HISTORY AND ANALYSIS
POPULAR COURTS
Athenian references to popular courts are various, and so an attempt to enumerate them requires careful analysis of nomenclature. To begin with basic terms, the old word qXt0alco can mean a judging panel composed of an unknown number of heliastai (97) or (in the 4th century and after) an enhanced panel of 1,000 or more dikasts (110, 126). "Heliaia" can furthermore denote the abstract concept "court system" or "lawcourt", which Athenians used in general rules or formulations having to do with the administration of justice (114, 123, 130-138). In time "heliaia" comes to mean one particular area or structure that is identified with the judging body (110, 116-122, 124, 125,
1 R. Sealey ("Athenian Courts for Homicide," CP78, 1983, pp. 275-296) examines the place of ephetai in homicide courts. J. Burnet (Plato's Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates and Crito, Oxford 1924, p. 43) errs in assuming that the word Btxacrcat necessarily implies "an ordinary heliastic court."
2 See, e.g., Hansen 1981, p. 16, note 10.
3 See Boegehold 1974, pp. 14-16. It is also possible that "in Phreatto" (vel sim.) and "in Zea" were two different ways of referring to the same court.
4 Miller (1978, pp. 18-19) suggests that this is another name for the Prytaneion.
© American School of Classical Studies at Athens For personal use only. License: CC-BY-NC-ND.
127-129).5 Presumably, it can also designate any area or structure whatsoever where the judging body called heliaia meets, particularly on the occasion when they meet there.
StxaotTrpLov and XLttL0ta are in most senses synonymous. "Dikasterion" means a judging panel of dikastai, that is, judges who cannot be differentiated from heliastai except in one respect, namely, that dikastai but not heliastaijudge at homicide trials. "Dikasterion" also denotes the place, whatever the building or area may be, where empaneled dikasts sit. The word, often in its plural form, dikasteria, means "lawcourt" or "court system", that is, the whole system, as cited in laws, decrees, and general formulations.6 In this last sense, the words dikasterion and heliaia are used to invoke a process.
In the 4th century and later, ta dikasteria rather than heliaia was the way to denominate the system as a whole (including the heliaia qua enhanced dikastic panel) except for certain formal and ceremonial contexts where the old word, heliaia, was retained.7 "Dikasterion" is sometimes personified, and so it can "stand up" at Demosthenes 21.221 or "thunder" in Aristophanes, Wasps (line 624 [78]), but
"heliaia" is not.
At some time in the 4th century, one particular building at Athens came to be known as the Heliaia. (For a surmise that this was Building A, see pp. 11-12 below.) On occasions when one thousand or more dikasts convened to make up a single judging panel, they sat in that building. The building may have been used over a period of time as long as several generations for sittings of a combined panel called heliaia, but the name it acquired from these sessions is not attested until the middle of the 4th century. Previously and concurrently it could have had one or more other names.
The phrase t&a t%xczo5pta, after ca. 340 B.C.E., besides being used to invoke a process, seems to refer to a single complex of court buildings disposed in such a way that the complex as a whole could be closed off temporarily from its immediate surroundings. Aristotle's description of procedure (as clarified by modern scholarship; see Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 63-69 with Rhodes 1979) is the primary evidence from which we infer the existence of this complex, but in two other references as well, both from ca. 330 or after, speakers seem to assume such a unified cluster. They are Demosthenes 42.11, dated after 330 (84): "He came up to me in front of the courts"; and Deinarchos 2.13 (80), dated per- haps as late as 323. Certain other references to the courts as a whole might seem at a glance to have the same referent, but they are in fact equivocal. The topos "our forefathers built these courts" ([De- mosthenes] 25.48, dated 338-324 B.C.E., and Demosthenes 18.123 [81], of 330 B.C.E.) can be under- stood as a widely inclusive reference. An accompanying gesture could show that courts both inside and outside the city wall were meant. The phrase t6po TxCv &Sxatcr7piLcov in Isokrates 7.54, of about 355 B.C.E. (87), and Demosthenes 21.4, of shortly after 350 (82), can be understood in the particular context of each oration to mean "now in front of this court and now in front of that." That is, the phrases were applicable at a time when, as we know, trials were being held in buildings like the Odeion and the Stoa Poikile, which were situated at considerable distances from each other (see Fig. 1).
