In the ancient Greek polis, the function of state was not so complicated as that of the modern state, the administrative and judicial power distributed to various categories of social group such as villages, families, clans and tribes. In ancient society generally, the division of criminal and civil laws, as well as that of public crime and private wrong (tort), was not so definite, and the sovereignty defining and realizing laws was not standardized but multiple. The centrifugal propensity and multifarious phases of ancient society caused the customary or unwritten laws to have a greater gravity than the written or statute laws. To say that Dracon’s Law was the first written law in the ancient Greek society does not mean that the society was based on the written laws themselves. Solon’s Law, which was said to have discarded all the articles of Dracon’s Law except the clause relating to involuntary murder, was looked upon as an ancestral, and all the laws, being established in later periods for about 250 years, were assumed to be his. Sonlon’s Law referred not only to any specific items, but to some principles of legitimacy which made a room for public opinion and the customary or unwritten laws to operate. Here, we could say that, the real gist is not whether the law is customary, unwritten or written law, but who has the sovereignty to define and materialize laws in reality. Not to speak of a public or a private, prosecution was set up by private initiation, and the sentence as well as execution of laws was is in most part carried out by the public. The judicial institution, in which the public took the initiative, shows up that the structure of polis was not bureaucratic and that the judicial power was not an exclusive possession of some kind of limited politicians.

In the ancient Greek polis, the function of state was not so complicated as that of the modern state, the administrative and judicial power distributed to various categories of social group such as villages, families, clans and tribes. In ancient society generally, the division of criminal and civil laws, as well as that of public crime and private wrong (tort), was not so definite, and the sovereignty defining and realizing laws was not standardized but multiple. The centrifugal propensity and multifarious phases of ancient society caused the customary or unwritten laws to have a greater gravity than the written or statute laws. To say that Dracon’s Law was the first written law in the ancient Greek society does not mean that the society was based on the written laws themselves. Solon’s Law, which was said to have discarded all the articles of Dracon’s Law except the clause relating to involuntary murder, was looked upon as an ancestral, and all the laws, being established in later periods for about 250 years, were assumed to be his. Sonlon’s Law referred not only to any specific items, but to some principles of legitimacy which made a room for public opinion and the customary or unwritten laws to operate. Here, we could say that, the real gist is not whether the law is customary, unwritten or written law, but who has the sovereignty to define and materialize laws in reality. Not to speak of a public or a private, prosecution was set up by private initiation, and the sentence as well as execution of laws was is in most part carried out by the public. The judicial institution, in which the public took the initiative, shows up that the structure of polis was not bureaucratic and that the judicial power was not an exclusive possession of some kind of limited politicians.

ancient Athens, sources of Law, written law, unwritten law (customary law), Solon’s Law