Demioprata

(δημιόπρατα). Property confiscated at Athens and sold by public auction. The confiscation of property was one of the most common sources of revenue in many Greek States; and Aristophanes ( Vesp.659; Eq.103) mentions the δημιόπρατα as a separate branch of the public revenue at Athens. A chapter of Boeckh's Public Economy is devoted to this subject (book iii. ch. 14). These sales were under the direction of the poletae , who presented their reports to the people in the first assembly of each prytany ( Poll.viii. 95); they also set up lists of δημιόπρατα (probably after the sale) upon tablets of stone in the Acropolis, at Eleusis, and elsewhere. Several fragments of such lists are preserved in inscriptions; one of the most important, throwing light on the prices realized by the poletae, is discussed in Boeckh-Fränkel (ii. 129 foll.).

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