For this judicial use of metie/nai see also mu 782. The glosses suggest that we have a metaphor from the cross-examination of a guilty person giving false evidence. In this case the prefix meta- would have the same double sense as English "go after", i.e. following up testimony by a hostile examination of the testifier.
[1] Aelian fr.76d D-F (73 Hercher). The change in tense from the present tense (virtually future from this verb) to the imperfect is not explained. The last phrase implies that Justice (probably here the personification, cf. delta 1093) was holding the Athenians in her grip by means of the failure of crops and perhaps human infertility.