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taken their places, they were inclosed by a thread, or rather acord, drawn round them. They held their assemblies in thenight, that their attention to public affairs might not be divertedby external objects. This circumstance explains a passage inAthenams, who tells us that none knew the numbers nor faces ofthe Areopagites . When all the members of the senate were con-vened, a herald enjoined silence, and ordered the people to re-tire. As soon as they had departed, the assembly proceeded tobusiness; and as they deemed the least preference to be a flagrantinjustice, the causes which they were to determine were drawn bya kind of lottery; and the same chance which brought them up,distributed them to different numbers of judges, small or great,according to the importance of the several causes. In early times,the parties themselves stated their cause in a simple manner. Theeloquence of advocates was thought a dangerous talent, fit onlyto varnish crimes. But afterwards the Areopagus, on this point,relaxed from their severity. When the suffrages were collected,each person gave his in silence. They voted with a small Hint,which they held betwixt the thumb, and the two next fingers,and which they put into one of the two urns that stood in a cor-ner of the hall. One stood before the other. The first was calledthe urn of death; the second, the urn of compassion. That ofdeath was of brass, and was termed proper ; that of compassionwas of wood, and was termed improper. The judges commonlybrought their flint to the assembly, and put them into the urn ;buf, that all the suffrages might be collected, the herald took thetwo urns, and presented them, one after another, to every senator,commanding him, in the name of the republic, no longer to deferhis acquittal or condemnation. For this method of giving sen-tence, which was called i» because it kept the votes of

each person undiscovered, the Thirty Tyrants to make them-selves masters of the decisions of the Areopagus, substituted ano-ther, by means of w hich they knew' exactly the opinion of each ofthe judges; for they obliged them to bring their flints publicly,and lay them upon two tables placed before them, the situation ofwhich was quite opposite to that of the urns; for the first of thosetables was that of life, and the second that of death. The firstsubstances with which they gave their suffrages were not smallpieces of the bones of a hog, as some authors assert, but sea-shells,for which pieces of brass of the same form, termed spondyla, wereafterwards substituted. The substances with which they votedwere distinguished by their form and colour. Those which con-demned were black, and perforated in the middle; the otherswere white, and not perforated. The precaution of piercing theblack ones, tends to prove, what we have already observed, thatthe court of Areopagus sat in the night; for what end did itserve to pierce the black shells, or flints, if the judges couldhave seen them and the white ones, and consequently have dis-tinguished their colours by the assistance of the light ? But as theypassed sentence in the dark, it is evident that a difference besidesthat of colour was necessary, to know the black ones from thewhite. As to the number of the judges which composed theAreopagus, some authors, attentive only to a part of Solon ’s re-gulations, by which he enacted, that for the future, none but thenine archoris should he admitted members of the Areopagus, haveimagined that this tribunal was filled anew every year, and that itnever consisted of more than nine magistrates. This opinion, andsome others, are refuted by the circumstantial account whichDiogenes Laertius gives us of the condemnation of Socrates .This great man had wished to substitute a rational hypothesis, forthe fabulous and extravagant system of religion winch prevailedin his time. Ilis project, however laudable, appeared impious inthe eye of superstition. Information was laid against him beforethe Areopagus, and he had as many accusers as fellow-citizens.After the charges and the answers were heard, they proceeded tosuffrages. The opinions were divided, but not equally, for thenumber of those who condemned him exceeded by 281,the number of those who declared him innocent. He madean ironical reply to this iniquitous sentence, by tellinghis judges, that he took it for granted, they would admit him toa maintenance in the Prytanmum. On this sarcasm, 80 ofthose who had voted in his favour forsook him, went overto the opposite party, and condemned him to die. Herethen we have 361 judges, who condemned him; to whom, ifwe add, those who persisted in acquitting him, the numbermust be very considerable. The judges of this court, who, un-

