## UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN ANCIENT GREEK LAW

By Edward M. Harris

Summary: In the twentieth century there were several works that assumed the essential unity of Greek Law: Griechisches Bürgschaftsrecht by J. Partsch, Griechisches Privatrecht auf rechtsvergleichender Grundlage by E. Weiss, and The Greek Law of Sale by F. Pringsheim. In a review of Pringsheim's book, and in an essay on the topic, however, M.I. Finley challenged the notion of the unity of Greek Law. Finley observed that the Greek world was divided into hundreds of different city-states, each with its own political institutions, laws, and legal procedures. According to Finley, there was just too much diversity in the laws of the Greek city-states to justify any discussion of 'Ancient Greek Law' as a unified body of statutes and legal concepts. He did however allow that there might have been some unity in commercial law. More recently, M. Gagarin has claimed in the Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Law that there was unity in the laws of the Greek poleis in respect to procedure but not in respect to substantive provisions. This essay revisits this issue and shows that there was a considerable amount of unity in the laws of the Greek poleis in substantive and constitutional matters. The article examines several areas of unity: marriage law, contracts, real security, the status of freed persons, the accountability of officials, and the relationship between Council and Assembly. It will also examine the unity of Greek law in regard to legal terminology. On the other hand, it will show that there was considerable diversity in legal procedures, which often varied according to the political constitution of a state.

## I ntroduction

In the late nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries there were several works that assumed the essential unity of Greek law: Reichsrecht und Volksrecht in den östlichen Provinzen des römischen Kaiserreichs by Ludwig Mitteis in 1891, Griechisches Bürgschaftsrecht by Iosef Partsch in 1909, Griechisches Privatrecht auf rechtsvergleichender Grundlage by Egon Weiss in 1923, Die Willenslehre im griechischen Recht by Richard Maschke in 1926, The Greek Law of Sale by Fritz Pringsheim in 1951, The Law and Legal Theory of the  Greeks by  J.  Walter  Jones  in  1956,  and Eigentum  und  Besitz  im griechischen  Recht  des  fünften  und  vierten  Jahrhunderts  v.  Chr. by  Arnold Kränzlein  in  1963.  The  book  of  Walter  Erdmann: Die  Ehe  im  alten Griechenland , published in 1934, took for granted broad similarity in marriage practices. In 1982 Arnaldo Biscardi published a book entitled Diritto greco antico . Sealey however preferred in 1994 to give the title The Justice of  the  Greeks to  his  general  treatment  but  still  argued  for  the  unity  of Greek law. In 2020 Stolfi gave the title La cultura giuridica dell'antica Grecia to his book on Greek law.

In a review of Pringsheim's book published in Seminar in 1951, and in an essay on the topic published in 1968 and reprinted in The Use and Abuse of History in 1975, M.I. Finley challenged the notion of the unity of Greek Law. 1 Finley observed that the Greek world was divided into hundreds of different city-states, each with its own political institutions, laws, and legal procedures. According to Finley, there was just too much diversity in the laws of the Greek city-states to justify any discussion of 'Ancient Greek Law' as a unified body of statutes and legal concepts. Finley concentrated most of his critique in two areas, marriage and property. He denied any similarities in the marriage practices of Homeric Greece, classical Athens, and Ptolemaic Egypt, a point to which we will return. As for property, he dismissed the three common principles enunciated by Mitteis:  private  ownership, the exclusion of next of kin other than blood heirs from claims, and a different conception of ownership from Roman dominium as neither illuminating nor useful. By contrast, he found major differences in three areas: (1) limitations on the size of land holdings, (2) prohibitions on the right to sell, and (3) restrictions on the sale of an 'original allotment'. He also observed differences in practices about manumission. The only exception he noted was the widespread use of the Rhodian Sea Law, but this was because 'Every polis with cargo ships on the high seas faced the same problems, exacerbated by the frequency of shipwreck, and the seamen and shippers required neither notaries nor jurists in order to come to an agreement with each other across the po- litical boundaries of small autonomous states. The same was true of commercial law more generally.' 2 Finley did not discuss constitutional law or make a distinction between procedural and substantive law.

1

Finley 1951, Finley 1968 and Finley 1975: 134-46.

More recently, M. Gagarin has claimed that there was unity in the laws of the Greek poleis in respect to procedure but not in respect to substantive provisions. 3 Gagarin asserts 'although Athenian law may be different in its substantive details, in the realm of procedure (broadly understood) it shares significant features with other legal systems of archaic and classical Greece.' He continues: 'The unity I find in Greek law, therefore is a general procedural unity, grounded in the archaic and classical periods, not the substantive unity grounded in Hellenistic law.' One aspect of this procedural unity is: 'Greek laws, for example, at least those found at Athens and at Gortyn, devote considerable attention to procedure and show less interest in setting precise penalties for offenses.' 4 We will return to the first assertion, but the second assertion is contradicted by the evidence of fifth-century inscriptions and the inscribed laws of the fourth century. Out of 156 decrees in IG I 3 (1-154, 236, 1453b) fortyfive contain penalties. One must also bear in mind that some are fragmentary and that over thirty are honorary decrees, in which we would not  expect  to  see  penalties. 5 Gagarin  also  detected  a  widespread  tendency in Greece to inscribe laws on stone and to display them in public places. But this has nothing to do with procedure but with publication and accessibility. 6 Gagarin next asserts that in the Gortyn Code and at Athens there was a 'highly restricted use of writing' and that legal proceedings relied mainly on oral argument in open settings. As we will see below, this is certainly not true for Athens.

To anticipate my conclusion I am going to show that contrary to Gagarin's assertions there were broad similarities in substantive provisions in many areas, but in general wide differences in legal procedures. The main reason for this is that the Greeks shared some basic notions about the rights and duties of citizens, which formed the foundation of substantive law. But legal procedures involved the allocation of power - who decides and who has power to enforce norms - which varied from one constitution to the next. We need however to start by defining our terms. I quote the discussion of the legal scholar J.W. Salmond, who is followed by Gagarin in his Early Greek Law and by other scholars and is widely accepted. 7

2 Finley 1975: 146.

3 Gagarin in Gagarin & Cohen 2005: 29-40.

4 Gagarin in Gagarin & Cohen 2005: 34.

22, 25, 26, 33, 44, 50, 51, 59, 87, 88, 94, 111, 112, 115, 121, 19, 20, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 48, 56, 57, 69, 73, 74, 80, 81, 91,

5 Fragmentary decrees: IG I 3 124. Honorary decrees: IG I 3 92, 95, 97, 98, 102, 103, 106, 107, 110, 113, 114, 116, 119, 122, 125, 126.

6

On publication and accessibility of laws at Athens see Sickinger 2004.

Substantive law is concerned with the ends which the administration of justice seeks; procedural law deals with the means and instruments by which those ends are to be attained. The latter regulates the conduct and relations of courts and litigants in respect of the litigation itself; the former determines their conduct and relations in respect of the matters litigated. Procedural law is concerned with affairs inside the courts of justice; substantive law deals with matters in the world outside.

