‘To Listen to Both Sides Equally’: Just Judgment in the Athenian Courts

Classical Athens is often celebrated as a model of deliberative democracy and a reminder of the value of talking with others. The historical Athens, however, complicates this picture. In certain political contexts, the Athenians did not think that talking with others would serve justice or democratic equality and they prohibited verbal deliberation among jurors in the popular courts ( dikasteria ). In this article, I explain why they did so. I argue that the jurors’ oath’s injunction to ‘listen to both sides equally’ is at the heart of the Athenian conception of just judicial judgment, and I show how Athenians sought to generate unbiased, democratic and egalitarian judgment during trials without relying on a notion of impartiality that requires dispassion or disinterestedness.