The Athenian Constitution   

tickets from
the Ticket-hangers. The public servants carry the chests from each
tribe, one to each court, containing the names of the members of the
tribe who are in that court, and hand them over to the officials
assigned to the duty of giving back their tickets to the jurors in
each court, so that these officials may call them up by name and pay
them their fee.

Part 66

When all the courts are full, two ballot boxes are placed in the
first court, and a number of brazen dice, bearing the colours of the
several courts, and other dice inscribed with the names of the
presiding magistrates. Then two of the Thesmothetae, selected by
lot, severally throw the dice with the colours into one box,
and those
with the magistrates' names into the other. The magistrate whose
name is first drawn is thereupon proclaimed by the crier as assigned
for duty in the court which is first drawn, and the second in the
second, and similarly with the rest. The object of this procedure is
that no one may know which court he will have, but that each may
take the court assigned to him by lot.
When the jurors have come in, and have been assigned to their
respective courts, the presiding magistrate in each court draws one
ticket out of each chest (making ten in all, one out of each tribe),
and throws them into another empty chest. He then draws out five of
them, and assigns one to the superintendence of the water-clock, and
the other four to the telling of the votes. This is to prevent any
tampering beforehand with either the superintendent of the clock or
the tellers of the votes, and to secure that there is no malpractice
in these respects. The five who have not been selected for these
duties receive from them a statement of the order in which the
jurors shall receive their fees, and of the places where the several
tribes shall respectively gather in the court for this purpose when
their duties are completed; the object being that the jurors may be
broken up into small groups for the reception of their pay, and not
all crowd together and impede one another.

Part 67

These preliminaries being concluded, the cases are called on. If
it is a day for private cases, the private litigants are called.
Four cases are taken in each of the categories defined in
the law, and
the litigants swear to confine their speeches to the point at issue.
If it is a day for public causes, the public litigants are
called, and
only one case is tried. Water-clocks are provided, having small
supply-tubes, into which the water is poured by which the length of
the pleadings is regulated. Ten gallons are allowed for a case in
which an amount of more than five thousand drachmas is involved, and
three for the second speech on each side. When the amount is between
one and five thousand drachmas, seven gallons are allowed for the
first speech and two for the second; when it is less than one
thousand, five and two. Six gallons are allowed for arbitrations
between rival claimants, in which there is no second speech. The
official chosen by lot to superintend the water-clock places his
hand on the supply tube whenever the clerk is about to read a
resolution or law or affidavit or treaty. When, however, a case is
conducted according to a set measurement of the day, he does not
stop the supply, but each party receives an equal allowance of
water. The standard of measurement is the length of the days in the
month Poseideon.... The measured day is employed in cases when
imprisonment, death, exile, loss of civil rights, or confiscation of