TIMĒMA

( τίμημα ). The penalty imposed in a court of criminal justice at Athens, and also the damages awarded in a civil action, received the name of Τίμημα , because they were estimated or a e ed according to the injury which the public or the individual might respectively have sustained. The penalty was either fixed by the judge, or merely declared by him according to some estimate made before the cause came into court. In the first case the trial was called ἀγὼν τιμητὸς , in the second case ἀγὼν ἀτίμητος , a distinction which applies to civil as well as to criminal trials. Where a man sought to recover an estate in land, or a house, or any specific thing, as a ring, a horse, a slave, nothing further was required, than to determine to whom the estate, the house, or the thing demanded, of right belonged. The same would be the case in an action of debt, χρέους δίκη , where a sum certain was demanded. In these and many other similar cases the trial was ἀτίμητος . On the other hand, wherever the damages were in their nature unliquidated , and no provision had been made concerning them either by the law or by the agreement of the parties, they were to be a e ed by the dicasts. The following was the course of proceeding in the τιμητοὶ ἀγῶνες . The bill of indictment ( ἔγκλημα ) was always superscribed with some penalty by the person who preferred it. He was said ἐπιγράφεσθαι τίμημα , and the penalty proposed is called ἐπίγραμμα . If the defendant was found guilty, the prosecutor was called upon to support the allegation in the indictment, and for that purpose to mount the platform and addre the dicasts ( ἀναβαίνειν εἰς τίμημα ). If the accused submitted to the punishment proposed on the other side, there was no further dispute; if he thought it too severe, he made a counter proposition. He was then said ἀντιτιμᾶσθαι , or ἑαυτῷ τιμᾶσθαι . He was allowed to addre the court in mitigation of punishment. After both parties had been heard, the dicasts were called upon to give their verdict. Sometimes the law expre ly empowered the jury to impose an additional penalty ( προστίμημα ) besides the ordinary one. Here the proposition emanated from the jury themselves, any one of whom might move that the punishment allowed by the law should be awarded. He was said προστιμᾶσθαι , and the whole dicasts, if (upon a division) they adopted his proposal, were said προστιμᾷν .