THE DOCUMENTS IN ANDOCIDES' <i>ON THE MYSTERIES</i>

Canevaro, Mirko; Harris, Edward M.

doi:10.1017/s0009838811000413

Cited by 32 publications

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“… 8 Though right to criticise the arguments of Shear (2007) and Wilson (2009), which both claim that Demophantus’ decree preserved in the text of Andocides 1 ( On the Mysteries ) and the inscribed decree honouring the killers of Phrynichus belong to a resurgent democratic culture which anathematised tyranny, Mitchell (2019) 453 n. 40 argues nevertheless from an erroneous set of assumptions. As Canevaro and Harris (2012) 119–25 have now shown, the Demophantus decree, like the other documents quoted in the MSS of Andoc. 1, is a forgery and cannot be relied on to assess Athenian attitudes in the wake of the first democratic resurgence.…”

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confidence: 67%

A Positive Doctrine of Tyranny? The Rule of Law Vs. The Rule of a Tyrant in Archaic and Classical Greece

Joyce

2022

Antichthon

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The origins and definition of tyranny in ancient Greece have been debated in scholarship for well over three quarters of a century. Recently, it has been argued that tyranny as a political idea was not anathematised until late and that in the fifth century BCE and before, tyranny comported no negative judgment. While correct to point out that the distinction between ‘king’ and ‘tyrant’ in literature predating Aristotle was not clearly delineated, scholars have often failed to ask the more fundamental question of why that distinction was essential for Aristotle. This essay argues that Aristotle drew upon a much older intellectual tradition which saw tyranny as hateful and contrary to the rule of law. Though tyrants in many cases ruled lawfully, a distinction must be drawn between ‘lawful’ rule, which some but not all tyrants practised, and the rule of law, which anathematised tyranny.

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confidence: 67%

A Positive Doctrine of Tyranny? The Rule of Law Vs. The Rule of a Tyrant in Archaic and Classical Greece

Joyce

2022

Antichthon

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“…Hansen reads these procedures as examples of judicial review of legislation. The revision of the 'code' of laws at the end of the fifth-century has been surveyed in many articles, and no consensus has been reached (due, probably, to the use of unreliable documents as key evidence, see Canevaro-Harris 2012). Some recent works on these topics are Joyce 2008, Shear 2011 and Carawan 2013.…”

Section: Discussion Of the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…xiv For the sources, and the technicalities of this procedure, see Canevaro-Harris 2012, 110-16. xv The documents inserted in the section are however forgeries and one needs to rely on the orator's paraphrase. For a discussion of the documents and of Andocides' narrative see Canevaro-Harris 2012. xvi This distinction has been studied and tested in Hansen 1983, 161-205. xvii See Canevaro-Harris 2012, 117-19 andCanevaro 2013a, 145-150. xviii On the law of Diocles see Canevaro 2013a, 121-7.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

legislation (nomothesia)

Canevaro¹

2016

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics

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From the earliest stages, the Greeks understood the distinction between legislation and day-to-day administration. They gave laws a special status and often created specific, separate procedures to enact them. In the Archaic period, specially appointed lawgivers were normally in charge of giving laws to the polis; these laws were intended to be immutable, and their stability secured through entrenchment clauses. Making laws was not considered to be among the normal tasks of the government of the polis, and there were no standard procedures to change the laws once these had been given. Assemblies in Greek city-states often enacted rules that had the force of law, but the legislative changes were not institutionally acknowledged, and the laws enacted by the lawgivers could not be changed. This gave rise to significant problems of legitimacy, and it introduced inconsistencies in the legal system of the polis, a problem that we can observe in 5th-century bce Athens. At the end of the 5th century, the Athenians introduced judicial review to vet new legislation and avoid the introduction of inconsistencies, performed a revision of the laws of the city, and finally institutionalised a distinction between nomoi (“laws,” general permanent norms) and psephismata (“decrees,” ad hoc enactments). They also created a complex new procedure, involving a board of nomothetai, to allow the demos to make new laws and change the existing ones. Similar yet not identical procedures are attested also outside Athens: Hellenistic kings often ordered the appointment of nomothetai or nomographoi to enact rules about political institutions, and nomographoi or nomothetic lawcourts are attested in various cities, with the task of “upgrading” decrees of the demos into laws, and entering them among the laws of the city.

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