A name of a public lawsuit. There are three kinds of impeachments. One is for major crimes against the people which allow no deferral and for which there is neither a [sc. competent] magistracy established nor laws laying down the officials through whom [the cases] are put before [a jurycourt]; instead, the initial formulation [of the charge] goes to the council or the people; here heavy fines are imposed on the defendant, if convicted, whereas the unsuccessful plaintiff is not punished unless he fails to secure the fifth part of the votes; for in that event he pays a thousand [drachmas]; long ago these men too used to be punished more severely. Another [kind of] impeachment is mentioned [which] applies to maltreatment; these go to the archon, and the [unsuccessful] plaintiff incurs no penalty even if he does not secure the fifth part of the votes. A different [sort of] impeachment [is brought] against arbitrators. For if someone is wronged by an arbitrator he is allowed to impeach the man before the jurors; and if [the defendant] is convicted he loses his citizen rights. However, Isaeus [in] On the estate itself named the same procedure "impeachment" and "public prosecution".1
"This affair [is] plainly in accordance with the decree of Kannonos: I must fuck you divided into two". For this decree had stipulated that a man on trial in an impeachment should plead his defence with both hands tied behind his back.2
And elsewhere: "a penalty of an impeachment having a monetary [valuation] of fifty thousand of silver".4
Hansen (below) 21 calls Harpokration s.v. eisangelia "one of his finest and most informative notes". The long first paragraph of the present entry derives from it. See also epsiloniota 220, epsiloniota 221.
1Isaeus 11.15 and 31. (The title of the speech, textually garbled here and elsewhere, is actually On the estate of Hagnias.)↩
2Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae 1089-90, with comment from the scholia there. On "fuck", binein, see generally J. Henderson, The Maculate Muse (New Haven 1975) 151-2. On the decree of Kannonos (of uncertain date) see briefly R. Develin, Athenian Officials 684-321 BC (Cambridge 1989) 114.↩
3Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 17/18.5.4; again, truncated, at tau 606.