Heirgmou dike
εἱργμοῦ δίκη
Heirgmou dike (εἱργμοῦ δίκη). This was an action for keeping a free person in private custody. There are no orations upon this subject extant. Pollux (6.353) mentions εἱπγμὸς in a list of ἀδικήματα. The Lex. Cantabr. s. v. defines it, εἴ τίς τινα ἔδησεν ἢ συνέσχεν ἀδίκως, and quoting Dem. c. Mid. p. 562.147, hints that Agatharchus the painter might have adopted this remedy against Alcibiades ([Andoc.] c. Alcib. §§ 17, 18; Plut. Alc. 16). In Dinarch. c. Demosth. § 23, it is mentioned that a miller incurred capital punishment for a like offence. Meier looked upon it as another instance of εἱργμός, whilst Maetzner (ad l.c.) and Lipsius (Att. Process, p. 410 n.) take it to be a γραφὴ ὕβρεως. If the latter view be correct, the punishment was not so severe as to cause any astonishment (such as Thonissen expresses, Droit pénal, p. 294 f.). Quite different from this action was ἀδίκως εἱρχθῆναι ὡς μοιχόν. [ADULTERIUM]
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.