Craig Brown's exquisite disembowelling of the 'publicist' Max Clifford in these pages the other week would have reminded the Greek comedian Aristophanes (c. 450-386 BC) of his attacks on a similar pest in the Athenian world - the sukophantês (lit. 'fig-revealer': origin quite obscure).

The problem started with the Athenian reformer Solon (c. 640-560 BC) who instituted a legal system without a state prosecution service. The result was that all cases had to be brought privately. This worked perfectly well when a litigant had been personally harmed, but it created problems when the state's interests were at stake, e.g. the flouting of a citizenship law. So Solon, arguing that 'the best run state was one in which those who were not personally wronged were as diligent in prosecuting wrong-doers as those who were', established the principle that for certain types of offence, 'anyone who wanted to' could bring a prosecution. If the case was won, the prosecutor would receive a fixed reward. Hence the sukophantês, the professional nosey- parker, who made a living for himself looking about for any offence, however trivial, out of which he could make a swift buck by a successful prosecution, blackmail of a potential victim, or payments from someone who wanted a man prosecuted.