In cities of ancient Greece, the boule (, boulē; plural βουλαί, boulai) was a council of over 500 citizens (βουλευταί, bouleutai) appointed to run daily affairs of the city. Originally a council of nobles advising a king, boulai evolved according to the constitution of the city: In oligarchies boule positions might have been hereditary, while in democracies members were typically chosen by lot and served for one year. Little is known about the workings of many boulai, except in the case of Athens, for which extensive material has survived. Athenian boule The original council of Athens was the Areopagus. It consisted of ex-archons and was aristocratic in character. Solonian boule The Athenian boule under Solon heard appeals from the most important decisions of the courts. Those in the poorest class could not serve on the boule of 400. The higher governmental posts, archons (magistrates), were reserved for citizens of the top two income groups. Cleisthenes' boule (after 508 BC) Following the Athenian Revolution in 508 BC Cleisthenes formed a new government of Athens through a series of reforms. In strengthening the common Athenian identity Cleisthenes devised an artificial political division of Athens into ten tribes. The tribes would each include local demes from three different types of areas; the city trittys, the coastal trittys and inland trittys. The institution of the Boule was reformed accordingly and would now be a council of 500 male citizens. Each of the ten tribes supplied 50 men to the council with each of the 50 adhering from its constituting demes and distributed quantitatively according to the size of their population. Under Cleisthenes the Boule attained renewed political power as responsible for the agenda-setting of the legislative body of the Assembly (ekklesia) as well as the formal execution of the political decisions taken in the Assembly. The council was responsible for about half of the decrees ratified by the Assembly. The boule met every day except for festival days and ill-omened days. According to Aristotle, Cleisthenes introduced the Bouleutic Oath. Selection process Members of the Council under Cleistenes were selected by lot. Not all citizens, however, were in the selection pool when selecting members by lot from each deme. Only eligible citizens, male citizens age 30 or above and with no criminal charges, who had put themselves forward would be available for selection. Membership was restricted at this time to the top three of the