Oral And Written Pleading In Athenian Courts

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The experience of Athens has shown that law may be administered satisfactorily without a professional class either of judges or of lawyers. Magistrates chosen by lot were constantly required to exercise important judicial functions for which they had no special training; nor were they able to gain a fund of knowledge by experience, as they held office for one year only. In all probability, the general efficiency of the magistrates was largely due to the practice which permitted them to choose their own assessors. This enabled a weak magistrate to secure the assistance of a competent man to aid him in his official duties. There is, however, no indication that these assessors were reappointed by succeeding magistrates, as is the case in the British system of government, where deputies may continue to hold office under different ministers of the crown. With the object of making each citizen take his full share in public life, and of preserving equality ( crorifita) in the citizen body, litigants, if citizens, were required to take their own cases in court. But this was an ideal beyond the possibility of achievement even in the Athens of Pericles. And so there arose a class of men whose business it was to write speeches for those who were unequal to the task of pleading their own cases. These Koyvfpajxu. did to a certain degree constitute a professional class, but they were not lawyers in our sense of the word. A knowledge of rhetoric was quite as important for their success as a knowledge of law. Moreover, the necessity of fitting the speech to the character of his client tended to keep the speech-writer in the background. Indeed, every artifice was resorted to in order to keep up the delusion that the litigant...

Kevin Robb chronicles ancient Greece's "literate revolution", recounting how the Phoenecian alphabet silently entered Greece and, in the improved Greek version, conquered its major cultural institutions. He examines the progress of literacy from its origins in the eighth century to the fourth century B.C.E., when the major institutions of Athenian democracy - most notably law and higher education - became totally dependent on alphabetic literacy. By introducing new evidence as well as re-evaluating the older evidence, Robb shows that early Greek literacy can be understood only in terms of the rich oral culture that immediately preceded it - one that was dominated by the oral performance of epic verse, or "Homer". Only gradually did literate practices supersede oral habits and the oral way of life, forging alliances which now seem both bizarre and fascinating, but which were eminently successful, contributing to the "miracle" of Greece. Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece provides a fascinating look at the first society to become culturally dependent on the alphabet. In it, Robb elucidates how, in the space of four hundred years, total orality gave way to an advancing literacy. In the process of his investigation, he brings new light to early Greek ethics, the rise of written law, the emergence of philosophy, and the final dominance of the Athenian philosophical schools in higher education.

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

This book traces continuity in the development of the Athenian constitution, whereas previous studies have usually looked for catastrophic changes. Sealey selects three features of Athenian law which are important for the structure of society and the location of authority: (1) the legal status, and to a lesser extent the socioeconomic condition, of the different kinds of inhabitants of Attica; (2) the distinction, recognized in the fourth century, between "laws" and "decrees," analyzing what the Athians understood by "law"; and (3) the development of the Athenian courts. At an early stage the Athenians conceived the ideal of the rule of law and adhered to it continuously. They did so by means of a static concept of law and maintenance of an independent judiciary. The book is designed to be of importance not only for specialists in classical studies but for general historians, political scientists, and those concerned with the history of law. The book is within the reach of an advanced undergraduate and graduate audience.

When Philip Sidney defends poetry by defending the methods used by poets and lawyers alike, he relies on the traditional association between fiction and legal procedure--an association that begins with Aristotle. In this study Kathy Eden offers a new understanding of this tradition, from its origins in Aristotle's Poetics and De Anima, through its development in the psychological and rhetorical theory of late antiquity and the Middle Ages, to its culmination in the literary theory of the Renaissance. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The author examines the references to religion in the speeches of Demosthenes and other Athenian orators in the 4th century BC. He demonstrates the role religion plays in the rhetorical strategy of speeches in political trials and deals with speeches in private trials, in which religious references are far scarcer.

Euripides’ Ion is a highly complex and elusive play and thus poses considerable difficulties to any interpreter. On the basis of a new recension of the text, this commentary offers explanations of the language, literary technique, and realia of the play and discusses the main issues of interpretation. In this way the reader is provided with the material required for an appreciation of this entertaining as well as provocative dramatic composition.