NOMOS
NOMOS (
νόμος). The definition of
νόμος in [Dem.]
c.
Aristog. i. p. 774.16--a definition which has passed into the
Digests, 1. 2,
de legibus--contains all the
points which must be touched upon in discussing law and legislation amongst
the Greeks:
πᾶς ἐστὶ νόμος εὕρημα μὲν καὶ
δῶρον θεῶν, δόγμα δ᾽ἀνθρώπων φρονίμων, ἐπανόρθωμα δὲ τῶν
ἑκουσίων καὶ ἀκουσίων ἁμαρτημάτων, πόλεως δὲ συνθήκη κοινή,
καθ᾽ ἣν πᾶσι προσήκει ζῆν τοῖς ἐν τῇ πόλει. In the
heroic ages the king's authority, which the family derived from the favour
of Zeus (
τιμὴ δ᾽ἐκ Διός ἐστι,
Il. 2.197) and which passed by descent, as a
general rule, to the eldest son, was not absolute, but limited
ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς γέρασι (
Thuc. 1.13: cf. Dion. Halic.
A. R. 5.74). As
Aristotle says (
Pol. 3.10 [14 B.] 1), “he
commands the army, administers justice” (chiefly, though not
exclusively), “and conducts the rites of religion.” The king
received from Zeus the sceptre, the symbol of the judicial authority, and
with it the
θέμιστες (
Il. 2.206;
9.98
f.), which belong properly to Zeus (
Od.
16.403): so that “when he decided a dispute by a sentence the
judgment was assumed to be the result of direct inspiration;”
when he called in the assistance of the
γέροντες,
“they sat on polished stones in the holy circle and held in their
hands the heralds' sceptres; with these they rose up and gave sentence
in turn” (
Il. 18.504 if.,
δικασπόλοι, οἵτε θέμιστας πρὸς Διὸς
εἰρύαται,
Il. 1.238 f.), and he himself occupied
probably the same position among them which is ascribed to Minos when
judging the dead (
Od. 11.568 ff.). [
REX] The same idea which caused
these judgments of the king to be attributed to divine inspiration shows
itself here and there at a later period in the claim of a divine origin for
entire systems of laws. “Do you believe, as Homer says,” asks
the Athenian of the Cretan Cleinias, “that Minos went every ninth year
to converse with Zeus and made laws for your cities in accordance with
his sacred words?”
“Yes, that is our tradition” (Plat.
Legg. i.
init.). According to the tradition of the
Spartans preserved by Herodotus (
1.69), Lycurgus
introduced the laws of Crete into Sparta: “Some, however,” he
adds, “said that the Pythia gave him the constitution which still
exists in Sparta;” and the latter belief gained general
acceptance (Xen.
[p. 2.238]de Rep. Lac. 8,
πυθόχρηστοι νόμοι), so that Lycurgus
came to be looked upon as
φύσις τις ἀνθρωπίνη
μεμιγμένη θείᾳ τινὶ δυνάμει (Plat.
Legg.
iii. p. 691 E). Zaleucus, too, is made to say that Athene had appeared to
him in a dream and.given him laws (Plut.
de se ips.
laud. p. 534 A: cf. Arist.
Λοκρῶν πολιτ.
fr. 230). The great fundamental conceptions of
morality, common alike to all mankind, the
ἄγραφοι
νόμοι, were also believed to have come from the gods (
Soph. Oed. R. 864ff.; Eurip.
Antiop. fr. 219; Xen.
Memor.
4.4, 19); and being derived and having their sanction from heaven, they were
considered superior to the enactments of human societies (
Soph. Antig. 454ff.;
Eur. Supp. 19,
526,
537;
Thuc.
4.97, etc.). This is the
κοινὸς
νόμοσ--ὅσα ἄγραφα παρὰ πᾶσιν ὁμολογεῖσθαι δικεῖ--as
opposed to the
ἴδιος νόμος, καθ᾽ ὃν γεγραμμένον
πολιτεύονται, which applies only to the citizens of each
individual state (Arist.
