124.  The Usual Punishments in Athens.—­Trials involving murder or manslaughter come before the special court of Areopagus, and cannot well be discussed here, but most other criminal cases are tried before the dicasts in much the same way as a civil trial.  When the law does not have a set penalty, the jury virtually has to sentence the defendant after convicting him, choosing between one of two proposed penalties.  Greek courts can inflict death, exile, fines, but almost never imprisonment.  There is no “penitentiary” or “workhouse” in Athens; and the only use for a jail is to confine accused persons whom it is impossible to release on bail before their trial.  The Athens city jail ("The House,” as it is familiarly called—­“Oikema”) is a very simple affair, one open building, carelessly guarded and free to visitors all through the daylight.  The inmates have to be kept in heavy fetters, otherwise they would be sure to take flight; and indeed escapes from custody are somewhat common.

125.  The Heavy Penalty of Exile.—­An Athenian will regard locking a criminal up for a term of years as a very foolish and expensive proceeding.  If he has nothing wherewith to pay a round fine, why, simply send him into exile.  This penalty is direful indeed to a Greek.  The exile has often no protector, no standing in the courts of the foreign city, no government to avenge any outrage upon him.  He can be insulted, starved, stripped, nay, murdered, often with impunity.  Worse still, he is cut off from his friends with whom all his life is tied up; he is severed from the guardian gods of his childhood,—­“The City,” the city of his birth, hopes, longings, exists no more for him.  If he dies abroad, he is not sure of a decent funeral pyre; and meanwhile his children may be hungering at home.  So long as the Athenians have this tremendous penalty of exile at their disposal, they do not feel the need of penitentiaries.

126.  The Death Penalty at Athens.—­There are also the stocks and whipping posts for meting out summary justice to irresponsible offenders.  When the death penalty is imposed (and the matter often lies in the discretion of the dicasts), the criminal, if of servile or Barbarian blood, may be put to death in some hideous manner and his corpse tossed into the Barathron, a vile pit on the northwest side of Athens, there to be dishonored by the kites and crows.  The execution of Athenian citizens, however, is extremely humane.  The condemned is given a cup of poisonous hemlock juice and allowed to drink it while sitting comfortably among his friends in the prison.  Little by little his body grows numb; presently he becomes senseless, and all is over without any pain.[*] The friends of the victim are then at liberty to give his body a suitable burial.

[*]No one can read the story of the death of Socrates in the prison, as told by Plato in the “Phedo,” without feeling (aside from the noble philosophical setting) how much more humane were such executions by hemlock than is the modern gallows or electric chair.