The democratic legal system created by the Athenians was completely controlled by ordinary citizens, with no judges, lawyers, or jurists involved. It placed great importance on the litigants’ rhetorical performances. Did this make it nothing more than a rhetorical contest judged by largely uneducated citizens that had nothing to do with law, a criticism that some, including Plato, have made? Michael Gagarin argues to the contrary, contending that the Athenians both controlled litigants’ performances and incorporated many other unusual features into their legal system, including rules for interrogating slaves and swearing an oath. The Athenians, Gagarin shows, adhered to the law as they understood it, which was a set of principles more flexible than our current understanding allows. The Athenians also insisted that their legal system serve the ends of justice and benefit the city and its people. In this way, the law ultimately satisfied most Athenians and probably produced just results as often as modern legal systems do. Comprehensive and wide-ranging, Democratic Law in Classical Athens offers a new perspective for viewing a legal system that was democratic in a way only the Athenians could achieve.

This book draws on contemporary legal scholarship to explain why Athens was a remarkably well-ordered society.

Using comparative anthropological and historical perspectives, this analysis of the legal regulation of violence in Athenian society challenges traditional accounts of the development of the legal process. It examines theories of social conflict and the rule of law as well as actual litigation.

An international cast of distinguished scholars here offers seventeen new contributions on the detail and development of Athenian law; the life, work, and political background of the Attic orators; and the intersection of Attic Comedy with Athenian law, politics, and society. In their detailed and careful use of evidence and deep awareness of social and historical contexts, the essays aspire to standards set by their distinguished honorand, Professor D.M. MacDowell.

The public/private distinction is fundamental to modern theories of the family, religion and religious freedom, and state power, yet it has had different salience, and been understood differently, from place to place and time to time. The volume brings together essays from an international array of experts in law and religion, in order to examine the public/private distinction in comparative perspective. The essays focus on the cultures and religions of the ancient Mediterranean, in the formative periods of Greece and Rome and the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Particular attention is given to the private exercise of religion, the relation between public norms and private life, and the division between public and private space and the place of religion therein.

Athenian Law and Society focuses upon the intersection of law and society in classical Athens, in relation to topics like politics, class, ability, masculinity, femininity, gender studies, economics, citizenship, slavery, crime, and violence. The book explores the circumstances and broader context which led to the establishment of the laws of Athens, and how these laws influenced the lives and action of Athenian citizens, by examining a wide range of sources from classical and late antique history and literature. Kapparis also explores later literature on Athenian law from the Renaissance up to the 20th and 21st centuries, examining the long-lasting impact of the world’s first democracy. Athenian Law and Society is a study of the intersection between law and society in classical Athens that has a wide range of applications to study of the Athenian polis, as well as law, democracy, and politics in both classical and more modern settings.

The collection of essays presented here examines the links forged through the ages between the realm of law and the expressions of the humanistic culture.We collected thirty-five essays by international scholars and organized them into sections of ten chapters based around ten different themes. Two main perspectives emerged: in some articles the topic relates to the conventional approach of law and/in humanities (iconography, literature, architecture, cinema, music), other articles are about more traditional connections between fields of knowledge (in particular, philosophy, political experiences, didactics).We decided not to confine authors to one particular methodological framework, preferring instead to promote historiographical openness. Our intention was to create a patchwork of different approaches, with each article drawing on a different area of culture to provide a new angle to the history being told. The variety of authorial nationalities gives the collection a multicultural character and the breadth of the chronological period it deals with from antiquity to the contemporary age adds further depth of insight.As the element that unites the collection is historiographical interpretation, we wanted to bring to the fore its historical depth. Thus for every chapter we organized the articles in chronological order according to the historical context covered.Looking at the final outcome, it was interesting to learn that more often than not the connection between law and humanities is not simply a relation between a specific branch of the law and a single field of the humanities, but rather a relation that could be developed in many directions at once, involving different fields of knowledge, and of arts and popular culture.We are grateful to Luigi Lacchè for his contribution to this collection. His essay outlines the coordinates of the law and humanities world, laying out the instruments necessary for an understanding of the origins of a complex methodology and the different approaches that exist within it.This project is the result of discussions that took place during the XXIII Forum of the Association of Young Legal Historians held in Naples in the spring of 2017. The book was made possible thanks to the advice and support of Cristina Vano.The Editors

Law and Society in Classical Athens, first published in 1987, traces the development of legal thought and its relation to Athenian values. Previously Athens’ courts have been regarded as chaotic, isolated from the rest of society and even bizarre. The importance of rhetoric and the mischief made by Aristophanes have devalued the legal process in the eyes of modern scholars, whilst the analysis of legal codes and practice has seemed dauntingly complex. Professor Garner aims to situate the Athenian legal system within the general context of abstract thought on justice and of the democratic politics of the fifth century. His work is a valuable source of information on all aspects of Athenian law and its relation to culture.

Freedom to do 'whatever one wishes' structured Athenian democratic ideology with consequences that empowered citizens and oppressed others.