The Eleven also are appointed by lot to take care of the prisoners in
the state gaol. Thieves, kidnappers, and pickpockets are brought to
them, and if they plead guilty they are executed, but if they deny the
charge the Eleven bring the case before the law-courts; if the
prisoners are acquitted, they release them, but if not, they then
execute them. They also bring up before the law-courts the list of
farms and houses claimed as state-property; and if it is decided that
they are so, they deliver them to the Commissioners for Public
Contracts. The Eleven also bring up informations laid against
magistrates alleged to be disqualified; this function comes within
their province, but some such cases are brought up by the Thesmothetae.
There are also five Introducers of Cases (Eisagogeis), elected by lot,
one for each pair of tribes, who bring up the 'monthly' cases to the
law-courts. 'Monthly' cases are these: refusal to pay up a dowry where
a party is bound to do so, refusal to pay interest on money borrowed at
12 per cent., or where a man desirous of setting up business in the
market has borrowed from another man capital to start with; also cases
of slander, cases arising out of friendly loans or partnerships, and
cases concerned with slaves, cattle, and the office of trierarch, or
with banks. These are brought up as 'monthly' cases and are introduced
by these officers; but the Receivers-General perform the same function
in cases for or against the farmers of taxes. Those in which the sum
concerned is not more than ten drachmas they can decide summarily, but
all above that amount they bring into the law-courts as 'monthly' cases.