5 Hansen (1981-1982, pp. 9-47) has a helpful study with full collection of evidence and secondary literature. He shows that heliaia can be panel or institution (pp. 9-15), but of the four passages he cites to show heliaia as building, only two, namely, [Demosthenes] 47.12 (118) and Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 68.1 (110), are sure references to a building. Cf.
Busolt and Swoboda 1920, pp. 1151-1152 with note 3. Of the other two references Hansen cites, I take is fXtalat at Aristophanes, Knights, lines 894-898 (104) to mean "in court", and etE -hv SXLtata v t-rv TOea1Ao8eTr5v ofAntiphon 6.21 (97) refers to a dikastic panel that is to be convened and not to a building. Cf. IG I3 40, lines 71-76 (130) and Agora III, p. 145. Further discussion is on pages 5-6 below.
6 Note, e.g., the formula 6rav ip&oiov niXvpwat L txxacr-plov; cf. Index, IG II2, s.v. tpur&veL$ (fin.). As to the qualification 8qu6aLa in &ra 8r7)6(ia &xxaarcpta of IG II2 663, lines 29-30 (93), the word may serve to stipulate that these courts seat 500 dikasts. Cf. Hansen 1981-1982, pp. 33-35.
7 See Agora I 7295, lines 101-104 (132). Cf. Hansen 1981-1982.
© American School of Classical Studies at Athens For personal use only. License: CC-BY-NC-ND.
The basic terms Bmxac'rpLov, B&xa7TTpLa, and Xtczata therefore all need context to show exact sense. In addition to possible confusions caused by varying use, a given court might have more than one generally recognized name. A court could have names not only from its location (as was the case with homicide courts and possibly with the Parabyston) but also from a distinguishing feature, as, for instance, the Trigonon. Again, it could be named after a magistrate or architect or builder.
The Stoa Poikile, where trials were held in mid-4th century, was known also as the Peisianakteios Stoa, after one Peisianax (PA 11 775).8
An Athenian, in short, sometimes had options when he wanted to name a particular court.
A survey of attested options, along with some that are inferential, will be helpful here.
HELIAIA
No building called Heliaia is attested before mid-4th century, and so we cannot assign early sessions of a panel called heliaia to a building of that name. We do, however, have notice of a large court, one in which 1,000 dikasts sat, called Metiocheion or MrcTXou xe,.evoq (see 2, 149-151, with commentary on the spelling). Lexicographical tradition assigns the name to a Metiochos or Metichos as builder or underwriter. There was a Metiochos, contemporary of Perikles, about whom some comic lines survive.9 Plutarch cites him as an example of the politician who wants to be responsible for everything and in doing so becomes ridiculous. If this Metiochos inspired the phrase
"temenos of Metichos", the formulation may have a satiric or otherwise humorous basis.10?
The Metiocheion can be the building in which the heliaia judged during the '40's, '30's, and '20's of the 5th century (150).1l As for the interchangeable phrases iXtLaLa tCxv 06a(Io0vcav and axcaoTrpLov TO v 0Oeap06eTo v, they are best understood as particular elements of the whole system rather than as labels for a court building. In other words, dikasterion or heliaia of the thesmothetai is a panel of dikasts or heliasts that the thesmothetai convene. Witness a heliaia of the thesmothetai attested at IG I3 40, lines 74-76 (130) and a dikasterion of the thesmothetai at Andokides 1.28 (96).
That these are two ways of referring to the same sort of panel is shown by Antiphon 6.21-24 (97), where in one breath the speaker refers to a heliaia of the thesmothetai and in the next calls the same assembly a dikasterion. When in the early 3rd century the Athenians direct the thesmothetai to scrutinize a gift in the heliaia, the thesmothetai are being told to give the case in question to one of those days on the court calendar which they assign.12
There is a court called Meliov, "greater", which Lysias and Deinarchos may have cited as though it were separate and independent (2). That adjective by itself, however, implies "heliaia", since no judging body or building other than the heliaia, except for the Metiocheion, is ever differentiated as being larger than the rest.
