among the Athenians, were tablets of brass inscribed with the names of all those citizens in each tribe who were duly qualified and willing to be judges of the court of Areopagus. These tablets were cast into a vessel provided for the purpose, and the same number of beans, a hundred being white and all the rest black, were thrown into another. Then the names of the candidates and the beans were drawn out one by one; and they whose names were drawn out together with the white beans were elected judges or senators. In Solon's time there were only four tribes, each of which chose 100 senators; but the number of tribes afterwards increasing, the number of senators and judges increased to so many hundreds more.