The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

superintend the Mart, and to compel merchants to bring
up into the city two-thirds of the corn which is brought by sea to
the Corn Mart.
52
    The Eleven also are appointed by lot to take care of the
prisoners in the state gaol. Thieves, kidnappers, and pickpockets
are brought to them, and if they plead guilty they are executed,
but if they deny the charge the Eleven bring the case before the
law-courts; if the prisoners are acquitted, they release them, but
if not, they then execute them. They also bring up before the
law-courts the list of farms and houses claimed as state-property;
and if it is decided that they are so, they deliver them to the
Commissioners for Public Contracts. The Eleven also bring up
informations laid against magistrates alleged to be disqualified;
this function comes within their province, but some such cases are
brought up by the Thesmothetae.
    There are also five Introducers of Cases (Eisagogeis), elected
by lot, one for each pair of tribes, who bring up the ‘monthly’
cases to the law-courts. ‘Monthly’ cases are these: refusal to pay
up a dowry where a party is bound to do so, refusal to pay interest
on money borrowed at 12 per cent., or where a man desirous of
setting up business in the market has borrowed from another man
capital to start with; also cases of slander, cases arising out of
friendly loans or partnerships, and cases concerned with slaves,
cattle, and the office of trierarch, or with banks. These are
brought up as ‘monthly’ cases and are introduced by these officers;
but the Receivers-General perform the same function in cases for or
against the farmers of taxes. Those in which the sum concerned is
not more than ten drachmas they can decide summarily, but all above
that amount they bring into the law-courts as ‘monthly’ cases.
53
    The Forty are also elected by lot, four from each tribe, before
whom suitors bring all other cases. Formerly they were thirty in
number, and they went on circuit through the demes to hear causes;
but after the oligarchy of the Thirty they were increased to forty.
They have full powers to decide cases in which the amount at issue
does not exceed ten drachmas, but anything beyond that value they
hand over to the Arbitrators. The Arbitrators take up the case,
and, if they cannot bring the parties to an agreement, they give a
decision. If their decision satisfies both parties, and they abide
by it, the case is at an end; but if either of the parties appeals
to the law-courts, the Arbitrators enclose the evidence, the
pleadings, and the laws quoted in the case in two urns, those of
the plaintiff in the one, and those of the defendant in the other.
These they seal up and, having attached to them the decision of the
arbitrator, written out on a tablet, place them in the custody of
the four justices whose function it is to introduce cases on behalf
of the tribe of the defendant. These officers take them and bring
up the case before the law-court, to a jury of two hundred and one
members in cases up to the value of a thousand drachmas, or to one
of four hundred and one in cases above that value. No laws or
pleadings or evidence may be used except those which were adduced
before the Arbitrator, and have been enclosed in the urns.
    The Arbitrators are persons in the sixtieth year of their age;
this appears from the schedule of the Archons and the Eponymi.
There are two classes of Eponymi, the ten who give their names to
the tribes, and the forty-two of the years of service. The youths,
on being enrolled among the citizens, were formerly registered upon
whitened tablets, and the names were appended of the Archon in
whose year they were enrolled, and of the Eponymus who had been in
course in the preceding year; at the present day they are written
on a bronze pillar, which stands in front of the Council-chamber,
near the Eponymi of the tribes. Then the Forty take the last of the
Eponymi of the years of service, and assign the arbitrations to the
persons belonging to that year, casting lots to determine which
arbitrations each shall undertake; and every one is compelled to
carry through the arbitrations which the lot assigns to him. The
law enacts that any one who does not serve as Arbitrator when he
has arrived at the necessary age shall lose his civil rights,
unless he happens to be holding some other office during that year,
or to be out of the country. These are the only persons who escape
the duty. Any one who suffers injustice at the hands of