It was found that the government by Boule and Ecclesia did not mean popular control in the full sense; it meant government by the leisured classes, inasmuch as the industrious farmer or herdsman could not leave his work to give his vote at the Ecclesia, or do his duty as a councillor.

Ecclesia >>

Metropolitan Church, or Ecclesia Ursiana, and baptistery adjoining .

In Athens in the sixth prytany of each year the representatives of the Boule asked the Ecclesia whether it was for the welfare of the state that ostracism should take place.

Grote and others hold that six thousand had to be given against one person before he was ostracized, but it seems unlikely that the attendance at the Ecclesia ever admitted of so large a vote against one man, and the view is contradicted by Plut.