Law-making at Athens in the fourth century B.C.

1975 ◽  
Vol 95 ◽  
pp. 62-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas M. MacDowell
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Important Change ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Law Making ◽  
Made In

It is now twenty years since A. R. W. Harrison remarked in this Journal ‘For students of Athenian private and public law it is a painful, but undeniable fact that there is still grave uncertainty as to the precise methods by which statutes, one of the most important sources of law, were made at the most formative period of the history of the system from the middle of the fifth century B.C. onwards.’ His own article is entitled ‘Law-making at Athens at the end of the fifth century B.C.’ and is concerned primarily with establishing that an important change was made in or soon after the year 403/2. That was the date at which a new procedure for making laws (nomoi) was introduced, which Harrison calls ‘the fourth-century procedure of nomothesia’, involving officials called νομοθέται. Before then there was no procedural difference between making a nomos and making a psephisma. References to nomothetai in texts before 403 are irrelevant. In 403 the decree of Teisamenos laid down a procedure for review and amendment of laws, involving two distinct bodies of nomothetai; but that was a procedure for one particular occasion. The regular procedure was instituted shortly afterwards, and was to some extent modelled on the procedure of the Teisamenos decree.

Law-Making at Athens at the end of the Fifth Century B.C.

1955 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 26-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. W. Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Public Law ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Legal Sense ◽  
Law Making

For students of Athenian private and public law it is a painful, but undeniable fact that there is still grave uncertainty as to the precise methods by which statutes, one of the most important sources of law, were made at the most formative period of the history of the system from the middle of the fifth century B.C. onwards. There have been two fairly recent and conflicting attempts to clear up some of the main points, those of Kahrstedt and of Mrs. Atkinson. Neither treatment seems wholly satisfactory, and in particular neither seems to take any account of J. H. Oliver's publication of additions to the code or of Ferguson's paper on these same additions. It may therefore be worthwhile re-examining the evidence for one chapter at least of the story, the chapter covering roughly the twenty years beginning in 411 B.C.I cannot avoid a word on sources, in the historical not the legal sense. In the literary field historians and political theorists are very unhelpful. The problem does not seem to have interested them. Here therefore we have to rely mainly on two other classes of authority, firstly, grammarians and lexicographers, who were interested in the archaisms of the laws of Drakon and Solon, secondly, and most fruitful of all, the orators. In the orators we must distinguish between the documents cited in the texts and the orators' own words. I do not discuss the validity of the cited documents, but must content myself with saying that with regard to the more important documents which are here relevant there is now fairly general agreement among scholars that they are genuine. Statements of the orators themselves must always be examined under the microscope and allowance made for possible distortions due to the speaker's desire to support the particular point which he is making.

Aristotle and the Dramatisation of Legend

1954 ◽  
Vol 4 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 151-157
Author(s):  
H. C. Baldry
Keyword(s):  
Lyric Poetry ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Wide Field ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Scanty Information ◽  
The One ◽  
Traditional Stories

This article is a survey of familiar ground—those passages of the Poetics of Aristotle which throw light on the treatment of legend by the tragic poets. Although sweeping generalizations are often made on the use of the traditional stories in drama, our evidence on the subject is slight and inconclusive. We have little knowledge of the form in which most of the legends were known to the Attic playwrights, for the few we find in the Iliad and Odyssey appear there in very different versions from those they take on in the plays, and the fragmentary remains of epic and lyric poetry between Homer and the fifth century B.C. present us with a wide field for speculation, but few certain facts; while vase paintings and other works of art supplement only here and there the scanty information gained from literature.The comments of ancient writers on this aspect of tragedy are surprisingly few, and carry us little farther. The Poetics stands out as the one source from which we can draw any substantial account of the matter. Even Aristotle, of course, is not directly concerned with the history of drama, and deals with it only incidentally in isolated passages; and in considering these it must constantly be borne in mind that he is discussing tragedy as he knew it in the late fourth century, for the benefit of fourth-century readers. But even so, his statements are the main foundation on which our view of the dramatists' use of legend must be built.