Rhet. 1.10, 3). The
ἴδιος νόμος did not protect the foreigner
(
ἀτίμητος μεταναστής,
Il. 9.648); there never was at Athens a
state law
τοὺς ξένους μὴ ἀδικεῖσθαι, as
Petit supposes (
Legg. Attic. viii. tit. iv. p. 678), but
there, as everywhere,
ξένοι were looked
upon as protected by
Ζεὺς Ξένιος
(
οὔ μοι θέμις ἐστ᾽ . . . ξεῖνον ἀτιμῆσια,
Od. 14.56,
9.270; Plat.
Legg. v. p. 729 E, etc.;
κατὰ τὸν κοινὸν ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων νόμον ὃς κεῖται
τὸν φεύγοντα δέσεσθαι, Dem.
c. Aristocr. p.
648.85). When aliens became residents (
μέτοικοι) in Athens, they were admitted to the protection of the
law under certain conditions, but were never placed on the same footing as
the Athenians, and the special jurisdiction over them was entrusted to the
polemarch. (As to the
κόσμος ξένιος in
Gortyn, see
Bull. de Corr. Hellén. xi. p. 243.)
[METOECI.]
The
θέμιστες of the king were not laws, but
single, isolated judgments. Zeus, as Grote says, or the human king on earth,
was not a lawmaker, but a judge (the word
νόμος does not occur in Homer); but, owing to parities of
circumstances in the simple conditions of ancient society, awards were
likely to follow and resemble each other in the succession of similar cases.
Thus a beginning was made of customary law which was fully developed in the
era of aristocracies following upon the period of kingly rule. The regal
power, though limited, was liable to be abused, and Hesiod complains
bitterly of the crooked and corrupt judgments of which the kings were
habitually guilty. The nobles, who had originally served as council to the
king, superseded him (except in Sparta, where however his power was greatly
reduced), and alternated the functions of administration among themselves;
and at Athens, as we are told (
Paus. 4.5,
10,
ἀντὶ βασιλείας
μετέστησαν ἐς ἀρχὴν ὑπεύθυνον: cf.
Hdt. 3.80), the archons were made responsible (to the Eupatrids,
Schömann,
Jahrb. f. kl. Philol. 1872, p. 105 ff.).
These aristocracies did not claim direct inspiration for every sentence, as
the kings had done, but they claimed that they alone possessed the knowledge
of the law: this, then, is the epoch of Customary Law, of the unwritten law
known exclusively to one class. The Spartans never went beyond this stage.
Their
νόμιμα were held to be as old as
their race: “The descendants of Pamphylus and of the Heracleidae who
dwell under the brow of Taygetus wish always to retain the
τεθμοὶ of Aegimius,” i. e. the son of
Dorus and their mythical ancestor (
Pind. P.
6.64 f.); and Hellanicus, the most ancient writer on the constitution
of Sparta, makes no mention of Lycurgus (for which he is censured by
Ephorus,
Strab. viii. p.366), and
attributes what are called the institutions of Lycurgus to the first kings,
Procles and Eurysthenes. When Herodotus (
1.65)
describes the Spartans before the time of Lycurgus as being
κακονομώτατοι, he can only mean that these
τεθμοὶ of Aegimius had been overthrown,
and that Lycurgus restored them. Lycurgus' laws were not written (the
Spartans were forbidden by a rhetra to have written laws); Lycurgus
connected the problem of legislation chiefly with education (Plut.
Lye. 13,
τὸ γὰρ ὅλον καὶ πᾶν
τῆς νομοθεσίας ἔργον εἰς τὴν παιδείαν ἀνῆψε). Hence
we find that the
γέροντες in Sparta could
punish with death and exile (Arist,
Pol. 6.7
[4.9b B.], 5;
τὰς φονικὰς
δικάζουσιν, 3.1, 7) without being responsible (2.6 [9 B.],
17) or being bound by a written code. The kings decided.disputes about
heiresses, and all adoptions were made in their presence (Herod. vi, 57);
the ephors decided civil suits (
τὰς τῶν συμβολαίων
δίκας, Arist.
