Ecclesia in Ancient Greece

The Ecclesia was the general democratic assembly in ancient Greek cities. The best example comes from Athens, where during the fifth and fourth centuries, citizens voted on important matters in such a body. The Ecclesia normally met on the Pynx, a hill near the Acropolis and Agora that formed a natural auditorium, and until the fourth century, it could comfortably accommodate more than 6,000 individuals. This was the number needed for a quorum to determine if ostracism would take place. It is clear that in other instances, smaller numbers needed to be assembled.

It appears that the Ecclesia met on the eleventh day of the first prytany, the term that each tribe held as an executive office (there were ten of these a year, one for each tribe), to determine if there would be a change in the laws of Athens.

This might be seen as a yearly constitutional convention. There were four regular meetings per prytany or a total of forty per year. One meeting per prytany was called the kyria ekklesia, and voting was done at that principal time on issues concerning the performance of officers of the state, food supply, important initiatives, and national security. During the sixth prytany, the kyria ekklesia meeting was also used to determine if the state would hold an ostracism that year and to receive complaints about sycophants, those who deliberately deceived the state.

Another meeting was set aside for individuals to submit private petitions to the assembly on matters of import to them. Another meeting was used for religious matters, and still another for foreign affairs. Typically, the agenda for a meeting had to be posted four days early. These meetings did not limit the city from calling special meetings if needed, and for important events, they might have been held several times over consecutive days.

The meetings were set up and formalized by the prytaneis, the standing committee of the boule, but the entire boule or the Ecclesia itself also could call a meeting. Only citizens were allowed to attend and vote, although noncitizens and visitors could watch from the Agora. The matters being discussed clearly determined who attended, and in the late fifth century, citizens were herded into the meeting by a dyed rope where the guards stretched a rope across the area and moved them toward the meeting place, which also may have been used to bring the assembly to order and diminish the noise in the Agora.

The meeting began in the early morning with religious services and lasted until midday. Some of the items placed before the Ecclesia was routine and probably passed without discussion or even formal voting, just nodding or the like. Most speeches were probably pro forma, not taking long, but important matters were afforded more speakers, who gave longer speeches.

Those taking too long or speaking on trivial matters could be shouted out or even removed. Voting was done by a show of hands except when a quorum of 6,000 was needed or when the Ecclesia acted as a court; then ballots were used. Since a show of hands was not exact, the presiding officers would interpret the count, but this could be objected to by another member, which would force another vote to be held. Until 403, a prytaneis was in charge of the meeting, with the presiding individual chosen by lot for that day; from then on, there was a board of nine members, one from each of the prytanies, chosen by lot, and one of those nine people was chosen (also by lot) to serve as the presiding officer.

The prytaneis, and after 403 all nine board members, sat on the bema (platform) in the Pynx, and to help maintain order, there were 300 police officers, archers who were known as the Scythians since they were slaves from that region. After 403, those who attended the Ecclesia began to be paid for their services. Originally, the salary was one obol, and by 390, it had risen to three obols; by the end of the fourth century, it had risen again, to six obols or one drachma for normal meetings and 1.5 drachmas for kyria ekklesia.

Although anyone could call a meeting, no business could actually come to the Ecclesia unless the boule sent it there. The boule could send a very specific proposal, which could be altered and then the Ecclesia could either accept or not; or it could put forth a general discussion point, where the Ecclesia could debate and decide for itself how to proceed. The Ecclesia could even instruct the boule to send a proposal or topic to be discussed at a future meeting. This may have been a way to gauge the sentiment of a particular item before it reached the full assembly.

The item to be placed on the agenda, therefore, had to come from a member of the boule or the boule itself, or else someone outside the boule had to get a member to propose it. Officers of the state, such as generals, typically knew individuals on the council to ensure that their matters were put on the agenda. The Ecclesia could reverse its own decisions; one famous example was in 427, when they originally decreed that the rebels at Mytilene were to be executed, only to levy a more lenient punishment in a second decree on a later date.

Citizens could request a change in laws; some of these, like Pericles’s law requiring both parents to be citizens, became permanent, while others were simply one-time practices. If a citizen proposed a new law and it was deemed to be inexpedient, he could be indicted for making an inappropriate law and fined if found guilty. The Ecclesia also acted as a court, especially for those officials charged with corruption or abuse of their offices.

The information is less detailed about other city-states, although most of them must have had similar policies. In Sparta, the Assembly or apella apparently voted on matters put forward by the kings or Ephors, and voting was done by voice, with the kings or Ephors determining the outcome. In other city-states in Greece, the Assembly gave the population control of the political life of the city and ensured a check on the executive branch or other individuals.