a constitution than to render its details flexile and open
to reform. Accordingly, he subjected his laws to the vigilance of
regular and constant revision. Once a year, proposals for altering
any existent law might be made by any citizen--were debated--and, if
approved, referred to a legislative committee, drawn by lot from the
jurors. The committee then sat in judgment on the law; five advocates
were appointed to plead for the old law; if unsuccessful, the new law
came at once into operation. In addition to this precaution, six of
the nine archons (called Thesmothetae), whose office rendered them
experienced in the defects of the law, were authorized to review the
whole code, and to refer to the legislative committee the
consideration of any errors or inconsistencies that might require
amendment. [221]

XIX. With respect to the education of youth, the wise Athenian did
not proceed upon the principles which in Sparta attempted to transfer
to the state the dearest privileges of a parent. From the age of
sixteen to eighteen (and earlier in the case of orphans) the law,
indeed, seems to have considered that the state had a right to prepare
its citizens for its service; and the youth was obliged to attend
public gymnastic schools, in which, to much physical, some
intellectual, discipline was added, under masters publicly nominated.
But from the very circumstance of compulsory education at that age,
and the absence of it in childhood, we may suppose that there had
already grown up in Athens a moral obligation and a general custom, to
prepare the youth of the state for the national schools.

Besides the free citizens, there were two subordinate classes--the
aliens and the slaves. By the first are meant those composed of
settlers, who had not relinquished connexion with their native
countries. These, as universally in Greece, were widely distinguished
from the citizens; they paid a small annual sum for the protection of
the state, and each became a kind of client to some individual
citizen, who appeared for him in the courts of justice. They were
also forbidden to purchase land; but for the rest, Solon, himself a
merchant, appears to have given to such aliens encouragements in trade
and manufacture not usual in that age; and most of their disabilities
were probably rather moral or imaginary than real and daily causes of
grievance. The great and paramount distinction was between the
freeman and the slave. No slave