Any student of the Roman Republic should be aware of the debt owed to T.R.S. Broughton for making it easier to examine constitutional and political issues. His The Magistrates of the Roman Republic not only listed officials year by year, but collected all the relevant source material, summarized known activities and legislation and included some discussion and fundamental bibliography. It seemed that something similar could be done for Athens. In 1980 I secured a research grant from the University of Tasmania to set the project in motion, and from 1981 to 1983 funds were made available from the Australian Research Grants Scheme. Primarily this money paid for the services of a research assistant, and at this point let me record my gratitude to David Betts, who with diligence and accuracy accumulated data for me from literary and epigraphical sources. Hence the store of file cards at the basis of the task of ordering and constant checking. I was fortunate also, while on leave in Princeton in 1981, to have the opportunity to work through the prosopographical files at the Institute for Advanced Study. My thanks, therefore, go to Christian Habicht, also to Steve Bradford and David Whitehead for the coffee and conversation which habitually provided relief from the chore, as well as stimulation, physical and mental. May I also express general thanks to those who have taken an interest and given help, to the readers for Cambridge University Press and to the officers of the Press for seeing matters through.