8 See Agora III, nos. 13 and 22, with pp. 31, 45, note 1, on some corruptions of the name. Cf. Epilykeion (earlier called Polemarcheion), Boukoleion (which may have been called Basileion before; see Rhodes 1981, p. 103), Tholos (known also as Skias and conceivably also as Prytanikon [see Agora III, p. 184]), and the springs Klepsydra/Empedo and Kallirhoe/Enneakrounos. Cf. also the equivalence etl xrb M7rp&itov and ctq xt6 8n,N6otov.
9 Plutarch, Precepts of Statecraft 81 1F.
MrFtooxoq tiv y&p aopat7vyd, M)ntoXoq 8 r xa 68ou<q M7rToxog 8' &pxo)g xq 7tftaL, Mr)TtoXog 8U tXpi,ta, Mrxtoxo be nT&vt' &xelTaL, M)tIoXoq 5' otlAwXeatL.
10 Cf. Agora III, pp. 147-148 on Metiochos.
l Cf. FGrHist 324 F59, notes to commentary, p. 148.
12 Shear (1978, p. 60) notes the equivalence of dikasterion and heliaia and assigns the difference to personal style in choice of words. For a suggestion that the word had a political resonance, see p. 41 below.
© American School of Classical Studies at Athens For personal use only. License: CC-BY-NC-ND.
In sum, it is possible to conjecture that in the 5th century a large building named after Metiochos was one place where the heliaia (quajudging body) sat. That building, or a successor, came in time to be known as the Heliaia, that is, the building in which the heliaia customarily sat. Because of its size, or more probably because the heliaia qua enhanced panel was larger than other panels, the court or court building may have been called Meizon. There is, however, the Periclean Odeion, whose external dimensions (62.40 x 68.60 m.) establish it as the largest structure in which trials are attested as having taken place. In the absence of any apparent connection between the Odeion and the Heliaia, the term "greater" applies more easily to the size of the judging panel than to the building.
ODEION
The Odeion (Fig. 1), a famous monument of the Periclean building program, may well be the site that Aristophanes calls o6tep apX0)v.13 In the 4th century, suits for support (Sixal aotou) were heard in the Odeion (Pollux 8.33 [170], Demosthenes 59.52-54 [169]), and it was the archon who scheduled and introduced such suits (Lipsius 1905-1915, pp. 58-59). If in times as widely separated as 422 and ca. 340 archon and Odeion are associated, it is natural to assume that "archon's court"
and "Odeion" were two separate and distinct ways of designating one court building. Formal arbitrations took place in the Odeion in the 4th century, but no dikastic trials other than those introduced by the archon are attested. If the heliaia did not meet here, the Odeion as court site could nevertheless have been called Meizon on the basis of its size.
PARABYSTON AND TRIGONON
Parabyston is a court building where a state committee of eleven men, styled simply the Eleven, supervised trials (2, 139, 156). This Parabyston may be Philokleon's Court of the Eleven and at the same time his "Court by the Walls".14 A third equivalence needs to be discussed, the possibility that Trigonon was another name (possibly applied later) for the building called Parabyston.
While on the Hill of Ares, Pausanias (1.28.4-11) reflects on other courts at Athens, dikasteria first and then homicide courts (1). He makes it clear that he does not go in person to any of these courts, because his next topographical reference after talking about courts is at 1.29. There, upon leaving the Hill of Ares, he points to the Panathenaic ship. His list of courts, it has long been agreed, derives from a written account.15 Or, if he heard of the courts from a local guide, he did not go and look at them. In either case, one item in his list of dikasteria, that is, the names Parabyston however, is possible. First, consider the Greek text without 19th-century editorial changes.