Pol. 2.7 [10 B.],
6), and for these Lycurgus did “not prescribe any positive rule or
inviolable usage, willing that.their manner and form should be altered
according to the circumstances of time, and determination of men of
sound judgment” (Plut.
Lye. 13).--In Crete the
position of the
γέροντες (called there
βουλή, Arist.
Pol. 2.7 [10 B.], 3) was exactly the same as in Sparta: they were
not bound in their sentences by a written code; but private law was reduced
to writing. In 1884 near Gortyn an inscription was discovered (on part of an
inside wall of what was probably the
δικαστήριον), in twelve columns, written
βουστροφηδόν, dating from between 450 to 350 (cf. Svoronos
in
Bull. de Corr. Hellén. xii. p. 404 if. against
Comparetti's earlier date), containing an elaborate code of private laws, in
which reference is made several times to previous written laws, partly still
in force, partly amended by this code, e. g. 12.16 f.,
ᾇ ἔγραπτο πρὸ τῶνδε τῶν γραμμάτων. [COSMI; add to the literature there given Merriam,
Amer. Journ. of Archaeol. 1.4 and 2.1.] This brings us to
a new epoch: to the era of Codes. The aristocracies seem to have abused
their monopoly of legal knowledge, and at all events their exclusive
possession of the law was a formidable impediment to the success of the
popular movements beginning to be universal. Laws written on tablets and
published to the people took the place of usages deposited with the
recollection of a privileged class. The first written code, we are told, was
that of Zaleucus (
Strab. vi. p.259); it is
specially mentioned of him, that whilst it had. hitherto been left to the
discretion of the judge to settle the punishment for every offence, he fixed
the penalty by law (
Strab. vi. p.260), and
also gave simple regulations for private suits (
Diod.
11.21,
3: cf.
Plb. 12.16). In B.C. 621 the archon Draco (
Paus. 9.36,
8) was appointed to draw
up a written code of laws for Athens (Arist.
Pol. ii.. 9 [12 B.], 9); these are usually called
θεσμοί, and by that name distinguished from the
νόμοι of Solon, e. g. Andoc.
de
Myst. § § 81, 83; yet Solon uses the term
θεσμὸς of his amnesty law on the 13th
ἄξων
[p. 2.239](
Plut. Sol. 19,
3; cf. Dem.
c. Leoch. p.
1094.46); and [Dem.]
c. Euerg. et Mnes. p. 1161.71, speaks of
Draco's
νόμοι. We know very little about
Draco's laws with the exception of those on homicide, which Solon retained
(
Plut. Sol. 17), and which were always
considered excellent (Antiph.
de caed. Herod. § 14).
They were probably no more than such ancient ordinances reduced to writing
as the ephetae had been accustomed to enforce ever since the community had,
step by step, put an end to the blood-feud. and reduced the pursuit of the
murderer and the atonement for murder to legal forms, making the
νόμος instead of the prosecutor
κύριος of the murderer (Dem.
c.
Aristocr. p. 642.69,
φόνος
ἑκούσιος; p. 643.71,
φόνος
ἀκούσιος, etc.). The extreme severity of Draco's punishments, on
which Aristotle remarks, was not due to any cruel disposition on his part,
but to the spirit of the age: moreover their severity has been somewhat
exaggerated (Pollux, 9.61; 8.42). At all events the people gained little by
the written code except a more perfect knowledge of its severity. In B.C.
