5 - Litigation as feud

Summary

Nothing makes a state so strong and stable as organizing it in such a way that the agitation of the hatreds which excite it has a means of expressing itself provided for by the laws.

Chapter 4 discussed the role which enmity, revenge, envy, and honor played in the appeals which Athenian litigants made to the values of the mass courts of untrained citizen-judges. It suggested that while the chain reaction of homicidal violence which characterizes blood feud does not appear to be an organizing principle of conflict in classical Athens, the social values associated with enmity and honor bear significant similarities to those of feuding societies. Most of the scholarly literature on feud has focussed on blood feud, but anthropologists have acknowledged that the social dynamic of feud may operate through other forms of insulting or injurious behavior. Further, historical studies of feuding societies have shown that as centralized judicial and political institutions become powerful enough to limit homicidal retaliation for wrongs significantly, rather than suppressing the impetus to feud these institutions themselves become a new arena where such conflicts are played out.

In examining the social context of Athenian litigation, this chapter suggests that much litigation should be viewed as a form of feuding behavior, and that it was acknowledged as such by Athenian judges and litigants.