The phrase "badtemperedly awarding everyone the long [sc. line]" occurs in Aristophanes, Wasps 106, where MacDowell explains as follows: "For many kinds of offence [in classical Athens] the penalty was not fixed by law but was decided by the jury in each individual case [see alpha 4364]: when an accused man was found guilty, the accuser proposed a penalty and the accused proposed a different (naturally lighter) penalty, and after each had spoken in support of his proposal the jury voted to decide between the two. For this purpose each juror had a tablet (πινάκιον ) smeared with wax; a long line drawn in the wax was a vote for the severer penalty and a short one for the lighter".