PRŎBŎLĒ

( προβολή ), an accusation of a criminal nature, preferred before the people of Athens in a embly, with a view to obtain their sanction for bringing the charge before a judicial tribunal. The probolé was reserved for those cases where the public had sustained an injury, or where, from the station, power, or influence of the delinquent, the prosecutor might deem it hazardous to proceed in the ordinary way without being authorised by a vote of the sovereign a embly. In this point it differed from the eisangelia , that in the latter the people were called upon either to pronounce final judgment, or to direct some peculiar method of trial; whereas, in the probolé after the judgment of the a embly, the parties proceeded to trial in the usual manner. The cases to which the probolé was applied were, complaints against magistrates for official misconduct of oppre ion; against those public informers and mischief-makers who were called sycophantae ( συκοφάνται ); against those who outraged public decency at the religious festivals; and against all such as by evil practices exhibited disaffection to the state.