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PARACATA´BOLE

PARACATA´BOLE (παρακαταβολή), a sum of money required of a plaintiff or petitioner in certain cases, as a security that his complaint or demand was not frivolous, or made on slight and insufficient grounds. Such was the deposit made in certain inheritance causes, viz. not only by a person who claimed an inheritance already adjudged ([Dem.] c. Macart. p. 1054.16; Isae. Hagn. § § 13, 27; Bunsen, de jure hered. Ath. p. 92, limits the paracatabole to such causes, and Boeckh, Sthh.3 i. p. 430, explains Harpocr. s. v. in the same sense), but also by a person who entered a διαμαρτυρία μὴ ἐπίδικον εἶναι τὸν κλῆρον (Isae. Philost. § 12, etc.), or who claimed an inheritance as having a better title than others by having been adopted (Dem. c. Leoch. p. 1090.34) or by testament (Isae. Nicostr. § 4): cf. Pollux, 8.32, ἀντιλέγει ὡς αὐτὸς δικαιότερος ὢν ἔχειν τὸν κλῆρον ἐξ ἀγχιστείας διαθηκῶν. The amount of the deposit in such causes was a tenth part of the value of the property claimed: it was returned to the petitioner, if successful; otherwise it went to the opponent, or in case of rival claims to an inheritance to the state (Isae. Nicostr. § 11). In the proceeding termed ἐνεπίσκημμα, which was a suit instituted against the public treasury by a creditor to obtain payment out of his debtor's confiscated goods ([Dem.] c. Timoth. p. 1198.46), a fifth part of the value was deposited (Harpocr. s. vv. παρακαταβολὴ and πρόπεμπτα), which sum went to the state in case the petitioner was not successful (C. I. A. ii. No. 777). From this inscription it is likewise evident that the term ἐγγύης καταβολὴ was used in the sense of παρακαταβολὴ in this proceeding (cf. Suid. s. v. ἐνεπισκήψασθαι καὶ ἐγγύην καταβαλεῖν=Etym. M. p. 340, 38, etc.). The money was deposited either on the commencement of the cause or at the ἀνάκρισις The word παρακαταβολὴ signifies both the paying of the deposit and the money deposited; and being a word of more general import, we find it used to denote other kinds of deposits, as the πρυτανεῖα and παράστασις (cf. Isocr. c. Leoch. § 2); it is probably used in this wider sense in Dem. c. Pantaen. p. 978.41, in a δίκη βλάβης. (Att. Process, ed. Lipsius, pp. 800, 814-822.)

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