e civil congregations of the people in
Athens and Lacedaemon, which were so called; and the word for holding up
of hands in the text is also the very same, which signified the suffrage
of the people in Athens, chirotonante; for the suffrage of the
Athenians was given per chirotonian, says Emmius.

"The Council of the Bean (as was shown by my Lord Navarchus de Paralo in
his full discourse), being the proposing Senate of Athens (for that
of the Areopagites was a judicatory), consisted of 400, some say 500
senators, elected annually, all at once, and by a mere lot without
suffrage. Wherefore though the Senate, to correct the temerity of the
lot, had power to cast out such as they should judge unworthy of that
honor, this related to manners only, and was not sufficient to repair
the commonwealth, which by such means became impotent; and forasmuch
as her Senate consisted not of the natural aristocracy, which in a
commonwealth is the only spur and rein of the people, it was cast
headlong by the rashness of her demagogues or grandees into ruin; while
her Senate, like the Roman tribunes (who almost always, instead of
governing, were rather governed by the multitude), proposed not to the
result only, but to the debate also of the people, who were therefore
called to the pulpits, where some vomited, and others drank, poison.

"The Senate of Lacedaemon, most truly discovered by my Lord Laco de
Scytale, consisted but of thirty for life, whereof the two kings, having
but single votes, were hereditary, the rest elected by the free suffrage
of the people, but out of such as were sixty years of age. These had
the whole debate of the commonwealth in themselves, and proposed to the
result only of the people. And now the riddle which I have heretofore
found troublesome to unfold, is out; that is to say, why Athens and
Lacedaemon, consisting each of the Senate and the people, the one
should be held a democracy, and the other an aristocracy, or laudable
oligarchy, as it is termed by Isocrates; for that word is not, wherever
you meet it, to be branded, Seeing it is used also by Aristotle,
Plutarch, and others, sometimes in a good sense. The main difference was
that the people in this had the result only, and in that the debate and
result, too. But for my part, where the people have the election of
the Senate, not bound to a distinct order, and the result, which is the
sovereign power, I hold them to have that share in the government (the
Se