“It is difficult not to be won by the first speaker, if he carries the air of mildness and is master of his tale; or not to be biased in favor of infirmity or infancy. Those who cannot assist themselves, we are much inclined to assist.
“Nothing dissolves like tears. Though they arise from weakness, they are powerful advocates, which instantly disarm, particularly those which the afflicted wish to hide. They come from the heart and will reach it, if the judge has a heart to reach. Distress and pity are inseparable.
“Perhaps there never was a judge, from seventeen to seventy, who could look with indifference upon beauty in distress; if he could, he was unfit to be a judge. He should be a stranger to decision, who is a stranger to compassion. All these matters influence the man, and warp his judgment.”
This is a description, given by a perfectly honest and unprofessional judge, of his own feelings when on the bench. It will be found illustrated by frequent passages in the Attic pleaders, where they address themselves to the feelings here described in the bosom of the dikasts.
[709] Demosthenês (cont. Phormio. p. 913, c. 2) emphatically remarks, how much more cautious witnesses were of giving false testimony before the numerous dikastery, than before the arbitrator.
[710] Asconius gives an account of the begging off and supplication to the judices at Rome, when sentence was about to be pronounced upon Scaurus, whom Cicero defended (ad Ciceron. Orat. pro Scauro, p. 28, ed. Orelli): “Laudaverunt Scaurum consulares novem—Horum magna pars per tabellas laudaverunt, qui aberant: inter quos Pompeius quoque. Unus prætereà adolescens laudavit, frater ejus, Faustus Cornelius, Syllæ filius. Is in laudatione multa humiliter et cum lacrimis locutus non minus audientes permovit, quam Scaurus ipse permoverat. Ad genua judicum, cum sententiæ ferrentur, bifariam se diviserunt qui pro eo rogabant: ab uno latere Scaurus ipse et M. Glabrio, sororis filius, et Paulus, et P. Lentulus, et L. Æmilius Buca, et C. Memmius, supplicaverunt: ex alterâ parte Sylla Faustus, frater Scauri, et T. Annius Milo, et T. Peducæus, et C. Cato, et M. Octavius Lænas.”
Compare also Cicero, Brutus, c. 23, about the defence of Sergius Galba; Quintilian, I. O. ii, 15.
[711] Plato, in his Treatise de Legibus (vi, p. 768) adopts all the distinguishing principles of the Athenian dikasteries. He particularly insists, that the citizen, who does not take his share in the exercise of this function, conceives himself to have no concern or interest in the commonwealth,—τὸ παράπαν τῆς πόλεως οὐ μέτοχος εἶναι.
[712] Aristot. ap. Cicero. Brut. c. 12. “Itaque cum sublatis in Siciliâ tyrannis res privatæ longo intervallo judiciis repeterentur, tum primum quod esset acuta ea gens et controversa naturâ, artem et præcepta Siculos Coracem et Tisiam conscripsisse,” etc. Compare Diodor. xi, 87; Pausan. vi, 17, 8.
[713] Especially Gorgias: see Aristotel. Rhetor. iii, 1, 26; Timæus, Fr.; Dionys. Halicarn. De Lysiâ Judicium, c. 3; also Foss, Dissertatio de Gorgiâ Leontino, p. 20 (Halle, 1828); and Westermann, Geschichte der Beredsamkeit in Griechenland und Rom., sects. 30, 31.