Euthyna. Il rendiconto dei magistrati nella democrazia ateniese (V-IV sec. a.C.)

The procedure of euthyna, the global financial and behavioural audit that officials of Classical Athens compulsorily underwent at the end of their term of office, aimed to preserve the institutions of the city from eventual misuses of power. That is why, in Athens, public opinion perceived this procedure as an essential and pivotal feature of its democracy. Nevertheless, modern scholars have paid to the evidence on euthyna less attention than to the one on other procedures of Attic Law, as eisangelia for instance. For a long time, that prevented scholars not only from fully understanding how euthyna worked per se, but also from restoring its link with other procedures of Attic Law. This book provides an extensive and overall analysis of the evidence on euthyna trials celebrated against Athenian officials between the fifth and the fourth century, more exactly in the period between the end of Persian wars and the Lycurgan era. The reconstruction of the trials that Athenian officials underwent lets us to recover those details that, in a more general perspective, enlighten euthyna workings and its link with other procedures of the Attic Law. Finally, the comparison between these findings and both epigraphic evidence and literary sources, which provide information on how euthyna worked from a regulatory perspective, allows us to follow the development of this procedure over the pivotal political and historical points of the history of the Classical Athens.