One cannot claim that this analysis is etic, that is, a modern distinction anachronistically imposed on the ancient evidence, and therefore inappropriate for the study of ancient Greek law. As Carey has noted many laws of the Greek city-states are formulated in the casuistic form as a conditional sentence starting with a protasis naming the substantive offense - 'if anyone commits theft' or 'if anyone commits hybris ' - then followed by the name of a procedure in the apodosis such as 'let there be a private action for theft' or 'let there be a public action for hybris ' (Dem. 21.46). 8 The distinction is implicit in the wording of the statute. The protasis names the illegal behavior - theft or hybris - and indicates the actions one should not commit in daily life. The apodosis names the procedure to be followed by an accuser if someone commits a certain illegal action. For instance, if someone wishes to accuse a person of theft, he will bring a private action. The procedural rules will indicate how the

- 7 Salmond 1913: 438 followed by Gagarin 1986: 72.

8 Carey 1998, who however believes that Athenian law was mainly procedural, but his analysis is vitiated by his reliance on several documents that have now been shown to be forgeries and by his neglect of inscriptions.

legal action will be initiated (e.g. present a summons to the defendant with two witnesses, submit a written charge to a certain magistrate) and how the case will be tried in court (e.g. the manner of selecting judges, the amount of time allocated for each litigant to speak, the method of voting the verdict). Several passages in the orators make a clear distinction between the offense and the ways of bringing an action to court (e.g. Dem. 21.23-28). In 1975 Mogens Hansen claimed that Athenian law was mainly procedural, and scholars such as Michael Gagarin, Stephen Todd, Paul Millett, and Robin Osborne followed him in claiming that Greek law in general and Athenian law in particular were mostly concerned with procedure and paid little attention to substance. 9 In an essay published in 2009-2010 and reprinted in my book of 2013, I collected all the laws mentioned in the Attic orators and the fourth century laws inscribed on stone and demonstrated that most laws were primarily concerned with substantive matters and that Athenian laws were organised by substantive categories (e.g. laws of homicide, laws of adoption, laws on traders, laws about order in the Assembly). 10 Because the evidence against his previous  assumption  is  overwhelming,  Hansen  has  recently  admitted that he was wrong. 11 In a recent essay David Lewis and I analyzed all the inscriptions in Koerner's valuable collection Inschriftliche Gesetzestexte der frühen griechischen Polis down to 450 BCE and came to the same conclusion about laws during the archaic period. 12

## Differences in Legal Procedures

First point. The differences between the basic procedures of city-states could be enormous. Let us start with the laws of Gortyn in the fifth century BCE. To initiate proceedings, one party summoned ( καλε͂ν ) the other before  a  judge  ( δικαστάς ). 13 Each  presented  his  case  ( πονε͂ν )  and  presented witnesses who testified. These could be formal witnesses, who were asked to be present at some transaction and then were summoned to testify that the transaction took place, or accidental witnesses who happened to be present at some event and were later called on to testify about the facts of this event. The judge then made a decision in one of two ways. First, the judge might be required in some cases to decide according to witnesses or according to an oath. For instance, if one litigant presented witnesses and the other none, the judge was ordered to decide for the former litigant. In divorce cases in which a woman was accused of taking her husband's property but swore an oath that she did not take anything, the judge was ordered to decide for the woman. This form of decision according to evidence was called δικάδδεν or καταδικάδδεν . In other cases, the judge would hear the evidence and decide according to the substantive rule in the law. This was called krinein . There is no mention of written documents in the laws of Gortyn aside from written statutes. At Gortyn a slave could swear an oath and in some cases it might be ὀρκιότερος , more binding, than that of a free person.

9 Hansen 1975: 10, 14, 21 followed by Osborne 1985, Todd & Millett 1990: 5, Todd 1993: 65, Foxhall & Lewis 1996: 3, and Lanni 2006: 87.

10  Harris 2013a: 138-74, 359-78.

11  Hansen 2016: 465-66.

12  Harris & Lewis 2022 analyzing the laws in Koerner 1993.

The difference with Athenian procedures could not be greater. In Athens the accuser summoned the defendant to appear before an official on a certain day but had to have two witnesses to the summons. 14 The accuser  then  submitted  a  plaint  containing  his  name,  patronymic,  and deme and the name, patronymic, and deme of the defendant, the type of procedure, and a brief description of the actions of the defendant violating the substantive part of the relevant statute. 15 After the trial this document was kept in the Metroon. 16 This key document has no parallel in the laws of Gortyn. In a private procedure after 400 most cases were sent to a public arbitrator, who could try to mediate the dispute or if both sides rejected mediation, would make a decision ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 53.17). 17 The arbitrator would receive documents and testimony and could question the litigants. If the litigants did not accept the decision, the evidence was placed in an echinos , and the case went to a court of several hundred judges who had sworn the judicial oath and decided by secret ballot. The oath bound the judges to vote according to the laws and decrees of Athens, to vote only about the charges in the plaint, to cast a just vote without favor or hostility, and to listen to both sides. 18 Each litigant gave two speeches measured by the κλεψύδρα . Other private cases were decided by διαδικασία ,  which dispensed with the public arbitrator but was in other respects similar. 19 At Gortyn there were no public arbitrators, no large panels of judges, the official who received the charges also tried the case, and there was no need for secret ballot. On the other hand, oaths at trials were not dispositive in Athenian law. The procedural differences in private suits could not have been greater. One might add that in public and private cases at Athens many written documents could be submitted: letters from officials, letters from foreign kings, catalogues of trierarchs and public debtors, records of import and export duties, accounts of officials, inventories in the antidosis procedure, leases of mines, citizen lists kept in the demes, and honorary decrees from other states. 20 Gagarin's assertions about the lack of written documents in Athenian trials is not supported by the evidence. And for private suits the Athenians made a distinction  between  normal  suits  and  monthly  suits  ( ἔμμηνοι δίκαι ), which were decided within a month ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 52.2-3), a distinction  not  found  at  Gortyn.  The  differences  between  Athens  and Gortyn could not have been greater.

13  On procedure at Gortyn see Gagarin in Gagarin & Perlman 2016: 136-39.

14  On initiating a lawsuit at Athens see Harrison 1971: 85-94.

15  On the plaint see Harris 2013b.

16  See Harris 2013b: 167-69, endorsed by Boffo & Faraguna 2021: 264, 288 (rejecting Gagarin 2008: 86, who denies without evidence that the plaint was kept in the archives).

17  On public arbitration at Athens see Harris 2018.

We know a little more about trials of kings and other officials such as Sphodrias in Sparta. 21 These cases were often tried in the Gerousia or Council of Elders where there was no selection of judges by lot. By contrast, the Council at Athens might impose fines up to 500 drachmas (Dem. 47.43), but could not vote larger fines, permanent exile or death, and all

18  On the judicial oath at Athens see Harris 2013a: 101-37. Lanni 2006: 72 claims that the pledge to vote according to one's most just judgment was the most frequently cited pledge, but this is not true: see the overwhelming evidence collected in Harris 2013a: 353-57.

- 19  On the diadikasia see Harrison 1971: 79, 88, 235-38 and passim .
- 20  On written documents in Athenian trials see Harris 2022 and Boffo & Faraguna 2021: 265-93 with detailed criticisms of Gagarin 2008.

