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The Athenian Code of Laws, 410–399 B.C.1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

P. J. Rhodes
Affiliation:
University of Durham

Extract

Discussion of the problems must begin with the allegations made in Lysias' speech XXX) Against Nicomachus:

When he became writer-up (anagrapheus) of the laws (nomoi), who does not know how he defiled the city? His instructions were to write up the laws of Solon in four months, but he set himself up as a lawgiver (nomothetes) in the place of Solon, instead of four months he made his office last six years, and every day he was taking money to insert some laws and wipe out others. (3) We were brought to this point, that the laws were doled out to us by his hand, and opposing litigants in the courts would produce conflicting laws, each claiming to have received them from Nicomachus. When the archons tried to impose fines on him and to bring him to court, he refused to hand over the laws: the city was brought to the direst disaster before he could be removed from his office and made to submit to examination (euthynai) for what he had done. (4) And yet, gentlemen, after failing to pay the penalty for those offences, he has done the same thing with his present office. First, he has been writing up for four years, when he could have had done with it in thirty days.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1991

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References

2 The authorship of the speeches attributed to Lysias is immaterial here. I refer to the author as Lysias, and except when otherwise indicated my citations are of this speech.

3 στηλῶν Taylor, generally accepted: the manuscripts have εὔπλων or ὅπλων.

4 E.g. the titles of the articles by Dow, S., Hesp. xxx (1961) 5873CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fingarette, A., Hesp. xl (1971) 330–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The question is raised by Dow, , Hist, ix (1960) 271Google Scholar n.1; Ostwald, 418 n.24, wonders if Nicomachus sometimes acted alone.

5 The classic demonstration is by Dover, K. J., JHS lxxx (1960) 0177Google Scholar: it is not invalidated by Bloedow, E. F., Chiron xi (1981) 6572Google Scholar.

6 Sealey, 36, considers the possibility that Nicomachus bore the title nomothetes in the second term.

7 In Hist, ix (1960) Dow argued for 411/0–404/3 (p.271) but 403/2–400/399 (p.272). Ostwald, 407 n.249, argues for 411/0–405/4.

8 Ostwald, 406–10, cf. 379–80, 414–9. That interpretation of Thucydides is found in Shuckburgh, E. S., Lysiae orationes XVI (London5 1893) 336Google Scholar.

9 On syngrapheis see below, p.92.

10 See Rhodes, JHS xcii (1972) 115–27; also Andrewes, A. in Gomme, A. W.et al., A historical commentary on Thucydides, v (Oxford 1981) 323–8Google Scholar; against, de Ste Croix, G. E. M., Hist, v (1956) 123Google Scholar; Sealey, , Essays in Greek politics (New York 1967) 111–32Google Scholar, CSCA viii (1975) 271–95.

11 But on the four months see Harrison, A. R. W., JHS lxxv (1955) 30Google Scholar; Ostwald, locc. citt. (n.8); Sealey, 45–6; and on the thirty days see Ostwald 122, 520 n.83.

12 Many have inferred, presumably from Lys. §3 and I believe mistakenly, that Nicomachus did submit to and pass his euthynai for the first term, either in 404 (e.g. MacDowell, Law 46) or in 403 (e.g. Ostwald, 511). Ostwald 122 suggests that he was excused annual euthynai.

13 See Rhodes, Comm. 436–7.

14 The title of the speech in the manuscripts includes the words εὐθυνῶν κατηγορία, but little reliance can be placed on these titles.

15 In fact Ionian spellings occur before 403/2 and Athenian spellings survive after, but officially Athens adopted the Ionian alphabet on the restoration of the democracy in that year (Theop. FGrH 115 F 155. cf. F 154). The difference between the texts on the two faces is clear, and it is widely accepted that the texts in the Athenian alphabet were inscribed before 403/2.

16 See Schreiner, J. C. S., De corpore iuris Atheniensium (diss. Bonn 1931Google Scholar). Most strikingly, And. i Myst. 95–6 writes in the year 400 of a decree of 410 as a ‘law of Solon’ (K. Clinton, Hesp. Supp. xix [1982] 29 n. 10, suggests that it was ‘Solonian’ because included in the revised Solonian code of 403/2; Ostwald, 415, suggests that the attribution would not have given offence because the decree perpetuated the ‘traditional constitution’ of Solon).

17 E.g. MacDowell, Law 47 (of the second term: for the first term he writes of ‘the laws of Solon and Drakon’ in inverted commas, without giving an explicit interpretation of the phrase).

