NOMOS
NOMOS (νόμος). The definition of νόμος in [Dem.] c. Aristog. i. p. 774.16--a definition which has passed into the Digests, 1. 2, de legibus--contains all the points which must be touched upon in discussing law and legislation amongst the Greeks: πᾶς ἐστὶ νόμος εὕρημα μὲν καὶ δῶρον θεῶν, δόγμα δ᾽ἀνθρώπων φρονίμων, ἐπανόρθωμα δὲ τῶν ἑκουσίων καὶ ἀκουσίων ἁμαρτημάτων, πόλεως δὲ συνθήκη κοινή, καθ᾽ ἣν πᾶσι προσήκει ζῆν τοῖς ἐν τῇ πόλει. In the heroic ages the king's authority, which the family derived from the favour of Zeus (τιμὴ δ᾽ἐκ Διός ἐστι, Il. 2.197) and which passed by descent, as a general rule, to the eldest son, was not absolute, but limited ἐπὶ ῥητοῖς γέρασι (Thuc. 1.13: cf. Dion. Halic. A. R. 5.74). As Aristotle says (Pol. 3.10 [14 B.] 1), “he commands the army, administers justice” (chiefly, though not exclusively), “and conducts the rites of religion.” The king received from Zeus the sceptre, the symbol of the judicial authority, and with it the θέμιστες (Il. 2.206; 9.98 f.), which belong properly to Zeus (Od. 16.403): so that “when he decided a dispute by a sentence the judgment was assumed to be the result of direct inspiration;” when he called in the assistance of the γέροντες, “they sat on polished stones in the holy circle and held in their hands the heralds' sceptres; with these they rose up and gave sentence in turn” (Il. 18.504 if., δικασπόλοι, οἵτε θέμιστας πρὸς Διὸς εἰρύαται, Il. 1.238 f.), and he himself occupied probably the same position among them which is ascribed to Minos when judging the dead (Od. 11.568 ff.). [REX] The same idea which caused these judgments of the king to be attributed to divine inspiration shows itself here and there at a later period in the claim of a divine origin for entire systems of laws. “Do you believe, as Homer says,” asks the Athenian of the Cretan Cleinias, “that Minos went every ninth year to converse with Zeus and made laws for your cities in accordance with his sacred words?” “Yes, that is our tradition” (Plat. Legg. i. init.). According to the tradition of the Spartans preserved by Herodotus (1.69), Lycurgus introduced the laws of Crete into Sparta: “Some, however,” he adds, “said that the Pythia gave him the constitution which still exists in Sparta;” and the latter belief gained general acceptance (Xen. [p. 2.238]de Rep. Lac. 8, πυθόχρηστοι νόμοι), so that Lycurgus came to be looked upon as φύσις τις ἀνθρωπίνη μεμιγμένη θείᾳ τινὶ δυνάμει (Plat. Legg. iii. p. 691 E). Zaleucus, too, is made to say that Athene had appeared to him in a dream and.given him laws (Plut. de se ips. laud. p. 534 A: cf. Arist. Λοκρῶν πολιτ. fr. 230). The great fundamental conceptions of morality, common alike to all mankind, the ἄγραφοι νόμοι, were also believed to have come from the gods (Soph. Oed. R. 864ff.; Eurip. Antiop. fr. 219; Xen. Memor. 4.4, 19); and being derived and having their sanction from heaven, they were considered superior to the enactments of human societies (Soph. Antig. 454ff.; Eur. Supp. 19, 526, 537; Thuc. 4.97, etc.). This is the κοινὸς νόμοσ--ὅσα ἄγραφα παρὰ πᾶσιν ὁμολογεῖσθαι δικεῖ--as opposed to the ἴδιος νόμος, καθ᾽ ὃν γεγραμμένον πολιτεύονται, which applies only to the citizens of each individual state (Arist. Rhet. 1.10, 3). The ἴδιος νόμος did not protect the foreigner (ἀτίμητος μεταναστής, Il. 9.648); there never was at Athens a state law τοὺς ξένους μὴ ἀδικεῖσθαι, as Petit supposes (Legg. Attic. viii. tit. iv. p. 678), but there, as everywhere, ξένοι were looked upon as protected by Ζεὺς Ξένιος (οὔ μοι θέμις ἐστ᾽ . . . ξεῖνον ἀτιμῆσια, Od. 14.56, 9.270; Plat. Legg. v. p. 729 E, etc.; κατὰ τὸν κοινὸν ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων νόμον ὃς κεῖται τὸν φεύγοντα δέσεσθαι, Dem. c. Aristocr. p. 648.85). When aliens became residents (μέτοικοι) in Athens, they were admitted to the protection of the law under certain conditions, but were never placed on the same footing as the Athenians, and the special jurisdiction over them was entrusted to the polemarch. (As to the κόσμος ξένιος in Gortyn, see Bull. de Corr. Hellén. xi. p. 243.) [METOECI.]The θέμιστες of the king were not laws, but single, isolated judgments. Zeus, as Grote says, or the human king on earth, was not a lawmaker, but a judge (the word νόμος does not occur in Homer); but, owing to parities of circumstances in the simple conditions of ancient society, awards were likely to follow and resemble each other in the succession of similar cases. Thus a beginning was made of customary law which was fully developed in the era of aristocracies following upon the period of kingly rule. The regal power, though limited, was liable to be abused, and Hesiod complains bitterly of the crooked and corrupt judgments of which the kings were habitually guilty. The nobles, who had originally served as council to the king, superseded him (except in Sparta, where however his power was greatly reduced), and alternated the functions of administration among themselves; and at Athens, as we are told (Paus. 4.5, 10, ἀντὶ βασιλείας μετέστησαν ἐς ἀρχὴν ὑπεύθυνον: cf. Hdt. 3.80), the archons were made responsible (to the Eupatrids, Schömann, Jahrb. f. kl. Philol. 1872, p. 105 ff.). These aristocracies did not claim direct inspiration for every sentence, as the kings had done, but they claimed that they alone possessed the knowledge of the law: this, then, is the epoch of Customary Law, of the unwritten law known exclusively to one class. The Spartans never went beyond this stage. Their νόμιμα were held to be as old as their race: “The descendants of Pamphylus and of the Heracleidae who dwell under the brow of Taygetus wish always to retain the τεθμοὶ of Aegimius,” i. e. the son of Dorus and their mythical ancestor (Pind. P. 6.64 f.); and Hellanicus, the most ancient writer on the constitution of Sparta, makes no mention of Lycurgus (for which he is censured by Ephorus, Strab. viii. p.366), and attributes what are called the institutions of Lycurgus to the first kings, Procles and Eurysthenes. When Herodotus (1.65） describes the Spartans before the time of Lycurgus as being κακονομώτατοι, he can only mean that these τεθμοὶ of Aegimius had been overthrown, and that Lycurgus restored them. Lycurgus' laws were not written (the Spartans were forbidden by a rhetra to have written laws); Lycurgus connected the problem of legislation chiefly with education (Plut. Lye. 13, τὸ γὰρ ὅλον καὶ πᾶν τῆς νομοθεσίας ἔργον εἰς τὴν παιδείαν ἀνῆψε). Hence we find that the γέροντες in Sparta could punish with death and exile (Arist, Pol. 6.7 [4.9b B.], 5; τὰς φονικὰς δικάζουσιν, 3.1, 7) without being responsible (2.6 [9 B.], 17) or being bound by a written code. The kings decided.disputes about heiresses, and all adoptions were made in their presence (Herod. vi, 57); the ephors decided civil suits (τὰς τῶν συμβολαίων δίκας, Arist. Pol. 2.7 [10 B.], 6), and for these Lycurgus did “not prescribe any positive rule or inviolable usage, willing that.their manner and form should be altered according to the circumstances of time, and determination of men of sound judgment” (Plut. Lye. 13).