21  For procedure at Sparta see MacDowell 1986: 123-50.

public cases took place in courts staffed by five hundred or more judges. The  kings  at  Sparta  tried  cases  involving  heiresses,  public  roads  and adoption (Hdt. 6.57.4-5), and the Ephors had a broad jurisdiction over other private cases (Arist. Pol. 1275b9-10;  Xen. Lac.  Pol. 8.4).  At  Athens these cases were tried in courts staffed by hundreds of judges. Another major difference was that important trials at Sparta took place over several days while trials on public charges at Athens were decided in one day, something noted by Socrates at his trial ( Ap. 37a-b; cf. Plut. Eth . 217ab). Not much is known about procedure in laws of Ptolemaic Egypt, but here cases were decided either by royal edict or by civic laws. 22 There were also rules for cases between Greeks, who were tried in the dikasteria , and Egyptians, who were tried before the laokritai .  For  trials  between Greeks and Egyptians if the documents were in Greek, the trial was before the dikasteria , if the documents were in Egyptian, before the laokritai . There was nothing similar in Athens where citizens, metics, and foreigners were tried in the same courts according to Athenian law. 23 There are some similarities such as the requirement that two people witness the summons and the use of a written plaint, but there is no evidence for large courts in Ptolemaic Egypt.

## The Laws of the Greeks in Interstate Relations

By contrast, there are significant similarities in substantive law. In a famous passage Herodotus (8.144) states that the Greeks were united by their common ancestry, common language, common religion and common customs. These common customs often took the form of similar laws enforced by many different city-states. For instance, in 367/366 BCE the Athenian Assembly sent a herald to the Aitolians to protest against the arrest by the Trichonians of the spondophoroi sent to announce the truce for the Eleusinian Mysteries, an act that violated the laws of the Greeks  ( Agora 16.48,  ll.  13-14: παρὰ τοὺς νόμους τοὺς κοινοὺς τῶν Ἑλλήνων ). The decree of the Assembly assumes the existence of a rule recognized by all the Greeks that it is wrong to hold those sent to announce a truce for a Panhellenic festival. This is similar to the Greek rule that one does not harm heralds sent from one city to another.

22  See M. Modrejewski in Keenan, Manning & Yiftach-Firanko 2014: 470-81.

23  Charges involving metics and foreigners were brought before the Polemarch, but the cases were tried in the regular courts. See [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 58.2-3.

Several  speakers  in  Thucydides'  history  refer  to  the  laws  of  the Greeks. When the Athenians invaded Boeotia and fortified the sanctuary at Delium, the Boeotians claimed that they had violated the laws of the Greeks that required those invading a country not to damage sanctuaries (Thuc. 4.97.2; cf. Polyb. 4.67.4). The Athenians replied that the laws of the Greeks provided that sanctuaries belonged to whoever was in control of the territory as long as they observed the traditional rites of the sanctuary (Thuc. 4.98.2). They also insisted that the Boeotians follow the rule of the Greeks that the bodies of soldiers killed in battle be returned for burial. It is well known from other sources that this was a Panhellenic rule and widely enforced. 24 In his funeral oration Lysias refers to the Greek law that the dead should not remain unburied (2.7-10; cf. 9: Ἑλληνικοῦ νόμου ), a common rule underlying the legislation about burial in different communities. 25

When the Plataeans were put on trial by the Spartans after their surrender in 427 BCE, the former pointed out that they have surrendered as suppliants to the Spartans who have accepted them, and that it is wrong according to the laws of the Greeks to put suppliants to death (Thuc. 3.58.1). The Boeotians retort that it is the Plataeans who have violated the laws of the Greeks by not honoring the rights of suppliants (Thuc. 4.68.4; cf. 66.2-3). As F.S. Naiden has shown, the norms of supplication were a quasi-legal ritual recognised throughout the Greek world. 26 In a debate  at  Athens,  the  Corinthians  appealed  to  the  laws  of  the  Greeks about the right to discipline members of an alliance (Thuc. 1.41.1; cf. 3.9).

24  For the sources about the law see Harris 2006: 65-68 and Pritchett 1985: 235-41 for a collection of testimonia from different city-states about the practice.

25  See Harris 2006: 65-68 with the literature cited there.

26  See the thorough treatment of Naiden 2006.

## Similarities in Homicide Law and Family Law

Some of these rules relate to interstate law, but there were also broad similarities in the area of family law. In the speech On the Murder of Eratosthenes written  by  Lysias  (1.1-2),  the  defendant  Euphiletus  tells  the court that the laws against seduction ( μοιχεία )  do not differ in oligarchies and democracies: all Greek city-states condemn this crime and enact harsh penalties against those who seduce wives (cf. Xen. Hier. 3.3). It was also a universal rule among the Greeks that the property and inhabitants of a city conquered in war belonged to the victors (Pl. Resp . 5 468ab; Arist. Pol . 1.6 1255a 6-7; Xen. Cyr . 7.5.73). In every one of these cases the rules apply to substantive matters, not procedure. There also appear to have existed broad similarities in regard to homicide law. In a speech of Antiphon (5.13), the defendant states that all Greeks who were accused of murder had the right to avoid punishment by going into exile. The belief that homicide caused pollution was also widespread and was incorporated into the laws of the Greek city-states. 27 And in a story about the return of a deposit, a Spartan named Glaukos replied to some citizens of Miletus that he would follow the laws of the Greeks about this matter (Hdt. 6.86). The study of marriage by A.-M. Vérilhac & C. Vial, Le mariage grec du VIe siècle av. J.C. à l'époque d ' Auguste , has also revealed basic similarities in substantive law. 28 In all Greek cities, marriage was an agreement between the woman's father or brother and her husband, which transferred the woman from her natal household to that of her husband ( virilocal ). The marriage was normally accompanied by a dowry ( προίξ ) given by the wife's family to the husband. Everywhere legitimate children ( γνήσιοι ) were distinguished from bastards ( νόθοι ). In general, legitimate children had the right to inherit their parents' property while bastards did not. In the Greek rules for inheritance, descendants took precedence over collaterals, and males in the same degree received equal portions ( partible inheritance ); there is no evidence for primogeniture. All heirs were universal successors, which meant that they were responsible for the debts of the estate as well as entitled to the assets. If the liabilities exceeded the value of the assets, the heir(s) had to pay the debts. There were, of course, local variations: at Gortyn, for instance, sisters could inherit along with brothers although their share was only half that of their brothers. In some cities, nothoi were citizens, in others they were not. Yet the main substantive provisions remained the same.

27  Harris 2018c.

28  Vérilhac & Vial 1998.

## Similarities in Property Law

Another area in which there was broad consistency in substantive matters was in regard to the ownership of land. 29 The concept of ownership is  universal,  found  in  all  societies  and  contains  several  standard  incidents: (1) the right to possess, (2) the right to use, (3) the right to manage, (4) the right to income, (5) the right to capital, (6) the right to security, (7) transmissibility, (8) absence of term, (9) prohibition of harmful use, and (10) liability to execution. Three aspects of ownership may vary from one society to the next: (1) who can own? (2) what can be owned? and (3) what restrictions are placed on the powers of ownership? 30 As observed by D. Hennig in an important essay, 'Nach einem in allen griechischen Staaten unabhängig  von  der jeweiligen Verfassungsform  gültigen Rechtsgrundsatz waren Besitz und damit auch Erwerb von Grundstücken und Gebäuden prinzipiell nur den eigenen Bürgern gestattet.' 31 This of course is seen in a famous passage from Demosthenes' speech For Phormio (36.6) where we learn that when Phormio leased the bank of Pasion and took over the deposits, he could not recover all the loans that Pasion had made on the security of land and lodging houses because he had not yet obtained citizenship. In other words, if the borrowers in these loans defaulted, Phormio as a non-citizen could not seize these properties because he had no right to acquire property in Attica. As a result, a foreigner could only obtain the right to own property if the community granted him an enkt ē sis g ē s , a right to acquire property. 32 Such grants are

- 29  On ownership and property records see Harris 2016.
- 30  On the incidents of ownership see Honoré 1961.