Seat 8e 'AOrjvaloL xai RXa 8&xaaTcpLa oix i& toootro 8o0g IjxovTra. To vlev o0v xaXoui4evov iapfpu3tov xaL TptyXvov TO 'V &v yaCpavel Tt; notXecX oV xal 'Tt eXaXXCTLOL; OUVLOVTOV etc a0ro TO 6e a&ot tOO axT)iaToc SXeL tra 6v6oixaTa. BaTpa(XLoOv 8e xaL IOLVLXLOUV &aO Xpo WaTWV
xal 6q T6o 8laie?(ieV7xev 6voadea9OaL. Tr6 8e ti&'YLtOV.. .XTX.
Curt Wachsmuth (1890, p. 366) adds a to before TplycLvov and prints ra 6v6vaXTac while adding in parentheses his preference for TO ovocia rather than ra 6v6vicaTa. Hitzig and Blumner (1896, p. 68) print Wachsmuth's added To without brackets, change ra 6v6vmtroT to To 6vo(iac, and note
13 See p. 173 below on the interpretation of Aristophanes, Wasps, lines 1108-1109 (139). Cf. FGrHist 324 F59, notes to commentary, p. 151, note 7.
14 See FGrHist, bc. cit., note 13 above.
15 See, e.g., Hitzig and BlUmner 1896, p. 314; FGrHist 324, F59, notes to commentary, p. 146. On views of Pausanias' reliability generally, see C. Habicht, Pausanias' Guide to Ancient Greece, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 1985, pp. 165-175.
© American School of Classical Studies at Athens For personal use only. License: CC-BY-NC-ND.
their changes in the apparatus criticus. Wachsmuth does not argue his alterations of the text. Hitzig and Bluimner accept them without discussion. Wachsmuth may have given authority to lists such as are preserved in Pollux (2) or to Aristophanic scholia (144) and Photios (167), where Parabyston and Trigonon are cited as different courts. He consequently made two small but vital alterations in the text whose effect was to have Pausanias say that the two names designated two separate and distinct buildings. Hitzig and Bluiimner, subsequently in printing Wachsmuth's version, canonized Parabyston and Trigonon in Pausanias' account as separate. W. H. S. Jones in the Loeb edition (1918) and N. D. Papachatzis (1963) print To ovoia (but with no warning that a plural form actually stands in the manuscript) without accepting Wachsmuth's proposed tO before TpLy&vov. James G.
Frazer in Pausanias's Description of Greece accepts this interpretation when he translates: "The court called Parabyston (pushed aside) is so named because it is in an obscure part of the city and they resort to it only in the most trivial cases. The court called Trigonum (triangular) gets its name from its shape." Let his example stand for many.
The relevant sentences in their pre-Wachsmuth form (happily reinstated by Maria Helena Rocha-Pereira in the Teubner edition of 1973) can be construed as follows: "The Athenians have other lawcourts too, ones that are not so famous. The one called Parabyston and Trigonon has its names because it is situated in an obscure part of the city and men come together there on the least important occasions, and because of its shape. The green and red courts continue even now to be named from their colors. The most important court.... "
The structure of this short excursus is not very complex. The first derv with oSv is continuative.
Then the particles three establish a sequence of units. The first unit is a single court called by two names, viz. parabyston and trigonon, the second unit is two courts, each of which is labeled by its color, and the third unit is the Heliaia. The first of these three units is qualified by explanations of its double nomenclature. t O iev introduces an explanation of the name Parabyston, followed by an epexegetic xal, which introduces a circumstantial and therefore (it is intended) convincing detail.
Next, a balancing To 8e introduces an explanation of the name Trigonon. It is Pausanias' manner of expression to use no .ev.. . .To be ... to qualify or explain a single entity. Compare 1.43.4, 2.3.2, 2.10.6, 2.19.3, 6.14.7, 8.7.3, 9.11.4, and 10.32.7.
