carried it out on behalf of the people and the Council of 500 supervised its execution. Lots chose almost all the administrative officials for one year. Usually they were selected in groups of ten to carry out one specific function such as policing the markets or caring for the streets (Ober 62). The Council examined all officials chosen by lot before entering office to eliminate the physically or mentally incompetent. Any official handling public money was subject to repeated inspections (Ober 63). The Athenians had great faith in democracy in theory but little trust in the corruptibility of any one individual.The Athenians also had an interesting way of dispensing justice. The courts of law were really committees of the people. Each year a panel of 6000 jurors over thirty years of age was drawn from those who volunteered to serve. For each trial a jury of 201 or more were drawn by a very complicated system of lots so bribery and influence could be limited (Ober 172). Each of the two parties in the lawsuit had to speak and act for himself, though one could hire a professional speechwriter to compose his speech. Undoubtedly one had to be very careful as to how one appealed to the jurors, who determined the verdict by majority. There could be no appeal from this committee, but the people of Athens were judges their peers, which is a democratic ideal within itself.Democracies succeed only if the people are willing to choose and support able leaders. In the second half of the 5th century, Athens gave its support to the mighty Pericles (Kagan 3). He was an aristocrat who rose to power by helping to reduce the power of the conservative Council of Areopagus. In earlier times the main executive officials had been the nine archons, one of who supervised religious functions, another was war-leader and the rest were law-keepers in charge of justice (Demand 141-142). After their year of service an Archon became a lifetime member of the Council of ...
