Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/422

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398 fflSTORY OF GREECE. the appropriate subjects for his reason, — but he was abundantly supplied with the plausible falsehoods, calumnies, irrelevant statements an i suggestions, etc., of the parties, and that too in a manner skilfully adapted to his temper. To keep the facts of the case before the jury, apart from the falsehood and coloring of parties, is the most useful function of the modern judge, whose influence is also considerable as a restraint upon the pleader. The helps to the reason of the dikast were thus materially dimin- ished, while the action upon his feelings, of anger as well as of compassion, was sharpened, as compared with the modern juror.i We see, in the remaining productions of the Attic orators, how much there is of plausible deception, departure from the true issue, and appeals to sympathies, antir^ithies, and prejudices of plaintiffs case, since, besides the anakrisis, or preliminary examination be- fore the archon, the cause had been for the most part already before an arbitrator. In a criminal case, the accused party had only the anakrisis to guide liim, as to the matter of which he was to be accused : but it appears from the prepared speeches of accused parties which we now possess, that this anakrisis must have been sufficiently copious to give him a good idea of that which he had to rebut. The accuser was condemned to a fine of one thousand drachms, if he did not obtain on the verdict one-fifth of the votes of the dikasts engaged. Antipho not only composed speeches for pleaders before the dikastery, but also gave them valuable advice generally as to the manner of conduct- ing their case, etc., though he did not himself speak before the dikasts : so also Ktesikles the ?.oy6ypa(poc (Demosthenes cont. Theokrin. c. 5) acted as general adviser, or attorney.

  • Aristotle, in the first and second chapters of his Treatise de Rhetoric^,

complains that the teachers and writers on rhetoric who preceded him, treated almost entirely of the diflferent means of working on the feelings of the dikasts, and of matters '• extraneous to the real question which the dikasts ought to try." (rrepl tuiv i^u tov npdyfiaTog ra ■n'kElaTa Trpay/iarev- ovrai' di.aBo'kfj yap Kal c/leof Kai bpyij, oil irspl tov npdy/xaTog iariv, tiA/i^ Tzpdc TOV diKaarrjv, etc., i, 1, 1 : compare, i, 2, 3, and iii, 1, 2.) This is sufficient to show how prominent such appeals to the feelings of the dikasts were, in actual fact and practice, even if we did not know it from the perusal of the orations themselves. Respecting the habit of accused persons to bring their wives and children before the dikasts as suppliants for them, to obtain mercy or acquittal, see Aristophan. Vesp. 567-976 ; Andokides de Mysteriis (ad finem), and Lysias, Orat. iv. de Vulnere (ad finem).