Posted 13 years ago
Papa55
(2 items)
These are bronze replicas of 'Ballot Disks' which date from Aristotle's time and are inscribed as <<official ballots>>, the originals were found among the ruins of a lawcourt in the Athenian Agora; they are now in the Museum of the Agora, the Stoa of Attalos, in Athens.
Aristotle, writing about 325 B.C., describes wheel-shaped ballots of bronze, half with solid axles and half with hollow. The solid were to record a vote for the defendant, i.e. for acquittal, the hollow a vote for the plaintiff, i.e. for condemnation. Having been provided with a pair of ballots, each juryman on leaving the courtroom dropped the one which he wished to count in a bronze urn, the other in a wooden urn. He kept his vote secret by pressing the ends of the axles with his finger tips.
I came upon these at an estate clean-up/sale when I lived in the mountains of Western North Carolina. The lady had been a world traveler and collector herself. I care about these because of the history and I that they are 'different'!
I did not know what 'category' to list, could be a tool? (of the court?)