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Encyclopedic overview
In cities of ancient Greece, the boule (Ancient Greek: βουλή; pl.: boulai, βουλαί) was a council (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
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “boule” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.