h, instead of
the single juryman, a special jury-court had been appointed by
special laws. Of this sort were the special tribunals constituted
for individual cases;(34) the standing commissional tribunals, such
as had been appointed for exactions,(35) for poisoning and murder,(36)
perhaps also for bribery at elections and other crimes, in the course
of the seventh century; and lastly, the two courts of the "Ten-men"
for processes affecting freedom, and the "Hundred and five," or more
briefly, the "Hundred-men," for processes affecting inheritance,
also called, from the shaft of a spear employed in all disputes
as to property, the "spear-court" (-hasta-). The court of Ten-men
(-decemviri litibus iudicandis-) was a very ancient institution for
the protection of the plebeians against their masters.(37) The period
and circumstances in which the spear-court originated are involved in
obscurity; but they must, it may be presumed, have been nearly the
same as in the case of the essentially similar criminal commissions
mentioned above. As to the presidency of these different tribunals
there were different regulations in the respective ordinances
appointing them: thus there presided over the tribunal as to
exactions a praetor, over the court for murder a president specially
nominated from those who had been aediles, over the spear-court several
directors taken from the former quaestors. The jurymen at least for
the ordinary as for the extraordinary procedure were, in accordance
with the Gracchan arrangement, taken from the non-senatorial men
of equestrian census; the selection belonged in general to the
magistrates who had the conducting of the courts, yet on such a
footing that they, in entering upon their office, had to set
forth once for all the list of jurymen, and then the jury for an
individual case was formed from these, not by free choice of the
magistrate, but by drawing lots, and by rejection on behalf of the
parties. From the choice of the people there came only the "Ten-men"
for procedure affecting freedom.

Sullan -Quaestiones-

Sulla's leading reforms were of a threefold character. First, he
very considerably increased the number of the jury-courts. There
were henceforth separate judicial commissions for exactions; for
murder, including arson and perjury; for bribery at elections; for
high treason and any dishonour done to the Roman name; for the most
heinous cases of fraud--the forging of wills and of m