1 The Areopagus tried cases of wilful murder. The fifty-one Ephetae sat in different courts according to the nature of the offence which they were trying, but always in the open air for religious reasons. Sitting ἐπὶ Πρυτανείῳ, in the precincts of the Prytaneum, they heard cases of justifiable homicide ( φόνος δίκαιος): sitting ἐπὶ Δελφινίῳ, in the precincts of the temple of Apollo Delphinius, they heard cases of homicide where the criminal was a person or persons unknown or where death had been caused by an inanimate instrument. They further met ἐπὶ Παλλαδίῳ to try cases of φόνος ἀκούσιος and βούλευσις φόνου ἀκουσίου(cf. Antiphon, Choreutes, lntrod.); and in Phreatto, a quarter of Peiraeus on the sea-shore, to try persons already in exile for homicide and charged with a second murder, committed before they quitted Attica. The accused pleaded from a boat. These last two courts are not mentioned here. See also Antiphon, Tetralogies, Gen. Introd.
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