31  'According to a legal principle valid in all Greek states, regardless of the respective constitutional form, ownership and thus also the acquisition of land and buildings were in principle only permitted to their own citizens' (Hennig 1994).

- 32  On enkt ē sis g ē s at Athens see Peçirka 1966.

attested throughout the Greek world. Appendix I shows that they are found in all regions: the Peloponnese, Central Greece (Megara, Phocis, Lokris,  and  Boeotia),  Northwestern Greece, Thessaly, Aetolia, many of the Aegean islands including Crete, Caria and other parts of Asia Minor, Thrace and the Black Sea regions. They are mostly found in proxeny decrees, but they are also found in treaties of sympoliteia such as the one between Miletus and Pidasa ( Milet I 3, 149). There are also examples of communities that awarded foreign benefactors with land, but the award was clearly accompanied with the privilege of owning land, a kind of implicit ἔγκτησις γῆς . It is true that some Athenians acquired property in the territory of allied states during the fifth-century empire as we can see from the confiscation records for the religious scandals of 415 ( IG I ³ 426, lines 35-41; cf. lines 144-49), but the practice was viewed as an infringement of autonomy and was banned in the Second Athenian League ( IG II 2 43).

There is a question about the right of citizens in one community of a federal league to acquire property in the territory of another community of the same league. This appears to have been the case in the Chalcidian League (Xen. Hell. 5.2.11-19), which has led E. Mackil to conclude that the same held true for other federal leagues. 33 Two recent articles by Sizov have however demonstrated that this arrangement did not exist in the Thessalian, Achaean and Aetolian leagues, which undermines Mackil's assumption. 34 Even  though  this  privilege  was  granted  to  cities  in  the Chalcidian League, the principle still held that those who were not citizens of one of the member cities could not obtain land in the territory of the league. The way in which this rule was enforced would have varied from one community to the next according to their different legal procedures, but the general substantive rule was universally followed.

The basic modes of acquiring ownership in the Greek polis were widely recognized and agreed. In a famous arbitration between Hierapytna and Itanos on Crete decided by judges from Magnesia, it is stated that 'Men have rights of ownership over land because they have received the land themselves from their ancestors, or because they have bought it by giving money, or by conquering it by the spear or taking it from someone of those more powerful' ( I. Cret . III iv 9, lines 133ff.). 35 While the basic substantive principles are universal, the specific procedures for transferring ownership varied from one community to the next. In a famous fragment from his work On the Laws (fr. 97 Wimm. = Stobaeus 4.2.20) Theophrastus lists several different modes of conveyance in various Greek states. According to Theophrastus, some lawgivers require that the sale be announced by a herald several days in advance while others order that sales take place before a magistrate. At Athens the sale must be announced in writing no fewer than sixty days ahead and the buyer should deposit one sixtieth of the price so that whoever wishes may have the right to dispute and to lodge an objection. 36 Once again, the procedures differ from one community to the next.

33  Mackil 2013: 256-57.

34  Sizov 2021a, and Sizov 2021b.

## The Status of Freed Slaves

Finally a widespread rule in Greece was that freed slaves did not automatically become citizens but were metics, or katoikoi . 37 In 217 BCE Philip V of Macedonia sent the people of Larissa a letter in response to their concerns about their recent loss of citizens ( IG IX, 2 517 = Syll. 3 543). 38 He contrasted the Greeks with the Romans who, when they manumit their slaves, admit them to the citizen body and grant them a share in the magistracies. In this way, they have not only made their country great, but also sent colonies to almost seventy places (lines 29-34). We know that the Athenians did not automatically make their freed persons citizens. Pasion, the father of Apollodorus, was freed, but was not given citizenship until after he made many generous contributions ([Dem.] 59.2). In the 1,341 manumission documents preserved at Delphi there is no mention of any former slaves receiving citizenship, which is the reason why

- 35  [ ․․․ ἄν ] θρωποι τὰς κατὰ τῶν τόπων ἔχουσι κυριείας ἢ παρὰ προγόνων π [ αραλαβόν ] τες αὐτοὶ [ ἢ πριάμενοι ] | [ κατ '] ἀργυρίου δόσιν ἢ δόρατι κρατήσαντες ἢ παρά τινος τῶν κρεισσόν [ ων σχόντες· On this text see Chaniotis 2004: 185-87.
- 36  For the inscriptions recording these payments see Lambert 1997.
- 37  For the status of freed persons see Zanovello 2021, who shows that they are free and not between free and slave. For their status at Athens see Canevaro & Lewis 2014.
- 38  On  manumission  and  citizenship  in  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  see  Harris  with Zanovello 2023.

these texts assign many witnesses and guarantors to protect their freedom. 39 Had they become citizens, this would not have been necessary. The  manumission  documents  from  Thessaly  point  in  the  same  direction. 40

## Similarities in Constitutional Law

In some cases the similar provisions about substantive rules derive from a common belief in the rule of law, a set of values that goes back to the late archaic period and spread throughout Greece by the classical period. In Euripides' Medea (536-38) Jason tells his ex-wife that she is lucky to have come from barbarian territory to Greece where she learns justice and to follow the laws and not to live in a way that gives free rein to force. When Tyndareus faults Orestes for killing his mother and not prosecuting her for murder in court, he accuses him of violating the laws of the Greeks, not merely the laws of Argos (Eur. Orestes 491-517). As Canevaro has shown, the rule of law became the main criterion for legitimacy in the Greek poleis . 41 In his Panegyricus Isocrates (4.39) claims that it was the Athenians who brought the rule of law to the Greeks in place of tyranny and anarchy. This is Athenian propaganda, but these three passages are important for showing the importance of the rule of law for Panhellenic identity, a point to which we will return. It would be a serious mistake to believe  that  there  was  a  shift  from  popular  sovereignty  to  the  sovereignty of law in Athens around 400 BCE; democracy and the rule of law went hand in hand in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. 42 The basic features of the rule of law go back to the late archaic period when they were articulated in the poetry of Solon and implemented in the many laws preserved on stone from the period. 43 There are some differences between ancient and modern conceptions of the rule of law, but several features are the same: (1) equality before the law, (2) no person above the law, that is, all officials are accountable, (3) stability and consistency of  the  laws,  and  (4)  fairness  in  procedure  (defendant  informed  about charges before the trial, trial before impartial judges, decision about guilt according  to  fixed  rules,  which  means  no ad  hoc decisions,  defendant given time to present evidence and witnesses, enforcement of res iudicata ). 44 Here I would like to concentrate on the second and third features.

39  For an overview of these documents with statistics see Mulliez 1992. For the first volume of these manumission documents see Mulliez 2019.

40  On the documents from Thessaly see Zelnick-Abramovitz 2013.

41  Canevaro 2017.

42  Hansen 2018: 29 claims that there was a shift from popular sovereignty to the rule of law, but his view rests on a misunderstanding of the concept of the rule of law and of the identity of the nomothetai in the legislative procedure after 403 BCE. For detailed analysis and refutation see Harris with Esu 2021: 94-100.

