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E´NGYE (ἐγγύη), bail or sureties, were in very frequent requisition, both in the private and public affairs of the Athenians. Private agreements, as, for instance, to abide by the decision of arbitrators (Dem. c. Apatur. p. 897.15), or that the evidence resulting from the application of torture to a slave should be conclusive (Dem. c. Pantaen. p. 978.40; see also [Dem.] c. Neaer. p. 1367.65 f.), were corroborated by the parties reciprocally giving each other such sureties; and the same took place generally in all money-lending or mercantile transactions (Dem. c. Apat. p. 894.7, p. 895.10); and was invariably necessary when persons undertook to farm tolls, taxes, or other public property (Dem. c. Timocr. p. 713.40; p. 745.144; Boeckh, Sthh.3 i. p. 187), or undertook public works (C. I. A. i. No. 324; fr. a, 1. 48; fr. c, 2.1. 19). Xenophon (de Vect. 4, 20) suggests that sureties should also be required from those who hired the public slaves whose purchase he proposed.
In judicial matters bail or sureties were provided upon two occasions: first, when it was requisite that it should be guaranteed that the accused should be forthcoming at the trial; and secondly, when security was demanded for the satisfaction of the award of the court. In the first case, bail was very generally required when the accused was other than an Athenian citizen, whether the action were public or private ; the alternative was prison (Dem. c. Zenoth. p. 890.29). Pasion the banker dragged a subject of Satyrus, king of Bosporus, before the polemarch, and compelled him to find sureties for six talents (Isocr. Trapez. § 12); although the defendant in Antiph. de caed. Herod. § 17 offered the three sureties required by law (ἐγγυητὰς τρεῖς καθιστάναι κατὰ τὸν νόμον), he was imprisoned. Athenians, on the other hand, could not be arrested or forced to find sureties except when proceeded against by way of apagoge, endeixis (yet see Andoc. de Myst. § 2, where Andocides, against whom Cephisius had laid an ἔνδειξις ἀσεβείας, insists on the fact of his having remained to stand his trial οὔτ᾽ ἐγγυητὰς καταστήσας οὔθ᾽ ὑπὸ δεσμῶν ἀναγκασθείς as a proof of good conscience), ephegesis, and eisangelia, the senators being bound by their oath not to put in prison any Athenian who offers three sureties of the same class (τὸ αὐτὸ τέλος τελοῦντες), unless where a man was charged with προδοσία τῆς πόλεως or κατάλυσις τοῦ δήμου, or where a farmer of taxes or a surety or a collector committed default (Dem. c. Timocr. p. 745.144; Andoc. de Myst. § 93; [Andoc.] c. Alcib. § 3; cf. Dem. c. Timocr. p. 720.63 lex, and Schol. Aristoph. Eccl. 1089). Instances of bail accepted by the senate we find recorded in Andoc. de Myst. § § 17, 44; Lys. c. Agor. § § 23, 27; cf. Xen. Hell. 1.7, 7; from § 35 we learn that sureties were demanded in a Probole, which from the peculiar circumstances of the case must be looked upon as an extraordinary measure. Being at large was considered essential for preparing the defence (Dem. c. Timocr. p. 745.145); even the murderer was at large and could leave the country after the first day's trial, and it is doubtful whether an exception was made in the case of one who had murdered a parent (Pollux, 8.117; Schöm. Antiq. 292, n. 8), for the existence of such a special law may with good reason be called into question (Diog. 50.1.59; Cic. pro Rosc. Am. 23, 70); only a person convicted in a γραφὴ ξενίας, who proceeded against the witnesses by a δίκη ψευδομαρτυριῶν, was compelled to remain in prison until the determination of his suit (Dem. c. Timocr. p. 741.131). Surety of the other kind was demanded at the beginning of a suit upon two occasions only: first, when a citizen asserted the freedom of a person detained in slavery by another (Lys. c. Pancl. § 9 ff.); and secondly, when a litigant, who had suffered judgment to go by default, had recommenced his action within the given time (μὴ οὖσα δίκη); see Pollux, 8.60. After the judgment, security of this kind was required in all mercantile and some other private causes (Dem. c. Onet. i. p. 873; Isae. Dicaeog. § 18); Timocrates proposed a law (Dem. c. Timocr. p. 712, § § 39, 40; cf. also Plat. Apol. Socr. [p. 1.737]p. 38 B) that a debtor of the state, who had been sentenced to imprisonment (προστιμᾶσθαι, i. e. in addition to making good the debt), should be allowed (either himself or others on his behalf) to put in such bail for the debt as the people should approve, to be security for payment of the sum which he was adjudged to pay within the ninth prytany (cf. Wayte on Dem. c. Timocr. p. 704.15), this law to apply to all except the farmer of taxes, etc. and their sureties (cf. Boeckh, Sthh3 i. p. 409 f.). As to the number of sureties, three were required of the same census in the oath of the senators (cf. Antiph. dc caed. Herod. § 17); Socrates speaks of four (Plat. Apol. p. 38 B); Lysias (c. Agor. § 23) has Νικίας καὶ Νικομένης καὶ ἄλλοι τινές (cf. Plat. Legg. xii. p. 953 E). If the principal in a contract made default, the surety was bound to make it good, or, if he refused to do so, might be attacked by an ἐγγύης δίκη, if such action were brought within a twelvemonth after the obligation was undertaken (Dem. c. Apat. p. 901.27). So in Isae. Dicaeog.: Dicaeogenes had stipulated that he was to keep his original one-third of the estate and leave his adversaries the other two-thirds (ἀναμφισβήτητα, § 18, i.e. ἀνέπαφα, argum.). Leochares and Mnesiptolemus became his sureties for the performance of the engagement. When Dicaeogenes sold these two-thirds to other persons, Leochares was sued by an ἐγγύης δλ́κη to discharge his liability as surety. Such a charge could be brought against the surety without any attempt being first made to recover from the principal in the contract; hence the proverb ἐγγύα, πάρα δ᾽ἄτα, Plat. Charm. p. 165 A ; cf. Epicharmus in Clem. Al. Strom. vi. p. 626.
As to the punishment of the bail, in case a person accused in a public action failed to appear to take his trial, our information is very scanty. Andoc. (de Myst. § 44) says, ἐγγυητὰς τοί̀ς αὐτοῖς ἐνέχεσθαι ἐν οἷσπερ οὓς ἐγγυήσαντο: but Caillemer (Études s. l. antiquit. jurid. d'Ath., No. 6) doubts if this held good in case of capital punishment; however, the sureties of Agoratus made preparations to escape from Athens together with him. From a passage in Xenophon (Xenoph. Hell. 1.7, 39) it appears that the law allowed the bail to secure the person of the accused by private confinement.
The technical term for becoming surety is ἐγγυᾶσθαί τινα, ἀναδέχεσθαι ἐγγύην, or simply ἀναδέχεσθαι (hence ἀνάδοχος from the 3rd century = ἐγγυητής, ἔγγυος); ἐξεγγυᾶσθαι (also διεγγυᾶσθαι） means to free one by giving bail; and ἐξεγγυηθῆναι is said of a person thus set free: κατεγγυᾶν means to require bail of an accused person, and κατεγγυᾶσθαι to give bail. (Att. Process, ed. Lipsius, pp. 703-710.)
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