Another parallel is that of the Popular Assembly, which at Athens was omnipotent, but in the Laws has only a faded and secondary existence. In Plato it was chiefly an elective body, having apparently no judicial and little political power entrusted to it. At Athens it was the mainspring of the democracy; it had the decision of war or peace, of life and death; the acts of generals or statesmen were authorized or condemned by it; no office or person was above its control. Plato was far from allowing such a despotic power to exist in his model community, and therefore he minimizes the importance of the Assembly and narrows its functions. He probably never asked himself a question, which naturally occurs to the modern reader, where was to be the central authority in this new community, and by what supreme power would the differences of inferior powers be decided. At the same time he magnifies and brings into prominence the Nocturnal Council (which is in many respects a reflection of the Areopagus), but does not make it the governing body of the state.
Between the judicial system of the Laws and that of Athens there was very great similarity, and a difference almost equally great. Plato not unfrequently adopts the details when he rejects the principle. At Athens any citizen might be a judge and member of the great court of the Heliaea. This was ordinarily subdivided into a number of inferior courts, but an occasion is recorded on which the whole body, in number six thousand, met in a single court (Andocides “de Mysteriis” § 17). Plato significantly remarks that a few judges, if they are good, are better than a great number (VI 766 D). He also, at least in capital cases, confines the plaintiff and defendant to a single speech each, instead of allowing two apiece, as was the common practice at Athens (IX 855). On the other hand, in all private suits he gives two appeals, from the arbiters to the courts of the tribes, and from the courts of the tribes to the final or supreme court (XII 956). There was nothing answering to this at Athens. The three courts were appointed in the following manner:—the arbiters were to be agreed upon by the parties to the cause; the judges of the tribes to be elected by lot; the highest tribunal to be chosen at the end of each year by the great officers of state out of their own number—they were to serve for a year, to undergo a scrutiny, and, unlike the Athenian judges, to vote openly (VI 767, 768). Plato does not dwell upon methods of procedure: these are the lesser matters which he leaves to the younger legislators (XII 956). In cases of murder and some other capital offences, the cause was to be tried by a special tribunal (IX 855), as was the custom at Athens: military offences, too, as at Athens, were decided by the soldiers. Public causes in the Laws, as sometimes at Athens, were voted upon by the whole people: because, as Plato remarks, they are all equally concerned in them (VI 768). They were to be previously investigated by three of the principal magistrates. He believes also that in private suits all should take part; “for he who has no share in the administration of justice is apt to imagine that he has no share in the state at all.” The wardens of the country (VI 761), like the Forty at Athens, also exercised judicial power in small matters, as well as the wardens of the agora and city (VI 764). The department of justice is better organized in Plato than in an ordinary Greek state, proceeding more by regular methods, and being more restricted to distinct duties.
The executive
