The necessity of a fresh collection and publication (if we may use that word) of the laws, had been felt prior to the time of the Thirty. But such a project could hardly be realised without at the same time revising the laws, as a body, removing all flagrant contradictions, and rectifying what might glaringly displease the age either in substance or in style. Now the psephism of Tisamenus, one of the first measures of the renewed democracy after the Thirty, both prescribed such revision and set in motion a revising body; but an additional decree was now proposed and carried by Archinus, relative to the alphabet in which the revised laws should be drawn up. The Ionic alphabet, that is, the full Greek alphabet of twenty-four letters, as now written and printed, had been in use at Athens universally, for a considerable time--apparently for two generations; but from tenacious adherence to ancient custom, the laws had still continued to be consigned to writing in the old Attic alphabet of only sixteen or eighteen letters. It was now ordained that this scanty alphabet should be discontinued, and that the revised laws, as well as all future public acts, should be written up in the full Ionic alphabet. Partly through this important reform, partly through the revising body, partly through the agency of Nicomachus, who was still continued as Anagrapheus [“Writer-up” of the old laws], the revision, inscription, and publication of the laws in their new alphabet was at length completed. But it seems to have taken two years to perform--or at least two years elapsed before Nicomachus went through his trial of accountability. He appears to have made various new propositions of his own, which were among those adopted by the nomothetæ: for these he was attacked, on a trial of accountability, as well as on the still graver allegation of having corruptly falsified the decisions of that body--writing up what they had not sanctioned, or suppressing that which they had sanctioned.