594
1 Solon was chosen archon and.
διαλλακτὴς καὶ
νομοθέτης (
Plut. Sol. 14, cf.,
16;
Hdt. 1.29,
Ἀθηναίοισι κελεύσασι νόμους ἐποίησε). Unfortunately so
small are the fragments which have come down to us of Solon's laws
(collected by Duncker,
Gesch. d. Alterth. vi.5 p. 198 ff.), and so much has been ascribed to, him by the orators
which belongs really to subsequent times, that it is scarcely possible to
form a clear opinion respecting his legislation in all its details. Certain
it is that it shows a remarkable progress in the Greek mind respecting
legislation. No special divine inspiration was claimed for Solon's laws,
nothing beyond that divine influence which the Greeks felt to underlie and
support every social institution; they were looked upon as the laws of a
just and practically wise man (
οὐκ ἔφυγον ἕνα
τὸν δικαιότατον καὶ φρονιμώτατον ἐπιστῆσαι τοῖς πράγμασιν,
Plut. Sol. 14), who fitted his laws to the
existing state of things rather than made things suit his laws (
l.c. 22), and who, when asked whether he had given
the Athenians the best laws, could truly answer, “The best of those
which they would accept” (
l.c. 15),--of a
man who, believing in human progress, did not endeavour to secure fixity or
finality for his laws (
τοὺς νόμους ἔφη
μετακινητοὺς εἶναι,
Plut. Sept. Sap. Conviv. p.
152 a, as contrasted with Lycurgus' theory in
Plut. Lyc. 29,
ἀκίνητον ἐς τὸ
μέλλον), but only exacted from the Athenians an oath that they
would not rescind any of them for ten years (
Hdt.
1.29; for a century,
Plut. Sol. 25),
and devised wise regulations for the revision of the code. For, knowing on
the one hand that laws consecrated by long usage are more readily obeyed
(cf. on this point Arist.
Pol. 2.5 [8 B.], 14),
and foreseeing on the other that the best legislation would in course of
time require adaptation to existing circumstances, he so contrived matters
that whilst his laws were subject to constant revision, all attempts at
hasty legislation were checked. [
NOMOTHETES] Any law thenceforward added to the code was in fact
“a contract of the state according to which it befits all who
belong to it to live:” of. Arist.
Rhet. 1.15, 21,
καὶ ὅλως αὐτὸς ὁ νόμος συνθήκη τις
ἐστίν; Anaxim.
Ars Rhet. ed. Spengel, p. 2,
2, p. 13, 12 f.; and the same principle in Plato,
Legg. i. p.
644 D,
ἐπὶ δὲ πᾶσι τούτοις λογισμὸς ὅ τί ποτ᾽
αὐτῶν ἄμεινον ἢ χεῖρον: ὃς γενόμενος δόγμα πόλεως κοινὸν
νόμος ἐπωνόμασται. For any law which was
ἐπιτήδεοις (Dem.
c. Tim. p.
722.68;
c. Lept. p. 482.83 f.) the proposer could reckon upon
ready acceptance; for it was the outcomne of practical needs which required
only to be duly stated within the prescribed forms. To satisfy a practical
need (
ἐκ γὰρ τοῦ πράττεσθαί τινα ὧν οὺ
προσῆκεν, ἐκ τούτου τοὺς νόμους ἔθηκαν οἱ παλαιοί,
Aeschin.
c. Tim. § 13;
ὁ μὲν
γὰρ νόμος πέφυκε προλέγειν ἃ μὴ δεῖ πράττειν, Lyc.
c. Leocr. § 4), not to build up a system of laws
which provided for every conceivable case, was the aim of Greek legislation
(Theophr.
π. νόμων, fr. 1 and 2, in
Journ. of Philol. vi. p. 1: “jura constitui
oportet, ut ait Th.,” in his “quae
ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖστον accidunt, non quae
ἐκ παραλόγου,”
Digest. 1.3, 3;
τὸ γὰρ ἅπαξ ἢ
δίς, ut ait Th.,
παραβαίνουσιν οἱ
νομοθέται,
Digest. 1.3, 6).
