proved his innocence to the satisfaction of more than four-fifths of his judges, his accuser paid a fine of one thousand drachmae! Thus, he could not be slain on the spot by the avengers if he pleaded innocence: but unless he proved that he was innocent he was ultimately put to death. Aristotle may be taken to suggest that there was no essential connexion between the trial of inanimate objects and the verdict of murder against a person unknown. He says[54]: ‘if the name of the homicide is unknown, the indictment is prosecuted in general terms against the unknown author’; but in the next line he adds: ‘The King-Archon and the Tribe-Kings have competence in indictments against lifeless objects and the brute creation.’ The juxtaposition of such references is sufficiently significant. Pollux[55] is more definite: ‘The Prytaneum court,’ he says, ‘adjudicates concerning slayers if they are unknown, and also concerning lifeless objects that have fallen and caused death.’ Though none of these authorities say anything to support, neither do they say anything which refutes, our opinion that the Prytaneum court could also try cases of ‘accidental’ slaying in which a person accused of manslaughter pleaded an entire absence of neglect[56] or passion or intent. Our view is however rendered probable by the fact that preliminary inquiries in homicide cases were made in this place which, in addition to being a court, was also the official residence of the King-Archon and of the Prytaneis[57]; but the most cogent argument in favour of our hypothesis is to be found in the first two lines of the Draconian inscription if our interpretation of these lines is correct. We fail to see how the Draconian reference to ‘kings’ as ‘the judges’ in cases of homicide committed ‘without intent’[58] can be otherwise satisfactorily explained.