But the prevalence of this frivolous habit was not the worst fault of the Athenian courts. In the most important class of cases, the criminal prosecutions, they were seldom perfectly impartial, and their ordinary bias was against the defendant. The juror in the discharge of his office did not forget his quality of citizen, and was not indifferent to the manner in which the issue of a trial might affect the public revenue, and thus he leaned towards decisions which replenished the treasury with confiscations and pecuniary penalties, while they also served to terrify and humble the wealthy class, which he viewed with jealousy and envy. On this notorious temper of the courts was grounded the power of the infamous sycophants who lived by extortion, and generally singled out, as the objects of their attacks, the opulent citizens of timid natures and quiet habits, who were both unable to plead for themselves, and shrank from a public appearance. Such persons might indeed procure the aid of an advocate, but they commonly thought it better to purchase the silence of the informer, than to expose themselves to the risk and the certain inconvenience of a trial. The resident aliens were not exempt from this annoyance; and, though they were not objects of fear or jealousy, they were placed under many disadvantages in a contest with an Athenian prosecutor. But the noble and affluent citizens of the subject states, above all, had reason to tremble at the thought of being summoned to Athens, to meet any of the charges which it was easy to devise against them, and to connect with an imputation of hostile designs or disloyal sentiments, and were ready to stop the mouths of the orators with gold. There is no room for doubt as to the existence of the evils and vices we have been describing, though the most copious information we possess on the subject is drawn not from purely historical sources, but from the dramatic satires of Aristophanes. But there may still be a question as to the measure of allowance to be made for comic exaggeration, or political prejudices, in the poet; and it seems probable that the colours in which he has painted his countrymen are in some respects too dark. That the mass of the people had not sunk to this degree of depravity, may we think be inferred from the grief and indignation which it is recorded to have shown on some occasions, where it had been misled into an unjust sentence, by which it stained itself with innocent blood: as Callixenus, who however was not worse than other sycophants, though he was among those who returned after the expulsion of the Thirty, and enjoyed the benefit of the amnesty, died, universally hated, of hunger. ARISTOPHANES [Sidenote: [_ca._ 425-400 B.C.]]