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MARCUS N. TOP, M.A., ON INTERNATIONAL 



arbitrators quotes verbatim the decisive passages from such docu- 

 ments, in order to show how strong was the evidence upon 

 which they based their verdict. A fragment lias also survived 

 recording the depositions made in a territorial dispute between 

 two states of northern Thessaly : there we can read the 

 testimony of an elderly sheplierd, who had long pastured his 

 flocks on the land in dispute and can tell, moreover, what the 

 elders of the village used to say about the ownership of the 

 territory, together with that of some fishermen, who add their 

 witness in favour of the same side. The evidence was often 

 complex and coniiicting ; mucli of it was indirect in its 

 character, and the truth of oral statements and the authenticity 

 of written woi'ks had to be carefully weighed. Yet the impres- 

 sion we receive upon a review of the extant records is that the 

 courts were genuinely anxious to sift the evidence thoroughly 

 and to arrive at an equitable verdict, and that if they sometimes 

 made mistakes, as no doubt they did, it was not from any lack 

 of conscientiousness or sincerity. 



The award was written out by the court and copies of it were 

 handed to the two states interested, to be lodged in their public 

 archives. Sometimes this award was quite brief and contained 

 nothing superHuous, as we see, for example, in the Argive 

 award, declarino- that three islets belonged to Cimolus and not 

 to its rival Melos : in this case the whole record contains only 

 forty-three words. Later, the desire not merely to declare but 

 to justify their sentence led the arbitrators frequently to write 

 lengthy reports, such as that of the Magnesians, the extant 

 portion of which contains 141 long lines, or that of the 

 Ehodians appointed to arbitrate between Samos and Triene, 

 which is even longer. In order to secure public and permanent 

 records of the verdicts, these were frequently engraved upon 

 stone, both in the arbitrating state and in that which was 

 successful in the trial, as well as in some neutral sanctuary, 

 which was a common meeting-place of the Greeks of that 

 region in which the contending states lay — for example, that of 

 Apollo at Delphi or at Delos, that of Zeus at Olympia, or that 

 of Asclepius at Epidaurus. Again and again our records s})eak 

 of a quadruple or even cpiintuple publication of this kind, 

 securing for all who were interested the opportunity of learning 

 the exact terms of the award. 



I am only too conscious that in my desire for, or rather, let 

 me say, under the necessity of, compression I have run a 

 serious risk of robbing what I have said of its human interest. 



