The Project Gutenberg eBook ofEncyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel"This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel"Author: VariousRelease date: December 3, 2011 [eBook #38202]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "GREEK LAW" TO "GROUND-SQUIRREL" ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel"Author: VariousRelease date: December 3, 2011 [eBook #38202]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel"
Author: Various
Author: Various
Release date: December 3, 2011 [eBook #38202]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "GREEK LAW" TO "GROUND-SQUIRREL" ***
Articles in This Slice
GREEK LAW.Ancient Greek law is a branch of comparative jurisprudence the importance of which has been long ignored. Jurists have commonly left its study to scholars, who have generally refrained from comparing the institutionsGreek law and comparative jurisprudence.of the Greeks with those of other nations. Greek law has, however, been partially compared with Roman law, and has been incidentally illustrated with the aid of the primitive institutions of the Germanic nations. It may now be studied in its earlier stages in the laws of Gortyn; its influence may be traced in legal documents preserved in Egyptian papyri; and it may be recognized as a consistent whole in its ultimate relations to Roman law in the eastern provinces of the Roman empire.
The existence of certain panhellenic principles of law is implied by the custom of settling a difference between two Greek states, or between members of a single state, by resorting to external arbitration. The general unity of Greek law is mainly to be seen in the laws of inheritance and adoption, in laws of commerce and contract, and in the publicity uniformly given to legal agreements.
No systematic collection of Greek laws has come down to us. Our knowledge of some of the earliest notions of the subject is derived from the Homeric poems. For the details of Attic law we have to depend onex partestatementsOriginal authorities.in the speeches of the Attic orators, and we are sometimes enabled to check those statements by the trustworthy, but often imperfect, aid of inscriptions. Incidental illustrations of the laws of Athens may be found in the Laws of Plato, who deals with the theory of the subject without exercising any influence on actual practice. The Laws of Plato are criticized in thePoliticsof Aristotle, who, besides discussing laws in their relation to constitutions, reviews the work of certain early Greek lawgivers. The treatise on theConstitution of Athensincludes an account of the jurisdiction of the various public officials and of the machinery of the law courts, and thus enables us to dispense with the second-hand testimony of grammarians and scholiasts who derived their information from that treatise (seeConstitution of Athens). The works of TheophrastusOn the Laws, which included a recapitulation of the laws of various barbaric as well as Grecian states, are now represented by only a few fragments (Nos. 97-106, ed. Wimmer).
Our earliest evidence is to be sought in the Homeric poems. In the primitive society of the heroic age (as noticed by Plato) written laws were necessarily unknown; for, “inLaw in Homer.that early period, they had no letters; they lived by habit and by the customs of their ancestors” (Laws, 680 A). We find a survival from a still more primitive time in the savage Cyclops, who is “unfamiliar with dooms of law, or rules of right” (οὔτε δικας εὖ εἰδότα οὔτε θέμιστας,Od.ix. 215 and 112 f.).
Dikē(δίκη), assigned by Curtius (Etym.134) to the same root asδείκνυμι, primarily means a “way pointed out,” a “course prescribed by usage,” hence “way” or “fashion,” “manner”Dikē.or “precedent.” In the Homeric poems it sometimes signifies a “doom” of law, a legal “right,” a “lawsuit”; while it is rarely synonymous with “justice,” as inOd.xiv. 84, where “the gods honour justice,”τίουσι δίκην.Various senses of “right” are expressed in the same poems bythemis(θἐμις), a term assigned (ib.254) to the same root asτίθημι. In its primary sensethemisis that which “has been laid down”; hence a particular decision or “doom.” TheThemis.pluralthemistesimplies a body of such precedents, “rules of right,” which the king receives from Zeus with his sceptre (Il.ix. 99).Themisanddikēhave sometimes been compared with the Romanfasandjusrespectively, the former being regarded as of divine, the latter of human origin; and this is more satisfactory than the latest view (that of Hirzel), which makes “counsel” the primary meaning ofthemis.Thesmos(θεσμός), an ordinance (from the same root as themis), is not found in “Homer,” except in the last line of theThesmos. Nomos.original form of theOdyssey(xxiii. 296), where it probably refers to the “ordinance” of wedlock. The common term for law,νόμος, is first found in Hesiod, but not in a specially legal sense (e.g.Op.276).
