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JUDICIAL INSTITUTIONS. 151for the most part of very numerous assemblies, the membersof which were selected from the citizens by lot, and wererequired to be thirty years old, of a good reputation, andnot indebted to the state.They were sworn to do theirduty they listened to the orators, both the accusers and the;defendants, to whom a limited time was appointed the wit;nesses were examined, and the affair so far brought to a close,that the court could pronounce its' sentence of guiltyor notguilty. 1In the first case, the nature of the punishment remained to be settled. Where this was fixed by law, sentence was immediately passed ;did the nature of the offencerender that impossible, the defendant was permitted to estimate the punishment, of which he believed himself deserving and the court then decided.;Those courts were therefore similar both in their organization and design to our juries with;this difference, thatthe latter are with us but twelve in number, while the formerwere not unfrequently composed of several hundreds. Andthis is not astonishing, for they occupied the place of thewhole community, or might be regarded as committees ofthe same ;for when suits began to grow frequent,the community could not always be assembled. But where themembers that constituted the tribunal were so numerous, asin the Helisea at Athens, it is hardly credible, that every action was tried before the whole assembly. It is much moreprobable, especially when suits were multipled, that the samecourt of judicature had several divisions, in which the trial2of several causes could proceed simultaneously.As a difference was made between private and public actions, we might expect to find different tribunals for the oneand the other. Yet this was not the case; suits of bothkinds could be entered in the same courts. The differencemust therefore have lain in the methods of trial and the legalremedies, 3 which the two parties could employ. We areastonished to find, that the rules respecting what suits should1This was done In Athens partly by votes written on small tablets, andpartly by white and black beans.2 We would not say, that all trials were necessarily brought before thosecourts. In Athens the police officers had a jurisdiction of their own; andaflairs belonging to their department appear to have been immediately decidedby them.3 As, e. g., the aupoypa^i?, the vvufwma, and others, in the public trials.1.Sigon. c. iii c. 4.