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Written law in archaic Greece*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2013
Extract
In classical tradition as well as in modern classical scholarship, the emergence of written law and the earliest conception of the very idea of legislation are inseparably connected with mythical figures of almost heroic status: the great ‘arbitrators’ (diallaktai, katartisteres or aisymnetai) and ‘lawgivers’ (nomothetai) allegedly appointed in many Greek cities during the seventh and sixth centuries. According to this tradition, they were men truly wise and just, who were chosen, sometimes from outside the city, to deal with political conflict and social strife, to mediate between hostile factions within the citizen body, to restore law and order and to establish eunomia in the polis community.
In the handbooks, it has been generally assumed that written law, legislation and ‘codification’ played a major role in this story in two respects. On the one hand, oppression, injustice, the arbitrary interpretation and distortion of traditional law and time-honoured custom by aristocratic judges – Hesiod's ‘gift-devouring kings’, handing down ‘crooked judgments’ – were, it is said, a major cause of social discontent among broad strata of the societies of these early cities.
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- Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1993
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