Apart from Pausanias, a Parabyston and a Trigonon are attested elsewhere as separate and distinct courts: Parabyston in the late 5th and mid-4th century (2, 156, 159, 160), Trigonon in the late 4th century (2, 166). The clear difference in times prompts a conjecture that a court site or buildin or indeed merely the name, Trigonon, somehow succeeded Parabyston. But to return to Pausanias, if he does not say, as he does of the Red and Green Courts, that the Parabyston/Trigonon had its names in his day, the omission need not be relevant. The entire question of Pausanias' personal authority for the information he volunteers concerning the courts has not been answered satisfactorily. Two instances of awkwardness are apparent. First, he situates the Parabyston in an obscure part of the city. But if, as is credibly suggested, the Parabyston was situated in the Agora in the 5th and 4th centuries, 16 it was not in an obscure place at that time. Next, when he says that only the most trivial cases are tried there, he again contradicts what other evidence we have, for the Parabyston seems to have been a court in which important trials were held. The Eleven tried the malefactors who were called kakourgoiin that court, and a man convicted there could die. At least one trial held in the Parabyston may have been recorded on stone (159). This was an expensive form of publication, and it was not regular or usual to make a permanent public record of the outcome of a trial. Very few records of trials at Athens survive, and yet litigation under the
16 See Agora III, p. 146.
© American School of Classical Studies at Athens For personal use only. License: CC-BY-NC-ND.
democracy was unrelenting.17 Moreover, if in the record of a trial possibly held at the Parabyston, 443 dikasts voted for acquittal (IG II2 1646 [159]), a number as high as this shows that the judging panel was one of at least 501 dikasts, the number present, for example, at the trial of Sokrates.
Again, a homicide could be tried at the Parabyston. Euxitheos at Antiphon 5.9-11 protests that he is being tried as a kakourgos rather than as a homicide, although the charge against him is really one of homicide.
To sum up, it is plain that the Parabyston in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.E. was not in an obscure place where men convened on the least important occasions. As for Pausanias' time, the manner of his telling does not imply autopsy (see p. 6 above). It is likely that Pausanias heard or read a confused account, one whose author attempted some etymologizing.18 If parabyston means
"stuffed in a corner", an ancient commentator might extrapolate and state as fact that the court was obscure. This manner of reconstruction of early institutions can be seen in etymologies of "heliaia"
and in the creation of ten-man companies of Lykos. 19
PHOINIKIOUN (RED) AND BATRACHIOUN (GREEN) COURTS
Pausanias' Red and Green Courts, modern writers have generally agreed, get their names from courts in a complex of buildings which Aristotle calls -ra 5txaoT?pLca (249). In Aristotle's description of procedure, a dikast at one point receives a staff, which is the same color as some visible and painted architectural element of the court building in which he is to sit. At another point, officials are assigned to courts by an allotment in which dice and kleroteria are used. The dice, like the staves, are colored to match the identifying colors of the courts (see pp. 37, 199).
In an inscription that has been dated ca. 342/1, there is mention of a tnpinov and a ,oeaov of the New Courts (Agora I 1749 [147]).20 If the courts are new ca. 341, they may still have been sufficiently novel (or rather the system that was made complete with their construction was still sufficiently novel) for Aristotle to have given special care to their description even fifteen years later.
The Red and Green Courts named by Pausanias and the courts that Aristotle describes as being identified by color could consequently have been the same buildings as the "First" and "Middle"
courts. The Trigonon, since it is attested only for the time when the complex of courts existed, may likewise have been one of the three, situated, as conjectured above, on the site of the old Parabyston.
The term "triangle" may alternatively in some unknown way refer to the disposition of all three (?) courts within the complex.
17 U. E. Paoli ("Sull'esistenza di archivi giudiziari in Atene," in Studi in onore di Emilio Betti III, Milan 1962, pp. 4-13) postulates a special record-keeping office for the Athenian lawcourts, but the sort of business he instances could all have been handled by the relevant magistrates. It is the magistrates who set out the notices (Isokrates 15.237-238
17 U. E. Paoli ("Sull'esistenza di archivi giudiziari in Atene," in Studi in onore di Emilio Betti III, Milan 1962, pp. 4-13) postulates a special record-keeping office for the Athenian lawcourts, but the sort of business he instances could all have been handled by the relevant magistrates. It is the magistrates who set out the notices (Isokrates 15.237-238