HELIASTÆ, in antiquity, the judges of the Heliaæ-court HELIAEA. They were so called, according to some authors, from a Greek word which signifies to assemble in a great number; and, according to others, from another word which signifies the sun, because they held their assemblies in an open place. They composed not only the most numerous, but likewise the most important of the Athenian tribunals; for their province was either to explain the obscure laws, or to give new vigour and authority to those which had been violated. The Thesmophore convoked the assembly of the Heliaæ, which sometimes amounted to 1000, sometimes to 1500, judges. Mr Blanchard is of opinion, that, to make this number, the Thesmophore sometimes summoned those of each tribe who had last quitted the public offices which they had exercised in another court.

However that may be, it appears that the assemblies of the Heliaæ were not frequent, as they would have interrupted the jurisdiction of the stated tribunals and the common course of affairs.

The Thesmophore paid to each member of this assembly, for his attendance, three oboli: which are equal to two Roman sesterces, or to half a drachma. Hence Aristophanes terms them the brothers of the tribolus. They were likewise condemned to pay a fine if they came too late; and if they did not present themselves till after the orators had begun to speak, they were not admitted. Their attendance was requited out of the public treasury, and their pay was called mithros heliasticus.

The assembly met, at first, according to Aristophanes, at the rising of the sun. If the judges were obliged to meet under cover on account of frost and snow, they had a fire; but there is not a passage in any ancient author which informs us of the place where these assemblies were held either in the rigorous or in the mild seasons. We only learn, that there was a double enclosure around the assembly, that it might not be disturbed. The first was a kind of arbour-work, from space to space, separated by doors, over which were painted in red the ten or twelve first letters of the Greek alphabet, which directed the entrance of the officers who composed the tribunal, each of them entering under the letter which distinguished his tribe. The beadles of the court, to whom they showed the wand which had been sent them by the Thesmophore as a summons to meet, examined its mark, to see if it was authentic, and then introduced them. The second enclosure, which was at the distance of 20 feet from the former, was a rope or cord; that the people who stood round the first enclosure, and were desirous to see what passed within the second, might not be prevented from gratifying their curiosity at a proper distance. Thus the attention of the judges was not interrupted by the concourse of the multitude, many of whom were heated by views of interest or of party.

To each of the members of the assembly were distributed two pieces of copper; one of which was perforated, not certainly that it might be distinguished from the other by feeling, for these assemblies met at the rising and were dissolved at the setting of the sun. Those pieces of copper had been substituted for little sea-shells, which were at first in use. The king was present at the assembly, at whose command it had been summoned. The Thesmothetæ read the names of those who were to compose it, and each man took his place as he was called. The Thesmothetæ were then sent for, whose function it was to observe prodigies and to superintend the sacrifices; and if they gave their sanction, the deliberations were begun. It is well known, that the officers called Exegetæ were often corrupted by those who were interested in the debates of the assembly; and that they excited such tumults as were raised by the Roman tribunes in the popular assemblies convoked by the consuls.

Of all the monuments which remain relating to the Heliaïæ, the most curious is the oath which those judges took before the Thesmothetæ: Demosthenes hath preserved it in his oration against Timocrates, who having been bribed by those who had been intrusted with the effects taken on board a vessel of Naucratis, and refused to give an account of them, got a law passed, by which an enlargement was granted to prisoners for public debts on giving bail. Demosthenes on making his oration against that law, ordered the oath of the Heliaïæ to be read aloud, as a perpetual auxiliary to his arguments, and happily calculated to interest the multitude and inflame their passions. This oath we shall quote, that our readers may know how respectable a tribunal that of the Heliaïæ was, and the importance of their decisions.

"I will judge according to the laws and decrees of the people of Athens, and of the senate of 500. I will never give my vote for the establishment of a tyrant, or of an oligarchy. Nor will I ever give my approbation to an opinion prejudicial to the liberty or to the union of the people of Athens. I will not second those persons who may propose a reduction of private debts, or a distribution of the lands or houses of the Athenians. I will not recall exiles, or endeavour to produce a pardon for those who shall be condemned to die. Nor will I force those to retire whom the laws and the suffrages of the people shall permit to remain in their country. I will not give my vote to any candidate for a public function who gives not an account of his conduct in the office which he has previously filled; nor will I presume to solicit any trust from the commonwealth without subjecting myself to this condition, which I mean as obligatory to the nine archons, to the chief of religious matters, to those who are balloted on the same day with the nine archons, to the herald, the ambassador, and the other officers of their court. I will not suffer the same man to hold the same office twice, or to hold two offices in the same year. I will not accept any present, either myself or by another, either directly or indirectly, as a member of the Heliaïac assembly. I solemnly declare that I am 30 years old. I will be equally attentive and impartial to the accuser and the accused; I will give my sentence rigorously according to evidence. Thus I swear, by Jupiter, by Neptune, and by Ceres, to act. And if I violate any of my engagements, I imprecate from these deities ruin on myself and my family; and I request them to grant me every kind of prosperity, if I am faithful to my oath."

The reader should peruse what follows this oath, to see with what eloquence Demosthenes avails himself of it, and how he applies its principles to the cause which he defends.

Here we have one of the motives of the meeting of this assembly. Aristotle informs us of another; which was by the public authority deputed to them, to elect a magistrate in the room of one dead. It is surprising that Pausanias, who enters so often into details, gives us no particular account of this assembly. All that he says of it is, that the most numerous of the Athenian assemblies was called Helice.

We are told by Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Solon, that it was before one of these Heliaïac assemblies that Pisistratus presented himself, covered with wounds and contusions (for thus he had treated himself and the mules which drew his car), to excite the indignation of the people against his pretended enemies, who, jealous, as he alleged, of the popularity he had acquired by asserting the rights of his poorer fellow-citizens, in opposition to the men in power, had attacked him while he was hunting, and had wounded him in that barbarous manner. His design succeeded: a guard was appointed him; by the assistance of which he acquired the sovereignty or tyranny of Athens, and kept it 33 years. The power of the assembly appeared remarkably on that occasion; for Solon, who was present, opposed it with all his efforts, and did not succeed.

As to the manner in which the judges gave their suffrages, there was a sort of vessel covered with an oifer mat, in which were placed two urns, the one of copper, the other of wood. In the lid of these urns there was an oblong hole, which was large at the top, and grew narrower downwards, as we see in some old boxes of our churches. The suffrages which condemned the accused person were thrown into the wooden urn, which is termed kyrios. That of copper, named akryos, received those which absolved him.

Aristotle observes, that Solon, whose aim was to make his people happy, and who found an aristocracy established by the election of the nine archons (annual officers, whose power was almost absolute), tempered their sovereignty, by instituting the privilege of appealing from them to the people; who were to be assembled by lot to give their suffrage, after having taken the oath of the Heliaïæ, in a place near the Panathenaicum, where Hippius had in former days, calmed a sedition of the people, and bound them to unanimity by an oath. It has likewise been remarked, that the god Apollo was not invoked in the oath of the Heliaïæ, as in the oaths of the other judges. We have observed, that he who took the oath of the Heliaïæ, engaged that he would not be corrupted by solicitation or money. Those who violated this part of their oath were condemned to pay a severe fine. The decemvirs at Rome made such corruption a capital crime. But Asconius remarks, that the punishment denounced against them was mitigated in later times; and that they were expelled the senate, or banished for a certain time, according to the degree of their guilt.