INTRODUCTION

Justice was a major topic of debate at Athens during the period that extends from Aeschylus' Eumenides (456 B.C.), with its celebration of the inauguration of the court of the Areopagus, down to the trial and death of Socrates (399 B.C.), memorialized in Plato's Apology. Historians, dramatists, orators, and philosophers provide a range of perspectives and evidence on one of the crucial issues of the age. In the earliest Greek literature human justice had been very closely linked to divine justice and power, but in the fifth century, the time of tribunals and popular assemblies, what chiefly attracts attention is justice purely in the human sphere. Questions are raised about its origin, its connection with nature and truth, its performance, the conditions that can guarantee its development, and the forces that generate its opposite - coercive power, violence, and injustice.

In order to acquire a general idea of the terms in which these issues were explored at the end of the fifth century, it is enough to read the speeches Plato puts into the mouths of Glaucon and Adeimantus at the beginning of book two of his Republic. These speeches provide the best introduction to our theme because they exemplify the cultural background against which Plato develops his great project in this dialogue. Before turning to details, a few words are necessary on some of the questions that emerge in the preceding book.