law in Greece
law in GreeceModern work on this subject is conditioned by two important considerations. In the first place, it is Rome and not Greece which dominates European legal history: indeed, because the Greek world produced no jurists, its law is perhaps best studied not as a source of juridical principles but rather as a way of understanding how particular ancient societies perceived and regulated themselves. The second constraint is the distribution of our sources, which are rich but geographically and temporally very patchy.
Classical Athenian law (see law and procedure, Athenian) is well documented from the Attic orators (c.420–320 BC): over 100 lawcourt speeches survive, though we rarely hear the result or even the opponent's case, and our manuscripts do not usually preserve the texts of witnesses' statements or legal statutes. Further information, particularly about judicial procedure, can be gleaned from...
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