I. Literary Tradition and Early Greek Code-Makers

F. E. Adcock

doi:10.1017/S1474691300001736

I. Literary Tradition and Early Greek Code-Makers

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2011

F. E. Adcock

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F. E. Adcock: Affiliation:
King's College

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The literary tradition about the makers of early written codes in Greece presents so many contradictions and inconsistencies that it is natural to take refuge in complete scepticism. But if the tradition is analysed, it appears that there are two strata, the first reasonably consistent, matter-of-fact and credible, the second progressively vitiated by influences which can be isolated and explained. The division between the two strata lies about the year 300 B.C. and the primary tradition is not necessarily less credible because of the existence of the secondary tradition, which proves not that the primary tradition was false, but that truth itself could not prevail against the pseudo-history which set in after Aristotle. The primary tradition about the personalities of the early makers of codes cannot be lightly rejected; the content of their codes, as far as it is given in the primary tradition, is not inconsistent with the general character of early Greek lawgiving as it can be reconstructed from other evidence.

Type: Research Article
Information: Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , 1927 , pp. 95 - 109

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474691300001736 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1927

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^{page 96 note 1} See Kohler and Ziebarth, Das Stadtrecht von Gortyn, pp. 5 sqq.; R. M. E. Meister, “Eideshelfer im griechischen Rechte,” Rhein. Mus. LXIII (1908), p. 364.

^{page 96 note 2} See also Polybius, XII. 16.

^{page 96 note 3} 1.2, p. 1252b, 13; II. 12, p. 1274 a, 22; vi. (iv.) 13, p. 1297 a,13; 11. 8, p. 1269 a, 1.

^{page 96 note 4} 4, 7, 9, 11, 14, I5, 25, 30, 40 (F.H.G. 11. 208–24).

^{page 96 note 5} Beloch, Griechische Gesckichte, i.² 1. 350; I.² 2. 256 sqq.

^{page 96 note 6} Cp. Plato, Laws, p. 708 c-D.

^{page 97 note 1} Aristotle, fr. 548. Rose (Schol. ad Pind. 01. xi. 17; cp. Clem. Alex. Strom. 1.352) says that Zaleucus received his laws from Athena in a dream. This does not suggest that he was thought of as a god any more than Hyperides’ client in the Euxenippus.

^{page 97 note 2} Die Makedonen, pp. 174*35.; cp. Kühner-Blass, Griech. Gramm.³ 1. I, p. 641.

^{page 97 note 3} At Athens there was at least one Zaleucus Archon c. 150 B.C. (B.C.H. X. 33 n.) and perhaps another in the first century. Kirchner, Pros. Att. I. 403.

^{page 98 note 1} See Aristotle, Rhetoric, III. 17.

^{page 98 note 2} I.G. VII. 537 (fifth century), 585 (fourth or third century).

^{page 98 note 3} Ibid. 3175 (third century).

^{page 98 note 4} Ibid. 3379, 3408.

^{page 98 note 5} I.G. XII. 9, 245; a by-form Chaeriondes is also found Ibid. no. 241; also Charonides, I.G. II.722. The name Charon has probably the same meaning as χαροπóς and Charops or Charopos is a good Attic name. Charops appears e.g. on an early red-figured vase, and one Charopides was an Athenian official in 424/3 B.C., I.G.², I. 324,1. 27, while another fell in Thrace in 440/39 B.C., Ibid. 943,1. 78. Holm, Gesch. Siciliens, 1. 154, pointed out that Charondas is a Boeotian form, and it would be strange if Chalcidian colonists called this alleged god by a Boeotian name. But besides Charondas and Chaeriondes found at Eretria, we find in Demosthenes, XLIX. 26, a Megarian metoec at Athens with the name Philondas.

^{page 98 note 6} The name Draco as a man's name is quoted in Pauly-Wissowa, s.v., of eight people, the earliest from the beginning of the fourth century.

^{page 99 note 1} Riv. di storia antica, II. (1896), fasc. I.

^{page 99 note 2} Studi italiani di filogia clasnca, xi. (1903), 433 sq.

^{page 99 note 3} Aristophanes, Ach. 774; Theocritus, XII. 27 cum schol.

^{page 99 note 4} Aristotle, Polit. II. 12, p. 1274 a.

