To every ward there was a president, called phylarchus.

This magistrate, on a certain day in the year, gave in the names of all the persons within his district entitled to the honour of serving in the council, and desirous of enjoying it.
These names were inscribed on brazen tablets, and cast into a certain vessel.

In another vessel was placed an equal number of beans; supposing the number of candidates to be returned by each tribe to be (as it at first was) a hundred, there were one hundred white beans put into the vessel--the rest were black.

Then the names of the candidates and the beans were drawn out one by one; and each candidate who had the good fortune to have his name drawn out together with a white bean, became a member of the senate.

Thus the constitution of each succeeding senate might differ from the last--might, so far from representing the people, contradict their wishes--was utterly a matter of hazard and chance; and when Mr.Mitford informs us that the assembly of the people was the great foundation of evil in the Athenian constitution, it appears that to the capricious and unsatisfactory election of this council we may safely impute many of the inconsistencies and changes which that historian attributes entirely to the more popular assembly [211].