380 HISTORY OF GREECE. ate treasure from Delos to Athens, — so that the exchequer would then appear abundantly provided. As to the number of dikasts actually present on each day of sitting, or the minimum number requisite to form a sitting, we are very imperfectly informed. Though each of the ten panels or divisions of dikasts included five hundred individuals, seldom probably did all of them attend ; but it also seldom happened, probably, that all the ten divisions sat on the same day: there was therefore an opportunity of making up deficiencies in division A, when its lot was caUed and when its dikasts did not appear in sufiicient numbers, from those who belonged to division B or A, besides the supplementary di- kasts who were not comprised in any of the ten divisions : though on all these points we cannot go beyond conjecture. Certain it is, however, that the dikasteries were always numerous, and that none of the dikasts could know in what causes they would be employed, so that it was impossible to tamper with them beforehand.^ Such were the great constitutional innovations of Perikles and Ephialtes, — changes full of practical results, — the transforma- tion as well as the complement of that democratical system which Kleisthenes had begun, and to which the tide of Athenian feeling had been gradually mounting up, during the preceding twenty years. The entire force of these changes is generally not per- ceived, because the popular dikasteries and the nomothetae are ' There is a remarkable passage on this point in the treatise of Xeno- phon, De Republic. Athen. iii, 6. He says : — 4>f/3e d?j, uX?iU (p7]ai ric XPV'^o.'- ^mu^eiv fiev, eAuttov; 6e StKa^siv. 'AvayKT] To'ivvv, iav fihv 'Kolla (both Weiske and Schneider substitute noXka here in place of oTnya, which latter makes no sense) Troiuvrai diKaoTT/pia, bXiyot. Iv EKuarCfi eaovrai tu SiKaoTTjpiu' Ciare koI SiaaKsvaaatT'&ai ^^6iov larai Trpbg oTiiyovc diKUffTac, Kal avvdeaaaai (so Schneider and MatthiiE, in place of avvdiKuaai) ttoIv t/ttov diKaiug diKuCstv, That there was a good deal of bribery at Athens, where individuals could be approached and dealt with, is very probable (sec Xenoph. de Repub. Ath. iii. 3) : and we may well believe that there were also particular occa- sions on which money was given to the dikasts, some of whom were pun- ished with death for such corrupt receipt (^schines cont. Timarch. c. 17- 22. pp. 12-15). But the passage above quoted from Xenophon,an unfriendly ■witness, shows that the precautions taken to prevent corruption of the dikasteries were well-devised and successful, thouf^ these precautions might sometimes be eluded.