--In Crete the position of the γέροντες (called there βουλή, Arist. Pol. 2.7 [10 B.], 3) was exactly the same as in Sparta: they were not bound in their sentences by a written code; but private law was reduced to writing. In 1884 near Gortyn an inscription was discovered (on part of an inside wall of what was probably the δικαστήριον), in twelve columns, written βουστροφηδόν, dating from between 450 to 350 (cf. Svoronos in Bull. de Corr. Hellén. xii. p. 404 if. against Comparetti's earlier date), containing an elaborate code of private laws, in which reference is made several times to previous written laws, partly still in force, partly amended by this code, e. g. 12.16 f., ᾇ ἔγραπτο πρὸ τῶνδε τῶν γραμμάτων. [COSMI; add to the literature there given Merriam, Amer. Journ. of Archaeol. 1.4 and 2.1.] This brings us to a new epoch: to the era of Codes. The aristocracies seem to have abused their monopoly of legal knowledge, and at all events their exclusive possession of the law was a formidable impediment to the success of the popular movements beginning to be universal. Laws written on tablets and published to the people took the place of usages deposited with the recollection of a privileged class. The first written code, we are told, was that of Zaleucus (Strab. vi. p.259); it is specially mentioned of him, that whilst it had. hitherto been left to the discretion of the judge to settle the punishment for every offence, he fixed the penalty by law (Strab. vi. p.260), and also gave simple regulations for private suits (Diod. 11.21, 3: cf. Plb. 12.16). In B.C. 621 the archon Draco (Paus. 9.36, 8) was appointed to draw up a written code of laws for Athens (Arist. Pol. ii.. 9 [12 B.], 9); these are usually called θεσμοί, and by that name distinguished from the νόμοι of Solon, e. g. Andoc. de Myst. § § 81, 83; yet Solon uses the term θεσμὸς of his amnesty law on the 13th ἄξων [p. 2.239]（Plut. Sol. 19, 3; cf. Dem. c. Leoch. p. 1094.46); and [Dem.] c. Euerg. et Mnes. p. 1161.71, speaks of Draco's νόμοι. We know very little about Draco's laws with the exception of those on homicide, which Solon retained (Plut. Sol. 17), and which were always considered excellent (Antiph. de caed. Herod. § 14). They were probably no more than such ancient ordinances reduced to writing as the ephetae had been accustomed to enforce ever since the community had, step by step, put an end to the blood-feud. and reduced the pursuit of the murderer and the atonement for murder to legal forms, making the νόμος instead of the prosecutor κύριος of the murderer (Dem. c. Aristocr. p. 642.69, φόνος ἑκούσιος; p. 643.71, φόνος ἀκούσιος, etc.). The extreme severity of Draco's punishments, on which Aristotle remarks, was not due to any cruel disposition on his part, but to the spirit of the age: moreover their severity has been somewhat exaggerated (Pollux, 9.61; 8.42). At all events the people gained little by the written code except a more perfect knowledge of its severity. In B.C. 5941 Solon was chosen archon and. διαλλακτὴς καὶ νομοθέτης (Plut. Sol. 14, cf., 16; Hdt. 1.29, Ἀθηναίοισι κελεύσασι νόμους ἐποίησε). Unfortunately so small are the fragments which have come down to us of Solon's laws (collected by Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. vi.5 p. 198 ff.), and so much has been ascribed to, him by the orators which belongs really to subsequent times, that it is scarcely possible to form a clear opinion respecting his legislation in all its details. Certain it is that it shows a remarkable progress in the Greek mind respecting legislation. No special divine inspiration was claimed for Solon's laws, nothing beyond that divine influence which the Greeks felt to underlie and support every social institution; they were looked upon as the laws of a just and practically wise man (οὐκ ἔφυγον ἕνα τὸν δικαιότατον καὶ φρονιμώτατον ἐπιστῆσαι τοῖς πράγμασιν, Plut. Sol. 14), who fitted his laws to the existing state of