Dikasterion

The dikasterion, dicasterion or dicasterium was the system of popular jury courts in Classical Athens during the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. Alongside the Assembly (ekklesia) and the Council of 500 (boule), it formed one of the three central pillars of Athenian democracy. The dikastēria heard the vast majority of private suits (dikai) and public prosecutions (graphai)—excluding homicide. The term Heliaia, properly the name of the largest court venue, came to be used by some ancient sources as a synonym for the system as a whole. Modern English-language scholarship predominantly uses dikasterion for the institutional system.