Friday 1 May 2015

Jury Duty of the Old Days

Just an odd thing I noticed in one museum at Agora.  

Around three-thousand years ago in 'civilized' Athens Greece.....if you were a property owner and free man....you had rights and responsibilities.

One of those responsibilities.....occasionally involved you being ordered to some town square and a jury being formed up from outstanding citizens of the town.

As you'd notice in today's world.....there's be arguments over fairness and the selection process.

In those days....of ancient Greece....a guy sat down and thought about fairness and eventually devised a jury duty process.  A stone-mason got called in, and told to chisel out this unique (19 x 11 spots) and a piece of paper would be in each with a black or white end.  You'd walk up.....draw your paper....and if black, then you were sitting on a jury for today.

Questions to get you disqualified from a jury?  No one says much over the Greek routine, and I kinda doubt that anyone could come up with justification to deny himself or some guy on a jury.  If picked.....you kinda served.  But on the other hand.....I doubt if any Greek jury meeting took more than eight to twelve hours, and maybe five or six witnesses.  You could probably utter the word "liar" out loud if you didn't believe his story.

Oddly.....the stone method worked. For this.....we need to sit back and ask ourselves if our lives have improved over the past three thousand years.

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