Areopagus

One of the Statutes of the Areopagus Concerning Homicide

If, on the other hand, he is believed to be laying a just charge, and if he proves the accused guilty of murder, even then he has no power over the convicted criminal;

and therefore, when enacting that, if one man killed another, the Council should take cognizance, he did not lay down what should be done to the culprit if found guilty.

When the laws have been ratified, they shall be placed under the guardianship of the Council of the Areopagus, to the end that only such laws as have been ratified may be applied by magistrates.

those who have been tried for homicide by the Areopagus, or by the Ephetae, whether sitting at the Pryaneum or the Delphinium, under the Presidency of the Basileus, and are now in exile or under sentence of death:

The Council of the Areopagus was guardian of the laws and watched over the magistrates, that they might govern according to the laws.

and once, when summoned on a charge of homicide to the Areopagus, he himself appeared to make his defence, but the man who had summoned him took fright and withdrew.

He made the Council four hundred, a hundred from each tribe, but he set the Council of the Areopagus to the guarding of the laws, just as before it had been overseer of the constitution;

and though the Athenians, at certain times, when the Areopagus had been done away with, did nothing save by the votes and decrees of the people, yet, since they had no distinct degrees of rank, their state did not keep its proper ornament.

just as, if anyone says that the commonwealth of the Athenians is ruled by the counsel of the Areopagus, the word 'of the Areopagus' is omitted;

it was then that he would have offered to deliver up his slaves for the torture, and would have invited some members of the Areopagus to attend;

At any rate the father of the priestess at Brauron, although it was admitted that he had not laid a finger on the deceased, but had merely urged the one who dealt the blow to keep on striking, was banished by the court of the Areopagus.

I will send the woman away from my house, since she is the daughter, not of Stephanus, but of Neaera.

When Theogenes had made this promise and this plea, the council of the Areopagus, through compassion also for the guilelessness of his character and in the belief that he had really been deceived by Stephanus, refrained from action.

When these rites had been solemnized and the nine archons had gone up on the Areopagus on the appointed days, the council of the Areopagus, which in other matters also is of high worth to the city in what pertains to piety, forthwith undertook an inquiry as to who this wife of Theogenes was and established the truth;

For even among the Athenians, who were of all men the most democratic and assigned the most to the common and popular sort, no demagogue ever became so audacious — not even that Hyperbolus or Cleon — as to consider the Areopagus or the council of the six hundred less honourable than the people.

I, on the other hand, should like to know from you why the council of the Areopagus said the reports.

The reporting of the names of the recipients it assigned to the Areopagus, who gave these men’s names to the people.

You denied having done so and drew up a challenge, which you laid before the people in the form of a decree entrusting the matter on which you were accused to the council of the Areopagus.

I acknowledge that I am going to speak at length of the institutions of Sparta, not taking the view, however, that Lycurgus invented or conceived any of them, but that he imitated as well as he could the government of our ancestors, establishing among the Spartans a democracy tempered with aristocracy—even such as existed in Athens —, enacting that the offices be filled, not by lot, but by electio …

I am not finding fault with the Areopagus.

Then you must not despair of Athenian discipline.

Then Socrates asked, But what of the Court of the Areopagus, Pericles?