PARANOIAS DIKE
PARANOIAS DIKE (
παρανοίας δίκη).
This proceeding may be compared to our commission of lunacy, or writ
de lunatico inquirendo. It was a suit at
Athens that might be instituted by a son or other relative for a son against
one who, by reason of madness or mental imbecility, had-become incapable of
managing his own affairs. The intention was to take the mgnagement of
property out of the hands of such, a person--hence the suit might only be
instituted by the next heir, i. e. sons i:n the first instance (Plat.
Legg. xi. p. 928, D f.)--and not to provide for his
confinement (
Aristoph. Cl. 845; Xen.
Memor. 1.2.49; Aeschin.
c.
Ctes. § 251). Pollux (8.89) states that this
δίκη came before the archon (as
ἡγεμὼν δικαστηρίου), which is very probable,
as being a matter connected with family rights, and from other sources we
learn that a court of dicasts decided the case. The anonymous author of the
Life of Sophocles alone states that the decision of such a suit rested with
the phratores of the accused (
καί ποτε ἐν δράματι
εἰσήγαγε τὸν Ἰοφῶντα αὐτῷ φθονοῦντα καὶ πρὸς τοὺς
φράτορας, etc.); yet this story of a prosecution of Sophocles
by his son on account of mental imbecility is extremely doubtful. It would
seem that a comic poet introduced an arraignment of the aged Sophocles by
his son before the phratores in a contemporary comedy, the name of the poet
being lost (G. Hermann conjectured
καί ποτε
Ἀριστοφάνης ἐν Δράμασιν εἰσήγαγε, etc.). This invented
trial, Jebb suggests (Soph. ed. Jebb, ii. p. xl. f.). was accepted by
Satyrus, a collector of biographies, whence Cicero (
de
Sen. 7, 22) and later writers (
Plut. Moral. p. 785 B; Lucian,
Macrob. 24), directly or indirectly, derived their accounts.
(
Att. Process, ed. Lipsius, p. 566 ff.) [
C.R.K] [
H.H]
(Appendix). It was laid before
the archon:
ἐάν τις αἰτιᾷταί τινα παρανοούντα
τ[ὰ ἑαυτοῦ κτήματα ἀ]πολλύ[ναι], 100.56.