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BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS
114
Brief Communications 115
rather than a political one. Given the character of the Council of the Gerousia of the ultra-conserva-
their civilisation, this is not surprising; centuries tive and oligarchic state of Sparta employed the
later, in Hellenistic times, innumerable clubs and vote and based decisions upon a simple majority.7
societies of every kind were run upon democratic At least it can be claimed that such evidence as
principles long after the triumph of autocracy in we possess supports this view, for these bodies, like
the political field. If voting was employed politi- the assembly of scribes, were small in numbers and
cally in the ancient Near East, it seems likely that composed of men whose interests and status were
it was by bodies which the Greeks would have re- closely similar.
garded as oligarchic rather than democratic in GEOFFREY EVANS
UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
complexion, such as the abba uru, or the assembly
of the "great" at Kanes. There is nothing para-
7I have already pointed out that the Spartan popular
doxical in this: to take another instance from assembly did not vote, except by acclamation, and was
Classical Antiquity, the board of the Ephors and always liable to be overruled by the Gerousia.