Book of the Magistrates of the Athenians

with the Chiefs of the Ten in Venice and also begins to be familiar in our courts. The most clear-sighted Senators knew that there was nothing that the Orators could not do with Rhetoric, leading the listeners to their own opinion. The equity and justice of the Areopagites was so great in judging that anyone who was reputed to be most wicked, after having stated the case, went unpunished if he was innocent. The order of their judgment was as follows. Having put the defendant in prison (let us imagine it is a case of homicide), the commanders would call the parents, the domestic servants, those friends, and the relatives of the dead person, to whose judgment the penalty was imposed, and it was sentenced according to the reason of the damage received. This custom, being today among the Turks, I will be able to show more amply. The Cadi judge, which means Judge in the Arabic language, once the murderous defendant is taken, immediately seeks to secure the relatives of the dead; and if they are missing, he seeks to have those who could have derived fruit from the life of the dead; otherwise, if no one is found, then he proceeds as Procurator Regio Royal Prosecutor and punishes according to the written law. He prays that the men who are present there say whether they wish for him to be punished by law, or else in money, and according to their will, he judges. When the sentence does not overstep the measure, they estimate that a man is worth 60 thousand aspri silver coins, which according to us are 1,200 gold ducats. The aspro among them is of silver, almost equal in size to the crown of Emperor Charles. With this price, the damage of the death of the man is paid. The half is paid, paying half a man, and half a man is by missing