Dikē(δίκη), assigned by Curtius (Etym.134) to the same root asδείκνυμι, primarily means a “way pointed out,” a “course prescribed by usage,” hence “way” or “fashion,” “manner”Dikē.or “precedent.” In the Homeric poems it sometimes signifies a “doom” of law, a legal “right,” a “lawsuit”; while it is rarely synonymous with “justice,” as inOd.xiv. 84, where “the gods honour justice,”τίουσι δίκην.
Various senses of “right” are expressed in the same poems bythemis(θἐμις), a term assigned (ib.254) to the same root asτίθημι. In its primary sensethemisis that which “has been laid down”; hence a particular decision or “doom.” TheThemis.pluralthemistesimplies a body of such precedents, “rules of right,” which the king receives from Zeus with his sceptre (Il.ix. 99).Themisanddikēhave sometimes been compared with the Romanfasandjusrespectively, the former being regarded as of divine, the latter of human origin; and this is more satisfactory than the latest view (that of Hirzel), which makes “counsel” the primary meaning ofthemis.
Thesmos(θεσμός), an ordinance (from the same root as themis), is not found in “Homer,” except in the last line of theThesmos. Nomos.original form of theOdyssey(xxiii. 296), where it probably refers to the “ordinance” of wedlock. The common term for law,νόμος, is first found in Hesiod, but not in a specially legal sense (e.g.Op.276).
A trial for homicide is one of the scenes represented on the shield of Achilles (Il.xviii. 497-508). The folk are here to be seen thronging the market-place, where a strife has arisen between two men as to the price of a man thatThe trial scene.has been slain. The slayer vows that he has paid all (εὔχετο πάντ᾽ ἀποδοῦναι), the kinsman of the slain protests that he has received nothing (ἀναίνετο μηδὲν ἑλέσθαι); both are eager to join issue before an umpire, and both are favoured by their friends among the folk, who are kept back by the heralds. The cause is tried by the elders, who are seated on polished stones in a sacred circle, and in the midst there lie two talents of gold, “to give to him who, among them all, sets forth the cause most rightly” (τῷ δόμεν ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴποι).
The discussions of the above passage have chiefly turned on two points: (1) the legal questions at issue; and (2) the destination of the “two talents.” (1) In the ordinary view (a), it is solely a question whether the fine or blood-money, corresponding to theWergeld(seeWergeld,Teutonic Peoples,Britain:Anglo-Saxon) of the old Germanic law (Grimm,Rechtsalterthümer, 661 f.), has been paid or not. (This is accepted by Thonissen, Lipsius, Sidgwick and Ridgeway.) In the other view (b), it is held that the slayer “claimed to pay” the fine, and the kinsman of the slain “refused to accept any compensation” (so Passow and Leaf, approved by Pollock). (2) The “two talents” (shown by Ridgeway to be a small sum, equal invalue to two oxen) are awarded either (a) to the litigant who “pleads his cause most justly before them” (so Thonissen, Shilleto and Lipsius, in accordance with the Attic use of phrases likeδίκην εἰπεῖν), or (b) to the judge “who, among all the elders, gives the most righteous judgment” (so Maine, approved by Sidgwick, Pollock, Leaf and Ridgeway).On this controversy, cf. Maine’sAncient Law, chap. x. pp. 385 f., 405 f., ed. Pollock; Thonissen,Droit pénal(1875), 27; P. M. Laurence (on Shilleto’s view) inJournal of Philology, viii. (1879), 125 f.; Ridgeway,ib.x. (1882), 30 f., andJournal of Hellenic Studies, viii. (1887), 133 f.; and Leaf,ib.viii. 122 f., and in his Commentary onIliad, ii. (1902), 610-614; also J. H. Lipsius inLeipziger Studien, xii. (1890), 225-231, criticized by H. Sidgwick inClassical Review, viii. (1894), 1-4.