^{page 100 note 1} Lysias, Or. xxx.

^{page 100 note 2} τῶν μέσων Politics, VI. (IV.) II, p. 1296 a, 19.

^{page 100 note 3} Ephorus ap. Strab. vi. 260.

^{page 101 note 1} It seems more likely that Aristotle is here referring to the famous code of Zaleucus than to the institutions of the Locrians of Old Greece.

^{page 101 note 2} So Hirzel, Themis, Dike und Verwandtes, p. 357 n. I.

^{page 101 note 3} See Heracleides, F.H.G. II. 221.

^{page 102 note 1} A like deduction may be drawn from the generalization that Charondas, in point of exactness, was subtler γλαφυρώτερος than modern lawgivers (Polit. II. 12, p. 1274 b).

^{page 103 note 1} See on this passage and the corresponding passages in Stobaeus, Bentley's Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris, 1777 ed., pp. 247 sqq.

^{page 103 note 2} E.g. Theognis, 31, κακοῖσι δὲ μὴ προσομίλει

^{page 104 note 1} On these preambles see the valuable discussion of A. Delatte, Essai sur la politique Pythagoricienne, Bibl. de la Fac. de Phil, et Lettres de l'Univ. de Liège, Fasc. xxix. pp. 177 sqq. I find it difficult, however, to accept his view of the crucial passage, Plato, Laws, iv. 722 E, cited below.

^{page 104 note 2} One historical parallel may be quoted from Heyne's Opuscula, II. 33 n. An edict of Henry IV of France in 1601 is recorded as forbidding the use of gold and silver on dress to all men and women, “excepté pourtant aux filles de joye et aux filoux en qui nous ne prenons pas assez d'intéreêt pour leur faire l'honneur de donner notre attention à leur conduite.” The parallel is made closer by the fact that in the most official version of the edict the words do not occur.

^{page 105 note 1} See Busolt, Griech. Gesch. III. I, 534 n., and above, p. 100.

^{page 105 note 2} Ap. Diog. Laert. VIII. 50. The claims of Protagoras are accepted by E. Meyer (Gesch. d. Alt. IV. § 398) and Menzel (Sitzungsberichte der Sächs. Ges. d. Wiss. LXII. (1910), 201 sqq.) and are most probably well founded.

^{page 105 note 3} It is possible (so Delatte, op. cit. p. 177 n. 1) that these passages are derived from Aristoxenus in the fourth century, but not, I think, provable.

^{page 106 note 1} Fahrbücher für Klass. Philol. cxxxix. (1889), 308 n. 6.

^{page 106 note 2} Compare the rule cited as of Charondas in Stobaeus that the laws should be sung after hymns at feasts. For the practice of singing laws or possibly moral maxims associated with lawgivers see also Strabo, XII. 529 (of Mazaca in Cappadocia), Ephorus ap. Strabo, x. 482, and Aelian, Varia Hist. II. 39 (of Crete).

^{page 107 note 1} The evidence for this is collected by A. C. Schlesinger in Class. Philol.xix. (1924), pp. 369–72.

^{page 107 note 2} Cp. the fictitious preamble attributed to Zaleucus, p. 104, above.

^{page 107 note 3} See Nietzsche, “De Laertii Diogenis Fontibus,” Rhein. Mus. XXIII. 163 sqq., xxiv. 181 sqq., xxv. 181 sqq.; and F. E. Adcock, Class. Rev. XXVIII. 38 sqq.

^{page 108 note 1} See Wilamowitz, Aristoteles und Athen, I. 265, and Blass, , Archiv für Papyrusforschung, III. (1906), 497–9.Google Scholar

^{page 109 note 1} See Pauly-Wissowa, s.v., and Voss, de Heraclidis Pontici vita et scriptis, Diss. Rostock, 1896.

^{page 109 note 2} The mention of Periander in the second fragment does not necessarily imply, as the editors assume, that the tyranny of Periander and of Peisistratus are made to coincide in time. The supposed date of the dialogue proper may be earlier than that of the introduction (cp. Plato's Theaetetus). Peisistratus in the dialogue proper may be only a boy, hence the dramatic justification of the passage about the establishment of the Cypselids which would be well known to Peisistratus the tyrant of Athens.

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