18 The argument is spelled out by Ostwald, 513 n.60, 519.

19 Clinton, , Hesp. Supp. xix (1982) 2737Google Scholar; Oliver, , Hesp. iv (1935) 532CrossRefGoogle Scholar at p.7.

20 MacDowell, Andokides 197; Law 47.

21 On this point cf. Ostwald 519–20 n.82.

22 Robertson, 52–60. H. A. Thompson tells me that the floor of South Stoa I is well preserved and has no trace of beddings for stelai.

23 Subsequent discussion has not undermined my belief in what I wrote in Comm. 131–5.

24 Contrast, e.g., Stroud, R. S., Drakon's law on homicide (Berkeley 1968) 3440Google Scholar; Gagarin, M., Drakon and early Athenian homicide law (New Haven 1981) 65100Google Scholar.

25 Contrast Dow, , Hist, ix (1960) 273Google Scholar n.2; MacDowell, Andokides 197–8, Law 47–8; Clinton, , Hesp. Supp. xix (1982) 34Google Scholar.

26 ‘From the kyrbeis’ is not among the rubrics preserved in the epigraphic fragments, but ‘from those of the phylobasileis’ (ἐκ τῶν φυλοβασιλικῶν) occurs in IG ii2 1357, a, 6–7; Hesp. iv (1935) 5–32 no. 2, 33–4, 45–6; Hesp. x (1941) 31–7 no. 2, 44–5; and Robertson rightly argues that these are likely to be ancient sacrifices prescribed in Solon's laws.

27 Cf. below, p.97 with n.45.

28 Ostwald 415–8.

29 Rhodes, , The Athenian boule (Oxford 1972) 267Google Scholar table E. The anagrapheis of Ath. Pol. 30–32. I were given work that was otherwise done by syngrapheis: Ath. Pol. uses only the verb (anagraphein); we cannot be sure whether that is the term that was used in 411.

30 ATL D9 = IG i3 99; SEG x 123 = IG i3 135; also the decree ap. And. i Myst. 96–8 (τάδε Δημόφαντος συνέγραψεν).

31 Robertson, 46–9, 52–6. §2 accuses Nicomachus of inserting (engraphein) and wiping out (exaleiphein) laws, and Robertson, 55, stresses that these words were used especially of altering temporary records. However, they would be appropriate also for altering texts found in the archives rather than on stelai, and in any case an extended use was possible. In Lys. i Caed. Etat. 48 exaleiphein is used of deleting currently valid laws to enact new ones; Lys. vi And. 8 offers Athens the alternatives of wiping out the laws and getting rid of Andocides; And. i Myst. 76 uses exaleiphein of destroying decrees and any copies that may exist (cf. §103, but decree ap. 79 refers rather to records which are unlikely to have been inscribed on stone). Engraphein is not used elsewhere in the speeches attributed to Andocides or Lysias.

32 Robertson 55.

33 Other texts which refer to revision or enactment of laws by the Thirty are Xen. Mem. i 2.31; Dem. xxiv Tim. 90; Dio Chr. xxi 3; schol. Aesch. i Tim. 33. We have epigraphic evidence for their destroying a number of honorific decrees: e.g. IG ii2 6 = Tod 98.

34 Hesp. iv (1935) 8–9. For fragments of the Ionian texts see IG ii3 1357; Hesp. iii (1934) 46 no. 34; iv (1935) 5–32 no. 2; x (1941) 31–7 no. 2.

35 Hist. v (1956) 123–8.

36 Hesp. xxx (1961) 58–73.

37 Hesp. xl (1971) 370–5.

38 Hesp. Supp. xix (1982) 32, 35.

39 Robertson 65–75.

40 For one of the rubrics, in Hesp. iv (1935) 5–32 no. 2, 77, where Oliver restored ‘from the symbolai’ (ἐκ τῶν σ[υμβολῶν]) and Dow, (Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc. lxxi [19531957] 16Google Scholar, 18–20) ‘from the stelai’ (ἐκ τῶν στη[λῶν]), Robertson 68–70, prefers ‘from the syngraphai’ (ἐκ τῶν σ[υγγραφῶν]), comparing Lys. §§17, 21. C. Habicht and I have examined the squeeze and photographs at the Institute for Advanced Study: to the right of the sigma the surface of the stone has been lost, and there is no trace which can reliably be recognised as part of a letter. On the restoration see below, p.95.