The discussions of the above passage have chiefly turned on two points: (1) the legal questions at issue; and (2) the destination of the “two talents.” (1) In the ordinary view (a), it is solely a question whether the fine or blood-money, corresponding to theWergeld(seeWergeld,Teutonic Peoples,Britain:Anglo-Saxon) of the old Germanic law (Grimm,Rechtsalterthümer, 661 f.), has been paid or not. (This is accepted by Thonissen, Lipsius, Sidgwick and Ridgeway.) In the other view (b), it is held that the slayer “claimed to pay” the fine, and the kinsman of the slain “refused to accept any compensation” (so Passow and Leaf, approved by Pollock). (2) The “two talents” (shown by Ridgeway to be a small sum, equal invalue to two oxen) are awarded either (a) to the litigant who “pleads his cause most justly before them” (so Thonissen, Shilleto and Lipsius, in accordance with the Attic use of phrases likeδίκην εἰπεῖν), or (b) to the judge “who, among all the elders, gives the most righteous judgment” (so Maine, approved by Sidgwick, Pollock, Leaf and Ridgeway).
On this controversy, cf. Maine’sAncient Law, chap. x. pp. 385 f., 405 f., ed. Pollock; Thonissen,Droit pénal(1875), 27; P. M. Laurence (on Shilleto’s view) inJournal of Philology, viii. (1879), 125 f.; Ridgeway,ib.x. (1882), 30 f., andJournal of Hellenic Studies, viii. (1887), 133 f.; and Leaf,ib.viii. 122 f., and in his Commentary onIliad, ii. (1902), 610-614; also J. H. Lipsius inLeipziger Studien, xii. (1890), 225-231, criticized by H. Sidgwick inClassical Review, viii. (1894), 1-4.
We are told elsewhere in Homer that sometimes a man accepted blood-money from the slayer of his brother or his son, and that the slayer remained in the land after paying this penalty (Il.ix. 633). As a rule the slayer found it safest to flee (Od.xxiii. 118 f.), but even so, he might be pursued by the friends of the slain (Od.xv. 272-278). If he remained, the land was not (as in later ages) deemed to be polluted by his presence. In Homer, Orestes does not slay Clytaemestra, and he needs no “purification” for slaying Aegisthus.
The laws of Sparta are ascribed to the legislation of Lycurgus, whose traditional date is 884B.C.Written laws are said to have been expressly forbidden by Lycurgus (Plutarch,Lycurgus, 13); hence the “laws of Sparta” are simplyGreek lawgivers: Lycurgus at Sparta.a body of traditional observances. We learn that all trials for homicide came before the Council of Elders and lasted for several days, and that all civil causes were tried by the ephors (q.v.). We are also told that originally the land was equally divided among the citizens of Sparta, and that this equality was enforced by law (Polybius vi. 45-46). Early in the 4th century the ephor Epitadeus, owing to a disagreement with his son, enacted that every Spartan should be allowed to transfer his estate and his allotment to any other person (Plutarch,Agis, 5), while Aristotle, in a much-debated passage of thePolitics(ii. 9. 14-15), criticizes the Spartan constitution for allowing the accumulation of property in a few hands, an evil aggravated by the large number of “heiresses”; “a man (he adds) may bestow his heiress on any one he pleases; and, if he dies intestate, this privilege descends to his heir.”
Law was first reduced to writing in the 7th centuryB.C.A written code is a necessary condition of just judgment, andEra of written laws.such a code was the first concession which the people in the Greek cities extorted from the ruling aristocracies. The change was generally effected with the aid of a single legislator entrusted with complete authority to draw up a code.
The first communities to reach this stage of progress were the Greek colonies in the West. The Epizephyrian Locrians, near the extreme south of Italy, received the earliest written code from Zaleucus (663B.C.), whose strictZaleucus at Locri Epizephyrii.Charondas at Catana, etc.and severe legislation put an end to a period of strife and confusion, though we know little of his laws, except that they attached definite penalties to each offence, and that they strictly protected the rights of property. Two centuries later, his code was adopted even by the Athenian colony of Thurii in south Italy (443B.C.). Charondas, the “disciple” of Zaleucus, became the lawgiver, not only of his native town of Catana on the east coast of Sicily, but also of other Chalcidian colonies in Sicily and Italy. The laws of Charondas were marked by aAndrodamas of Rhegium.Philolaus of Corinth.singular precision, but there was nothing (says Aristotle) that he could claim as his own except the special procedure against false witnesses (Politics, ii. 12. 11). In the case of judges who neglected to serve in the law courts, he inflicted a large fine on the rich and a small fine on the poor (ib.vi. (iv.) 13. 2). Androdamas of Rhegium gave laws on homicide and on heiresses to the Chalcidians of Thrace, while Philolaus of Corinth provided the Thebans with “laws of adoption” with a view to preventing any change in the number of the allotments of land (ib.ii. 12. 8-14).
