Lawmaking and Adjudication in Archaic Greece

by Zinon Papakonstantinou

Overview

"Lawmaking and Adjudication in Archaic Greece" re-evaluates central aspects of the genesis and application of laws in the communities of archaic Greece, including the structure and function of legislative bodies, the composition of the courts, the administration of justice and the use and abuse of legal norms and procedures by litigants in the courts and everyday settings. Combining a detailed analysis of epigraphical and literary evidence and the application of a model of interpretation borrowed from cultural analyses of law, this book argues that far from being monolithic creations of archaic polities that unilaterally informed social life, archaic legal systems can be more appropriately viewed as ideologically polyvalent and socially complex.It includes legal norms and the administration of justice articulated associations with divine and secular authority but also incorporated, mainly in their reception and application by average citizens, discourses of utility and resistance that actively contributed in the composition of social relations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780715637296
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/17/2008
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Zinon Papakonstantinou is Lecturer in Ancient History, University of Athens. He has published extensively in the fields of Ancient Greek law, sport and leisure.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments     ix
Abbreviations     xiii
Greek Law and Greek Laws     1
Law and the everyday     4
The unity of Greek law     12
Law and Justice in Early Archaic Greece     19
Before the law     20
Divine justice     37
Beside the law     41
Conclusion     45
The Enactment of Law     47
Creating the law     51
The lawgivers     63
Conclusion     68
Law in the Courts     71
Literacy, orality and law in archaic Greece     73
The judicial powers of civic officials     83
[characters not reproducible] and other judicial authorities in archaic Greece     87
Popular courts in archaic Greece     93
The logistics of adjudication     99
Conclusion     101
Law in Everyday Life     105
Against the law     107
Perjury and negligence: the manipulation of archaic legal systems     112
The oath     112
Judges and magistrates     121
Judicial curses     123
Conclusion     125
Conclusion     127
From [characters not reproducible]: the terminology of archaic Athenian law     133
Notes     137
Bibliography     193
Index Locorum     225
General Index     229