Solon's laws were inscribed
βουστροφηδὸν on
square wooden tablets (
ἄξονες) on a pivot
(Aristotle in Aul. Gell.
N. A. 2.12; Harpocr. s. v.
ἄξονι,
Plut. Sol. 25). Draco's laws on homicide,
which Solon retained, were likewise inscribed on
ἄξονες, but these were counted by themselves. This is
evident from
C. I. A. i. No. 61, where Draco's law
περὶ φόνου is mentioned as being inscribed on
the
πρῶτος ἄξων (cf. Dem.
c.
Aristocr. p. 629.28,
ἐν τῷ ά
ἄξονι, Cobet,
Var. Lect. p. 123), whilst the
πρῶτος ἄξων of Solon's legislation
contained quite different laws. From
Plut. Sol.
24 we learn that it contained a law forbidding the exportation of any
native produce except olive oil; and from Harpocr. s. v.
σῖτος, that on it were inscribed regulations for
the maintenance.of widows and orphans. This first
ἄξων evidently contained the
νόμοι
τοῦ ἄρχοντος: for. the
ἄρχων was bound, on pain of forfeiting 100 drachmas, to
[p. 2.240]pronounce solemn curses upon any offender against
the law regulating export, and to him was also entrusted the care of widows
and orphans (
Att. Process, ed. Lipsius, p. 57). From this it
would appear that Solon's laws were arranged according to the magistrates
who had to administer them--an arrangement which seems to have been the
usual one at Athens (
Att. Process, ed. Lipsius, p. 206 f.:
νόμος τοῦ βασιλέως,
Athen. 6.235 c; Pollux, 3.39;
νόμοι βουλευτικοί,
lex in Dem.
c. Tim. p. 706.20,
etc.; the
νόμοι ἐπικλήρων, τελωνικοί,
ἐμπορικοί, etc., were subdivisions, e. g. the
νόμοι ἐπικλήρων of the
νόμοι τοῦ ἄρχοντος, etc.). According to the scholiast on
Plat.
Polit. p. 298 D, Solon divided his laws
into
νόμοι περὶ τῶν ἱερῶν, νόμοι
πολιτικοί, and
νόμοι περὶ τῶν
ἰδιωτικῶν, and the third class was placed on the
ἄξονες, the other two on the
κύρβεις (cf.
Sol.
25); but earlier writers knew of no such difference between
ἄξονες and
κύρβεις (cf. Eratosthenes in Schol. on
Aristoph. Cl. 447). According to others,
the
ἄξονες were wooden tablets, whilst the
κύρβεις were stone pillars (Apollodorus
in Harpocr. s. v.); but from the passage from Cratinus quoted by
Plut. Sol. 25 it is clear that the
κύρβεις were of wood. In all probability, as
Aristotle suggests,
ἄξονες and
κύρβεις were synonymous terms [
AXONES]. Solon's laws were
preserved first in the Acropolis, subsequently brought by Ephialtes
εἰς τὸ βουλευτήριον καὶ τὴν ἀγοράν
(Anaximenes in Harpocr. s. v.
ὁ κάτωθεν
νόμος), and ultimately to the prytaneum, where Polemon,
c. 200 B.C., saw them yet
(Harpocr. s. v.
ἄξονι), and where some
remnants (
λείψανα μικρά) existed even in
the days of Plutarch (
Plut. Sol. 25); some
sixty years later Pausanias said inaccurately
ἐν
ᾧ (sc. Prytaneum)
νόμοι τε οἱ
Σόλωνός εἰσι γεγραμμένοι, etc. (1.18, 3). According to
Aristotle, copies of the laws were placed in the
στοὰ
βασιλεία (Harpocr. s. v.
κύρβεις). Whether Aristotle refers to the legislation of B.C.
409 and 403, or to an earlier measure (perhaps to Ephialtes,
l.c.,
τοὺς κύρβεις εἰς . . τὴν ἀγοράν,
etc.), it is perfectly clear that for practical use such copies of all the
laws on
στῆλαι were in the court of the
basileus in the market-place: cf.
