HELIASTÆ, in antiquity, the judges of the Heliascourt 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 Thesmothetæ convoked the assembly of the Heliascte, which sometimes amounted to 1000, sometimes to 1500, judges. Mr Blanchard is of opinion, that to make this number, the Thesmothetæ 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 Heliascte were not frequent, as they would have interrupted the jurisdiction of the stated tribunals and the common course of affairs.

The Thesmothetæ 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 misthos 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 Thesmothetæ 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. 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 Heliastic 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 osier 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 akyros, 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 Heliastic, in a place near the Panatheneum, where Hissus 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 Heliastic, as in the oaths of the other judges. We have observed, that he who took the oath of the Heliastic, 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.