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HIEROSY´LIAS GRAPHE (ἱεροσυλίας γραφή). This action must be distinguished from the γραφὴ κλοπῆς ἱερῶν χρημάτων. The latter was directed against peculation rather than theft of sacred money, to which a fine (the tenfold amount, Dem. c. Timocr. p. 735.112; p. 740.127) was awarded (Antiph. Tetral. i. a, § 6, ἱερῶν κλοπῆς δυοῖν ταλάντοιν γεγραμμένος, cf. β, § 9, whence we learn that only a fine could be awarded; Dem. de F. L. p. 435.293); the former was directed against the offence of robbery from a temple. Euxitheus charges his opponents with having stolen (ἱεροσυλήσαντες) the weapons which he had dedicated to Athene (Dem. c. Eubul. p. 1318.64). (See Syrian. ad Hermog. iv. p. 497 Walz: οἷον ὁ φεύγων ἱεροσυλίας γραφὴν ἐρεῖ, ὡς ἱερόσυλός ἐστιν ὁ φιάλας ἐξ ἱερῶν ἀφαιρούμενος, ὁ στεφάνους, ὁ θυμιατήρια, καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα εἰδικῶς ὀνομάζων.) The offender upon conviction was invariably put to death, whether the value of the thing stolen was great or small (Isocr. c. Lochit. § 6; Lyc. c. Leocr. § 65; Xen. Mem. 1.2, 62), his property confiscated, and his body denied burial within Attic territory (Xen. Hell. 1.7, 22; Diod. 16.28), sacrilege being considered one of the most heinous crimes next to murder and high treason (Antiph. de caed. Herod. § 10). Demosthenes calls Androtion and his colleagues ἱερόσυλοι (c. Timocr. p. 738.120 ff.); yet they had not committed sacrilege: their offence was, not to have paid the tithe of Athena and the fiftieths of the other gods (e. g. their share of the sum realised by the sale of the cargo of the Persian ship captured by Androtion, etc.); hence when the time for payment had lapsed, the regulations with regard to debtors came into force.
Meier concluded from Cicero (de Divin. 1.25, 54) that the Areiopagus tried cases of ἱεροσυλία: yet from the life of Sophocles, where Hieronymus is quoted as authority, we learn that the case in question was laid before the popular assembly (ἐμήνυσε--τῷ δήμῳ). It is evident from Xen. Hell. 1.7, 22, and Lys. pro Call., that sacrilege was tried before a heliastic court; as Jebb says (Att. Or. i. p. 287), “In the view of sacrilege taken by Attic law its aspect as a robbery seems to have been more prominent than its aspect as an impiety.” As regards the particular sacrilege with which Callias was charged, he conjectures from the allusion τῷ δημοσίῳ βοηθοῦντες ( § 4), “that it was connected with the sacred treasury on the Acropolis. Kallias may have had some employment under the stewards of the sacred fund which gave him access to the inner chamber of the Parthenon, and may have been accused of profiting by that opportunity to commit a theft.” Slaves were allowed upon that occasion to appear as informers against their master--a resident alien--and anticipated their emancipation in the event of his conviction. The argument to [Dem.] c. Aristog. i. mentions an ἀπαγωγὴ of a sacrilegious person to the πρυτάϝεις: but Lipsius doubts the correctness of this statement. (Att. Process, ed. Lipsius, pp. 139, 376, 458.)
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