Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/421

 CHANGES AT ATHENS UNDER PEBIKLES. 397 feelings oi the dikasts counted for more, and their reason for less : not merely because of their greater numbers, which naturally heightened the pitch of feeling in each individual, but also because the addresses of orators or parties formed the prominent part of the procedure, and the depositions of witnesses only a very subordi- nate part ; the dikast,i therefore, heard little of the naked facts, accuser. (See Aristophan, Vesp. 574, 713, 727, 794.) Moreover, if from the Vespoe we turn to the Nubes, where the poet attacks the sophists and not the dikasts, we are there told that the sophists could arm any man with fallacies and subterfuges which would enable him to procure acquittal from the dikasts, whatever might be the crime committed. I believe that this open-mindedness, and impressibility of the feelings on all sides, by art, eloquence, prayers, tears, invectives, etc., is the true char- acter of the Athenian dikasts. And I also believe that they were, as a gen- eral rule, more open to commisei'ation than to any other feeling, — like what is above said respecting the French jurymen : evKivTjTo^ npor dpyr/v (6 'A'&rjvaicjv 6?}fxoc), £v/i£tu^£toc Ttpb^ e?.€ov, — this expression of Plutarch about the Athenian demos is no less true about the dikasts : compare also the description given by Pliny (H. N. xxxv, 10) of the memorable picture of the Athenian demos by the painter Parrhasius. ' That the difference betw-een the dikast and the juryman, in this respect, is only one of degree, I need hardly remark. M. Merlin observes, '• Je ne pense pas, comme bien des gens, que pour etre propre aux fonctions de jure, il sufiBse d'avoir ime intelligence ordinaire et de la probite'. Si I'accus^ paroissoit seul aux debats avec lee temoins, il ne faudroit sans doute que du bon sens pour reconnoitre la verite dans des declarations faites avec sim- plicite et degagees de tout raisonnement : mais il y paroit assiste presque tou- jours d'un ou de plusieurs de'fenseurs qui par des interpellations captieuses, embarrassent ou egarent les te'moins ; et par une discussion subtile, souvent sophistique, quelquefois eloquente, enveloppent la verite des nuages, et ren- dent I'evidence meme proble'matique. Certes, il faut plus que de bonnes intentions, il faut plus que du bon sens, pour ne pas se laisser entrainer h. ces fausses lueurs, pour se garantir des ecarts de la sensibilite', et pour se maintenir immuablement dans la ligne du vrai, au milieu de ces impulsions donnees en meme temps a Tesprit et au cceur." (Merlin, Repertoire de Jurisprudence, art. Jure's, p. 98). At Athens, there were no professional advocates : the accuser and the ac- cused — or the plaintitf and defendant, if the cause was civil — each ap- peared in person with then- witnesses, or sometimes with depositions which the witnesses had sworn to before the archon : each might come with a speech prepared by Antipho (Thucyd. viii, 68) or some other rhetor : each might hare one or more ^vvT/yopovc to speak on his behalf after himself, bat seemingly only out of the space of time allotted to him by the clepsydra. In civil causes, the defendant must have been perfectly acquainted with the