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[German version] (κακογάμιον; kakogámion, literally ‘marrying badly’) was a punishable offence in Sparta (Stob. 66,16), or ‘it appears’ (Plut. Lysander 30,7) to have been prosecuted through dike , although clearly this did not entail a private complaint as in agamíou díke . It is unknown what offences committed by the husband counted as kakogámion or what punishments were imposed. Thür, Gerhard (Graz) Bibliography D. M. MacDowell, Spartan Law, 1986, 73f.

[German version] (αἰκείας δίκη; aikeías díkē). In Athens a private charge of assault and battery. It presupposed that the physical mistreatment had been perpetrated without intention of insult and that the defendant had attacked first (Demosth. 47,40; cf. PEnteuxeis 74; 79; PHalensis 1,115; 203 f.). The penalty, estimated by the plaintiff himself, was awarded to him if he succeeded in the proceedings. It was the only private action in Athens in which there were no court fees to pay. Thür, Gerhard (Graz) Bibliography A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens II, 1971, 93 f. G. Thür, Beweisf…

[German version] (ἀνδραποδιστής; andrapodistḗs). A person who made another person into a slave (ἀνδράποδον, andrápodon) was an andrapodistes (Aristoph. Equ. 1030; Lys. 10,10). The criminal act ἀνδραποδισμός ( andrapodismós) comprised two different criminal deeds. One consisted in that the perpetrator took possession of a free man by force or trickery (cf. for this Pl. Leg. 879a) to sell him into slavery (delict of freedom) and the other was directed against the owner of a slave and consisted in the theft of this slave for …

[German version] (ἀσέβεια; asébeia). The Greeks punished violations of the reverence due to the gods. Theft from temples ( Hierosylia) was subject to particular sanction; desecration and mockery of divine objects were together treated as asebeia. In Athens, as a political measure, accusations of asebeia for irreverence towards the state gods were particularly levelled against natural philosophers and sophists. Their project of explaining the world and putting in question all traditional assumptions seemed to threaten the order of the sta…

[German version] (ἐγγύη; engýē). Surety or bail, later also termed   engýēsis . Its oldest form, the hostage surety, can be seen in Hom. Od. 8,266-366. Therefore, the engye was a guarantee in case the main debtor did not fulfil his duty of repayment. The security consisted of access to the hostage, the ἔγγυος ( éngyos), provided to the creditor. Like a pawn, he became the creditor's who proceeded on his own if the guaranteed success did not materialize, hence also the post-verbal expression engye from ἐγγυάω ( engyáō) ‘to hand over’ as pledge [1]. In classical Greek law there was a…

[German version] (ἐπίκρισις; epíkrisis). The term was unknown in Athens. Epicrisis was used in inscriptions as a judicial control on penalties imposed by the authorities (IPArk. 3, 19,50: Tegea; Syll.3 1075, 6: Epidaurus) or as an objective third party's assent to a settlement reached by the contesting parties [1. 190ff.]. The verb ἐπικρίνεσθαι ( epikrínesthai) is found in Hellenistic court language meaning ‘to resolve’ (Sherk 194f.), in IPArk. 31 B 22 meaning decernere ( decretum) of a Roman authority. In Roman Egypt epikrisis was the procedure for establishing membership o…

[German version] (ὑπάλλαγμα; Hypállagma). Literally ‘exchange’, a credit security law in Roman Egypt stipulated through contractual clauses. Unlike the   hypothḗkē , the H. guaranteed the creditor no proprietary rights over securities in the possession of the debtor, as a rule a piece of real estate, but only required the debtor to keep ready certain objects to satisfy the creditor by way of enforcement. Contracts contained no forfeiture clause, but the debtor, as with the hypothḗkē, was subject to certain restrictions in respect of disposal of the objects in his possession.  Debt Thür…

[German version] (καταδίκη; katadíkē). Verdict of guilty from a trial by jury, including defined penalties, or fines imposed by the authorities (used synonymously with díkē ). Egyptian papyri also contractually established penances. Thür, Gerhard (Graz)

[German version] (νόθος/ nóthos) designates, in all Greek legal systems, a free person who was born out of wedlock or into a marriage that was not legally recognised. In Homer (Hom. Il. 13,693; 2,726), sons of a free man and a slave could rise to become military leaders. According to Hom. Od. 14,208ff., the nóthos was entitled to a portion of property assets, like legitimate sons, in the distribution of the paternal legacy (cf. the νοθεία/ notheía, bequests to a nóthos, often even made while the testator was still alive; Harpocr. s.v.). According to IPArk 1,17, after the de…

[German version] (ἀειφυγία; aeiphygía). Permanent banishment; in Athens archaic punishment for φόνος ( phónos, homicide), τραῦμα ( traûma, bodily harm) and τυραννίς ( tyrannís), pronounced by the Areopagus as a ‘special court’ (not by the Heliaia in normal dikasteria). There was a family liability, so the living members of a house went into exile, the dead were torn from their graves and property was confiscated (Demosth. 21,43 on IG I3 104; 20,2. Plut. Sol. 12). Thür, Gerhard (Graz) Bibliography U. Kahrstedt, Staatsgebiet und Staatsangehörige in Athen, 1934, 97 ff. P. J. Rhodes, …