In the famous debate about the constitutions in Book 3 of Herodotus, Otanes states that with isonomia the laws are respected, free women are not victims of abuse, and people are not put to death without a trial. In this form of government there is alternation in office by use of the lot, no official holds office without being accountable ( ὑπεύθυνον δὲ ἀρχὴν ἔχει ), and all plans are discussed in common (Hdt. 3.80.6). The historicity of  the  debate  is  questionable,  but  the  passage  demonstrates  that  the Greek audience for whom Herodotus wrote contrasted isonomia with tyranny and associated isonomia , equality before the law, with the accountability of officials. The practice of penalizing officials for not carrying out the law goes back to the late archaic period. In Koerner's collection of inscriptions we find examples of fines for officials disobeying the law from Tiryns, Argos, Arcadia, Olympia, Naupactos, Thasos, Eretria. In his speech Against Ctesiphon Aeschines (3.2-23) explicitly links the rule of law with the accountability of officials and provides a long list of those accountable. The procedures at Athens are succinctly described at the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians (54.2): all officials after their term of office had to submit their accounts to ten accountants ( λογισταί ) and their assistants ( συνήγοροι ). The accountants could bring three kinds of charges before a court: (1) embezzlement ( κλοπή ),  (2)  bribery  ( δῶρα ), and (3) 'injustice' ( ἀδικιῶν ) which is probably mismanagement of public funds. For the first two offenses, the penalty was ten times the amount, but for the last only the amount involved. The Council also selected by lot ten auditors ( εὔθυνοι ), one per tribe, and two assessors ( πάρεδροι ) for each  auditor.  If  anyone  wished  to  bring  a  private  or  a  public  charge against a magistrate, he wrote his name, that of the defendant, the name of the offense, and the amount of the fine or damages sought. If the auditor considered the charges proven, he handed a public charge to the thesmothetai and a private charge to the Forty ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 48.3-5). As P. Fröhlich has shown, the principle that all officials were accountable is almost universal, but the procedures for implementing this substantive rule varied from place to place. 45 We can see the contrast in the decree about the foundation of Aristomedes and Psylla from the second century BCE on Corcyra ( IG IX,1 694). The Council takes responsibility for receiving accounts and imposing fines for misconduct. If officials do not submit accounts, the nomophylakes examine their accounts. There is no division into two parts and different bodies are involved. On the other hand, in Boeotia during the third and second centuries BCE officials called the κατόπται exercised a close supervision of payments made by officials and not only at the end of their term of office. 46 There is no mention of trials in  court.  According  to  Aristotle  ( Pol. 2.9.26.1271a6-8),  the  Ephors  at Sparta had the task of supervising all officials, a marked difference from the  procedure  at  Athens.  If  an  anecdote  from  Aristotle's Rhetoric (3.18.1419a31- 35) is reliable, the Ephors too were accountable, but the procedure is not known. On the other hand, several sources indicate that the Spartan kings were tried either in the Assembly or in court. Cleomenes appears to have been charged with bribery for not capturing Argos and acquitted before the Assembly (Hdt. 8.82.1-2), and the friends of Cleombrotus may have warned him about a trial before the people for allowing the Thebans to escape (Xen. Hell . 6.4.4-5). On the other hand, Leotychidas was tried twice in court (Hdt. 6.72.2; 85.1).

43  See Harris 2006: 3-28.

44  See Harris 2013: 4-10.

The concern for the stability of the law is best seen in an anecdote told by Demosthenes in his speech Against Timocrates (24.139-41): The Locrians 'are so committed to the idea that it is necessary to follow the long-

45  Fröhlich 2004.

- 46  Fröhlich 2004: 179: 'Au IIIme et au IIme siècle, dans chaque cité béotienne, il existe donc un collège de magistrats spécialisés dans le contrôle de leurs collègues et dans la reddition de comptes, les katoptai .  Ils surveillent (souvent en collaboration avec les polémarques) toute opération financière soit par des magistrats ordinaires (en particulier les polémarques et les trésoriers), soit par des commissions temporaires. La surveillance peut semble-t-il s'exercer sur un domaine plus étendu que seules finances, par exemple la transcription de documents publics à Thespies.'

established laws, to preserve the ancestral ways, and not to legislate on a whim nor to provide guilty men with a means of escape that if anyone wishes to pass a new law, he proposes his law with a noose around his neck;  if  the  law  is  judged  good  and  beneficial,  the  proposer  lives  and walks away; but if not, he dies when the noose is drawn tight. In fact, they do not dare to pass new laws, but strictly adhere to the long-established laws. Men of the court, it is said that for many years only one new law was enacted in the community. There was a law that if someone gouged an eye, he was to have his own eye knocked out in return, and no monetary  penalty  was  permitted.  The  story  goes  that  a  man  threatened  to gouge the eye of his enemy who had just one eye. The one-eyed man, alarmed by this threat and thinking that life would not be worth living were it carried out, is said to have worked up the courage to introduce a law ordering that if anyone gouged the eye of a person with just one eye, he was to have both his eyes gouged out in return so that both men would suffer an equal misfortune. It is reported that this is the only law the Locrians have passed in more than two hundred years' (trans. Harris). The tendency to overturn traditional laws was characteristic of tyrants as Otanes  mentions  in  the  constitutional  debate  in  Herodotus  (3.80.5: νόμαιά τε κινέει πάτρια ). The normal way to keep the laws stable was less extreme  than  the  Locrian  method.  Starting  in  the  archaic  period  important laws contain an entrenchment clause threatening severe penalties if anyone attempted to alter or repeal the statute. One of the earliest is found in Draco's law of homicide: Let any official or private citizen who is responsible for overturning or changes this law be without rights and his children and his property (Dem. 23.62). 47 We find similar clauses in laws from 'Tauromenium and Issa in the west to places as far as to the east as Acmonia and Termessus,' 48 and the late D. Lewis collected those from Athens in fifth century inscriptions. 49 Around 403 the Athenians introduced a distinction between laws and decrees and a new procedure for enacting laws as a way of promoting stability. This contained a series of steps designed to make it harder to enact new laws and to promote stability without resorting to the noose. 50 This made it unnecessary to add entrenchment clauses at Athens, but other cities continued to use them.

47  For a new text of Draco's homicide law in IG I 3

104 see Harris & Canevaro 2023.

48  Rhodes with Lewis 1997: 524-25.

49  Lewis 1997: 136-49 with the discussion in Harris 2006: 23-25.

## Herodotus, The Persian Wars, and the Rule of Law

It is appropriate at the end of this essay to return to the battle of Plataea, which served as the inspiration for the conference, and the Serpent column, which was erected at Delphi after the battle and later taken to Constantinople,  now  Istanbul. 51 When Herodotus wrote about the Persian Wars, he portrayed the conflict not only as a struggle between Greeks and barbarians (though there were many Greeks fighting on the Persian side such as the Thessalians and Thebans), but also as a struggle between different forms of government, between tyranny and constitutional governed by the rule of law. Herodotus makes the contrast explicit throughout his work, starting with the interview between Solon and Croesus and especially  during  the  conversation  between  Demaratus  and  Xerxes, when the Spartan exile tells the Persian king that the Spartans are free but not completely free because they fear the law more than the Persians fear him (Hdt. 7.104.4). We see the same message in Aeschylus' Persians , which makes clear the difference between the Persian monarchy and the Athenian form of government. As we will see, this is an oversimplification but in a way it is quite accurate. Appendix II provides a list of all the communities listed on the Serpent Column, which is close to the lists in Herodotus and Pausanias. 52 Even though some communities in Greece were ruled by monarchs/tyrants such as Macedonia, all those on the Serpent Column were not ruled by tyrants at the time. Among the three leading  powers,  Sparta  never  had  a  tyrant  while  Athens  and  Corinth overthrew their despots in the sixth century. This is also true for the others on the list. Even though for some there is no evidence for their constitutions at the time of the Persian Wars, evidence for later in the fifth century and the early fourth reveals the presence of civic institutions like officials, councils, and assemblies. We should not doubt the hostility of the Greek allies to tyranny. Most of the poleis listed on the Serpent Column were members of the Peloponnesian League. When Cleomenes led the members of the Peloponnesian League to reinstate Hippias as tyrant of Athens, they were convinced by the speech of Socles against tyranny and voted with their feet, deserting the expedition (Hdt. 5.93). Their opposition to the Persian invasion was not because of geography but from political conviction.