things rather than made things suit his laws (l.c. 22), and who, when asked whether he had given the Athenians the best laws, could truly answer, “The best of those which they would accept” (l.c. 15),--of a man who, believing in human progress, did not endeavour to secure fixity or finality for his laws (τοὺς νόμους ἔφη μετακινητοὺς εἶναι, Plut. Sept. Sap. Conviv. p. 152 a, as contrasted with Lycurgus' theory in Plut. Lyc. 29, ἀκίνητον ἐς τὸ μέλλον), but only exacted from the Athenians an oath that they would not rescind any of them for ten years (Hdt. 1.29; for a century, Plut. Sol. 25), and devised wise regulations for the revision of the code. For, knowing on the one hand that laws consecrated by long usage are more readily obeyed (cf. on this point Arist. Pol. 2.5 [8 B.], 14), and foreseeing on the other that the best legislation would in course of time require adaptation to existing circumstances, he so contrived matters that whilst his laws were subject to constant revision, all attempts at hasty legislation were checked. [NOMOTHETES] Any law thenceforward added to the code was in fact “a contract of the state according to which it befits all who belong to it to live:” of. Arist. Rhet. 1.15, 21, καὶ ὅλως αὐτὸς ὁ νόμος συνθήκη τις ἐστίν; Anaxim. Ars Rhet. ed. Spengel, p. 2, 2, p. 13, 12 f.; and the same principle in Plato, Legg. i. p. 644 D, ἐπὶ δὲ πᾶσι τούτοις λογισμὸς ὅ τί ποτ᾽ αὐτῶν ἄμεινον ἢ χεῖρον: ὃς γενόμενος δόγμα πόλεως κοινὸν νόμος ἐπωνόμασται. For any law which was ἐπιτήδεοις (Dem. c. Tim. p. 722.68; c. Lept. p. 482.83 f.) the proposer could reckon upon ready acceptance; for it was the outcomne of practical needs which required only to be duly stated within the prescribed forms. To satisfy a practical need (ἐκ γὰρ τοῦ πράττεσθαί τινα ὧν οὺ προσῆκεν, ἐκ τούτου τοὺς νόμους ἔθηκαν οἱ παλαιοί, Aeschin. c. Tim. § 13; ὁ μὲν γὰρ νόμος πέφυκε προλέγειν ἃ μὴ δεῖ πράττειν, Lyc. c. Leocr. § 4), not to build up a system of laws which provided for every conceivable case, was the aim of Greek legislation (Theophr. π. νόμων, fr. 1 and 2, in Journ. of Philol. vi. p. 1: “jura constitui oportet, ut ait Th.,” in his “quae ἐπὶ τὸ πλεῖστον accidunt, non quae ἐκ παραλόγου,” Digest. 1.3, 3; τὸ γὰρ ἅπαξ ἢ δίς, ut ait Th., παραβαίνουσιν οἱ νομοθέται, Digest. 1.3, 6).
Solon's laws were inscribed βουστροφηδὸν on square wooden tablets (ἄξονες) on a pivot (Aristotle in Aul. Gell. N. A. 2.12; Harpocr. s. v. ἄξονι, Plut. Sol. 25). Draco's laws on homicide, which Solon retained, were likewise inscribed on ἄξονες, but these were counted by themselves. This is evident from C. I. A. i. No. 61, where Draco's law περὶ φόνου is mentioned as being inscribed on the πρῶτος ἄξων (cf. Dem. c. Aristocr. p. 629.28, ἐν τῷ ά ἄξονι, Cobet, Var. Lect. p. 123), whilst the πρῶτος ἄξων of Solon's legislation contained quite different laws. From Plut. Sol. 24 we learn that it contained a law forbidding the exportation of any native produce except olive oil; and from Harpocr. s. v. σῖτος, that on it were inscribed regulations for the maintenance.of widows and orphans. This first ἄξων evidently contained the νόμοι τοῦ ἄρχοντος: for. the ἄρχων was bound, on pain of forfeiting 100 drachmas, to [p. 2.240]pronounce solemn curses upon any offender against the law regulating export, and to him was also entrusted the care of widows and orphans (Att. Process, ed. Lipsius, p. 57). From this it would appear that Solon's laws were arranged according to the magistrates who had to administer them--an arrangement which seems to have been the usual one at Athens (Att. Process, ed. Lipsius, p. 206 f.: νόμος τοῦ βασιλέως, Athen. 