The absence of the accused did not prevent the prosecution of the case, but the nonappearance of the prosecutor on the day fixed for the beginning of the trial usually terminated the proceedings at once. The fact that the case had to be dismissed if the accuser failed to appear only serves to illustrate how dependent the state was on the sincerity of the citizen who undertook the prosecution. The obligations of the prosecutor honestly and vigorously to follow up a suit which he had set in motion were felt to be so serious a matter by the Romans that special laws were passed to hold him in the line of duty. The _lex Remmia_ provided that if any citizen knowingly accused another citizen falsely of a crime, the accuser should be prosecuted for calumny (_calumnia_). It further provided that, in case of conviction, the letter K should be branded on the forehead of the condemned. Such laws were found necessary to protect the good name of Roman citizens against bad men who desired to use the legal machinery of the state to gratify private malevolence against their enemies. It may thus be seen that the system which permitted public prosecutions on the motion of private citizens was attended by both good and bad results. Cicero regarded such a system as a positive benefit to the state.[20] Its undoubted effect was to place a check upon corruption in public office by subjecting the acts of public officials to the scrutiny and, if need be, to the censure of every man in the nation. On the other hand, accusers in public prosecutions came finally to be identified, in the public mind, with coarse and vulgar informers whose only motive in making public accusations was to create private gain. So thoroughly were they despised that one of the parasites of Plautus scornfully exclaims that he would not exchange his vocation, though low and groveling, with that of the man who makes a legal proceeding "his net wherein to catch another man's goods."[21] _Seventh Stage_ (_impaneling the judges_).--But if the prosecutor appeared in due time, the trial formally began by the impaneling of the judges. This was usually done by the prætor or _iudex quæstionis_ who, at the beginning of the trial, placed the names of the complete panel of jurors, inscribed on white tablets, into an urn, and then drew out a certain number. Both prosecutor and accused had the right to challenge a limited number, as the names were being drawn. The number of challenges allowed varied from time to time.