plaint and answer. Each party had to con duct his own case. If he was doubtful of his forensic ability he employed a professional speech writer to prepare a speech for him, which he committed to memory and recited before the HELIAIA as best he could. To pay or to receive money for services as an advocate was illegal, and therefore such as sistance when rendered, was ostensibly gra tuitous, but there seems to have been no effectual method of detecting violations of that law. After the record of both sides, as found in the caskets, had been presented by the magistrate who presided at the ex parte hearing, and the speeches of both parties and their advocates, if they had them, had been delivered, the presiding judge directed the jurors, those members of the HELIAIA who had been drawn for the case, to cast their ballots at once and without consulta tion. This method of rendering a verdict is the most unique feature in the conduct of Athenian lawsuits, and would most effectually put an end to jury bribing could it be used in our practice. The number of judges who constituted the HELIAIA or Supreme Court, or more properly, considering its functions rather than its constitution, the Supreme
Jury of Athens for the final decision of all civil suits, was not always the same. The entire membership, out of which a certain number, never less than fifty, were chosen by lot, and at the time of each trial, was 6000. The number usually drawn for the trial of each cause was 200. A writer upon Grecian jurisprudence thus describes this balloting of the jury : "In the fourth century before the Chris tian era they generally used disks of bronze inscribed with one of the letters from A to К showing the jury section to which they belonged, and having a projecting transverse axis either pierced or solid, the pierced for condemnation and the solid for acquittal. Every juror received one of both kinds, and going up to a tribunal deposited them in two caskets, both provided with a slot in the lid big enough to admit a disk, a casket of bronze for the valid disk, and one of wood for the invalid. If the juror held his disk by the extremities of the axis no spectator could see whether his valid disk was given for the plaintiff or the defendant. When all had voted the valid disks were counted, and the party won his cause who obtained the greater number."
