Talk:Dikastes

Aristophanes as a source for economic data and unclear reference

"Vesp." is referenced continually and given as the source for the annual payment, but nowhere is it made clear what that is. 72.228.190.243 (talk) 16:15, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

various Britannica issues

The Britannica article refers to groups consisting of 200 people in matters of private law. The article doesn't mention that.

Perhaps I missed it, but I don't see mention of how these jury-like groups were used. Britannica indicates that majority votes were used to determine the outcome and that a tie vote acquitted. It also goes on to describe how in the dicastery the litigants spoke for themselves although advocates could also be used. Perhaps that sort of information would be more appropriate in an article by itself. I only found dicastery which isn't about the ancient Greek juries at all.

Britannica also indicates that this system was used starting at the specific date of 508-507 BC.

Rename as Dikasterion

The current article title "Dikastes" focuses on the participants (jurors) rather than the institution itself. This is inconsistent with Wikipedia's general approach, where articles typically cover institutions rather than their participants (for example, we have Jury rather than "Jurors"). This article should be renamed "Dikasterion" with appropriate modifications to the text so it properly refers to the institution within which dikastes (jurors) served. This would align with Wikipedia's standard organizational approach.

The current article structure appears to have resulted from directly copying content from the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities article on dikastes. The Dictionary itself explains that details about the dikasterion were placed in its article on dikastes, but we need not follow this outdated organizational decision.

Additionally, I've noticed that the link in the public domain notice (referring to the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities entry on dikastes) is broken. I've already updated the reference to point to the working Perseus Tufts.edu version, but I'm unable to fix the link in the public domain notice section. LittleHow (talk) 11:18, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Copy-edited, 15 April 2026

I read this page a couple of days ago and was struck by the impenetrability of the language. This is not the fault of any Wikipedia editor; it's the artifact of the source text being written in a highly technical register in the late 19th century. I have conducted a copy edit. Because this is a fairly wide-ranging edit, I felt I ought to leave a note on the talk page. I'm not an expert in the subject and the article would almost certainly benefit from a look over by someone who is. ThirdEchelon (talk) 11:12, 15 April 2026 (UTC)