372 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The case against the corn-ring was tried in one of the ten Heliastic 

 (jury) courts, located in the market place at Athens, to the north of 

 the Acropolis and Areopagus, those hills dedicated to religion and 

 homicidal law. These courts of sworn jurymen-judges were higher 

 courts and though apparently no appeal would lie from their decisions, 

 some revisory power did exist, at least in the way of bringing new 

 suit and being allowed a new trial before new jurymen- judges, on dis- 

 covery of false testimony that had influenced the verdict, excusable 

 defaults, etc. 



An apparently large number of cases was settled by private and 

 public arbitrators, the parties in interest ordinarily binding themselves 

 to abide by the decision given. Besides family and friendly arbitrators, 

 whose services were most widely sought and employed, there was a 

 regularly established system of public arbitration, whose officials, chosen 

 annually, by lot, were over fifty years of age. To these officials magis- 

 ' trates could refer any private suit, though from their findings appeal 

 and recourse to a regular jury-trial in the higher court could be claimed. 

 A fee was charged on each party. Criminal and public prosecutions, 

 like the present, would not, from their very nature, come before the 

 arbitrators, but be brought, in regular course, before the Heliastic jury, 

 as noted below. The orators are continually emphasizing their offer 

 of arbitration or criticizing their opponent's lack of it and it appears 

 to have been a legal principle and honored custom to avoid litigation by 

 attempting to settle all possible cases " out of court." 



Such procedure would tend to greatly relieve congestion of cases, 

 so that the " Law's delays," so fertile a source of modern criticism, 

 would be reduced to a minimum, which must have become practically 

 nil, when the statute became operative which limited the trial of a 

 case to one day's time. There was, apparently, some fault found with 

 this limitation; for Plato, in the "Apology" (37A), makes his be- 

 loved master, Socrates, say: "I don't believe I have intentionally 

 wronged any man, but I am not persuading you of that; for we have 

 been conversing with each other but a short time. But, as I think, if 

 you had a law like other men, that the verdict in capital cases was not 

 required to be given in one day but many days were allowed for the 

 trial, you would have been persuaded." 



But such extreme limitation seems no unhealthy prohibition, phi- 

 losophers to the contrary notwithstanding, especially when we realize 

 that at the preliminary hearing (the anacrisis) before a magistrate, all 

 the evidence that each side had to offer — laws, decrees, documents of 

 all kinds, oral testimony of witnesses, affidavits of commissioners, evi- 

 dence of slaves given under torture — was reduced to writing and 

 deposited, under seal, by the magistrate, in the " Hedgehog Box " 

 (bristling with documents), to be kept in safety till the sacrifice and 



