T HE FIF1Y-FOUR BALLOTS found in the Agora cannot be treated as a homogeneous group since they differ from one another in a variety of ways: (1) Although most are bronze, a few are lead (B 50-B 54). (2) The shapes fall readily into four fairly distinct classes on the basis of diameter of wheel and length of axle. (3) Some are inscribed "official ballot" ()(ypoq bpoocia:
B 7-B 12, B 14-B 16, B 18), but most are not. (4) Only a few are additionally distinguished with a "single letter", sometimes in an incuse stamp (B 8-B 12, B 14-B 16, B 18), sometimes large and in relief (B 13, B 17, B 21, B 22). (5) They come from contexts ranging from the mid-4th century B.C.E. down. (6) Most are from one of two fairly small areas, one around the Tholos and Bouleuterion, the other in or near the "Ballot Deposit" (PI. 2), while the rest are somewhat more scattered (Fig. 4).1 It seems clear from this distribution that the ballots were used both in the courts and in the Bouleuterion.
Most of these criteria divide the group along different lines, but some correspondences should be noted: (1) None of the lead ballots are marked either as an official ballot or with a letter. (2) Only B 54 approximates the measurements of any class of bronze ballots (IV); B 50-B 53 have the same diameter but long axles. (3) Although all inscribed examples belong to Class I, not all ballots of that class are inscribed. (4) All examples that are inscribed as official ballots also have an incuse letter,2 but those with a relief letter have no "ballot" inscription. (5) Several of the inscribed ballots of Class I have a context date in the second half of the 4th century B.C.E.; one of Class II (B 32) came from a 4th-century B.C.E. context; two of Class III (B 35, B 36) have a context of the 3rd century B.C.E.;
and no example of Class IV can be dated by context. (6) All the ballots but one (B 6) from the
"Ballot Deposit" area (B 6, B 10-B 17) are inscribed either with a letter or as an official ballot, or both, while none from the Tholos-Bouleuterion area is inscribed.
From these coincidences and differences it is possible to formulate a few hypotheses. That the ballots of Class I with their large diameters (0.055-0.065 m.) and long axles (0.024-0.038 m.) are the earliest (4th century B.C.E.) seems clear not only from context dates but also from letter shapes on the inscribed examples. But since Class I itself includes three different types (uninscribed; inscribed as official ballots and marked with incuse letter; and marked only with letter in relief), we must ask if these differences also are chronological. Between the latter two it seems reasonable to suppose a slight chronological difference, with the large letter in relief replacing the small incuse letter to improve legibility. The relief letter would at the same time obviate the necessity for the official inscription, since as part of the very fabric of the ballot it serves as an adequate guarantee. But the chronological difference cannot be important since ballots of both kinds were used together and found together in the "Ballot Deposit". To determine whether the uninscribed ballots of Class I must be thought of as chronologically different from the inscribed pieces, it is necessary to consider briefly other known ballots with respect to the nature and function of the letter that distinguishes both types of inscribed ballots from the uninscribed.
1 Tholos and Bouleuterion: B 1-B 5, B 23-B 26, B 33, B 34, B 38, B 40, B 41, B 47-B 50, B 53. "Ballot Deposit": B 6, B 10-B 17. Somewhat more scattered: B 7-B 9, B 18-B 22, B 27-B 32, B 39, B 42-B 46, B 51, B 52, B 54. Grid locations are indicated on the plan, Figure 4.
2 B 7 is almost certain to have had such a letter, but two-thirds of the wheel is lost.
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Twenty-five ballots in the Athens National Museum are now published in Boegehold 1974. Of this number, nineteen carry letter stamps, many of them more than one. Often only one stamp remains readable, while another one or two have been deliberately effaced by gouging. Sometimes it is possible to identify these earlier letters. The total number of preserved letters is as follows:
alpha (1), beta (1), gamma (4), delta (2), zeta (1), eta (2), theta (2), iota (1), kappa (1), lambda (2), mu (4), omicron (1, although it is possibly a theta). Alfred Koerte,3 who at the time of his study had only sixteen inscribed ballots to examine, read fewer letters but did see one lambda and four mus. Since he had expected to find letters from A to K only, the letters representing the ten dikastic sections, he explained the additional letters as coming from a time when there were twelve tribes at Athens and consequently (he reasoned) a corresponding twelve dikastic sections. In support of his hypothesis, he pointed out that one ballot shows mu superimposed on delta and another has a mu stamped on the inscribed side and traces of an obliterated stamp on the side where a stamp is usually found. It is very difficult to check this hypothesis, since the only other appearance of section letters is on the bronze dikasts' pinakia, which were replaced by boxwood before the introduction of the twelve tribes. But the difficulties inherent in such an increase in the number of sections are serious. For although the two new tribes were filled by transferring demes from the old tribes, a corresponding increase to twelve sections, if each of the twelve tribes was to be equally represented in each of the twelve sections, would have required that the entire potential dikastic population be individually reallotted. Furthermore, numbers to be allotted for courts of 200, 400, or 500 from twelve tribes by twelve sections would have required computers, rather than kleroteria, for each tribe. That is, when the first white cube came out of each of 24 kleroteria of 6 columns each, 144 men would have been allotted.
