Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/377

Rh herald's prayer opened the trial on court-day. So that the speeches for the prosecution and defense and the decision of the jury virtually comprised the whole trial. This evidence, previously reduced to writing, was merely read by the clerk before the witness who stood on the speakers' platform and acknowledged his testimony. The direct and cross examination of the witnesses at the trial proper, was thus avoided and the time consumed in putting questions to one's opponent, who was obliged by law to answer, was but a small set-off to the time gained by thus preparing material beforehand. The prompt decision of a higher court, especially in a case so vital to the interests and even life of the citizens as this against the corn-ring, would be of immense benefit and must have been a procedure resulting from years of carefully considered legal and political experience.

And too, a prospective prosecutor might well hesitate to bring a public suit when he considered the penalties to which he would be liable if he failed to prove his case. Our senator, however, could be fully assured of the sympathy of the public and of enough votes from the jury to relieve him of anxiety in regard to obtaining the necessary one fifth of the total vote cast. Failing to receive the required number of votes, payment of all costs and expenses was exacted together with a fine of 1,000 drachma? or $180, which would purchase ten-fold more than at the present day. Add to this, the partial loss of citizenship, so far as the right to again bring similar suit is concerned, and we realize the seriousness of a public indictment for the plaintiff, as well as the effort of the Athenian legislator to prevent litigation among a people with such a mania for law that a character in Aristophanes's comedy did not believe that the country, pointed out on the map, was his native Attica because he couldn't "see any lawsuits going on."

As breaking the corn laws was a crime against the state no "summons" like that in a private suit was required, but the accusation was first laid before the president of the Boulè or unicameral senate, who referred the matter to the senate, in session, which then held a "hearing" which took the place of the "preliminary hearing" in the private case before the magistrate, noted above. If the senate favored the accusation, a resolution was passed to that effect, and the clerk notified the Thesmothetæ of the result of the "hearing," submitting therewith the evidence of which the latter might take official notice. It then became the duty of these officials to bring the case for actual trial before a jury. The Thesmothetæ, who were associated with the chief magistrates of the nation, were a board who had the supervision of the whole judicial system at Athens and, in that capacity, examined and noted defects in the laws and kept a record of judicial decisions. These six junior archons presided at the trial in great public cases like the present