“I hear thunder!” “I feel rain!” they begin shouting, and such ill omens, if really in evidence, would be enough to force an adjournment; but the sky is delightfully clear.  The president simply shrugs his shoulders; and now the Pnyx is fairly rocking with the yell, “A vote!  A vote!”

The president rises.  Taking the vote in the Ecclesia is a very simple matter when it is a plain question of “yes” or “no” on a proposition.[*]

[*]When an individual had to be voted for, then ballots were used.

“All who favor the ‘probouleuma’ of Timon will raise the right hand!”

A respectable but very decided minority shows itself.

“Those who oppose.”

The adverse majority is large.  The morning is quite spent.  There is a great tumult.  Men are rising, putting on their himatia, ridiculing Timon; while the herald at a nod from the president declares the Ecclesia adjourned.

136.  The Ecclesia as an Educational Instrument.—­Timon and his friends retire crestfallen to discuss the fortunes of war.  They are not utterly discouraged, however.  The Ecclesia is a fickle creature.  What it withholds to-day it may grant to-morrow.  Iphicrates, whose words have carried such weight now, may soon be howled down and driven from the Bema much as was the unfortunate litigant in the jury court.  Still, with all its faults, the Ecclesia is the great school for the adults of Athens.  All are on terms of perfect equality.  King Demos is not the least respecter of wealth or family.  Sophistries are usually penetrated in a twinkling by some coarse expletive from a remote corner of the Pnyx.  Every citizen understands the main issues of the public business.  He is part of the actual working government, not once per year (or less often) at the ballot box, but at least forty times annually; and dolt he would be, did he not learn at least all the superficialities of statecraft.  He may make grievous errors.  He may be misled by mob prejudice or mob enthusiasm; but he is not likely to persist in a policy of crass blundering very long.  King Demos may indeed rule a fallible human monarchy, but it is thanks to him, and to his high court held at the Pnyx, that Athens owes at least half of that sharpness of wit and intelligence which is her boast.

Chapter XVII.  The Afternoon at the Gymnasia.

137.  The Gymnasia.  Places of General Resort.—­The market is thinning after a busy day; the swarms of farmer-hucksters with their weary asses are trudging homeward; the schoolrooms are emptying; the dicasteries or the Ecclesia, as the case may be, have adjourned.  Even the slave artisans in the factories are allowed to slacken work.  The sun, a ball of glowing fire, is slowly sinking to westward over the slopes of Aegaleos; the rock of the Acropolis is glowing as if in flame; intense purple tints are creeping over all the landscape.  The day is waning, and all Athenians who can possibly find leisure are heading towards the suburbs for a walk, a talk, and refreshment of soul and body at the several Gymnasia.