Commonwealth of AustraliaThe Dikasteria and the dikastai • Law courts composed of hundreds of...

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MDS2/3 TGW

Ancient Greece: Democratic Athens II

Gillian Shepherd

The Dikasteria and the dikastai

•  Law courts composed of hundreds of jurors (often 201 or 501, but up to 6000 attested)

•  Jurors had to be citizens over 30 years old; volunteers called for at the beginning of each year and a list of 6000 drawn up for each year

•  Jurors (dikastai) chosen by lot for each trial (in 4th cent; unclear for 5th)

•  Payment introduced by Perikles in the 5th century BC (2 obols? Later raised to 3, probably on proposal of Kleon)

•  NB demagogue (“leader of the people”) e.g. Perikles (c. 495-429) and Kleon (active 430s-20s)

Xanthias (a slave of Philokleon): I’ll tell you what disease the old master has. He is a law-court lover, no man like him. Judging is what he dotes on and he weeps if he can’t sit on the front bench. He doesn’t get a wink of sleep at night, but if he does actually doze off for just a moment his mind still flies through the night to the water clock… straight after supper he shouts for his shoes and then off he goes to the court in the early hours and sleeps there, clinging to the column like a limpet… and because he’s afraid that some day he may run short of voting pebbles , he keeps a whole beach in his house. That’s how mad he is…

Aristophanes Wasps 85-112 NB Philokleon = “Kleon-lover”; his son is Bdelykleon, “Kleon-loather”

Image source page: h5p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AGMA_Kleroterion.jpg

Kleroterion (allotment machine)

Image source page: h5p://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Pinakion_Archilochos.jpg

Bronze pinakion of Archilochos of Phaleron (4th cent. BC)

Image source page: h5p://www.utexas.edu/courses/introgreece/kleroterion.jpg

The Athenian Legal System •  Prosecutor raised a charge with the appropriate magistrate; if arbitration failed the

case went to trial •  Trials arranged and presided over by a magistrate •  Jurors also judges (voting) •  Courts in session for between 175-225 days a year •  Trials lasted at most a day (often shorter) ie dikasts heard a lot of trials •  no “lawyers” – litigants spoke on their own behalf •  NB logographers/orators e.g. Demosthenes (384-22), Lysias (459? – c. 380),

Aeschines (c. 397-22), Andokides (440-390) •  Specific amount of time allowed for each speech depending on the case •  No judge to direct on points of law (at best litigants did this) •  No cross-examining of witnesses •  Witnesses could not be: disenfranchised citizens, women, children •  Slaves could be present, but not speak •  Slave evidence acceptable only if in written form and produced under torture •  Jury voted on issue after hearing both sides (no private deliberation, no direction

from a judge)

Image source page: h5p://www.agathe.gr/image?id=Agora:Image:2008.18.0013&w=800&h=600

Image source page: h5p://www.agathe.gr/democracy/the_popular_courts.html

Law courts in the Agora? Series of large enclosures built between the late 5th and 4th centuries BC

Ballot box (4th cent. BC, found under the north end of the later Stoa of Attalos)

Image source page: h5p://www.agathe.gr/id/agora/image/2008.20.0067

Reconstruction of the Square Peristyle (late 4th cent. BC)



Prof. E. Vanderpool (excavator) demonstrating how the ballot box worked

Bronze dikasts ballots (found in the ballot box) (inscribed psephos demosia)


Penalties and punishments •  Usually laid down by law •  Most commonly a fine •  But also:

•  Partial or total disenfranchisement

•  Confiscation of property •  Confinement in stocks •  Exile •  Death

•  Long term imprisonment was not usually imposed


The State Prison (south west of Agora)

Medicine bottles from the State Prison


Klepsydra (water clock)

Image source page: h5p://www.agathe.gr/id/agora/image/2000.02.1084 Photo © Gillian Shepherd

Advantages/disadvantages of the Athenian legal system…

•  Hard to bribe or intimidate a jury (too big and too random) •  Courts and people more or less identical (i.e .judged by the

people) •  Inexperienced /unqualified jury? •  Too easily swayed by persuasive speakers? •  Irrelevant points of argument? •  Abuse of system? Cf. the sukophantai (and Aristophanes’

play Ploutos (“Wealth”)

“House of Simon” (south west corner of the Agora)

Photo © Gillian Shepherd

Eyelets, hobnails and inscribed cup base from the House of Simon


Postholes for ikria and stone sockets for race course starting gate (just east of the Altar of the Twelve Gods)




The Stoa Poikile (Painted Stoa)

Horos (boundary stone) “I am the boundary of the Agora” (two stones found near Simon’s House and the Tholos; copies displayed) Cf. Aeschines III. 176 (Against Ktesiphon): “… the man who fails to take the field, and the man who is a coward and has deserted his post are excluded by the lawgiver from the purified precincts of the Agora…”


Image source page: h5p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:0007MAN-‐Herma.jpg

Archaic herm from Siphnos, c. 520 BC

Man carving a herm (red-figure kylix, c. 480, attributed to Epiktetos

Image source page: h5p://ancientrome.ru/art/artworken/img.htm?id=1594

… the Hermae or square stone figures carved after the ancient Athenian fashion, and standing everywhere at the doorways both of temples and private houses…

Thuc. 6. 27.1 NB Eion herms (Kimon’s victory over Persians at Eion 476/5)


The “Herms” Image source page: h5p://www.agathe.gr/id/agora/monument/northwest%20corner%20and%20the%20hermes

Aeschines III. 183 (Against Ktesiphon): “…when they came home (from Eion)… the democracy gave them a great honour… to set up three stone herms in the Stoa of the Herms…

The Hephaisteion (NB formerly known as The Theseion)


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