What advantages and disadvantages do you see in the number of jurors on an Athenian jury?

Answer 1

The jury was the arbitrtor - no judges or lawyrs - deciin both guilt and sentece. They comprised several hundred members, so their decision was efectvely an opnion poll of the whole Athenian population.

And in such a small area and population as was Athens, jurors knew just about everything of what was going on in the community, so both prosecutors and defendants had to keep their cases pretty clean to avoid alienating a wised-up jury.

The underlying problem was the jury composition - the members were mostly comprisd of the old men - they had the time to do jury service as they did not have to leave farm/trade/businss to serve, but wanted the fee for service. This was a mixed blessing - the wisdom and experience of age, but also the lower part of the population who wanted the money rather han a true cross-secton of the populatio to give true 'opinion poll' decisions.

Answer 2

With no judges, the jury decided verdict and sentence. Prosecutors and defenders could only recommend sentences, and the jury could select only one or the other, which made both sides propose realistic suggestions, as an unrealistic one would turn the jury to the other alternative. And it allowed a guilty party to offer attractive alternatives, eg maintain a state warship for a year, which would save the public purse. There were no rules of evidence - both sides could say whatever they liked in set periods for evidence, but were likely stick near the truth because the relatively small citizen body generally knew what was going on anyway.

The juries were also comprised of large numbers, occasionally up to 2000. A typical jury of 500 was selected by lot to avoid jury-rigging, and in a citizen population of, say, 50,000, effectively represented a modern opinion poll of what the populace thought as a whole.

This did not always work, but was far better than today's lawyer profiteering, antics, tricks, spin and delaying tactics, and the sentences often greatly benefited the state and it's budget.