C. I. A. i. No. 61,
ἀναγραψάντων οἱ ἀναγραφεῖς τῶν νόμων . . .
ἐν στήλῃ λιθίνῃ καὶ καταθέντων πρόσθεν τῆς στοᾶς τῆς
βασιλείας, and the psephisma in Andoc.
de
Myst. § 84,
τοὺς δὲ κυρουμένους
τῶν νόμων ἀναγράφειν εἰς τὸν τοῖχον, i. e.
εἰς τὴν στοάν
l.c. § § 85, 82). There were
besides, in the offices of the different magistrates, copies of those laws
which they had to administer: thus Andocides speaks of a law which he
considered Solonian as
ἐν τῇ στήλῃ ἔμπροσθεν
τοῦ βουλευτηρίου (
de Myst. § 95 f.:
cf. the
νόμοι βουλευτικοὶ in Dem.
c. Tim. p. 706.20); the laws on homicide were engraven on
a
στήλη in the Areiopagus (Dem.
c.
Aristocr. p. 627.22; Lys.
de caed. Erat.
§ 30; [Lys.]
c. Andoc. § 15; [Dem.]
c. Euerg. et Mnes. p. 1161.71).
2
Within a year after the deposition of the Four Hundred the complete democracy
was restored, and a revision of the laws ensued: commissioners (
συγγραφεῖς,
C. I. A. i. No. 58: Demophantus was one of them,
τάδε Δ. συνέγραψεν, Andoc.
de
Myst. § 96) were appointed with
ἀναγραφεῖς (
C. L. A. i. No. 61; cf. Lys.
c. Nicom. § 2) under them to copy the laws
within four months after the revision (R. Schöll,
de
extraord. quibusd. magistr. Athen. in
Comment. Philol. in
hon. Th. Mommseni, p. 458 if.), and from
C. I. A.
i. No. 57 and No. 61 it is evident that the law on the competency of the
senate and the popular assembly, and Draco's law respecting homicide, were
copied afresh. This revision was interrupted by the unfavourable turn which
the war took, and was not resumed until the archonship of Eucleides, B.C.
403. Then it was proposed
χρῆσθαι τοῖς Σόλωνος
νόμοις καὶ τοῖς Δράκοντος θεσμοῖς (Andoc.
de
Myst. § 82; cf. Xen.
Memor. 2.2, 42,
τοῖς νόμοις τοῖς
ἀρχαίοις) in the meantime; the senate selected ten
νομοθέται (
ὁπόσων δ᾽ἂν
προσδέῃ, οἱ δέκα [Sluiter,
lect. Andoc. p.
134,
οἵ δε MSS.]
ᾑρημένοι νομοθέται ὑπὸ τῆς βουλῆς), who had to write
on tablets all proposals for new laws, post them up for public inspection
before the statues of the Eponymous Heroes, and hand them over within a
month
ταῖς ἀρχαῖς, i. e. to the different
magistrates interested, all the laws to be examined first by the senate and
then by the 500 nomothetae (after having taken the oath), elected by the
δημόται and during the discussion
before the senators every private citizen was to have liberty to enter the
senate and tender his opinion. All the laws thus approved were written out
in the Ionian alphabet (Suid. s. v.
