GEROUSIA (Gr. yepovo'ia, Doric yepwta)  , the ancient council of elders at Sparta, corresponding in some of its functions to the Athenian Boule . In historical times it numbered twenty-eight members, to whom were added ex officio the two kings and, later, the five ephors . Candidates must have passed their sixtieth year, i.e. they must no longer be liable to military service, and they were possibly restricted to the nobility . Vacancies were filled by the Apella, that candidate being declared elected whom the assembly acclaimed with the loudest shouts—a method which Aristotle censures as childish (Polit. ii . 9, p . 1271 a 9) . Once elected, the gerontes held office for life and were irresponsible . The functions of the. council were among the most important in the state . It prepared the business which was to be submitted to the Apella, and was empowered to set aside, in conjunction with the kings, any " crooked " decision of the people . Together with the kings and, ephors it formed the supreme executive committee of the state, and it exercised also a considerable criminal and political jurisdiction, including the trial of kings; its competence extended to the infliction of a sentence of exile or even of death . These powers, or at least the greater part of them, were transferred by Cleomenes III. to a board of patronomi (Pausanias ii . 9 .

I); the

gerousia, however, continued to exist at least down to Hadrian's reign, consisting of twenty-three members annually elected, but eligible for re-election (Sparta Museum Catalogue, Nos . 210, 612 and Introduction § 17) . Fuller discussions of the gerousia will be found in Aristotle, Politics, ii . 9, 17-19; Plutarch, Lycurgus, 5, 26; G . F . Schomann, Antiquities of Greece; The State (Eng. trans.), p . 230 ff.; G . Gilbert, Constitutional Antiquities of Sparta and Athens (Eng. trans.), p . 47 ff . ; C . O . Muller, History and Antiquities of the Doric Race (Eng. trans.), iii. c .

6, §§ 1-3; G . Busolt,

Die griechischen Staats- and Rechtsalter-Iiimer (Iwan Muller's Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, iv . 1), § 89; Griechische Geschichte, 2te Auflage i . 550 ff.; A . H . J . Greenidge, Handbook of Greek Constitutional History, loo ff.; H . Gabriel, De magistratibus Lacedaemoniorum, 31 if . (M . N .