Legal Space in Classical Athens

Abstract

Like many features of democratic Athens, the legal system is both strikingly familiar and disturbingly alien to the modern reader. The principle of trial by a jury of laymen is one which, though intermittently criticized, remains the basis of the decision-making process in modern Britain. At the same time, the size of the jury panels, their powers, the reliance on volunteer prosecutors, the use of an exchange of speeches as the method of presentation, these and other features diverge significantly from accepted practice in our own courts. My concern in this paper is with one striking divergence, the way in which the relationship between the legal system and society at large is conceptualized, and with the problems it raises. In modern developed societies the law and the lawcourts are fenced around with procedural, psychological, and in some cases constitutional barriers. The law itself is a self-contained system, distinct from other coercive forces, and perceived as separate from the political life of the community. Procedures and participants in the courts are given a degree of protection from constraints which apply elsewhere, in order to ensure that all relevant information is disclosed and that a verdict is given on the facts of the case, taken as far as possible in isolation from the rest of the lives of the participants and the community. All these barriers are absent in the context of classical Athens. In practice and in conception the law and its administration are in some important respects indistinguishable from the life of the community in general.

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