Σαμίων ὁ
δῆμος At the same time it was enacted that no magistrate should
act upon any law not among those inscribed; that no psephisma either of the
senate or of the people should overrule any law; that no law should be
passed
ἐπ᾽ ἀνδρὶ unless by the votes of
the majority in an assembly at which at least 6000 Athenians were present
and voted (secret voting by ballot), e. g. in case of naturalisation of a
foreigner; and that in future the code as revised in the archonship of
Eucleides should be used (Andoc.
l.c. § 87;
cf. Dem.
c. Tim. p. 713.42,
lex).-After the Lamian war the democratic constitution was
overthrown by Antipater; Demetrius of Phaleron, the third
νομοθέτης of Athens (Syncellus,
Chron. 273), established again a professedly democratic
government (
οὐ μόνον οὐ κατέλυσε τὴν δημοκρατίαν
κρατίαν ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπηνώρθωσε,
Strab. ix. p.398), but Plutarch's
(
Demetr. 10) description of it as in fact a
μοναρχικὴ κατάστασις seems more accurate; three
years after his death, in B.C. 304-3, a new
ἀναγραφὴ of the laws took place (
C. I. A. ii.
No. 258).
The magistrates and dicasts were bound by solemn oaths to administer the
laws, executive and judicial: the nine archons swore
συμφυλάξειν τοὺς νόμους (Pollux, 8.86; cf.
Plut. Sol. 25), the senators
βουλεύσειν κατὰ τοὺς νόμους (Xen.
Memor. 1.1, 18), the dicasts
κατὰ τοὺς νόμους δικάδειν . . . καὶ περὶ ὧν ἂν νόμοι μὴ
ὦσι, γνώμῃ τῇ δικαιοτάτῃ κρινεῖν (Dem.
c.
Lept. p. 492.118, etc.). In the decree of Tisamenus the senate
of Areiopagus were enjoined to see
ὅπως ἂν αἱ
ἀρχαὶ τοίς κειμένοις νόμοις χρῶνται (Andoc.
de
Myst. § 84; cf.
Plut. Sol.
19). As the dicasts performed the functions both of
[p. 2.241]judge and jury, i. e. were entrusted with the whole judicial
power after the cause was brought into court (they decided upon the law as
well as upon the facts without being directed or controlled by a presiding
judge), it is evident that the important question how the laws of Athens
worked depends on the discretion which in practice they exercised in the
interpretation of the written law, or, where there was no written statute,
in applying the general principles of law and justice to the case before
them. This is only to be discovered by a careful perusal of the Attic
orators, and is too wide a question to be discussed here. The materials for
a trial were prepared by the parties themselves under the superintendence of
the magistrate, and the dicasts had to decide upon the materials thus
prepared. Of the five
ἄτεχνοι πίστεις
which Aristotle mentions (
Rhet. 1.15,
νόμοι, μάρτυρες, συνθῆκαι, βάσανοι, ὅρκος) we are here
concerned only with the first; the parties procured copies or extracts of
such laws as were material to the questions to be tried, and brought them
before the
ἡγεμὼν δικαστηρίου at the
ἀνάκρισις, by whom they were put into
the box (
ἐχῖνος), together with the other
evidentiary documents, and produced at the trial to be read to the dicasts
by the
γραμματεύς. To produce a fictitious
law is said to have been an offence punishable with death ([Dem.]
c.
Aristog. ii. p. 807.24). It was easy for the parties to procure
copies, since every citizen had access to the public places where the laws
were open to inspection, and to the Metroon which served as state archives
(
νομοφυλάκιον, Suid. s. v.
μητραγύρτης; from the fourth century, according
to Wilamowitz-Möllendorf,
Philol. Unters. i. p. 205
f.) for all kinds of documents: laws (Lycurgus in Harpocr. s.v. Lyc.
c. Leocr. § 66, etc.), decrees (the originals,
Athen. 5.214 e; Dinarch.
c.
Dem. § 86), etc., and was in charge of a public servant
(
δημόσιος, Dem.
de fals.
Leg. p. 380.129). (C. Curtius,
de Metroon in Ath. als
Staatsarchiv.) There was at Athens no class of persons
corresponding to our counsel or attorneys, whose business or profession it
was to expound the laws. The office of the
ἐξηγηταὶ related only to religious observances. The laws were
not complicated; at all events it was considered a requirement of a good law
that it should be drawn simply and intelligibly (Dem.
c. Tim.
p. 722.68), and nothing seems more directly opposed to Solon's aims than the
charge brought against him by Plutarch (
Plut. Sol.