Melania the Elder: A Biographical Note

Traditio ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 59-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis X. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Biographical Note ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

Thanks to several biographical studies based on Cardinal Rampolla's monumental Santa Melania giuniore, senatrice Romana, the history of the early-fifth-century heiress and ascetic, Melania the Younger, is fairly well known. Her grandmother, Melania the Elder was an even more notable figure in the history of the Church during the second half of the fourth century. She is of particular importance in tracing the history of late-fourth-century asceticism and monasticism. Round her career, in a way, revolve many of the historical and chronological problems in connection with Jerome and Rufinus of Aquileia, Paulinus of Nola and Severus Sulpicius. Details of her travels are our surest approach to datings and to the authenticity of much of the material found in Palladius' Lausiac History. At the same time, she was an extremely interesting, well-travelled, and forceful figure coming at the apex of the western patristic period. Hence her career bears pointed scrutiny.

Offenses Against Human Beings in Private and Public Law

2019 ◽  
pp. 34-44
Author(s):  
Eckart Otto
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
History Of

This chapter deals with the legal functions of law of different literary genres in the Hebrew Bible and their legal historical development within their societal “settings in life. It concentrates on laws of bodily injuries and homicide in a comparative approach with ancient Near Eastern law and asks for the influence of religion on the legal history of the biblical law of offenses against human beings and for trends of correlating law and narrative in the Pentateuch. Special attention is given to the origins of talionic retaliation in cuneiform law and to the efforts in biblical law already in the Covenant Code to check and repeal the talio.

Demokratia and Arete in Ancient Greek Political Thought

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Wallach
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Athenian Democracy ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
The Relationship

This article interprets demokratia and arete as dynamically related terms of political thought in ancient Greek culture, from Homeric times to the end of the classical era. It does so selectively, identifying three stages in which this relationship is developed: (1) from the Homeric to archaic eras; (2) fifth-century Athenian democracy, in which demokratia and arete are posed as complementary terms; and (3) the fourth century era in which philosophers used virtue to critique democracy. Relying mostly on evidence from writers who have become benchmarks in the history of Western political thought, the argument emphasizes the inherently political dimension of arete during this period of ancient Greek culture. Noting different ways in which arete is related to political power in general and democracy in particular, it also illustrates the manner in which arete is neither philosophically pristine nor merely an instrument of practical power. The effect of the research contradicts traditional and recent readings of democracy and virtue as inherently antagonistic. The aim of the article is to identify ancient Greek contributions to understanding the potential, contingencies and dangers of the relationship between democracy (as a form of power) and virtue (as a form of ethics) — one which may benefit both democracy and virtue.

‘All the World’s a Stage-Painting’: Scenery, Optics, and Greek Epistemology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. F. Burnyeat
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Phenomenal Experience ◽  
The World ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
History Of ◽  
Epistemological Debate ◽  
Underlying Reality

In the fourth century BCE, Anaxarchus and Monimus compared the world to stage-painting, to express scepticism about sense-perception and the worthlessness of human affairs, respectively. But the comparison traces back to Democritus’ discussion of Anaxagoras’ famous claim, a century earlier, that ‘appearances are a sight of things unseen’. According to Vitruvius, they were influenced by what Agatharchus had written about stage-painting, something that can be assessed properly only by considering the genre of technical treatises and the claims of those who were first to write on a subject. The comparison with phenomenal experience should ultimately be credited to Anaxagoras, though the points that he and Democritus make differ, owing to their different views of how the macroscopic world is related to underlying reality. These texts are thus not about the early history of perspectival painting, but stem from a fifth-century epistemological debate about what, if anything, sense-perception reveals about reality.

Epicurus in Nineteenth-Century Germany

2020 ◽  
pp. 760-790
Author(s):  
James I. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Unique Point ◽  
Science Of Logic ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of

Epicurus marks a unique point of convergence for three unlikely bedfellows in the nineteenth century: Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche. Each sees a different “Epicurus” in this fourth-century successor to Democritus, the fifth-century co-founder of atomism. Each renders Epicurus and his materialism into a symptom of modernity’s engagement with antiquity, a role that atomism increasingly played from the Enlightenment onwards. Fresh readings of each of these philosophers contribute to a better understanding of their ways of construing the history of ideas, and in particular their bold reinterpretations of Epicurus himself, in addition to correcting a number of misconceptions surrounding their individual readings of Epicurus, be this in Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy and his Science of Logic, Marx’s dissertation, or Nietzsche’s sprawling corpus of published and unpublished writings.

