DĒMŎCRĂTĬA

( δημοκρατία ), that form of constitution in which the sovereign political power is in the hands of the dem us ( δῆμος ) or commonalty. In a pa age of Hero dot us (iii. 80), the characteristics of a democracy are specified to be—1. Equality of legal rights ( ἰσονομίη ). 2. The appointment of magistrates by lot. 3. The accountability of all magistrates and officers. 4. The reference of all public matters to the decision of the community at large. Aristotle remarks—“The following points are characteristic of a democracy; that all magistrates should be chosen out of the whole body of citizens; that all should rule each, and each in turn rule all; that either all magistracies, or those not requiring experience and profe ional knowledge, should be a igned by lot; that there should be no property qualification, or but a very small one, for filling any magistracy; that the same man should not fill the same office twice, or should fill offices but few times, and but few offices, except in the case of military commands; that all, or as many as po ible of the magistracies, should be of brief duration; that all citizens should be qualified to serve as dicasts; that the supreme power in everything should reside in the public a embly, and that no magistrate should be entrusted with irresponsible power except in very small matters.” It is somewhat curious that neither in practice nor in theory did the representative system attract any attention among the Greeks. That diseased form of a democracy, in which from the practice of giving pay to the poorer citizens for their attendance in the public a embly, and from other causes, the predominant party in the state came to be in fact the lowest cla of the citizens, was by later writers termed an Ochlocracy ( ὀχλοκρατία —the dominion of the mob).