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On this page: Efsphora – Eisiteria

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EISANGELIA.

(Dern. c. Timocr. p. 720.) The accused were in the meanwhile put into prison for safe custody by the authority of the council. When the offenpe was obviously beyond the reach of the senate's competency, the trial was dispensed with, and a decree immediately drawn up for submitting the cause to a superior court.

When a cause of this kind was so referred, the decree of the senate, or vote of the people, asso­ciated other public advocates, generally ten in num­ber, with the informer, who recehed a drachma each from the public treasury (ffvvfjyopoi). And besides these, permission was given to any other citizen to volunteer his services on the side of the prosecution. If the information were laid before the assembly, either by the accuser himself, or the senate, the first proceedings in the cause had for their object to establish the penalty of the offence, or the apparent culpability of the accused ; and this being decided by a vote of the people after a public discussion, the mode of conducting the trial and the penalty were next fixed. In the case of the ten generals, the assembly directed that the senate should propose the requisite arrangements. The plan of the senate, however, was not necessarily adopted, but might be combated by rival proposals of any private citizen. The assembly very often referred the matter to the Heliastic courts, but occasionally undertook the trial itself ; and when the prisoner was accused of treason, we are told (Xen. I. e.) that he made his defence to the assem­bly in chains, and with a keeper upon either side ; and, according to another authority (Schol. ad Aristopk. Eccles. 1081), that the time for such de­fence was limited. After this the tribes voted by ballot, two urns being assigned to each tribe for this purpose. The informer, in the event of the prisoner being acquitted, was subjected to no penalty if he obtained the votes of as many as a fifth of the judges ; otherwise, he was liable to a fine of a thousand drachmae. For a more ample discussion of the trials in question the reader is re­ferred to Schomann (De Comitiis, c. iii.).

Besides the class of causes hitherto described, there were also two others which equally bore the name of eisangelia, though by no means of the same importance, nor indeed much resembling it in the conduct of the proceedings. The first of these consists of cases of alleged /cci/coxm, i. e. wrong done to aged or helpless parents, women, or orphans. Upon such occasions the informer laid his indictment before the archon, if the aggrieved persons were of a free Attic family ; or before the polemarch, if they were resident aliens. The peculiarities of this kind of cause were, that any Athenian citizen might undertake the accusa­tion ; that the informer was not limited as to time in his address to the court, and incurred no penalty whatever upon failing to obtain a verdict. With respect to the accused it is obvious that the cause must have been Tifj-yrSs, or, in other words, that the court would have the power of fixing the amount of the penalty upon conviction. The third kind of eisangelia was available against one of the public arbitrators (Swur^Tijs), when any one complained of his having given an unjust verdict against him. The information was in this case laid before the senate ; and that the magistrate who had so offended, or did not appear to defend himself, might be punished by disfranchisement, we know from the instance mentioned by Demos-

EISPHORA.

thenes (c. Meld. p. 542. 14). This passage, how­ ever, and an allusion to it in Harpocration, con­ stitutes the whole of our information upon the subject. (Hudtwalcker, uber die Di'dtet. p. 19 ; Meier, Att. Process, p. 270.) [J. S. M.]

EISITERIA (elo-tr^pia), scil. tcpd, sacrifices which were offered at Athens by the senate be­fore the session began, in honour of the ®eol Bou-Acubi, i. e. Zeus and Athena. (Antiph. De Chor. p. 789 ; Bockh, Corp. Inscript. i, p. 671.) The sacrifice was accompanied by libations, and a common meal for all the senators. (Demosth. De Fafs. Leg. p. 400. 24 ; compared with c. Mid. p. 552. 2, where elffir-fipict are said to be offered for the senate, virep ttjs fiovhrjs).

Suidas (s. v.} calls the elffir^pia a festive day— the first of every year—on which all the Athenian magistrates entered upon their office, and on which the senate offered up sacrifices for the purpose of obtaining the goodwill of the gods for the new magistrates. But this statement, as well as the further remarks he adds, seem to have arisen from a gross misunderstanding of the passage of Demos­ thenes (De Fals. Leg. p. 400), to which he refers. Schomann (De Comit. p. 291, transl.) adopts the account of Suidas, and rejects the other statement without giving any reason. [L. S.]

EFSPHORA (€iV<£opa), literally a contribution or tribute, was an extraordinary tax on property, raised at Athens, whenever the means of the state were not sufficient to carry on a war. The money thus raised was sometimes called ra. KaraS\^fJ.a.Ta. (Demosth. c. Timocr.p. 731.) We must carefully distinguish between this tax and the various liturgies which consisted in personal or direct ser­vices which citizens had to perform, whereas the fiffcpopd consisted in paying a certain contribution towards defraying the expenses of a war. Some ancient writers do not always clearly distinguish between the two, and Ulpian on Demosthenes (Olyntk. ii. p. 33, e.) entirely confounds them ; and it is partly owing to these inaccuracies that this subject is involved in great difficulties. At the time when armies consisted only of Athenian citi­zens, who equipped themselves and served without pay, the military service was indeed nothing but a species of extraordinary liturgy ; but when mer­cenaries were hired to perform the duties of the citizens, when wars became more expensive and frequent, the state was obliged to levy contribu­tions on the citizens in order to be able to carry them on, and the citizens then paid money for services which previously they had performed in person:

It is not quite certain when this property-tax was introduced ; for, although it is commonly in­ferred, from a passage in Thucydides (iii. 19), that it was first instituted in 428 b. c. in order to de­fray the expenses of the siege of Mytilene, yet we find fifftyopd mentioned at an earlier period. (See Antiph. Tetral. i. b. c. 12 ; Isaeus,Z>e/)/c#<?a(7. c. 37 ; and Tittmann, Griecli. Staatsv. p. 41, note 31) ; and even the passage of Thucydides admits of an interpretation quite in accordance with this, for it is certainly not impossible that he merely meant to say, that so large an amount as 200 talents had never before been raised as elfftyopd. But, how­ever this may be, after the year 428 B. c. this pro­perty-tax seems to have frequently been raised, fhr, a few years afterwards, Aristophanes (Equit. 92*2) speaks of it as something of common occurence.