Preface

Summary

This book aims to provide an account, for a broad audience, of litigation and the legal regulation of violence in Athenian society, and of their relation to democratic ideology and conceptualizations of the rule of law. While most studies of the Athenian legal process rely primarily upon analysis of statutes and institutional structures and of how they developed, I attempt to reconstruct the framework of social, ideological, and discursive practices of which the law was an integral part. In this sense the project attempts to blend the methods and insights of social history, anthropology, and historical legal sociology in portraying the role of litigation in an agonistic democratic society. This study thus departs from the conventional framework of much research in Athenian law and institutions, but I see little point in rehearsing yet again, with slight variations, well known facts with all too familiar methods.

Along the way I have profited greatly from the criticisms and advice of many friends and colleagues. Central ideas for the book were tried out at two faculty Work-in-Progress seminars at the University of Chicago School of Law, where I received helpful comments from numerous colleagues. I owe special thanks to the continuing support of Professors Dieter Simon and Dieter Nörr in providing me with access to the incomparable facilities of the Max Planck Institut für Rechtsgeschichte in Frankfurt and the Leopold Wenger Institut für antike Rechtsgeschichte in Munich, as well as for giving me the benefit of their criticisms of the project as it evolved.