Local legislation in Crete is represented by the laws of the important city of Gortyn, which lies to the south of Ida in a plain watered by the Lethaeus. Part of that stream forms a sluice for a water-mill, and at or near this millThe laws of Gortyn.some fragmentary inscriptions were found by French archaeologists in 1857 and 1879. The great inscription, to which most of our knowledge of the laws is due, was not discovered until 1884. It had been preserved on a wall 27 ft. long and 5 ft. high, the larger part of which was buried in the ground, while its farthest extremity passed obliquely athwart the bed of the mill-stream. It was necessary to divert the water before the last four columns could be transcribed by the Italian scholar, Federico Halbherr, whose work was completed in the same year by the excavation and transcription of the first eight columns by the German scholar, E. Fabricius. In the following year Halbherr discovered more than eighty small fragments on the neighbouring site of a former temple of the Pythian Apollo.
These fragments, which are far earlier than the great inscription above-mentioned, have been assigned to about 650B.C.They precede the introduction of coined money into Crete, the penalties being reckoned, not in coins, but in caldrons. They deal with the powers of the magistrates and the observances of religion, but are mainly concerned with private matters of barter and sale, dowry and adoption, inheritance and succession, fines for trespass and questions of blood-money. As in the code of Zaleucus, we have a fixed scale of penalties, including the fine of a single tripod, and ranging from one to a hundred caldrons.The great inscription is perhaps two centuries later (c.450B.C.). It consists of a number of amendments or additions to an earlier code, and it deals exclusively with private law, in which the family and family property occupy the largest part. The procedure is entirely oral; oaths and other oral testimony are alone admitted; there are no documentary proofs, and no record of the verdict except in the memory of the judge or of his “remembrancer.” All the causes are tried before a single judge, who varies according to the nature of the suit. Where the law specially enjoins it, he is bound to give judgment (δικάδδεν) in accordance with the law and the “witnesses or oaths,” but, in other cases, he is permitted to take oath and decide (κρίνειν) in view of “the contentions of the parties,” as distinguished from “the declarations of the witnesses.” Offences against the person are treated as matters of private compensation according to a carefully graduated tariff. In certain cases the defendant may clear himself by an “oath of purgation” with the support of “cojurors” (ὁμωμόται), theEideshelferof old Germanic law (Grimm 859 f.), who have no necessary knowledge of the facts. There is no interference with the exposure of infants, except in the interest of the father (if the child is free-born) or of the lord (in the case of serfs). The law of debt is primitive, though less severe than that of the early Romans. In contrast with these primitive elements we have others which are distinctly progressive. The estates of husband, wife and sons are regarded as absolutely distinct. Wills are unknown, even in their most restricted form. Elaborate provisions are made to secure with all speed the marriage of an “heiress”; she is bound to marry the eldest of her paternal uncles or to surrender part of her estate, and it is only if there are no paternal uncles that she is permitted to marry one (and that the eldest) of their sons. Adoption is made by the simple procedure of mounting a block of stone in the market-place and making a public announcement at a time when the citizens are assembled. The adopted son does not inherit any larger share than that of a daughter. Any one who desires to repudiate his adopted son makes a public announcement as before, and the person repudiated receives, by way of nominal compensation, the gift of a small number of staters. In these later “laws of Gortyn” we have reached the time when payments are made, not in “caldrons,” but in coins. In the inscription itself the laws are simply described as “these writings.”The text of the great inscription was first published by E. Fabricius inAth. Mitth.ix. (1885), 362-384; there is a cast of the whole in the Cambridge Museum of Classical Archaeology. Cf. Comparetti’sLeggi di Gortyna(1893); Bücheler and Zittelmann inRhein. Mus.xl. (1885); Dareste, Haussoullier and Th. Reinach,Inscr. juridiques grecques, iii. (1894), 352-493 (with the literature there quoted). Eng. trans. by Roby inLaw Quarterly Review(1886), 135-152; see also E. S. Roberts,Gk. Epigraphy, i. 39 f., 52 f., 325-332; J. W. Headlam inJournal of Hellenic Studies, xiii. (1892-1893), 48-69; P. Gardner and F. B. Jevons,Greek Antiquities(1895), 560-574; W. Wyse in Whibley’sCompanion to Greek Studies(1905), 378-383; and Hermann Lipsius,Zum Recht von Gortyns(Leipzig, 1909).