50  See Canevaro 2013, Canevaro 2018, and Canevaro 2020.

51  For the text see Jacquemin, Mulliez & Rougemont 2012: 43-45.

52  For the different lists see Steinhart 1997: 61-69.

But this was not the only great victory of Greeks over non-Greeks in this period. According to Diodorus (11.20-26), the victory of Gelon and Theron at Himera was as great as the victories of the Greeks over the Persians at Salamis and Plataea. The Carthaginian threat to Sicily was as serious as the Persian threat to mainland Greece. Diodorus claims that the number of Carthaginians who sailed with Hamilcar to Panormus was not less than three hundred thousand (the same as the number of Persian troops at Plataea [Hdt. 8.32.2]), and there was a fleet of two hundred triremes  and  more  than  a  thousand  ships  to  transport  supplies.  Even though many of the ships were lost in a storm (just as many Persian ships were lost in a storm off Euboea [Hdt. 8.13-14]), the army was large enough to conquer the entire island. Theron, who was guarding the city, called on Gelon from Syracuse to help him defend Himera, and the two leaders won a decisive victory. Diodorus puts the number of Carthaginian prisoners at 10,000 and the number of soldiers slaughtered at 150,000 and reports, 'Because of this achievement many historians compare this battle with the one which the Greeks fought at Plataea and the stratagem of Gelon with the ingenious schemes of Themistocles, and the first place they assign, since such exceptional merit was shown by both men, some to the one and some to the other' (11.23.1). Although Themistocles and Pausanias, the victors of Salamis and Plataea, were later driven into exile, Gelon continued in power and died while still on the throne. The victory at Himera was celebrated by Pindar ( Pythian 1.67-80) who placed the victory on the same level as those of Athens and Sparta over the Persians. When Gelon dedicated his column at Delphi near the Serpent Column on the terrace in front of the temple of Apollo, he was clearly creating an equivalence between the two victories ( Syll. 3 34A). As Jacquemin, Mulliez & Rougemont observe, 'Dès 470, Pindare ( Ier  Pythique v.  71-80)  faisant l'éloge des Deinomenides, établissait un parallèle entre Himère, Salamine et Platées. Le trépied et la victoire étaient en or et l'on comparait l'ensemble  aux  offrandes  légendaires  de  Crésus  (Hérodote  1.50-51).  La richesse de l'offrande et surtout le choix de son emplacement, à proximité immédiate de l'Apollon de Salamine et du trépied de Platées, auquel l'offrande de Gélon ressemblait, répondent précisément à la même intention que les vers de Pindare.' 53

Herodotus (7.153-67)  was  not  unaware  of  the  victory  of  Gelon  and Theron over the Carthaginians, but he devotes only a few chapters to the campaign and its impact. Herodotus mentions the victory of Gelon in the context of the Greek mission to ask for his support against the Persian invasion.  Herodotus  (7.163-67)  gives  two  alternative  explanations  for Gelon's refusal to send troops. According to one version, he sent three ships under Cadmus of Cos with gold to Delphi. If the Persians won, Cadmus was to give Xerxes the money along with a pledge of earth and water (i.e. submission). If the Greeks won, he was to return with the money. According to the other version, he declined to send help because Terillus of Himera invited Hamilcar to invade with an army of 300,000 (the same figure as in Diodorus). Herodotus does not describe the battle and gives a different version of Hamilcar's death. Herodotus also omits any mention of the temples built to celebrate the victory at Himera and the dedication at Delphi though he mentions the Greek dedications at Delphi after Salamis and Plataea.

For Herodotus the main lesson of the Persian Wars was the superiority of Greek eunomia over Persian tyranny. The communities that participated in the victories at Salamis and Plataea all had constitutional governments. To be a good Greek was to hate tyranny. And even a Greek like Alexander  of  Macedon,  who  was  considered  a  tyrant  by  some  Greeks (Hdt. 8.142.5), might have his Greek ethnicity questioned (Hdt. 5.22), and tyranny might go hand in hand with collaboration with the Persians as it did at Athens (Hdt. 6.107-9). As a result, Herodotus did his best to marginalize the battle of Himera despite its importance, to downplay Sicilian affairs, and to question Gelon's loyalty to the Greek cause. 54 Too much attention  to  Himera,  a  victory  won  under  the  leadership  of  a  tyrant, would have spoiled the dichotomy he so carefully constructs. His choice of emphasis still has an effect on the way modern scholars write the history of ancient Greece. And it explains why the conference about unity and diversity in the ancient Greek world took place at Delphi and not on Sicily. 55

## Appendix 1 Places where Grants of Enktesis are Attested

| Peloponnese and Saronic Gulf   |                |
|--------------------------------|----------------|
| Aegina                         | Phocis         |
| Troezen                        | Delphi (many)  |
| Epidauros                      | Elateia        |
| Sparta                         | Tithronion     |
| Kythera                        | Ambryssos      |
| Kotyrta                        | Antikyra       |
| Geronthrai                     | Stiris         |
| Tainaron                       |                |
| Elis                           | Aegean Islands |
| Messenia                       | Keos (several) |
| Megara, Oropia, Boeotia        | Rhodes         |
| Aulis                          | Kos            |
| Thebes                         | Kalymna        |
| Aigosthena                     | Andros         |
| Thespiai                       | Tenos          |
| Oropos (many)                  | Amorgos        |

- 54  Gauthier 1966 claims that Herodotus gives less prominence to Sicilian affairs because he was less well informed about them, but this does not explain  why Herodotus chose not to inquire more about these events and overlooks the ideological reasons for his selectivity.
- 55  I would like to thank Kostas Buraselis for the invitation to present an earlier version of this paper at the Delphi conference. I would also like to thank Mirko Canevaro and David Lewis for their helpful comments.

Peparethos

Euboea

Chalcis

Eretria (many)

Ionian Islands

Kerkyra

Epeiros

Dodona

Buthrotos

Crete

Knossos

Lato

Hierapytna

Praisos

Polyrrhenia (?)

