(3) The judicial bodies alone at Athens were independent of the political assembly. Jurisdiction, except in those few cases which were still brought before the semi-religious court of the Areopagus or before the first Archon, belonged to the popular law-courts which had been first founded by Solon. A large number of citizens were taken every year to serve as jurymen: they were divided into bodies varying in number from two hundred to a thousand[172], and each of these bodies sat collectively as judges to decide such cases as might be submitted to them. They sat without any professional judge to inform them about the condition of the law or the relevance of arguments: the advocate on either side cited such laws as favoured his contentions, and could use any reasoning which he thought likely to influence the court. The citizens were not only willing but eager to render their services as dicasts, partly because they received as daily pay three obols, a sum equal to half a modern franc, and partly because they enjoyed the business of the court and the importance which it conferred on them[173]. [172] Demosthenes, _Meidias_ p. 585, asks: "What is it that gives power and authority to any body of jurors sitting in judgement, whether they be two hundred or a thousand or any number you will?" [173] The eagerness of the citizens to act as dicasts is ridiculed all through the play of the _Wasps_, brought out in 422 B.C. (4) The records of some of the meetings of the assembly of citizens will serve to illustrate the nature of their business. Just before the Peloponnesian war the Corcyræans requested the Athenians to protect them with armed force: the body to whom the Corcyræan envoys made their request was the assembly of citizens; on the first day the Athenians heard the arguments of the Corcyræans and of their enemies the Corinthians: on the second day they debated what answer they should give; on the third they resolved to grant what the Corcyræans desired and thereby made the great war inevitable[174]. Again in 415 B.C. the ambassadors from Egeste in Sicily, sent to ask aid from Athens, were heard in the assembly, and it was agreed on the same day to send an expedition of sixty ships[175]. In the case of the Peace of Nicias in 423 B.C. the negotiations were carried on by the ten generals, but the Treaty became binding on Athens only when it was ratified by the assembly of the people[176]. [174] Thucydides I. 31 and 44. [175] Thucydides VI. 8. [176] Thucydides IV. 118.