Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

DIASIA.

131

DICE.

thod a trial of spurious citizens was to be
held by the demotae, within whose deme in-
truders were suspected to exist.

DIASIA (Siaaia), a great festival celebrated
at Athens, without the walls of the city, in
honour of Zeus, surnamed MeiAt'xto?. The
whole people took part in it, and the wealthier
citizens offered victims, while the poorer
classes burnt such incense as their country
furnished. The diasia took place in the lat-
ter half of the month of Anthesterion with
feasting and rejoicings, and was, like most
other festivals, accompanied by a fair.

DICASTES (Socao-njs), the name of a judge,
or rather juryman, at Athens. The condi-
tions of his eligibility were, that he should
be a free citizen, in the enjoyment of his full
franchise (en-m^ua), and not less than thirty
years of age, and of persons so qualified
(i,000 were selected by lot for the service
of every year. Their appointment took place
annually under the conduct of the nine ar-
chons and their official scribe ; each of these
ten personages drew by lot the names of
GOO persons of the tribe assigned to him;
the whole number so selected was again di-
vided by lot into ten sections of 500 each,
together with a supernumerary one, consist-
ing of 1000 persons, from among whom
the occasional deficiencies in the sections of
500 might be supplied. To each of the ten
sections one of the ten first letters of the
alphabet was appropriated as a distinguishing
mark, and a small tablet (ttivclkiov), inscribed
with the letter of the section and the name
of the individual, was delivered as a certifi-
cate of his appointment to each dicast. Be-
fore proceeding to the exercise of his func-
tions, the dicast was obliged to swear the
official oath. This oath being taken, and the
divisions made as above mentioned, it re-
mained to assign the courts to the several
sections of dicasts in which they were to sit.
This was not, like the first, an appointment
intended to last during the year, but took
place under the conduct of the thesmothetae,
de novo, every time that it was necessary to
impanel a number of dicasts. As soon as the
allotment had taken place, each dicast re-
ceived a staff, on which was painted the let-
ter and the colour of the court awarded him,
which might serve both as a ticket to pro-
cure admittance, and also to distinguish him
from any loiterer that might endeavour
clandestinely to obtain a sitting after busi-
ness had begun. While in court, and pro-
bably from the hand of the presiding ma-
gistrate (T/yeV"" SitaoTTjpi'ov), he received the
token or ticket that entitled him to receive
his fee (Sikolgtikov). This payment is said to
have been first instituted by Pericles, and

was originally a single obolus ; it was in-
creased by Cleon to thrice that amount about
the 88th Olympiad.

DICE (Such), signifies generally any pro-
ceedings at law by one party directly or me-
diately against others. The object of all
such actions is to protect the body politic, or
one or more of its individual members, from
injury and aggression; a distinction which has
in most countries suggested the division of all
causes into two great classes, the public and
the private, and assigned to each its peculiar
form and treatment. At Athens the first of
these was implied by the terms public Suau,
or aywi/e?, or still more peculiarly by
7par(jai ; causes of the other class were
termed private Sutat, or ayives, or simply fiixai
in its limited sense. In a Sua), only the per-
son whose rights were alleged to be affected,
or the legal protector (/cupios) of such per-
son, if a minor or otherwise incapable of ap-
pearing mo jure, was permitted to institute
an action as plaintiff; in public causes, with
the exception of some few in which the per-
son injured or his family were peculiarly
bound and interested to act, any free citizen,
and sometimes, when the state was directly
attacked, almost any alien, was empowered
to do so. The court fees, called prytaneia,
were paid in private but not in public causes,
and a public prosecutor that compromised
the action with the defendant was in most
cases punished by a fine of a thousand drach-
mae and a modified disfranchisement, while
there was no legal impediment at any period
of a private lawsuit to the reconciliation of
the litigant parties.—The proceedings in
the StKi) were commenced by a summons
(TrpocncAT/o-is) to the defendant to appear on a
certain day before the proper magistrate
(etcraywyeiis), and there answer the charges
preferred against him. This summons was
often served by the plaintiff in person, accom-
panied by one or two witnesses (icArjTrjpe;),
whose names were endorsed upon the declara-
tion (A»jfis or eyK\-qfxa). Between the service
of the summons and appearance of the parties
before the magistrate, it is very probable that
the law prescribed the intervention of a period
of five days. If both parties appeared, the
proceedings commenced by the plaintiff put-
ting in his declaration, and at the same time
depositing his share of the court fees (n-pv-
Tavela), which were trifling in amount, but
the non-payment of which was a fatal ob-
jection to the further progress of a cause
When these were paid, it became the duty oi
the magistrate, if no manifest objection ap-
peared on the face of the declaration, to cause
it to be written out on a tablet, and exposed
for the inspection of the public on the wall

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