Office Hours: Wed 10am - 12pm & 1-3 and by
appointment
Course Requirements
attendance policy
participation
exams
paper option
reading assignments; links to on-line readings
(Greek/English)
handouts -
syllabus
course requirements
required books
You are responsible for reading
the handouts and web page and knowing the information
contained therein.
Today
course overview
A Short History of Athens
Athenian law - sources and problems
I Course Overview
To develop a "practice" oriented understanding of Athenian law
to know what an Athenian would have known about the option
of going to court over a conflict in which he was
involved.
modern law school "case method"
To ask whether it is possible to develop an understanding of
Athenian law as a system (i.e., a theoretical or jurisprudential
understanding);
if yes what?
if not, why not and what does it say about Athens that the
answer is no?
To understand the role of Athenian law within Athenian culture
and society in the fourth century BCE.
political - relationship of Athenian litigation to Athenian
democracy
cultural - what social functions might litigation have
served (e.g. to contain or foster disputes?)
historical - the speeches discuss and hence offer evidence
on a number of areas of interest about Athenian public and
private life (e.g., family, slavery, foreign policy)
does the fact that this information arises in the
context of a forensic oration affect the way we, as
historians, regard it?