41 But I grant Robertson that Lysias directly states only that in the second term the sources to be used were specified (§4) and that it was after 403/2 that the state was unable to afford all the anagrapheis' sacrifices (§§19–22).

42 MacDowell, Andokides 194–9; Ostwald 515. Contrast Harrison, , JHS lxxv (1955) 33Google Scholar; Clinton, , Hesp. Supp. xix (1982) 31–2Google Scholar; who believe that revision was contemplated as well as supplementation.

43 Cf. MacDowell, Andokides 125–6; Sealey agrees that the laws enacted prior to 403/2 were not to be valid unless included in the finally revised code (37), and goes on to claim that no kind of unwritten law was to be enforceable against offenders (38–9). However, Clinton, , Hesp. Supp. xix (1982) 35–6Google Scholar, supposes that this law ought in full to have read, ‘The authorities shall not use an unwritten law if there is a written (i.e. γεγραμμένος = formally enacted, not ἀνεγρεγραμμένος = written up as part of the code) law on the same matter’: this depends on his view that what was assembled was not a complete code of currently valid laws, and is rejected by Ostwald 165.

44 Cf. MacDowell, Andokides 128.

45 For the principle (that laws should be permanent and of general application, decrees should be ephemeral and/or of particular application) see, e.g., Dem. xx Lept. 90–2, xxii Andr. 49, xxiii Arist. 86–7, 218; xxiv Tim. 29–30; Arist. EN v 1137b11–34; [Plat.] Def 415b8–11. For the application of the principle see Hansen, M. H., GRBS xx (1979) 2753Google Scholar = The Athenian Ecclesia (Copenhagen 1983) 179–206. Unlike Hansen, I suspect that what was embedded in the code of laws was not the theoretical distinction but a rule that what was in the code could only be changed or added to by a law; but unlike Robertson 60–2 I believe that what underlies the new procedure of enactment by nomothetai is the doctrine that laws should be different from decrees.

46 Cf. Osborne, M. J., BSA lxvii (1972) 131Google Scholar with n.6; Naturalization in Athens ii (Brussels 1982) 56–7, 59.

47 CQ 2 xxxv (1985) 59; paper cited in n.1, 15. But Hansen thinks that we have instances of a law for a named individual when decrees award to an individual honours which will involve the assembly in additional expenditure, and therefore call on the nomothetai to provide for this expenditure by increasing the annual allocation of funds to the assembly: GRBS xx (1979) 39–43 = The Athenian Ecclesia 191–5; C&M xxxii (1971–80) 98–9; GRBS XXvi (1985) 36O-2 (citing IG ii2 222. 41–6; 330. 15–23; vii 4254 = SIG 3 298. 35–41).

48 Cf. Sealey 35.

49 These nomothetai of the council perform a function similar to that of syngrapheis earlier: perhaps because of the part which they played in ushering in the oligarchic régimes, syngrapheis and syngraphai in that sense seem to have been avoided after the downfall of the Thirty (cf. Harrison, , JHS lxxv [1955] 33Google Scholar)—apart from the syngraphai which Lysias accuses Nicomachus of departing from in his second term.

50 I think this is what was meant by Harrison, , JHS lxxv (1955) 32Google Scholar with n.49; MacDowell, Andokides 123, quotes him without further comment.

51 For a recent discussion of the problem see Ostwald 517–9. In the present volume, 210, Sealey argues that the fragment attributed to Lysias comes in fact from a speech written in the period beginning about 340.

52 I accepted this normal assumption in the paper cited in n.1, 12.

53 Ap. Rhodes, Comm. 134–5 cf. 441–2; Ostwald 519–20.

54 Robertson 46–52. On the location of the statues of the tribal heroes see Rhodes, Comm. 105, 259: the case for the site in the south-west of the Agora, though not conclusive, is strong. However, what I said in Comm. 103–4 about the location of the prytaneum has been rendered obsolete by an inscription published by G. S. Dontas, Hesp. lii (1983) 48–63 (cf. SEG xxxiii 115), whose text and find-spot make it clear that the cave of Aglaurus was not after all on the north side of the Acropolis but at the east end.

55 Ap. Rhodes, Comm. 134, and IG i3, respectively.

56 Robertson 49–50.

57 Rhodes, , CQ2 xxxv (1985) 5560CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For other recent views see MacDowell, , JHS xcv (1975) 6274CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hansen, , C&M xxxii (1971) 104Google Scholar, GRBS xxvi (1985) 345–71.