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παρίζειν. The words imply that the kings were not ex-officio presidents. Doubtless the Ephors both convened (Xen. Hell. iii. 3. 8) and presided over the Gerousia. Cf. App. XVII, § 2.

δύο ψήφους τιθεμένους. There can be little doubt Thucydides refers to this passage (i. 20. 3) when he gives as an instance of popular errors the belief that each of the Spartan kings had two votes, not one only, since he corrects in the same sentence another supposed error in H. (ix. 53), πολλὰ δὲ καὶ ἄλλα ἔτι καὶ νῦν ὄντα καὶ οὐ χρόνῳ ἀμνηστούμενα καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι Ἕλληνες οὐκ ὀρθῶς οἴονται, ὥσπερ τούς τε Λακεδαιμονίων βασιλέας μὴ μιᾷ ψήφῳ προστίθεσθαι ἑκάτερον ἀλλὰ δυοῖν, καὶ τὸν Πιτανάτην λόχον αὐτοῖς εἶναι ὃς οὐδ᾽ ἐγένετο πώποτε. But H., though the expression is obscure, probably means not that each king had two votes, but that two votes were given for the two absent kings, and that the vote of the relative who acted as proxy for both was the third. He, however, overlooks the fact that the same person could not be the nearest relative of both kings, since the two houses were only related by a fictitious genealogy and never intermarried. Really there must have been two proxies, one for each king. H. Richards (Cl. R. xix. 343) would omit τρίτην δὲ τὴν ἑωυτῶν as a late insertion, and so get clearly the sense that the nearest relative of each king gave two votes, his own and that of the king his kinsman.

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