Caria

Iasos

Halicarnassos

Keramos

Labraunda

Magnesia (several)

Mylasa

Olymos

Ionia

Colophon

Phokaia

Priene

Teos

Ephesos

Aeolis

Gryneion

Kyme

Temnos

Troas

Mysia

Pergamon

Bithynia

Kios

Lycia

Telmessos

Aetolia

Thermos (several)

Akarnania

Actium

Lokris

Amphissa

Thessaly

Halos

Thaumakoi

Thebai

Hypata

Lamia

Herakleia Trachinia

Larisa,

Skotoussa

Perhaibia

Kierion

Pharsalos.

| Thrace and Lower Danube   | Doriskos   |
|---------------------------|------------|
| Mesambria                 |            |
| Odessus                   | Black Sea  |
| Dionysopolis              | Kallatis   |
|                           | Olbia      |

## Appendix 2 Greeks Fighting at Plataea

Serpent Column ( Syll . 3 31; serial numbers are those in Hansen-Nielsen Polis Inventory ):

- Lacedaemonians (345): same laws for four hundred years (Thuc. 1.18.1); hostile to tyranny (Thuc. 1.19).
- Athenians (361):  overthrow  tyrant  in  510;  constitutional  government from 510.
- Corinthians (227): tyranny ends ca. 580.
- Tegeans (297): evidence for civic institutions in fourth century and possibly in the fifth century.
- Sicyonians  (228):  Spartans  overthrow  tyrant  before  500  ([Plut.] Mor . 859d).
- Aeginetans (358): Figueira 1981.
- Megarians (225):  'democracy'  in  sixth  century  (Arist. Pol. 1300a15-19, 1302b31-32, 130-4b35-40).
- Epidaurians (348): '…the narrow politeuma points to an oligarchy in the archaic period' (Hansen-Nielsen Polis Inventory 607).
- Orchomenians (286): civic institutions attested in the classical period.
- Phleiasians (355): possible tyrant in the sixth century (Diog. Laert. 1.12,
- 8.8), but a democracy by the early fourth century (Xen. Hell . 5.3.16).
- Troezenians (357): Aristotle (fr. 613-15) lists a constitution; no evidence for tyranny.
- Hermionians (350): called a polis at Hdt. 8.42.1; Hdt. 3.59.1 appears to indicate a non-tyrannical government.
- Tirynthians (356): a lex sacra ( SEG 30.380) indicates civic institutions in the sixth century; no evidence for tyranny.

Maroneia

- Plataeans (216): appears to be a democracy in the fifth century (Thuc. 2.72.2).
- Thespians (222): allied to Thebes in 506 (Hdt. 5.79.2); appears to be an oligarchy in 410 (Thuc. 6.95.2); no evidence for tyranny.
- Myceneans (353): not clear if this was a dependent polis or not; destroyed in 460s.
- K EIANS (491-494): this covers four poleis , Ioulis (491), Karthaia (492), Koresia (493), and Poiessa (494); Ioulis appears to have civic institutions in the fifth century; Karthaia and Koresia have civic institutions in the classical period; no evidence for tyranny.
- Melians (505): Aristotle (fr. 564) gives a constitution; Thucydides (5.84.486) indicates civic institutions (officials and council).
- Tenians (525): civic institutions attested in the classical period; possible change from democracy to oligarchy in 411 (Thuc. 8.64.1).
- Naxians (507): Spartans drive out tyrant Lygdamis in late sixth century ([Plut.] Mor . 859d).
- Eretrians (370): oligarchy to 'democracy' around 510 (Arist. Pol . 1306a3536; IG XII Suppl. 599).
- Styrians (377): no evidence of tyranny; absorbed into Eretria around 400. Eleians (251): oligarchy before synoikism (Arist. Pol . 1306a12ff.)
- Poteidaians (598): civic office attested at Thuc. 1.56.2; no evidence of tyranny.
- Leukadians (126): constitutional government (Arist. Pol . 1266b21-24).
- Anactorians (114): Thucydides (4.49) calls it a polis of the Corinthians; no evidence for tyranny after the overthrow of the Cypselids at Corinth; evidence for civic institutions in the classical period.
- Kynthians (501): elected generals in fourth century.
- Siphnians (519): Isoc. 19.13, 38 (democracy in late fifth century).
- Ampraciots (113): moderate oligarchy to democracy (Arist. Pol . 1303a2023);  Spartans  drive  out  tyranny  in  late  sixth  century  ([Plut.] Mor . 859d).
- Lepreans (306): Heraclides Lembos (42) mentions a constitution; later a perioikic community of Elis; no evidence of tyranny.

## BIBLIOGRAPHY

- Bernhardt, J.C. & M. Canevaro (eds.) 2022. From Homer to Solon: Continuity and Change in Archaic Greece . Leiden & Boston.
- Biscardi, A. 1982. Dirittto greco antico . Milan.
- Boffo, L. & M. Faraguna 2021. Le poleis e i loro archivi: studi sulle pratiche documentarie, istituzioni, società nell'antichità greca. Trieste.
- Canevaro, M. 2013. ' Nomothesia in Classical Athens: Which Sources should we Believe?' CQ 63. 1-22.
- Canevaro, M. 2017. 'The Rule of Law as the Measure of Political Legitimacy in the Greek City States' Hague Journal of the Rule of Law 9, 211-36.
- Canevaro, M. 2018. 'The Authenticity of the Document at Demosth. Or. 24.20-23, the Procedures of Nomothesia and the So-Called ἐπιχειροτονία τῶν νόμων ' Klio 100, 70-124.
- Canevaro, M. 2020. 'On Dem. 24.20-23 and the So-Called ἐπιχειροτονία τῶν νόμων : Some Final Clarifications in Response to M.H. Hansen' Klio 102, 26-35.
- Canevaro, M. & D.M. Lewis 2014. ' Khoris Oikountes and the Obligations of Freedmen  in  Late  Classical  and  Early  Hellenistic  Athens' Incidenza dell'Antico 12, 91-121.
- Carey, C. 1998. 'The Shape of Athenian Laws' CQ 48, 93-109.
- Chaniotis, A. 2004. 'Justifying Territorial Claims in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: The Beginnings of International Law' in Harris & Rubinstein 2004, 185-213.
- Figueira, T. 1981. Aegina. New York.
- Finley,  M.I.  1951.  'Some  Problems  of  Greek  Law:  A  Consideration  of Pringsheim on Sale' Seminar 9, 72-91.
- Finley, M.I. 1968. 'The Problem of the Unity of Greek Law' in Atti del 1 o Congresso Internazionale della Società del Diritto . Florence, 129-44.
- Finley, M.I. 1975. The Use and Abuse of History . London.
- Gagarin, M. & D. Cohen (eds.) 2005. The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Law . Cambridge.
- Gagarin, M. & P. Perlman 2016. Laws of Ancient Crete, c. 650-400 BCE . Oxford.
- Foxhall, L. & A.D.E. Lewis (eds.) 1996. Greek Law in its Political Setting . Oxford.
- Fröhlich. P. 2004. Les cités grecques et le contrôle des magistrats (IVe-Ier siècle avant J.-C.) . Geneva.