The convenience of the ten sections for achieving courts of varying round numbers thus militates against the introduction of twelve sections. At the same time, the presumption that the demesmen transferred to the new tribes would take with them their pinakia with section letters obviates any need for new sections. It is obvious that the dikastic sections were by Aristotle's time a device to facilitate allotment within the tribe. They no longer functioned as a unit, as in the 5th century, when a section sat together for a year in a single court, or in the early 4th century, when a section was allotted as a whole to a court. In the later procedure, the section was no longer a corporate whole that sat in a court and might therefore have had equipment of its own; it had become a means whereby the members of one tribe were divided into ten groups, and so allotment could proceed by tens (or fives, since two kleroteria were used for each tribe) rather than by ones. If the section had not been inherited, the same end could have been achieved by requiring each potential dikast to deposit his pinakion in the next box after his predecessor as he came up to the tribal entrance, and when all had come all ten boxes would have an almost equal number.4 Members of a section from one tribe had no connection in this later procedure with members of the same section from
3 A. Koerte, "Attische ycpoq," AM 21, 1896, pp. 450-453. Cf. IG II2 1923a;J. N. Svoronos, <<'H7etp6xtGv ()(pot Stxaoxtxal ix A<xo86'v7Y?, JWAN 13, 1911, pp. 121-130. A similar ballot, marked as sacred (IEPA) was found in Olbia (Kratkie Soobshcheniia Instituta Arkheologii 130 (Academy of Science, U.S.S.R.), 1972; cf. AR 1971-1972, p. 50.
4 Such a system, though perhaps harder to police, would have obviated the inequalities that Dow notes (1939, pp. 30-34), namely, that sections within a tribe must always have been unequally represented, so that those whose pinakia were put in slots below the last full row were automatically excluded from the allotment by cubes. That is, the sections are vestigial and make for small inefficiencies and inequities that a brand new device would have avoided.
But it may be that one useful development of the earlier system was brought over into the procedure of Aristotle's time: the registration of one man in more than one section. If this was the case, the sections on the kleroterion could be easily equalized. See 73 and 74 and Boegehold 1984, pp. 23-29 for an interpretation of that sort of registration;
also pp. 32-33 above.
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another tribe. There were no officials in charge of sections, and so it is very difficult to imagine such amorphous groups owning anything.
The paraphernalia mentioned initially by Aristotle in his account of the procedure (Ath. Pol.
63.1-2 [249]) seems all to belong either to the tribes or to the courts. Each tribe had two kleroteria, ten boxes for section letters, other boxes for the dikasts allotted to the court, and two hydriai. For each court there were colored staves and lettered balanoi that were given to the dikasts as they were allotted at their tribal entrances. Is it likely that these latter were the property of the individual courts? The courts had no continuing existence as far as personnel was concerned; they were permanent places, but both their dikasts and presiding officers changed from day to day. So just as the dikastic sections had permanent personnel but no corporate function, the courts had a corporate function but no permanent personnel. Owning and caring for large amounts of equipment does not seem appropriate to either sections or courts, partly because maintenance and replacement require a treasury which neither could have had.
There were, of course, public slaves who might store and maintain equipment, but these ordinarily seem to have worked under the direction of elected or allotted officials.5 The bodies that had permanent personnel who were both section members and dikasts in the courts, and that had responsible officials who were also the presiding officers of the courts, were the logical owners of all the equipment used not only in the allotting of dikasts to courts but in the courts themselves.
The archon or thesmothetes of each tribe had public slaves to handle the equipment and physical aspects of the allotment (Ath. Poli 63-65). When either was allotted to a court (Ath. Pol. 66.1), it is natural to assume that his slaves accompanied him to handle the equipment and physical aspects of the session there. They would therefore be the logical people to provide the ballots and klepsydrai for the dikasts allotted to take charge of these (Ath. Pol. 66.2).
