The popular assembly ratified laws, but it could propose none--it could not even alter or amend the decrees that were laid before it.

It appears that only the princes, the magistrates, and foreign ambassadors had the privilege to address it.
The main business of the state was prepared by the Gerusia, or council of elders, a senate consisting of thirty members, inclusive of the two kings, who had each but a simple vote in the assembly.

This council was in its outline like the assemblies common to every Dorian state.
Each senator was required to have reached the age of sixty; he was chosen by the popular assembly, not by vote, but by acclamation.

The mode of election was curious.

The candidates presented themselves successively before the assembly, while certain judges were enclosed in an adjacent room where they could hear the clamour of the people without seeing the person, of the candidate.