Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens

This book examines the legal regulation of violence and the role of litigation in Athenian society.

David Cohen (Author)

9780521388375, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 5 October 1995

228 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.32 kg

'Cohen's is one of those exciting and rare books that take a large piece of historical orthodoxy, explain the intellectual matrix from which the accepted belief derives and present a cogently argued alternative ... [it] is one of the most perceptive and original works in Greek history to have been published for several years.' The Times Literary Supplement

The theme of this book is the legal regulation of violence and the role of litigation in Athenian society. Using comparative anthropological and historical perspectives, David Cohen challenges traditional evolutionary and functionalist accounts of the development of legal process. Examining Athenian theories of social conflict and the rule of law, as well as actual litigation involving the regulation of violence, he emphasises the way in which the judicial process operates in an agonistic social field. This perspective illuminates the social dimensions of litigation and the legal regulation of violence, and helps to explain otherwise puzzling features of Athenian litigation.

Preface
Part I. The Realm of Theory: 1. Law and order
2. Theorising Athenian society: the problem of stability
3. Theorising Athenian society: the rule of law
Part II. The Realm of the Courts: 4. Rhetoric, litigation and the values of an agonistic society
5. Litigation as feud
6. Violence and litigation
7. Hubris and the legal regulation of sexual violence
8. Litigation and the family
Conclusion: litigation, democracy and the courts
Bibliographical essay
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG]