前4世紀アテナイの公的仲裁制度について

According to the Athenaion Politeia, Athenian citizens were obliged to serve as a public arbitrator(διαιτητη&b.sigmav; pl. διαιτηται) for a year at the age of 60. They co-operated with the Forty, received cases from the Forty and tried to settle disputes. The public arbitrator was able to give verdict, although this verdict was not binding. If the issue could not be settled at public arbitration, then the dispute was referred to the law courts(Ath. Pol. 53). During the fourth century B. C, these public arbitrators were active in the legal field in Athens. Since the 19th century, there have been many studies of various aspects of the public arbitrator, for example, the procedures for public arbitration hearings, the institutional relation between the public arbitrator and the Forty, the type of suits that the public arbitrator handled, the date and the purpose of the establishment of the public arbitrator, the function of public arbitration, and so on. As a result, there is general agreement on these aspects of public arbitration among scholars. However, what seems to be lacking is a study of the Athenian public arbitration from the perspective of disputants, who actually appeared before public arbitrators. In this paper, I attempt to show the significance of public arbitration for the disputants, firstly by examining how the speakers describe arbitration hearings in the Attic orations, then by considering the function of this institution in the context of the Athenian legal system. (1)There are not many references to the public arbitration in the Attic orations. In these references, some common features can be found : when a speaker refers to public arbitration, he almost always attacks the conduct of his opponent at the arbitration, especially the failure of his opponent to prove something. I think that these descriptions of public arbitration imply how important and tense public arbitration was for disputants, who fought with their opponents to establish their claims before the public arbitrator. (2)Some scholars have thought that the public arbitrator did not contribute much to the settlement of disputes, because his verdict was not final. However, I think this feature of the public arbitrator should be interpreted more positively. It has been correctly pointed out that the Athenian legal system was adversarial. In this kind of legal system, there always seems to be a need for a disputant to measure the relative absolute relationship between him and his opponent and to decide whether to pursue the suit or retreat. In Athens, public arbitration filled this need.