Ownership of dikastic equipment by the tribes seems eminently reasonable and desirable. It may be that kleroteria, section-letter boxes, and hydriai, in addition to klepsydrai and ballots, were owned by individual tribes, but it is likely that the boxes that were taken to the courts, and also staves and balanoi, all marked with either the colors or the letters of specific courts, were held in common by all the tribes, since these ended up in the courts and could more easily be taken from there to a common store than sorted into ten tribal stores. The common store would be especially convenient, since the same number of courts (hence of balanoi, staves, and boxes) would not be used every day. One imagines that the archons and thesmothetai met very early in the morning and not only determined the number and size of the courts (and so also the number of dikasts each was to allot from his own tribe) but also collected with their public slaves the appropriate number of boxes (for the courts) and staves and balanoi (for the dikasts). It must have been at this time also that one thesmothetes allotted the letters to the courts for that day (249). As far as ballots and klepsydrai are concerned, public slaves serving the presiding officer, whose position was basically tribal, would be responsible not only for providing the proper number but also for collecting them afterwards. Furthermore, the ballots are stamped with letters, which should indicate ownership, and the fact that both letters and tribes were twelve in number makes the invention of twelve dikastic sections gratuitous.
The use of letters to indicate tribes cannot at present be proved, but there is evidence that is at least suggestive. The boundary stones that read simply 6po; at' (IG II2 2515) and opo; x' (IG I2 876) must belong to a group (perhaps of ten) that had a recognized order, easily expressed by letters. If these were the tribes, the stones would have marked the position or headquarters of
5 W. L. Westermann, The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquit, Philadelphia 1955, p. 10.
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each in some place where all the tribes met for some official or military purpose. Since more formal documents avoid the use of abbreviated forms like those letters, little more certain evidence can be expected. The danger of confusion with section letters seems minimal because of the decisive nature of the context in any imaginable use.
Tribal ownership ofdikastic equipment seems to be confirmed by the inscription on the klepsydra (M 1), which identifies it as the property of the tribe Antiochis. In the original publication,6 Suzanne Young suggested that tribes may have owned klepsydrai for use when they were acting as prytaneis in trials held either in the boule or in the ekklesia or for use by the ThirtyJudges, who were organized by tribes. It seems easier to assume that the tribes were responsible for providing klepsydrai to the courts through and for their thesmothetai. That the klepsydra from the Agora dates from a time (ca. 400) when the dikastic sections were still functioning as corporate units does not seem to be an objection, since they were even then headless bodies, without funds or officials necessary for effective stewardship.
If use in the Bouleuterion is not required for a tribally owned klepsydra, it is reasonable to assume that the building was furnished with only one set of equipment for whatever kind of business it was conducting. So where the voting was secret, there would have been one lot of ballots,7 which might be used by all tribes acting as prytaneis. There was no need to mark these ballots as official, since they stayed in the Bouleuterion, and this was sufficient guarantee of their official nature. It is possible then that the uninscribed ballots of Class I, all of which came from the Tholos-Bouleuterion area, belong to the boule rather than to the tribes, in which case the absence of inscription need not imply a difference in date.8 There would be no danger of anyone removing such unidentified ballots, since the count after a vote was a sufficient check on numbers.
Ballots used in the lawcourts were more exposed to meddling on the part of a larger number and more mixed lot of people who might try to introduce "reasonable facsimiles" in order to stuff the ballot box or to make away with official ballots for later illegal use. It therefore seems reasonable to suppose that the inscribed ballots of Class I were designed for use in the lawcourts. In this case, we should expect their findspots to tie in with other evidence on the location of the courts. Since six of them come from the "Ballot Deposit" (B 12-B 17) and three from nearby (B 6, B 10, B 11), they are themselves evidence that a lawcourt or storage area for courts was located there. Two others (B 8, B 9) were found close by the large Poros Building immediately to the southwest of the Agora once tentatively identified as a lawcourt,9 more recently as an official place of confinement called the desmoterion.10 The other inscribed ballot of Class I (B 7) came from the immediate vicinity of the large early structure for many years labeled Heliaia. 1 l
Of the twenty-five ballots in the Athens National Museum, twenty-one are like those of the Class I defined in this essay. Ten of them, all inscribed and all bearing owl stamps of one sort or another, were found in the neighborhood of Mounychia and may have been used in a lawcourt in Peiraieus. The rest are not catalogued as having useful proveniences. The fact that no Class I
6 Young 1939, pp. 282-284. See "Klepsydra," pp. 77-78 above.
7 Five hundred, if both "for" and "against" jars were used; 1,000, half of which were pierced, half solid, if "valid" and
"invalid" jars were used.
