Ἀλιτήριοι

[Meaning] offenders, but they used to be called a)lith/rioi ["sinners"] for the following reason: once famine gripped the Athenians, and the poor were seizing the flour [a)/leura] from those milling [it] [a)lou=ntes]. From them, by a misuse of language, they began to call [sc. any] knaves a)lith/rioi. The word extended also to those doing something by force, from the grain shortage which occurred during the Aetolian war.¹ It is also, by a slight change, [derivable] from the [verb] a)litrai/nein, which is to sin.²