\ij)t at Argos, who with magistrates
* Pint, Q, Onec., in and for Cnidus, ibid, 4.
f Of the constitution of this old Phooean colony, Strabo thus
speaks /iv., § 5, p. 179); "The Massaliots have an aristocratic
administration, and are under the best of laws* They appoint a
sjwf<trium\m council] of six hundred, who hold this honor for life,
and are called tlmuchi [honor or office holders]. Fifteen are presi-
dents of the synedrium, to whom the management of current affairs
is entrusted Again, three persons of the greatest influence preside
over the fifteen, and one presides over the three. No one can
become a timuchus who is without children, and is not born of those
who have been citizens for three generations." This does not imply
that all who are thus descended can be tinnichi, unless citizens 1$
taken in the sense of citizens with full rights, and implies admmkmft
of new comers into the community* Cieaar mentions the fifteen*
(De Bell, Civ., i, § 35*)