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Eisangelia in Athens: a reply

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Mogens Herman Hansen
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen

Extract

In JHS xcix (1979) 103–14 Dr Rhodes published an article, ‘Eisangelia in Athens’, which is primarily a detailed and profound criticism of some conclusions in my Eisangelia. The Sovereignty of the People's Court in Athens in the Fourth Century B.C. and the Impeachment of Generals and Politicians (Odense 1975). His objections have forced me to reconsider the subject. In ‘Demos, Ecclesia and Dicasterion in Classical Athens’, GRBS xix (1978) 127–46, I have already dealt with the part of Rhodes' article based on the assumption that the Solonian Heliaia was a judicial session of the ekklesia. Here I discuss the eisangelia itself.

Type
Reply
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1980

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References

1 Minor points of disagreement I pass over in silence, such as whether the eisangelia for major public offences usually received its first airing in the ekklesia and only occasionally in the boule (for my opinion see Eisangelia 25–6), or was usually initiated in the boule and only exceptionally in the ekklesia (as Rhodes 108–10). I should like to thank Dr Rhodes for discussion about this topic, for sending me his article in typescript and for his comments on this article.

2 Or rather to a charge of addressing the assembly while guilty of a military offence: ὄτε Λυσίθεος Θεόμνηστον εἰσήγγελλε τὰ ὄπλα ἀποβεβληκότα οὐκ ἐξὸν αὐτῷ δημηγορεῖν If the emphasis was on the military offence itself (cf. Lys. x 9, 12, 21–5) the proper type of public action would be a γραφή τοῦ ἀποβεβληκέναι τὴν ἀσπίδα (And. i 74, cf. Hansen, M. H., Atimistraffen i Athen i Klassisk Tid [Odense 1973] 81–5)Google Scholar. On the other hand, if the emphasis was on the infringement of the atimia incurred for the military offence the regular procedure to be adopted would be an epangelia followed by a dokimasia ton rhetoron (Aischin. i 28–32, cf. Hansen op. cit. 134–7). Endeixis/apagoge is ruled out, since that procedure presupposed a conviction in a γραφὴ τοῦ ἀποβεβληκέναι τὴν ἀσπὶδα (Dem. xxiv 103–5, cf. Hansen, M. H., Apagoge, Endeixis and Ephegesis [Odense 1976] 66–7Google Scholar, 90–1) and it is apparent from Lys. x 24–5 that Theomnestos had not been sentenced for the military offence with which he was charged.

3 The only occurrence of the verb εἰσαγγέλλειν in a sense which is not strictly technical is Lys. xiii 50: ἔδοξε τἀληθῆ εἰσαγγεῖλαι (sc. Agoratos; cf. 56). Although the trial is probably an eisangelia to the assembly, Agoratos cannot technically be described as ὁ εἰσαγγέλλων (cf. Eisangelia cat. no. 67 n. 6). Rhodes is probably right in his assumption (110 n. 67) that ‘Agoratos and Menestratos were in retrospect treated as ὁ εἰσαγγείλαντες

4 And. i 74; Lys. xiv 9; Isok. viii 143; Dem. xv 32, xxi 58–9, xxiv 103–5, lix 26–7; Aischin. i 29, iii 175–6. The trial of Kleophon, however, was in an atmosphere moving rapidly towards lynch-law, and it is possible that a graphe in 404 may have resulted in an unconstitutional sentence of death; but in his criticism of the trial Lysias does not point out that the punishment was in conflict with the type of public action brought against Kleophon.

5 By letter Rhodes has informed me that he does not commit himself to accepting Ruschenbusch's suggestion.

6 ἐνδєικνύντων in the law quoted in Dem. xxiii 51 is connected with ἀπάγєιν in the law quoted in Dem. xxiii 28 (cf. Hansen, , Apagoge, Endeixis and Ephegesis 115)Google Scholar, and the first line of this law (including ἀπάγєιν) has convincingly been restored in IG i2 115. 30–1 by most editors: cf. Stroud, R. S., Drakon's Law on Homicide (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1968) 54Google Scholar. In a discussion during the III eColloque internationale d'histoire du droit grec et hellénistique (Chantilly 1977) Ruschenbusch informed me that, in Untersuchungen, he omitted the law in Dem. xxiii 51 because in his opinion it is not archaic but a late addition to the homicide law.