6.235 c; Pollux, 3.39; νόμοι βουλευτικοί, lex in Dem. c. Tim. p. 706.20, etc.; the νόμοι ἐπικλήρων, τελωνικοί, ἐμπορικοί, etc., were subdivisions, e. g. the νόμοι ἐπικλήρων of the νόμοι τοῦ ἄρχοντος, etc.). According to the scholiast on Plat. Polit. p. 298 D, Solon divided his laws into νόμοι περὶ τῶν ἱερῶν, νόμοι πολιτικοί, and νόμοι περὶ τῶν ἰδιωτικῶν, and the third class was placed on the ἄξονες, the other two on the κύρβεις (cf. Sol. 25); but earlier writers knew of no such difference between ἄξονες and κύρβεις (cf. Eratosthenes in Schol. on Aristoph. Cl. 447). According to others, the ἄξονες were wooden tablets, whilst the κύρβεις were stone pillars (Apollodorus in Harpocr. s. v.); but from the passage from Cratinus quoted by Plut. Sol. 25 it is clear that the κύρβεις were of wood. In all probability, as Aristotle suggests, ἄξονες and κύρβεις were synonymous terms [AXONES]. Solon's laws were preserved first in the Acropolis, subsequently brought by Ephialtes εἰς τὸ βουλευτήριον καὶ τὴν ἀγοράν (Anaximenes in Harpocr. s. v. ὁ κάτωθεν νόμος), and ultimately to the prytaneum, where Polemon, c. 200 B.C., saw them yet (Harpocr. s. v. ἄξονι), and where some remnants (λείψανα μικρά) existed even in the days of Plutarch (Plut. Sol. 25); some sixty years later Pausanias said inaccurately ἐν ᾧ (sc. Prytaneum) νόμοι τε οἱ Σόλωνός εἰσι γεγραμμένοι, etc. (1.18, 3). According to Aristotle, copies of the laws were placed in the στοὰ βασιλεία (Harpocr. s. v. κύρβεις). Whether Aristotle refers to the legislation of B.C. 409 and 403, or to an earlier measure (perhaps to Ephialtes, l.c., τοὺς κύρβεις εἰς . . τὴν ἀγοράν, etc.), it is perfectly clear that for practical use such copies of all the laws on στῆλαι were in the court of the basileus in the market-place: cf. C. I. A. i. No. 61, ἀναγραψάντων οἱ ἀναγραφεῖς τῶν νόμων . . . ἐν στήλῃ λιθίνῃ καὶ καταθέντων πρόσθεν τῆς στοᾶς τῆς βασιλείας, and the psephisma in Andoc. de Myst. § 84, τοὺς δὲ κυρουμένους τῶν νόμων ἀναγράφειν εἰς τὸν τοῖχον, i. e. εἰς τὴν στοάν l.c. § § 85, 82). There were besides, in the offices of the different magistrates, copies of those laws which they had to administer: thus Andocides speaks of a law which he considered Solonian as ἐν τῇ στήλῃ ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ βουλευτηρίου (de Myst. § 95 f.: cf. the νόμοι βουλευτικοὶ in Dem. c. Tim. p. 706.20); the laws on homicide were engraven on a στήλη in the Areiopagus (Dem. c. Aristocr. p. 627.22; Lys. de caed. Erat. § 30; [Lys.] c. Andoc. § 15; [Dem.] c. Euerg. et Mnes. p. 1161.71).2
Within a year after the deposition of the Four Hundred the complete democracy was restored, and a revision of the laws ensued: commissioners (συγγραφεῖς, C. I. A. i. No. 58: Demophantus was one of them, τάδε Δ. συνέγραψεν, Andoc. de Myst. § 96) were appointed with ἀναγραφεῖς (C. L. A. i. No. 61; cf. Lys. c. Nicom. § 2) under them to copy the laws within four months after the revision (R. Schöll, de extraord. quibusd. magistr. Athen. in Comment. Philol. in hon. Th. Mommseni, p. 458 if.), and from C. I. A. i. No. 57 and No. 61 it is evident that the law on the competency of the senate and the popular assembly, and Draco's law respecting homicide, were copied afresh. This revision was interrupted by the unfavourable turn which the war took, and was not resumed until the archonship of Eucleides, B.C. 403. Then it was proposed χρῆσθαι τοῖς Σόλωνος νόμοις καὶ τοῖς Δράκοντος θεσμοῖς (Andoc. de Myst. § 82; cf. Xen. Memor. 