[An Athenian lawsuit brought] against those who have driven the plaintiffs out of the property of the convicted man and against those owing [something] to the defendants. When someone was condemned and did not pay the fine, something else was charged for the people by the people, very much according to calculation. For if double was exacted for the individual, the defendant would plead for and get intercession and [thus] pay single. But as it is, the public treasury is implacable. Demosthenes also shows this: "I brought a lawsuit for slander against this man [Meidias] and I won it by default; for he did not appear. Faced with someone who had missed the due date [...] I was able to proceed."[1] The ancients used to call prevention exellein.[2] Accordingly exillein, etymologically speaking, is to escape and to entangle, [by someone] not proffering the punishment, and in this way to obstruct.