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der Draco, deckled only in cases of murder, by Solon ’s regu-lations took cognizance of crimes of every kind; and the sametribunal, which inflicted capital punishment on murder, poison-ing, burning of houses, theft, See. struck at the root of those crimes,by arraigning idleness, luxury, and debauchery. They repressedthe intemperance of the youth by a severe discipline. Corrup-tion in magistrates was suppressed by the punishments denouncedagainst it; and the old men, at the sight of the employments ofthe young, felt themselves animated with a degree of juvenilevigour and activity. Religion came likewise under the cogni-zance of the Areopagites . Plato durst never, as we are told byJustin Martyr, divulge his private opinion concerning the Deity .He had learned from the Egyptians the doctrine of Moses. Itappeared to him the best, and he embraced it with ardour. Buthis dread of the Areopagites , who were attached to the prevailingsystem, would not permit him even to name the author of senti-ments which opposed the common tradition. The public edi-fices, the cleanness of the streets, the pay of the soldiers, the dis-tribution of the public money; in a word, whatever interested therepublic, was under the direction of the Areopagus. Of ail thejudgments of the Areopagus, the most famous one, excepting thatof Mars , was the sentence which they passed on Orestes. His'trial, which happened under Demophoon the 12th king of Athens ,in 375 of the Attic ana, owed all its fame to a remarkable circum-stance, that gave rise to a custom which was observed ever after-wards. Orestes had killed his mother, lie was accused beforethe Areopagus and cited to appear m that court. He would havelost iiis life in consequence of the equal division of the votes, hadnot Minerva, moved with his misfortunes, declared herself forthose who had absolved him, aud joined her suffrage to theirs.Tims Orestes was saved, in veneration to this miracle, theAreopagites , whenever the suffrages were equally divided, de-cided in favour of the accused, by granting him what they termedthe shell of Minerva. The ancient decisions of this tribunal,bear the strongest marks of justice. We must not, however,suppose that the Areopagus always preserved its old reputation;for such is the constitution of human affairs, that perfection is atransitory state. Pericles, who lived about 100 years after Solon ,to flatter the people and win them to his party', used his utmostefforts to weaken the authority of the Areopagus, which was thendisliked by the multitude. lie took from it the cognizance ofmany affairs which had before come under its jurisdiction ; and,to forward his design of humbling it, employed the eloquence ofEphialtes , whose talents were formidable, and who was an avowedenemy to the great nien of Athens . The Areopagus itself seemed 'to second the endeavours of a man who projected its ruin, and byits misconduct hastened its fall. The old rules of the court, bywhich none were admitted its members but those whose unexcep-tionable conduct would support its majesty, seemed too severe.They grew less delicate in their choice ; and presuming that thefaults with which they dispensed, would Soon he reformed in (liesocietv of so many good examples, vice imperceptibly crept inamong them : corruption, at first secret and timid, grew insen-sibly open and daring, and made such progress, that the mostshameful crimes were soon exhibited on the stage. Demetrius,the comic poet, wrote a piece which lie infilled T he Areopagite ,where he strips the mask off tiiose iiypocritir.fi legislators, whowere now equally apt to be seduced by wealth and by beauty. Somuch had the Athenian senate degenerated in the days of Iso-crates , about 340 years before the Christian a‘ra. Before this tri-bunal St. Paul was called to give an account of his doctrine, andconverted Dionysius one ot their number. The end of thiscourt of judicature is as obscure as its origin, which was derivedfrom very remote antiquity. It existed, with the other magis-tracies, in"the time of Pamanias, /. c. in the second century. T heterm of its subsequent duration is not ascertained; but a writerin the fifth century, mentions it as extinct.

AliEOTECTONJCS, Hint part of fortification which teachesto attack an enemy safely and light advantageously.

Alt EOT ICS, [reoaioTiJM,] attenuants, applied to medicinesthat dissolve viscidities, so that the morbific matter may be car-ied off by sweat, or insensible perspiration, such as sudorifics, &c.

AREQUIBA, or Alt EQUIP A, a city of South America , oneof the most beautiful cities in all Peru , situated in the valley ofQuilca. It is situated 220 miles S. E. of Lima. Lon. 75.30. \V.Lat. 16. 40. S.

ARESKOUJ,