These fragments, which are far earlier than the great inscription above-mentioned, have been assigned to about 650B.C.They precede the introduction of coined money into Crete, the penalties being reckoned, not in coins, but in caldrons. They deal with the powers of the magistrates and the observances of religion, but are mainly concerned with private matters of barter and sale, dowry and adoption, inheritance and succession, fines for trespass and questions of blood-money. As in the code of Zaleucus, we have a fixed scale of penalties, including the fine of a single tripod, and ranging from one to a hundred caldrons.
The great inscription is perhaps two centuries later (c.450B.C.). It consists of a number of amendments or additions to an earlier code, and it deals exclusively with private law, in which the family and family property occupy the largest part. The procedure is entirely oral; oaths and other oral testimony are alone admitted; there are no documentary proofs, and no record of the verdict except in the memory of the judge or of his “remembrancer.” All the causes are tried before a single judge, who varies according to the nature of the suit. Where the law specially enjoins it, he is bound to give judgment (δικάδδεν) in accordance with the law and the “witnesses or oaths,” but, in other cases, he is permitted to take oath and decide (κρίνειν) in view of “the contentions of the parties,” as distinguished from “the declarations of the witnesses.” Offences against the person are treated as matters of private compensation according to a carefully graduated tariff. In certain cases the defendant may clear himself by an “oath of purgation” with the support of “cojurors” (ὁμωμόται), theEideshelferof old Germanic law (Grimm 859 f.), who have no necessary knowledge of the facts. There is no interference with the exposure of infants, except in the interest of the father (if the child is free-born) or of the lord (in the case of serfs). The law of debt is primitive, though less severe than that of the early Romans. In contrast with these primitive elements we have others which are distinctly progressive. The estates of husband, wife and sons are regarded as absolutely distinct. Wills are unknown, even in their most restricted form. Elaborate provisions are made to secure with all speed the marriage of an “heiress”; she is bound to marry the eldest of her paternal uncles or to surrender part of her estate, and it is only if there are no paternal uncles that she is permitted to marry one (and that the eldest) of their sons. Adoption is made by the simple procedure of mounting a block of stone in the market-place and making a public announcement at a time when the citizens are assembled. The adopted son does not inherit any larger share than that of a daughter. Any one who desires to repudiate his adopted son makes a public announcement as before, and the person repudiated receives, by way of nominal compensation, the gift of a small number of staters. In these later “laws of Gortyn” we have reached the time when payments are made, not in “caldrons,” but in coins. In the inscription itself the laws are simply described as “these writings.”
The text of the great inscription was first published by E. Fabricius inAth. Mitth.ix. (1885), 362-384; there is a cast of the whole in the Cambridge Museum of Classical Archaeology. Cf. Comparetti’sLeggi di Gortyna(1893); Bücheler and Zittelmann inRhein. Mus.xl. (1885); Dareste, Haussoullier and Th. Reinach,Inscr. juridiques grecques, iii. (1894), 352-493 (with the literature there quoted). Eng. trans. by Roby inLaw Quarterly Review(1886), 135-152; see also E. S. Roberts,Gk. Epigraphy, i. 39 f., 52 f., 325-332; J. W. Headlam inJournal of Hellenic Studies, xiii. (1892-1893), 48-69; P. Gardner and F. B. Jevons,Greek Antiquities(1895), 560-574; W. Wyse in Whibley’sCompanion to Greek Studies(1905), 378-383; and Hermann Lipsius,Zum Recht von Gortyns(Leipzig, 1909).
