Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/381

Rh presiding officials and the result is immediately announced by the herald. Under the system, to say nothing of the natural feeling in this case, there were no delays resulting from the failure of the jury to agree; for a majority-vote decided the verdict.

The penalty, in this case, was fixed by law—which did not always happen—and, in default of a fixed penalty, not only actual damages but the penalty also was a matter for the jury to assess.

Athens and the Attic country-side, bounded by the mountains and the Greek seas, were practically insular when the supply of wheat was considered. A little nation, with only half the area of Rhode Island but equal in population to that thickly settled commonwealth, would thus present problems in plenty and corn-laws galore. The unproductive, light soil caused Solon early to forbid the exportation of any farm product except olive oil; while the export of native grain was absolutely forbidden by law, with the consequent encouragement of the importation of cereals. Bread-stuffs must, in the main, come from abroad and the fertile fields of Egypt and Sicily, to say nothing of Rhodes and Cyprus, and, above all, the Black Sea country of modern Russia were drawn on. The great problem in war, as well as in peace, was to keep open a way for the corn-merchantmen, especially to that north country; and on the failure or success in that vital work lay the hope or despair of the Greek admiral or ruling statesman. Foreign princes wooed the Athenian populace with presents of corn and Harpalus, afterwards treasurer of Alexander the Great, won citizenship at Athens by a gift of corn.

Forced importation of grain was a cardinal principle of Athenian economics, politics and law. The speeches of the "orators" are full of regulations, restrictions and enactments, rigorously and mercilessly enforced, against the dreaded day when city-folk and farmers alike might see starvation at their doors. Both Athenian citizens and metics (resident aliens) were forbidden to ship grain elsewhere than to Attic ports or to lend importers money on vessels unless the mortgaged cargo was to put in to the Piraeus, harbor-town of Athens. Another law required that at least two-thirds of the cargo of every corn-ship that touched at the port must be carried to the city. The popular assembly called for reports and demanded provisions for a supply of grain at its monthly sessions.

Among the numerous corn-laws, one, intended to prevent speculation and the artificial raising of the price of grain, went directly to the heart of the traffic by prohibiting retail dealers, on penalty of death, from buying more than fifty phormoi, or baskets, at any one time. The phormos was a measure equal to about a bushel and a half and the consequent seventy-five bushels—to the purchase of which each retailer was limited on any one day—was probably a sufficient stock in trade