2.2, 42, τοῖς νόμοις τοῖς ἀρχαίοις) in the meantime; the senate selected ten νομοθέται (ὁπόσων δ᾽ἂν προσδέῃ, οἱ δέκα [Sluiter, lect. Andoc. p. 134, οἵ δε MSS.] ᾑρημένοι νομοθέται ὑπὸ τῆς βουλῆς), who had to write on tablets all proposals for new laws, post them up for public inspection before the statues of the Eponymous Heroes, and hand them over within a month ταῖς ἀρχαῖς, i. e. to the different magistrates interested, all the laws to be examined first by the senate and then by the 500 nomothetae (after having taken the oath), elected by the δημόται and during the discussion before the senators every private citizen was to have liberty to enter the senate and tender his opinion. All the laws thus approved were written out in the Ionian alphabet (Suid. s. v. Σαμίων ὁ δῆμος At the same time it was enacted that no magistrate should act upon any law not among those inscribed; that no psephisma either of the senate or of the people should overrule any law; that no law should be passed ἐπ᾽ ἀνδρὶ unless by the votes of the majority in an assembly at which at least 6000 Athenians were present and voted (secret voting by ballot), e. g. in case of naturalisation of a foreigner; and that in future the code as revised in the archonship of Eucleides should be used (Andoc. l.c. § 87; cf. Dem. c. Tim. p. 713.42, lex).-After the Lamian war the democratic constitution was overthrown by Antipater; Demetrius of Phaleron, the third νομοθέτης of Athens (Syncellus, Chron. 273), established again a professedly democratic government (οὐ μόνον οὐ κατέλυσε τὴν δημοκρατίαν κρατίαν ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπηνώρθωσε, Strab. ix. p.398), but Plutarch's (Demetr. 10) description of it as in fact a μοναρχικὴ κατάστασις seems more accurate; three years after his death, in B.C. 304-3, a new ἀναγραφὴ of the laws took place (C. I. A. ii. No. 258).
The magistrates and dicasts were bound by solemn oaths to administer the laws, executive and judicial: the nine archons swore συμφυλάξειν τοὺς νόμους (Pollux, 8.86; cf. Plut. Sol. 25), the senators βουλεύσειν κατὰ τοὺς νόμους (Xen. Memor. 1.1, 18), the dicasts κατὰ τοὺς νόμους δικάδειν . . . καὶ περὶ ὧν ἂν νόμοι μὴ ὦσι, γνώμῃ τῇ δικαιοτάτῃ κρινεῖν (Dem. c. Lept. p. 492.118, etc.). In the decree of Tisamenus the senate of Areiopagus were enjoined to see ὅπως ἂν αἱ ἀρχαὶ τοίς κειμένοις νόμοις χρῶνται (Andoc. de Myst. § 84; cf. Plut. Sol. 19). As the dicasts performed the functions both of [p. 2.241]judge and jury, i. e. were entrusted with the whole judicial power after the cause was brought into court (they decided upon the law as well as upon the facts without being directed or controlled by a presiding judge), it is evident that the important question how the laws of Athens worked depends on the discretion which in practice they exercised in the interpretation of the written law, or, where there was no written statute, in applying the general principles of law and justice to the case before them. This is only to be discovered by a careful perusal of the Attic orators, and is too wide a question to be discussed here. The materials for a trial were prepared by the parties themselves under the superintendence of the magistrate, and the dicasts had to decide upon the materials thus prepared. Of the five ἄτεχνοι πίστεις which Aristotle mentions (Rhet. 1.15, νόμοι, μάρτυρες, συνθῆκαι, βάσανοι, ὅρκος) we are here concerned only with the first; the parties procured copies or extracts of such laws as were material to the questions to be tried, and brought them before the ἡγεμὼν δικαστηρίου at the ἀνάκρισις, by whom they were put into the box (ἐχῖνος), together with the other evidentiary documents, and produced at the trial to be read to the dicasts by the γραμματεύς. To produce a fictitious law is said to have been an offence punishable with death ([Dem.] c. Aristog. ii. p. 807.24). It was easy for the parties to procure copies, since every citizen had access to the public places where the laws were open to inspection, and to the Metroon which served as state archives (νομοφυλάκιον, Suid. s. v. μητραγύρτης; from the fourth century, according to Wilamowitz-Möllendorf, Philol. Unters. i. p. 205 f.) for all kinds of documents: laws (Lycurgus in Harpocr. s.v. Lyc. c. Leocr. § 66, etc.), decrees (the originals, Athen. 