370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE TEIAL OF AN OLD GREEK CORN-RING 



By FREDERIC EARLE WHITAKER, Ph.D. 



RECENTLY ACTING PROFESSOR OF GREEK AT LEHIGH UNIVERSITY, 

 AND MEMBER OF THE RHODE ISLAND BAR 



ITTLE Greece contributed to civilization the most precious thing 

 -^ in the world — fearless freedom of thought. That novelty, it is 

 true, kept the various city states from uniting as a mighty power, but 

 that same disunion made the individual man and the individual mind 

 superior to the dead level that saps the genius of progress. That 

 active principle of the pioneer the Greek infused into his jurisprudence 

 with the same telling success that stamped his efforts in the other de- 

 partments of human advancement. 



Though the system may have occasionally miscarried from its own 

 weight, failure to protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens 

 was not one of the faults of the Hellenic democracy. When Solon, 

 in the sixth century before Christ, originated at Athens his system of 

 trial by popular courts of jurymen- judges, he not only laid the founda- 

 tion of national law but discovered the real secret of democracy, which 

 is and has been the keystone of European and American institutions; 

 for the hope of a free people lies in the possession of its courts. 



Down through the brief but brilliant period of their political 

 prestige, the Athenians laid many a wreath at the feet of the lawgiver, 

 Solon, but probably never more reverently or more gratefully than 

 when the commonwealth fought that still unfinished fight with the 

 speculator and monopolist of the food-products of the nation. So that 

 this review of the legal principles and procedure in the prosecution 

 of an old Athenian corn-ring may be of interest and even of value to 

 the historian and economist, the lawyer and patriot. 



The oration with which this review deals is a speech for the prosecu- 

 tion, numbered 22 in the ordinary collection of speeches by Lysias, the 

 celebrated Athenian speech-writer, and dates from the early part of the 

 fourth century, possibly 387 B.C. To get a sympathetic setting, it 

 is advisable to recall the appointments of the old Greek court, the laws 

 and legal customs, as well as the peculiar, though not necessarily 

 unique, conditions that dictated the legislation on which the prosecution 

 relies. 



Though no actual law has come down to us, the whole procedure 

 in the Athenian courts — to say nothing of the evidence of Quintillian — 

 shows that the law required every citizen to plead his own cause. 