Endings (c. AD 380–400)

2021 ◽  
pp. 377-388
Author(s):  
Dominic Perring
Keyword(s):  
Urban Infrastructure ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Public Buildings ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The City ◽  
The Town ◽  
Reduced Scale

The evidence for London’s late fourth century decline is put under the microscope. The paucity and problematic interpretation of dating evidence is discussed, but it is concluded that important elements of London’s urban infrastructure were in serious disrepair from as early as the 380s. Some main roads could no longer have carried regular wheeled traffic. Sites of former public buildings on the margins of towns were converted into small cemeteries in the late fourth century, showing that the city was still populated but on a reduced scale and hinting at a closer relationship between communities of the living and communities of the dead. Rich assemblages recovered from within some wells within the town are thought likely to represent termination rituals, as properties were closed and households departed. Abandonment horizons can also be described from the finds left behind over the latest floors of some houses. These acts of closure and departure may also have begun in the 380s, perhaps under Magnus Maximus who had briefly revived London’s mint but also withdrew troops and administrators from Britain. Whilst the city may still have been occupied into the fifth century, this is far from certain, and there is no evidence of repair and refurbishment of urban properties beyond the last years of the fourth century. This evidence of redundancy and retreat seems consistent with the interrupted history of the diocesan administration. London had become marginal city of relatively little importance to Rome.

Corinna

1970 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. L. West
Keyword(s):  
Good Reason ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Made In

In the controversy over the date of Corinna, the following points may be taken as agreed:1. An edition was made in Boeotia about the end of the third or beginning of the second century B.C.2. The texts of Corinna current in the late Hellenistic and Roman periods were all descended from that Boeotian edition.3. Before its dissemination, Corinna was unknown in Greece at large. If she wrote at an earlier period, she must have been remembered only locally.The difference between Boeotian spelling of the fifth century and that of the fourth is very great: but the difference in this respect between the mid-fourth century and the late third or early second is comparatively slight. It is therefore tenable that whereas there would be a good reason for the re-spelling of fifth-century Boeotian into the later convention of any period, there would be no obvious or adequate reason for re-spelling Boeotian of the fourth century into the orthography of the third, or that of the third into that of the second. Even those features of fourth-century spelling which have ceased to preponderate are by no means unknown or even uncommon at the end of the third century.

The Primary History of Armenia: An Examination of the Validity of an Immemorially Transmitted Historical Tradition

1975 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 91-100
Author(s):  
Robert H. Hewson
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
Historical Memories

Few peoples of the Middle East have produced as many historical works as the Armenians: their historiography dates back at least to the fifth century A.D. While most medieval Armenian historians have concerned themselves with contemporary history and the immediate past, there have been some who have attempted to trace Armenian history from the earliest times. It is to two of these, Pseudo-Sebeos and Pseudo-Moses of Khoren, that we owe the survival of the body of historical memories now generally referred to as the Primary History of Armenia.This Primary History has come to us in two redactions, a long and a short. The shorter version is attributed to the earliest known Armenian historian, Agathangelos (fourth century A.D.?) and is presented in the opening section of a seventh-century work ascribed-probably wrongly-to a certain bishop named Sebeos. The longer version, much expanded and edited, is contained in Book One of the compilation of Armenian antiquities known as the History of Armenia by Pseudo-Moses of Khoren. While the date of this work has been much disputed, it appears now to be a product of the late eighth or early ninth century.According to Pseudo-Sebeos the short redaction of the Primary History was a work originally written by Agathangelos, secretary to Tiridates HI (298–330), the first Christian king of Armenia, and was based on information contained in a book written by a certain Marab the Philosopher from Mtsurn, a town in western Armenia. Pseudo-Moses, on the other hand, claims that the parallel material in his history (I. 9–32 and II. 1–9) is an extract by Marabas Katiba from a Greek translation of a Chaldean history of Armenia made by order of Alexander the Great.

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