AESYMNETAE

Form: " regralators," "judges".

A name given in some Greek cities to the ordinary magistrates and judicial functionaries. In earlier times the term was also applied to persons appointed for a definite term (or until the completion of their task) for putting an end, by legislation, to internal quarrels. Sometimes an aesymnetes was voluntarily chosen by the community for life, and entrusted with supreme and unlimited power. The office of aesymnetes may to a certain extent be compared with the Roman dictatorship, though the latter was never conferred without a strict limitation of time.