A Roman writer ascribes to the Athenians the very invention of lawsuits (Aelian,Var. Hist.iii. 38), and the Athenians themselves regarded their tribunals of homicide as institutions of immemorial antiquity (Isocr.Paneg.40).Athens.The three senior archons.On the abolition of the single decennial archon1in 683B.C., his duties were distributed over several officials holding office for one year only. The judicial duties thenceforth discharged by the chief archon (thearchon), in the case of citizens, were discharged by the polemarch in the case of foreign settlers or metics (μέτοικοι); while the king-archon, who succeeded to the religious functions of the ancient kings, decided cases connected with religious observances (seeArchon). He also presided over the primitive council of the state, which was identical with the council of the Areopagus. It was possibly with a view to the recognition of the rights of the lower classes that, about the middle of the 7th centuryB.C., the three archons were raised to the number of nine by the institutionThe thesmothetae.of the joint board of the sixthesmothetae, who superintended the judicial system in general, kept a record of all legal decisions, and drew attention to any defects in the laws. It is probable that in their title we have the earliest example in Attic Greek of the use ofthesmosin the sense of “law.”
The constitution was at this time thoroughly oligarchical. With a view, however, to providing a remedy for the conflict between the several orders of the state, the first code of Athenian law was drawn up and published by DracoDraco.(strictly Dracon), who is definitely described as athesmothetēs(621). His laws were known asthesmoi. The distinctive part of his legislation was the law of homicide, which was held in such high esteem that it was left unaltered in the legislation of Solon and in the democratic restoration of 411B.C.It is partly preserved in an inscription of 409, which has been restored with the aid of quotations from the orators (C.I.A.i. 61;Inscr. jurid. grecques, ii. 1. 1-24; and Hicks,Gk. Hist. Inscr.No. 59). It drew a careful distinction between different kinds of homicide. Of the rest of Draco’s legislation we only know that Aristotle (Politics, ii. 12, 13) was struck by the severity of the penalties, and that the creditor was permitted to seize the person of the debtor as security for his debt.
The conflict of the orders was not allayed until both parties agreed in choosing Solon as mediator and as archon (594B.C.). Solon cancelled all mortgages and debts secured on the person of the debtor, set free all who had becomeSolon.slaves for debt, and forbade such slavery for the future (seeSolon). Thenceforth every citizen had also “the right of appeal to the law-courts,” and the privilege of claiming legal satisfaction on behalf of any one who was wronged. Cases of constitutional law (inter alia) came before large law-courts numbering hundreds of jurors, and the power of voting in these law-courts made the people masters of the constitution (Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens, c. 9). Solon’s legislation also had an important effect on the law of property. In primitive times, on a man’s death, his money or lands remained in the family, and, even in the absence of direct descendants, the owner could not dispose of his property by will. Permission to execute a will was first given to Athenian citizens by the laws of Solon. But “the Athenian Will was only an inchoate Testament” (Maine’sAncient Law, c. vi.); for this permission was expressly limited to those citizens who had no direct male descendants (Dem.Lept.102; Plutarch,Solon, 21; cf. Wyse on Isaeus, p. 325).
The law of intestate succession is imperfectly preserved in [Dem.] 43, § 51 (cf. Wyse,ib.p. 562 f.). In the absence of direct male descendants, a daughter who survived her father was known as anἐπίκληρος, not an “heiress,” but a “person who went with the estate”; and, in the absence of a will, the right or duty of marrying the daughter followed (with certain obvious exceptions) the same rules as the right of succession to the estate (cf. Wyse,ib.p. 348 f.).
Among the reforms of Cleisthenes (508) was the law of ostracism (q.v.). The privileges of the Areopagus wereCleisthenes, Ephialtes.Pericles, Cleon.curtailed (while its right to try certain cases of homicide was left untouched) by the reforms of Ephialtes (462), and of Pericles, who also restored the thirty “local justices” (453), limited the franchise to those of citizen-blood by both parents (451), and was the first to assign to jurors a fee for their services in the law-courts, which was raised to three obols by Cleon (425).
In contrast to legislative reforms brought about by lawgivers entrusted with special authority, such as Draco, Solon andOrdinary course of legislation.Cleisthenes, there was the regular and normal course of public legislation. The legislative power was not exercised directly by the popular assembly (seeEcclesia), but the preliminary consent of that body was necessary for the appointment of a legislative commission.
In the 5th century (e.g.in 450 and 446B.C.) certain commissioners calledσυγγραφεῖςwere appointed to draw up laws which, after approval by the council, were submittedSyngrapheis. Nomothetae.to the assembly. The same term was still in use in March 411 (Thuc. viii. 61). But in October, on the overthrow of the Four Hundred, the commissioners are for the first time callednomothetae(ib.97).