8 B 6, B 19, and B 20 do not come from that area, but their poor condition may well account for their apparent lack of inscription.
9 Crosby 1951, pp. 184-187.
10 Vanderpool 1980, pp. 17-31. Cf. pp. 95-96 below.
11 Thompson 1954, p. 38; Agora XIV, pp. 62-65.
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ballots that are definitely without inscription have been reported from elsewhere suggests that they are peculiarly at home in the Tholos-Bouleuterion area.
That Class I ballots belong to the 4th century is likely from the fact that several come from 4th-century contexts and that they are generally uniform. Those that are stamped with the letter lambda (B 9, B 16) may come from the end of the century, after the introduction of the two new tribes.
Two ballots (B 21, B 22), which can belong neither to Class I because of their smaller diameter (0.049-0.056 m.) and thicker wheel nor to Class II because of their medium-long axles (0.021- 0.03 m.) and their "section" letters in relief, are inserted here as Class I variants, which may be regarded as transitional to Class II.
Ballots of Class II are slightly smaller in diameter (0.051-0.056 m.) than those of Class I, but the real distinguishing feature is the short axle (0.015-0.02 m.). None is inscribed as official, and none is marked with a letter. Six of the twelve examples were found in the Tholos-Bouleuterion area (B 23-B 26, B 33, B 34), but the other six were widely scattered. The very poor condition of B 32 makes its classification doubtful, as does its 4th-century context date.
Ballots of Class III are somewhat smaller still in diameter (0.046-0.05 m.) and have axles of medium length (0.022-0.031 m.), that is, for the most part longer than those of Class II but generally shorter than those of Class I. None is inscribed as official, and none is marked with a letter. Only two (B 40, B 41) of the ten came from the immediate area of the Tholos and Bouleuterion.
Ballots of Class IV are the smallest in diameter (ca. 0.04 m.) and have short axles (ca. 0.018 m.), except for B 49, whose axle is 0.027 m. None is inscribed as official, and none is marked with a letter. All four examples were found in the Tholos-Bouleuterion area.
The only ballots in Classes II-IV that have context dates are B 32 (II) in the 4th century and B 35 and B 36 (III) in the 3rd century. On the present evidence it seems reasonable to assume that the decrease in size is related to the chronology of the ballots and that the first decrease in size was accompanied by what can have been another measure of economy, the dropping of both kinds of inscriptions. That this change may well have been related to the increase in the number of tribes is suggested not only by the 4th-century context of B 32 but also by ballots in the Athens National Museum on which the mu has been substituted for another letter and by B 16, where two stamped letters (iota and lambda) appear side by side. That is, tribes at first continued to mark their dikastic ballots, even making new ones like B 9, with a lambda stamped in incuse square. It is possible that when the old order changed, with the two new tribes Antigonis and Demetrias ranking first and second, there was a new distribution of old ballots to fit the new tribal order, with only Aiantis and Antiochis (now XI and XII, or Lambda and Mu) having to convert old ballots by adding the new letter. It seems likely that the complications were such that it seemed easier to drop the identifying symbol and the official inscription completely. Certainly the distribution of Classes II-IV shows that more than half of them were probably used in the courts rather than in the Bouleuterion.
The only ballots in Classes II-IV that have context dates are B 32 (II) in the 4th century and B 35 and B 36 (III) in the 3rd century. On the present evidence it seems reasonable to assume that the decrease in size is related to the chronology of the ballots and that the first decrease in size was accompanied by what can have been another measure of economy, the dropping of both kinds of inscriptions. That this change may well have been related to the increase in the number of tribes is suggested not only by the 4th-century context of B 32 but also by ballots in the Athens National Museum on which the mu has been substituted for another letter and by B 16, where two stamped letters (iota and lambda) appear side by side. That is, tribes at first continued to mark their dikastic ballots, even making new ones like B 9, with a lambda stamped in incuse square. It is possible that when the old order changed, with the two new tribes Antigonis and Demetrias ranking first and second, there was a new distribution of old ballots to fit the new tribal order, with only Aiantis and Antiochis (now XI and XII, or Lambda and Mu) having to convert old ballots by adding the new letter. It seems likely that the complications were such that it seemed easier to drop the identifying symbol and the official inscription completely. Certainly the distribution of Classes II-IV shows that more than half of them were probably used in the courts rather than in the Bouleuterion.