The Athenian procedure of phasis

The Athenian legal action which is known by the noun φάσις and by the verb φαίνειν is not the subject of any of the surviving forensic orations, though a few of them make passing references to cases of this type. Most of the Athenian public actions were named from the means by which the action was initiated: apagoge began with the arrest of the accused person, graphe began with a written statement, and so on. The accusation against Andokides differs from the comic accusation in one respect: the grain and oars, unlike the soup, came not from Athens but from elsewhere. But the essential point of both offences is the same, that goods were delivered to the enemy; and in both passages the procedure used is not phasis but endeixis. The procedure of phasis was also used, in peace as well as in war, for smuggled goods, which had been imported without payment of customs duty

Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Computer Science