Everybody Served
T is hard for us to realise, accustomed as we are to professional civil servants, how comprehensive and how unbureaucratic the Athenian administration was. Statistics are perhaps misleading, and cannot be very accurate here, but Dr. Warde Fowler’s estimate may be interesting. He points out that of a population of about 30,000 citizens of Athens, in the age of Pericles, perhaps 1,400 would be employed yearly on the various boards, including the Archons or magistrates, the Strategi or generals, and the minor boards for the control of finance, religion, education, dockyards, etc. To this must be added the 500 for the Council, making a total of 1,900 out of the 30,000. I should point out that I have not included here the right of attending and voting at the Ecclesia or Assembly or at the Dikasteria or law-courts. So on these figures’it was probable that every Athenian citizen at some time in his life would haye some share in the administration of public business: it was his privilege as well as his duty to do so; and as far as we know, during the 5th century, B.C., it was a privilege eagerly accepted, at least by those who lived near enough to take advantage of it-(The First Democracy," by Miss M. I. Turnbull, 4YA, June 17.)
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 106, 4 July 1941, Page 5
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218Everybody Served New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 106, 4 July 1941, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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