18), that he wrapped his laws in studied obscurity. Every
Athenian on coming of age swore to obey the laws (
τοῖς θεσμοῖς τοῖς ἱδρυμένοις πείσομαι καὶ οὕστινας ἂν
ἄλλους τὸ πλῆθος ἱδρύσηται ὁμοφρόνως, Stob.
Flor. 43.48; cf. Pollux, 8.105 f.), and Pericles
pointed to the fear of the laws as the source of every civic virtue (
Thuc. 2.37). But, to use Burke's words
(
Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 459),
“The vice of the ancient democracies, and one cause of their ruin,
was, that they ruled . . . by occasional decrees, psephismata. This
practice soon broke in upon the tenour and consistency of the laws; it
abated the respect of the people towards them, and totally destroyed
them in the end.” (Hermann,
Ueber Gesetz, Gesetzgebung,
etc. im griech. Alterth.; Maine,
Anc. Law, ch. 1;
Leist,
Graeco--ital. Rectsgesch.) [
H.H]
(Appendix). For Draco's
constitutional changes cf. note on
CIVITAS
Solon's law
περὶ τῶν τυράννων is quoted
100.16. The text is evidently corrupt. Perhaps the law was
ἐάν τις ἐπὶ τυραννίδι ἐπανιστῆται ἢ συγκαθίστῃ
τῆν τυραννίδα ἄτιμον εἶναι αὐτὸν καὶ γένος. In
Andoc.
Myst. § 97 a law is quoted (professedly
Solonian) in which the same phrases occur--
κτενῶν . .
. . καὶ ἐάν τις τυραννεῖν ἐπαναστῇ ἢ τὸν τύραννον
συγκαταστήσῃ. Dobree inserts
ἐπὶ
τῷ before
τυραννεῖν:
probably in the
Ἀθην. πολ. τυραννεῖν was
written above
ἐπὶ τυραννίδι, and a
copyist inserted the phrase lower down in the text. The story (
Plut. Sol. 18) about want of clearness in
Solon's laws occurs in 100.9.
Cc. 29 to 32 give at great length the constitutional schemes of the Four
Hundred, quoting apparently from original documents.
Of the Thirty it is said (100.35):
τὸ μὲν οὖν
πρῶτον . . . . προσεποιοῦντο διοικεῖν τὴν πάτριον
πο[λιτ]είαν (the restoration of the “ancient
constitution” was included in the terms of peace)
καὶ τοὺς περὶ τῶν Ἀρεοπαγιτῶν καθεῖλον ἐξ
Ἀρείου [πάγου] καὶ τῶν Σόλωνος θεσμῶν ὅσοι διαμφισβητ[ήσ]εις
εἶχον, e. g. in Solon's law regarding testamentary
dispositions they abolished the provisions
ἐὰν μὴ
μανιῶν ἢ γηρῶν ἢ γυναικὶ πιθόμενος (Dem.
c.
Steph, ii. p. 1133.14
lex). Cf.
Schol. Aeschin.
c. Tim. § 39,
ἐλυμήναντο τοὺς Δράκοντος καὶ Σόλωνος νόμους.
Of the restoration of the democracy after the fall of the Thirty little is
said in 100.39:
ρὰς δὲ δίκας τοῦ φόνου εἶναι
κατὰ τὰ πάτρια, κ.τ.λ. (the text is unfortunately corrupt),
an amnesty was granted with certain exceptions, and in 100.40 an instance is
given of the zeal with which Archinus prosecuted a breach of this amnesty
(
ἐπεί τις ἤρξατο τῶν κατεληλυθότων
μνησικακεῖν, ἀπαγαγὼν τοῦτον ἐπὶ τὴν βουλὴν καὶ πείσας
ἄκριτον ἀποκτεῖναι, etc.: cf. Isocr.
c.
Callim. § 3).