GEROUSIA (Gr. yepovo'ia, Doric yepwta)

This article appears in Volume V11, Page 903 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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GEROUSIA (Gr. yepovo'ia, Doric yepwta) , the ancient council of elders at

Sparta

SPARTA (Gr. Eirapril or AaKe5atycav)

, corresponding in some of its functions to the Athenian Boule. In historical times it numbered twenty-eight members, to whom were added ex officio the two kings and, later, the five ephors. Candidates must have passed their sixtieth year, i.e. they must no longer be liable to military service, and they were possibly restricted to the

nobility

NOBILITY

. Vacancies were filled by the Apella, that candidate being declared elected whom the assembly acclaimed with the loudest shoutsa method which

Aristotle

ARISTOTLE
ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.)

censures as childish (Polit. ii. 9, p. 1271 a 9). Once elected, the gerontes held office for life and were irresponsible. The functions of the. council were among the most important in the state. It prepared the business which was to be submitted to the Apella, and was empowered to set aside, in conjunction with the kings, any " crooked " decision of the people. Together with the kings and, ephors it formed the supreme executive committee of the state, and it exercised also a considerable criminal and political

jurisdiction

JURISDICTION
JURISDICTION, CRIMINAL LAW, DIVORCE

, including the trial of kings; its competence extended to the infliction of a sentence of

exile

EXILE (Lat. exsilium or exilium, from exsul or exul, which is derived from ex, out of, and the root sal, to go, seen in salire, to leap,
consul
- CONSUL
- CONSUL (in Gr. generally ihraros,ashortened form of errpavgybs 8hraeos, i.e. praetor maximus)
, &c.; the connexion with solum, soil, country is now generally considered wrong)

or even of death. These

powers

POWERS, HIRAM (1805-1873)

, or at least the greater part of them, were transferred by Cleomenes III. to a board of patronomi (Pausanias ii. 9. I); the gerousia, however, continued to exist at least down to Hadrian's reign, consisting of twenty-three members annually elected, but eligible for re-election (

Sparta

SPARTA (Gr. Eirapril or AaKe5atycav)

Museum Catalogue, Nos. 210, 612 and Introduction 17).
Fuller discussions of the gerousia will be found in

Aristotle

ARISTOTLE
ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.)

, Politics, ii. 9, 17-19; Plutarch, Lycurgus, 5, 26; G. F. Schomann, Antiquities of

Greece

GREECE

; The State (Eng. trans.), p. 230 ff.; G. Gilbert, Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens (Eng. trans.), p. 47 ff. ; C. O. Muller, History and Antiquities of the Doric Race (Eng. trans.),
iii. c. 6, 1-3; G. Busolt, Die griechischen Staats- and Rechtsalter-Iiimer (Iwan Muller's Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft,
iv. 1), 89; Griechische Geschichte, 2te Auflage i. 550 ff.; A. H. J. Greenidge, Handbook of Greek Constitutional History, loo ff.; H. Gabriel, De magistratibus Lacedaemoniorum, 31 if. (M. N. T.)

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