In the scene depicted on the Shield of Achilles, new evidence is afforded us that the people took a real part in the conduct of public affairs. The people are in Assembly. A suit is in progress. The matter is one of homicide; and the guilty person declares that he has paid the proper fine, while his antagonist avers that he has not received it. Each presses for a judicial decision. The people sympathizing, some with one, and some with the other, cheer them on.
Λαοὶ δ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπήπυον, ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοί·
κήρυκες δ’ ἄρα λαὸν ἐρήτυον[251].
I understand the latter words as declaring, not that the heralds forbade and put a stop to the cheering of the people, but either that they kept it within bounds, or rather that, when the proper time came for the judges to speak, these, the heralds, procured silence. According to the meaning of ἐρητύω in Il. ii. 211,
ἄλλοι μέν ῥ’ ἕζοντο, ἐρήτυθεν δὲ καθ’ ἕδρας.
Now of the cheering of the people I venture to say, not that it raises a presumption of, but that it actually constitutes, their interference. The rule of every tolerably regulated assembly, charged with the conduct of important matters, is to permit no expressions of approval or otherwise during the proceedings, except from the parties immediately belonging to the body. The total exclusion of applause in judicial cases belongs to a state of mind and manners different from that of the heroic age. But the exclusion of all applause by mere strangers to the business rests upon a truth common to every age; namely, that such applause constitutes a share in the business, and contributes to the decision. It will be remembered how the cries of the Galleries became one of the grievous scandals of the first revolution in France, and how largely they affected the determinations of the National Assembly. The irregular use of such a power is a formidable invasion of legislative or judicial freedom: the allowed possession of the privilege amounts to participation in the office of the statesman or the judge, and demonstrates the substantive position of the λαὸς, or people, in the Assemblies of the heroic age.
But apparently their function was not completed by merely encouraging the litigant, with whom each man might chance to sympathize. For we are told not only that the Judges, that is to say, the γέροντες, delivered their opinions consecutively, but likewise that there lay in the sight of all two golden talents, to be given to him who should pronounce the fairest judgment (xviii. 508);
τῷ δόμεν, ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴποι.
Thus it is plain that the judge who might do best was to get the two talents: but who was to give them? Not the γέροντες or elders themselves, surely; for among them the competition lay. There could be but one way in which the disposal of this fee could be settled: namely, by the general acclamation of the people, to be expressed, after hearing the respective parties, in favour of him whose sentiments they most approved. And those, to whom it may seem strange to speak of vote by acclamation, should remember, that down to this day, in all deliberative assemblies, an overpowering proportion of the votes are votes by acclamation, or by the still less definite test of silence. The small minority of instances, when a difference of opinion is seriously pressed, are now settled by arithmetic; they would then have been adjusted by some prudent appeal to the general will, proceeding from a person of ability and weight. Indeed even now, in cases when the numbers approximate to those of the Greek army, there can be no bonâ fide decision by arithmetic. The demand, however, that dissension shall be the only allowed criterion of liberty, is one which really worsens the condition of human nature beyond what the truth of experience requires.
Decisions in Assemblies of Il. vii. and ix.