or PHREATIUM, in Grecian antiquity, was a court belonging to the civil government of Athens, situated upon the sea-shore, in the Piraeus. The name is derived from ἀνετραίος, because it stood in a pit; or, as others suppose, from the hero Phreatus. This court heard such causes as concerned persons who had fled out of their own country for murder, or those that fled for involuntary murder, and who had afterwards committed a deliberate and wilful murder. The first who was tried in this place was Teucer, on a groundless suspicion that he had been accessory to the death of Ajax. The accused was not allowed to come to land, or so much as to cast anchor, but pleaded his cause in his bark; and if found guilty, was committed to the mercy of the winds and waves, or, as some say, suffered there condign punishment; if innocent, he was only cleared of the second fact, and, according to custom, underwent a twelvemonth's banishment for the former. See Potter's Gr. Antig. vol. i. p. iii.