5.214 e; Dinarch. c. Dem. § 86), etc., and was in charge of a public servant (δημόσιος, Dem. de fals. Leg. p. 380.129). (C. Curtius, de Metroon in Ath. als Staatsarchiv.) There was at Athens no class of persons corresponding to our counsel or attorneys, whose business or profession it was to expound the laws. The office of the ἐξηγηταὶ related only to religious observances. The laws were not complicated; at all events it was considered a requirement of a good law that it should be drawn simply and intelligibly (Dem. c. Tim. p. 722.68), and nothing seems more directly opposed to Solon's aims than the charge brought against him by Plutarch (Plut. Sol. 18), that he wrapped his laws in studied obscurity. Every Athenian on coming of age swore to obey the laws (τοῖς θεσμοῖς τοῖς ἱδρυμένοις πείσομαι καὶ οὕστινας ἂν ἄλλους τὸ πλῆθος ἱδρύσηται ὁμοφρόνως, Stob. Flor. 43.48; cf. Pollux, 8.105 f.), and Pericles pointed to the fear of the laws as the source of every civic virtue (Thuc. 2.37). But, to use Burke's words (Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 459), “The vice of the ancient democracies, and one cause of their ruin, was, that they ruled . . . by occasional decrees, psephismata. This practice soon broke in upon the tenour and consistency of the laws; it abated the respect of the people towards them, and totally destroyed them in the end.” (Hermann, Ueber Gesetz, Gesetzgebung, etc. im griech. Alterth.; Maine, Anc. Law, ch. 1; Leist, Graeco--ital. Rectsgesch.) [H.H]
(Appendix). For Draco's constitutional changes cf. note on CIVITAS
Solon's law περὶ τῶν τυράννων is quoted 100.16. The text is evidently corrupt. Perhaps the law was ἐάν τις ἐπὶ τυραννίδι ἐπανιστῆται ἢ συγκαθίστῃ τῆν τυραννίδα ἄτιμον εἶναι αὐτὸν καὶ γένος. In Andoc. Myst. § 97 a law is quoted (professedly Solonian) in which the same phrases occur--κτενῶν . . . . καὶ ἐάν τις τυραννεῖν ἐπαναστῇ ἢ τὸν τύραννον συγκαταστήσῃ. Dobree inserts ἐπὶ τῷ before τυραννεῖν: probably in the Ἀθην. πολ. τυραννεῖν was written above ἐπὶ τυραννίδι, and a copyist inserted the phrase lower down in the text. The story (Plut. Sol. 18) about want of clearness in Solon's laws occurs in 100.9.
Cc. 29 to 32 give at great length the constitutional schemes of the Four Hundred, quoting apparently from original documents.
Of the Thirty it is said (100.35): τὸ μὲν οὖν πρῶτον . . . . προσεποιοῦντο διοικεῖν τὴν πάτριον πο[λιτ]είαν (the restoration of the “ancient constitution” was included in the terms of peace) καὶ τοὺς περὶ τῶν Ἀρεοπαγιτῶν καθεῖλον ἐξ Ἀρείου [πάγου] καὶ τῶν Σόλωνος θεσμῶν ὅσοι διαμφισβητ[ήσ]εις εἶχον, e. g. in Solon's law regarding testamentary dispositions they abolished the provisions ἐὰν μὴ μανιῶν ἢ γηρῶν ἢ γυναικὶ πιθόμενος (Dem. c. Steph, ii. p. 1133.14 lex). Cf. Schol. Aeschin. c. Tim. § 39, ἐλυμήναντο τοὺς Δράκοντος καὶ Σόλωνος νόμους.
Of the restoration of the democracy after the fall of the Thirty little is said in 100.39: ρὰς δὲ δίκας τοῦ φόνου εἶναι κατὰ τὰ πάτρια, κ.τ.λ. (the text is unfortunately corrupt), an amnesty was granted with certain exceptions, and in 100.40 an instance is given of the zeal with which Archinus prosecuted a breach of this amnesty (ἐπεί τις ἤρξατο τῶν κατεληλυθότων μνησικακεῖν, ἀπαγαγὼν τοῦτον ἐπὶ τὴν βουλὴν καὶ πείσας ἄκριτον ἀποκτεῖναι, etc.: cf. Isocr. c. Callim. § 3).