Kyle Lakin (Stanford Department of Classics & Stanford Law School)
Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, December (2005)
Abstract
The theory of legal pluralism argues that law’s function in modern society must be understood as a negotiation between different sets of legal orders operating simultaneously. This paper argues that archaic Greece, too, was a legally plural society and explores two negotiations as evidence: 1) the relationship between Drakon’s murder law and the procedure of blood-money negotiation; 2) the Gortyn Law Code and oath-trials.
The law of the Archaic polis has the opportunity to be a fruitful nexus of discussion between legal scholars and ancient historians. Its creation nearly ex nihilo after the advent of writing in Greece should be a starting point for scholars studying the role of law in society. Why the archaic citizen first chose to write law is vitally important for what written laws are meant to do, either because this knowledge will reveal a Legal unforeseen use for law or because it will help us evaluate how we use law in the modern nation-state. For scholars of the archaic polis, the paucity of legal evidence in the early polis forces us to rely upon theories of law’s role in society in order to fill in such broad gaps in evidence. Every scholar depends upon his or her understanding of law’s institutional role while translating and interpreting Greece’s earliest laws. The study of law in the Archaic polis should be mutually beneficial for scholars of both fields, and changes in one field should be reflected in the scholarship of the other.
Kyle Lakin (Stanford Department of Classics & Stanford Law School)
Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, December (2005)
Abstract
The theory of legal pluralism argues that law’s function in modern society must be understood as a negotiation between different sets of legal orders operating simultaneously. This paper argues that archaic Greece, too, was a legally plural society and explores two negotiations as evidence: 1) the relationship between Drakon’s murder law and the procedure of blood-money negotiation; 2) the Gortyn Law Code and oath-trials.
The law of the Archaic polis has the opportunity to be a fruitful nexus of discussion between legal scholars and ancient historians. Its creation nearly ex nihilo after the advent of writing in Greece should be a starting point for scholars studying the role of law in society. Why the archaic citizen first chose to write law is vitally important for what written laws are meant to do, either because this knowledge will reveal a Legal unforeseen use for law or because it will help us evaluate how we use law in the modern nation-state. For scholars of the archaic polis, the paucity of legal evidence in the early polis forces us to rely upon theories of law’s role in society in order to fill in such broad gaps in evidence. Every scholar depends upon his or her understanding of law’s institutional role while translating and interpreting Greece’s earliest laws. The study of law in the Archaic polis should be mutually beneficial for scholars of both fields, and changes in one field should be reflected in the scholarship of the other.
Click here to read this article from the Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics
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