Thesmothetai

Ancient Greece

In Athens, a system of three concurrent archons evolved, the three office holders being known as archon eponymos (ἄρχων ἐπώνυμος), the polemarch (πολέμαρχος), and the archon basileus (ἄρχων βασιλεύς). According to Aristotle's Constitution of the Athenians, the power of the king first devolved to the archons, and these offices were filled from the aristocracy by elections every ten years. During this period, the archon eponymos was the chief magistrate, the polemarch was the head of the armed forces, and the archon basileus was responsible for the civic religious arrangements. After 683 BC, the offices were held for only a single year, and the year was named after the archon eponymos. (Many ancient calendar systems did not number their years consecutively.) Although the process of the next transition is unclear, after 487 BC the archonships were assigned by lot to any citizen and the polemarch's military duties were taken over by a new class of generals known as strategoi. The polemarch thereafter had only minor religious duties. The archon eponymos remained the titular head of state under democracy, though of much reduced political importance. The archons were assisted by "junior archons", called thesmothetai (pl. of thesmothetēs). After 487 BC, ex-archons were automatically enrolled as life members of the Areopagus, though that assembly was no longer extremely important politically at that time.