7 In the forensic speeches the term εἰσαγγέλλειν εἰσαγγελία is applied to the political eisangelia (to the assembly or to the council) in Ant. vi 12, 35, 36; And. i 14, 27, 37, 43; Lys. xii 48; xiii 50, 56; xxx 22; Isok. viii 130; xv 314; xvi 6; Dem. viii 28–29; xiii 5; xviii 13, 249–50; xix 103, 116, 209; xx 79; xxxiv 50, xlvii 42, 80; xlix 67; Aischin. ii 139; iii 3, 52, 79, 171, 223, 252; Lyk. i1, 5, 29, 30, 34, 55, 137; Hyp. ii fr. iv 47; 3, 4, 12; iii 1–5, 7–9, 27, 29–31, 38–40; Dein, i 52, 94, 100–1. The term probably denotes the political eisangelia in Lys. xvi 12; Dem. xxv 47, 94. On Lys. x 1 cf. above. The term denotes the eisangelia to the archon in Isai. iii 46–52, 62; xi 6, 15; Dem. xxxvii 46. There is no evidence of any other use of eisangelia as a legal term. In a few passages the meaning is simply ‘report’ without any connection with the administration of justice e.g. in And. ii 3, 21; Dem. l 4, 17.

8 One of the most popular rhetorical exercises in the Hellenistic period was speaking for or against a law. Sometimes an old law was attacked or defended with ‘sophistic’ arguments, sometimes it was a fictitious law. Another possible source for the information about eisangelia is a fictitious forensic speech in which the prosecutor pleads κατἀ ρ᾿ητὸν καὶ ὐπεξαίρεσιν that the intent of the lawgiver was different from the strict letter of the law. Cf. Kennedy, G., The Art of Persuasion in Greece (London 1963)Google Scholar and Goldstein, J. A., The Letters of Demosthenes (New York 1968)Google Scholar with further references.

9 The law on Athenian silver coinage, recently discovered during the Agora Excavations, has provided important information about the εἰσαγγελία εἰς τὴν βουλήν against magistrates. Lines 32–6 contain the following provision: ἐἀν δὲ [τῶ]ν ἀ[ρχόντ]ων μὴ ποιῆι κατἀ τἀ γεγραμμένα εἰσαγ[γελλέτω μὲ]ν ἐς τὴμ βολὴν ᾿Αθηναίων ὀ βολόμενος οἰς [ἔξεοτιν] ἑὰν δὲ ἁλῶι ὑπαρχέτω μὲν αὐτῶι πεπαὐσθ[αι ἄρχον] τι καὶ προστιμάτω αὐτῶ[ι] ή βολή μέχρι [ δραχμῶν] Ed. Stroud, R. S., ‘An Athenian Law on Silver Coinage’, Hesp. xliii (1974) 157–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the restoration εἰσαγ[αγέτω instead of εἰσαγ[αγέτω αὐτὸ]ν proposed by the editor cf. Eisangelia 28, Additional Note, and ‘Sur une clause pénale de la loi athénienne relative à la monnaie d'argent’ by Ph. Gauthier, who, independently, has proposed the same restoration for the same reasons but has based his conclusion on a much more detailed discussion of the sources (Revue de phil. de litt. et d'histoire anciennes lii (1978) 32–6.

10 One exception is IG ii2 1631. 350–403, a decision made by the council that Sopolis is allowed to avail himself of either the γραφὴ βουλεύσεως or the εἰσαγγελία εἰς τὴν βουλήν if the ἐπιμεληταὶ τῶν νεωρίων or the γραμματεὺς τῶν ἔνδεκα on Sopolis' payment or delivery of oars, do not record the reduction of his debt to the state. In this case we have one offence combined with two different procedures, but the document in question is not a nomos, but a psephisma tes boules regulating an individual case—Drakon's law on homicide provides primarily for the dike phonou. In the law there are references to the apagoge (Dem. xxiii 28) and the endeixis (Dem. xxiii 51), but there is no evidence that the laws regulating these procedures were part of the homicide law. If we accept the magisterial order of the Athenian nomoi—as Rhodes, following Stroud (n. 6) 32 ff.—the inference is that the homicide law itself was one of the King's laws whereas the laws regulating endeixis/apagoge were included among the laws administered by the thesmothetai or the Eleven.

11 That the choice of the type of action applied rested with the prosecutor is apparent from e.g. Dem. xxii 26 ff.; cf. Apagoge (n. 2) 120.