Aristotle adds that ‘the jurors are appointed by lot, except in the case of the Areopagus. The “King” (_i.e._ the King-Archon) introduces indictments: the courts sit by night and in the open air, and when the “King” takes his place in any court, he lays aside his crown.[43] If the name of the homicide is unknown, the indictment is prosecuted in general terms against the unknown author.’ In these extracts we must indicate some points of interest. (1) The jurisdiction of the Areopagus, according to Poste’s interpretation, extended only to cases in which human life was actually taken, and deliberately taken: obviously therefore it did not include all cases of arson. But according to the usual interpretation, which we accept, arson of any kind was included in its jurisdiction, and so was malicious wounding which did not end in death. (2) In Aristotle’s account of the Palladium, the word βούλευσις must mean ‘attempted murder’ which did not succeed in inflicting any physical injury.[44] It cannot, as Lipsius[45] thinks, include ‘contriving death,’ which, according to Demosthenes,[46] was tried by the Areopagus. (3) The Palladium adjudicated in cases of wilful homicide between foreigners. Pausanias also attributes this function to this court, as we have shown.[47] The Athenian Areopagus had a very chequered career. Solon is generally regarded as its creator, and in his time it functioned as a Council of State with very wide supervisory powers. But about the year 460 B.C. Ephialtes and Pericles[48] restricted the function of the Areopagus to the trial of wilful murder, and of cases of arson and poisoning which included actual intentional slaying. About the same time the archonship was thrown open to the poorer citizens, so that the personnel of the court became more democratic.[49] Pollux and Aristotle agree in assigning to the Areopagus functions which it continued to discharge, despite the vicissitudes of fortune, from the sixth century onwards. When Aristotle says that the Athenian jurors were appointed by lot,[50] he refers, clearly, to the Heliastic courts and not to the Areopagus. The Areopagus court, which was composed for the most part of Archons and ex-Archons, was on quite a different plane. Similarly the Ephetae judges were probably not chosen by lot, since they were members of the old aristocracy of birth. Aristotle does not expressly mention the Ephetae. Yet we cannot suppose that they were ever completely deprived of jurisdiction in homicide cases. Harpocration[51] says that the jurors in all the great homicide courts except the Areopagus were Ephetae; that they were fifty-one in number, and were chosen according to the qualification of birth. The statement of Pollux[52] that ‘the Ephetae judged in the five courts’ applies only, we shall see, to Dracon’s time. When he adds: ‘gradually the jurisdiction of the Ephetae was regarded as a joke’ (κατεγελάσθη), we can hardly suppose that he is comparing them