- Gauthier, P. 1966. 'Le parallèle Himère-Salamine au Ve et au IVe siècle av. J.-C.' REA 68, 5-32.
- Guest, A.G. (ed.) 1961. Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence . Oxford.
- Hansen, M.H. 1975. Eisangelia. The Sovereignty of the People's Court in Athens in the Fourth Century B.C. and the Impeachment of Generals and Politicians. Odense.
- Hansen, M.H. 2017. Aspects of the Athenian Democracy in the Fourth Century B.C. Copenhagen.
- Hansen, M. H. 2019. 'The Inserted Document at Dem. 24.20-23. Response to Mirko Canevaro' Klio 101, 452-72.
- Harris, E.M. 2006. Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens .  Cambridge.
- Harris, E.M. 2013a. The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens . Oxford.
- Harris, E.M. 2013b. 'The Plaint in Athenian Law and Legal Procedure' in M. Faraguna (ed.) Archives and Archival Documents in Ancient Societies. Trieste, 143-62.
- Harris, E.M. 2015a. 'Toward a Typology of Greek Regulations about Religious Matters: A Legal Approach' Kernos 28, 53-83.
- Harris, E.M. 2015b. 'The Meaning of the Legal Term Symbolaion , the Law about Dikai Emporikai and the Role of the Paragraphe Procedure' Dike 18, 7- 36.
- Harris, E.M. 2016. 'The Legal Foundations of Economic Growth in Ancient Greece: The Role of Property Records' in E. Harris et al .  (eds.) The Ancient Greek Economy: Markets, Households and City-States .  New York, 116-46.
- Harris, E.M. 2018a. 'Some Recent Developments in the Study of Ancient Greek Law' JAC 33.2, 187-266.
- Harris, E.M. 2018b. 'Trials, Private Arbitration, and Public Arbitration in Classical Athens or the Background to [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 53, 1-7' in C. Bearzot et al . (eds.) Athenaion Politeiai tra storia, politica e sociologia: Aristotele e Pseudo-Senofonte. Milan, 213-30.
- Harris,  E.M.  2018c.  'Pollution  for  Homicide  in  Athenian  Law  and  Attic Tragedy: Parallels or Divergences?' in S. Bigliazzi et al . (eds.) Συναγωνίζεσθαι . Essays in Honour of Guido Avezzù . Verona, 419-54.

- Harris,  E.M.  2020.  'The  Rule  of  Law  and  Economic  Growth  in  Ancient Greece' in E.M. Harris & M. Canevaro, The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Law . Oxford.
- Harris, E.M. 2022. 'The Role of Written Documents in Athenian Trials' in A. Markantonatos et al . (eds.) Witnesses and Evidence in Ancient Greek Literature. Berlin & Boston, 17-37.
- Harris, E.M. 2022. 'Notes on the New Law of Epicrates from the Athenian Agora' ZPE 222, 65-81.
- Harris, E.M. with S. Zanovello 2023. 'Manumission and Citizenship in Ancient Greece' in J. Filonik et al .  (eds.) Citizenship in the Ancient World . London & New York, 498-510.
- Harris, E.M. & M. Canevaro 2020. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Law . Oxford.
- Harris, E.M. & D.M. Lewis 2022. 'What are Early Greek Laws about? Substance and Procedure in Archaic Statutes, c. 650-450 BC' in Bernhardt & Canevaro 2022, 227-62.
- Harris, E.M. & L. Rubinstein (eds.) 2004. The Law and the Courts in Ancient Greece . London.
- Harris, E.M. & M. Canevaro 2023. 'Toward a New Text of Draco's Homicide Law' REG 136, 1-52.
- Harris, E.M. & G. Thür (eds.) 2008. Symposion 2007 . Vienna.
- Harris, E.M. with A. Esu 2021. 'Policing Major Crimes in Classical Athens: Eisangelia and Other Public Procedures' Rivista di diritto ellenico 11, 39119.
- Hennig,  D.  1994.  'Immobilienerwerb  durch  Nichtbürger  in  der  klassischen und hellenistischen Polis' Chiron 24, 305-44.
- Honoré, A.M. 1961. 'Ownership' in Guest 1961, 107-21.
- Jacquemin,  A.,  D.  Mulliez  &  G.  Rougemont  2012. Choix  d'inscriptions  de Delphes . Athens.
- Keenan, J. G., J.G. Manning & U. Yiftach-Firanko 2014. Law and Legal Practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab Conquest: A Selection of Papyrological  Sources  in  Translation,  with  Introductions  and  Commentary .  Cambridge.
- Koerner, R. 1993. Inschriftliche Gesetztexte der frühen griechischen Polis , ed. K. Hallof. Cologne, Weimar, & Vienna.

- Kränzlein, A. 1963. Eigentum und Besitz im griechischen Recht des fünften und vierten Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Berlin.
- Joyce, C. 2018. ' Atimia and Outlawry in Archaic and Classical Greece' Polis 35, 33-60.
- Lambert,  S.D.  1997.  Rationes  Centesimarum. Sales  of  Public  Land  in Lykourgan Athens . Amsterdam.
- Lanni, A. 2006. Law and Justice in the Courts of Classical Athens . Cambridge.
- Lewis, D.M. 1997. Selected Papers in Greek and Near Eastern History .  Cambridge.
- Mackil, E. 2013. Creating a Common Polity: Religion, Economy, and Politics in the Making of the Greek Koinon . Berkeley & Los Angeles.
- Mitteis, L. 1891. Reichsrecht und Volksrecht in den östlichen Provinzen des Römischen Kaiserreichs: Mit Beiträgen zur Kenntniss des griechischen Rechts und der spätrömischen Rechtsentwicklung . Leipzig.
- Mulliez,  D.  1992.  'Les  actes  d'affranchissement  delphiques' Cahiers  du Centre Glotz 3, 31-44.
- Mulliez, D. 2019. Les Actes D'affranchissement: Pretrises I a IX Nos 1-722 Corpus Des Inscriptions De Delphes. Leuven.
- Naiden, F. 2006. Ancient Supplication . Oxford.
- Partsch, I. Griechisches Bürgschaftsrecht. I: Das Recht des altgriechischen Gemeindestaats . Leipzig.
- Pe č irka, J. 1966. The Formula for the Grant of Enktesis in  Attic Inscriptions . Prague.
- Pernin,  I.  2014. Les  baux  ruraux  en  Grèce  ancienne:  corpus  épigraphique  et étude. Travaux de la Maison de l ' Orient . Paris.
- Pringsheim, F. 1950. The Greek Law of Sale. Weimar.
- Rhodes, P.J. with D.M. Lewis 1997. The Decrees of the Greek States . Oxford. Salmond, J.W. 1913. Jurisprudence 4 . London.
- Sickinger, J. 2004. 'The Laws of Athens: Publication, Preservation, Consultation' in Harris & Rubinstein 2004, 93-110.
- Sickinger, J. 2008. 'Indeterminacy in Greek Law' in Harris & Thür 2008, 99-112.
- Sizov, S.K. 2021a. 'Federal Citizenship and the Right of ΕΓΚΤΗΣΙΣ in the Achaian Koinon' ZPE 217, 105-18.
- Sizov, S. K. 2021b. 'Federal Citizenship and the Right of ΕΓΚΤΗΣΙΣ in the Aitolian Koinon' ZPE 217, 119-27.

- Steinart, M. 1997. 'Bemerkungen zu Rekonstruktion, Ikonographie und Inschrift des platäischen Weihgeschenkes' BCH 121.1, 33-69.
- Stolfi, E. 2020. La cultura giuridica dell'antica Grecia; legge, politica, giustizia. Rome.
- Todd, S.C. 1993. The Shape of Athenian Law. Oxford.
- Todd, S.C. & P. Millett 1990. 'Law, Society and Athens' in P. Cartledge et al . (eds.) Nomos. Essays in Athenian Law, Politics and Society. Cambridge, 1-18.
- Vérilhac, A.-M. & C. Vial 1998. Le mariage grec du VIe siècle à l'époque d'Auguste . Athens
- Zanovello, S. 2021. From Slave to Free: A Legal Perspective on Greek Manumission . Alessandria.
- Zelnick-Abramovitz, R. 2013. Taxing Freedom in Thessalian Manumission Inscriptions . Leiden.