The term δοκιμασία and the related verb dokimazein were used in various Greek contexts to denote a procedure of examining or testing, and approving or validating as a result of the test.1 For Athens, Ath. Pol. mentions four categories of dokimasiai: two political, of eighteen-year-old men registered as citizens, which were conducted by deme assemblies and the council (42.1–2); and of men appointed as councillors and officials, which was conducted by the council in some cases and by law courts in others (45.3, 55.2–4, 56.1, 59.4, 60.1); and two more technical, of the cavalry’s horses and the prodromoi and hamippoi who fought with the cavalry, and in effect of the cavalrymen themselves (though in connection with them the word is not used), which were conducted by the council (49.1–2); and of invalids, who were entitled to a grant if impoverished and unable to work, which also was conducted by the council (49.4). As with the cavalrymen, there were other procedures which may be considered dokimasiai, though the word is not applied to them, such as decisions about designs for the peplos, the robe made every fourth year for the cult statue of Athena, and perhaps about plans for public works in general, carried out originally by the council but in the time of Ath.Less