[German version] (πολίτευμα/ políteuma). As well as meaning 'government' and 'form or constitution of a state', politeuma denoted, particularly in the Seleucid kingdom and Ptolemaic Egypt, affiliations among compatriots, e.g. the minority populations of Macedonians, Greeks, Persians and Jews, who had some degree of self-government and independent jurisdiction. After the disappearance of the ethnic components, politeuma still denoted an elite of the privileged classes. Thür, Gerhard (Graz) Bibliography M. Th. Lenger, Corpus des Ordonnances des Ptolémées, 21980, XVIIIf.  J.…

[German version] (ἔφεσις; éphesis). Derived from the verb ἐφίεσθαι ( ephíesthai, to turn to someone), in Athens ephesis denoted a series of legal actions in which a person turned to the competent authority for a decision after a provisional decision had been reached. One certainly cannot speak of a uniform institution comparable to today's ‘appeal’. Solon (around 600 BC) is said to have allowed the ephesis for decisions of the  archontes at the  Heliaea (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 9,1). In the classical period there was the ephesis to a   dikastḗrion against an   epibolḗ impo…

[German version] (διαδικασία; diadikasía). In Athens a judicial procedure aimed at organizing the legal situation without plaintiffs and defendants. It was not introduced as part of the usual civil action (δίκη, díkē) and took place in two main groups of cases, namely in disputes in which two or more opponents asserted a better claim to a private or public right, or in those cases in which it was a matter of exemption from a duty under public law. In the first group the most common case involved a claim by several persons to a legacy in an inheritance dispute [1. 159ff.]. The object of the cla…

[German version] (παλινδικία; palindikía). 'Once more raising a legal action in the same matter', cf. anadikía and the underlying words (ἀνὰ/ anà and πάλιν δικάζειν/ pálin dikázein). The criticism levelled against advocates ( logográphos), to have obtained a palindikía through trickery (Plut. Demosthenes 61; Poll. 8,26), did not always have to take a rupturing of material legal power ( paragraphḗ ) into account, but could also relate to the fact that that a legal claim was prosecuted with a variety of actions, as was permissible in Ath…

[German version] (μεσεγγύημα; mesengýēma), the ‘thing entrusted’: an item or money, which was entrusted jointly by several individuals to a third party. The mesengyema was then to be returned to one or to all depositors as agreed (Harpocr. s.v.). The procedure was suitable for safe-keeping during disputes, for stakes in bets and for secure keeping of documents (cf. Isocr. Or. 12,13; IG VII 3172,69: Boeotia; BGU 592 II 9 and Mitteis/Wilcken 88,13: both 2nd cent. AD; PAntinoopolis 35 II 14, 4th cent. AD: Egypt). Thür, Gerhard (Graz) Bibliography J. Partsch, Griechisches Bürgschaftsrec…

[German version] (ἐπαγγελία; epangelía). In Athens the legally prescribed announcement of the submission of a   dokimasía against a speaker who put forward a motion in the public assembly. It could be submitted by any citizen against the applicant who had incriminated himself of an action that removed his right to speak, but who had not yet been convicted in court (Aeschin. In Tim. 28ff. 81). Epangelia means the announcement of a complaint against the obligor in the Egyptian papyri. Thür, Gerhard (Graz) Bibliography A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens II, 1971, 204 M. H. Hansen, The Athe…

[German version] (Δήμευσις; Dḗmeusis). Confiscation of assets by the state. 1. Demeusis is encountered in Greek criminal law together with capital punishment, lifelong exile or penalties for severe crimes but the term demeusis is not always used. Occasionally, demeusis occurred in Athens on its own (cf. Dem. Or. 47,44). Plato (Leg. 855a) radically rejected confiscation, apparently because of the injustice to innocent heirs [1]. The property was always confiscated for the benefit of the community even though the sum wholly or partial…

[German version] (καταποντισμός; katapontismós). To throw into the sea - the killing of a person by drowning, or the cultic sinking of objects. If the sea was distant, the katapontismos could be performed at a river. Already in myth, katapontismos is attested as a special act of cruelty, or as a capital punishment with the mark of an ordeal (the gods could save the condemned) in cases when the right to a burial and death cult had been forfeited. In historical times, tyrants or cruel rulers were punished with katapontismos, although sometimes only their corpse or even their statue wa…

[German version] (ξενίας γραφή; xenías graphḗ), literally a 'charge/claim of (the status of) foreigner'. Public action for arrogation of Athenian citizenship. A Greek polis was constituted as an association of persons; despite their right to personal freedom, outsiders ( xénoi ,  cf. [1. 1442-1447; 4. 18-27]) had no fundamental participation in family or citizen status, or in the protection of the law. The rights of  a citizen (πολίτης/ polítēs; presumably to be distinguished from an  ἀστός/ astós  [3. 49-78]) could be exercised in Athens only by somebody who had been…

[German version] (ἀνάκρισις; anákrisis). After bringing an action the parties in the proceedings met in the anakrisis, a preliminary process before the magistrate of the court. Just like the official   diaita in Athens, this appointment was used for conciliation procedures or preparation for the main proceedings before the   dikasterion . In the anakrisis the parties were obliged to answer one another's questions. This part of the proceedings can be referred to as the ‘dialectic’, as opposed to the ‘rhetorical’ part of the main proceedings. All the…