Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c9.s4.12

c9.s4.12

Vesālī was not only the area enclosed within the walls of the city, but also included a wider territory of the suburbs. This is evident from the *Mahāvastu*⁵ and the Jaina sources,⁶ and from Hsüan Tsang.⁷ It suggests a picture not unlike Athens in her heyday or Rome during her Republican period. Athens is said to have had about 40,000 citizens out of a total population of about 400,000,⁸ and Rome “had between 40,000 to 90,000 potential voters at election time during the period from the Second Punic to the Third Macedonian War.”⁹ “A maximum attendance of 4,000 to 10,000 would seem a likely guess, and in practice the number probably was considerably less''.¹ In public-spirited Athens the annual meeting of the *ecclesia* for ostracism required a quorum of 6,000 members out of at least 35,000 men, while an attendance of 5,000 at regular meetings was considered a record in difficult war-time conditions.²