ECCLE´TI
ECCLE´TI (
ἔκκλητοι）
was the name of an assembly at Sparta (only in
Xen.
Hell. 2.4, § 38; 5.2.33; 6.3.3). The same writer
mentions, once only, a “Small Ecclesia” (
ἡ μικρὰ καλουμένη ἐκκλησία,
Hell. 3.3.8). That the constitution of these bodies should be
involved in much doubt is not surprising, considering how little is known of
the popular assembly, whose very name is uncertain. It is usual to call it
ἁλία which was elsewhere the name for
assemblies of the governing class in the Dorian states, but is only applied
to that of the Spartans in a single passage of Herodotus (
7.134). The Attic writers do not trouble
themselves to give the technical term (
ξύλλογον σφῶν
αὐτῶν τοιήσαντες τὸν εἰωθότα,
Thuc. 1.67; but in ch. 87 and in
Xen. Hell. 5.2, § 11, it is
ἐκκλησία, as at Athens). There is reason to
think that the native name was
ἀπέλλα. In
the so-called
ῥήτρα of Lycurgus (
Plut. Lyc. 6) we find
ὥρας ἐξ ὥρας ἀπελλάζειν μεταξὺ Βαβύκας τε καὶ
Κνακιῶνος: this is explained to mean that the assembly was to be
held every month at the time of full moon (so the Schol. on
Thuc. 1.67), between two points on the course of
the Eurotas which marked the northern and southern limits of the capital. We
have, besides, the glosses in Hesychius:
Ἀπελλάζειν
: ἐκκλησιάζειν : Λάκωνες: Ἀπέλλαι : σηκοί, ἐκκλησίαι,
ἀρχαιρεσίαι: and
μεγάλαι
ἀπέλλαι in two late inscriptions found at Gythium (Le Bas,
Voyage Archéologique, inscrr. 242, 243).
Schömann remarks that
ἀπέλλα,
like
ἁλία, is probably connected with
ἀολλής (root
Ϝείλω); the
Ϝ being
hardened into
π. But Gilbert is hitherto the
only writer who has gone so far as to put “The Apella” at the
head of a chapter on this branch of the Spartan constitution.
The Small Ecclesia is mentioned only on the occasion of the conspiracy of
Cinadon: the ephors, in the alarm of the discovery, “did not even
summon the so-called
μικρὰ ἐκκλησία,
but only such stray members of the Gerusia as could be collected”
(
τῶν γερόντων ἄλλος ἄλλοθι).
Gilbert holds that it was composed of the kings, ephors, and senators (cf.
Grote, ch. 73, 6.407): but
ἐκκλησία is
hardly the word for a body of official persons only; the distinction between
βουλή,
consilium, and
ἐκκλησία,
concilium, runs all through Greek life. We
prefer to regard it, with Schömann, as an assembly either of the
ὅμοιοι then present in Sparta, or
possibly of only some portion of them, as, e. g. those most advanced in
years. It must clearly have represented the exclusive and conservative
elements in the Spartan constitution, not the
ὑπομείονες or inferior citizens, in whose interest Cinadon
was conspiring.
The
ἔκκλητοι themselves are involved in no
less obscurity; we may notice the following opinions. 1. That they were
identical with the
ἐκκλησία, ἁλία or
ἀπέλλα (Müller,
Dorians, 3.5.10; and so Gilbert, who thinks that the word
in Xenophon has no technical meaning at all). This seems to us by far the
most probable. 2. That they were identical with the Small Ecclesia in the
sense here adopted, i. e. an assembly of the
ὅμοιοι only (L. Schmitz, in the former editions of this work).
This also is not without plausibility: neither body is mentioned until the
period after the Peloponnesian war, when the distinction between the
citizens
optimo jure and the other enfranchised
classes had widened into a breach (cf. Thirlwall, 4.372ff.). 3. That they
were exactly the converse of what the last theory makes them, i. e. Spartans
not belonging to the
ὅμοιοι, and only entitled to attend the assembly when
“specially invited.” Schömann advances this view
somewhat doubtfully, adding that the word “may also be explained in a
different way” (apparently no. 1). But in all the three passages
where the name
ἔκκλητοι occurs the
circumstances are such that it is very unlikely that the
ὅμοιοι would have been passed over and their
inferiors consulted; and we must reject this explanation. 4. The rendering
in Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, “a committee of citizens chosen to
report on certain questions,” is quite compatible with Gilbert's
view that the word is not really used in a technical sense.
(Schömann,
Antiq. 1.234-236, E. T.; Gilbert,
Staatsalterth. 1.53-56.)
[
W.W]
