Having investigated crime and punishment at Olympia and Delphi, one might consider the larger Greek legislative framework defining such crime and punishment. Athens provides a clear and comprehensive example of law development, so it is perhaps most informative to examine the Athenian polis in such an investigation. The noted Epic poet Homer implies that, in Mycenaean Greece (1700-1100 B.C.), individuals settled disputes by fighting for their own possessions and claims, or by appealling to a third party functioning as a judge. This party was usually the king, but occasionally could have been the community's leading men, or even an assembled group of ordinary people. Thus, three governing bodies functioned as early decision-makers: a monarchy, an aristocracy, and a democracy (MacDowell, 23). While historians disagree over the exact date of their institution, archons soon assumed various functions from the kings. Specifically, archons handled property, family, and miscellaneous disputes, while the kings retained jurisdiction over religious conflicts and homicide cases. Eventually, the Athenians created the office of thesmosthetes to ease the judicial burdens placed upon the archons and kings (Demand, 141). By the seventh century, B.C., the so-called Areopagus Council also held a dominant judiciating position, trying and punishing people for serious crimes like tyranny (Macdowell, 26-8).

In the Archaic Period (750-500 B.C.), oral laws insufficiently addressed both the new conditions needing legislation, and the populace's demands for consistent and accessible laws. In 621 B.C., Drakon transcribed oral laws onto axones, or wooden blocks. Most of the crimes described by Drakon warranted the same punishment: death. No record of the content of Drakon's laws remains, with the exception of those laws governing homicide; scholars believe these homicide laws to have been maintained by the next notable figure in Athenian jurisprudence, Solon. By 594 B.C., it was evident that the published laws still did not satisfy public discontent, discord that centered around the populace's lack of both voice and protection under traditional legislation. Solon was thus commissioned to assuage public dissatisfaction, ultimately restricting aristocratic control and freeing the Athenian impoverished from debt-slavery. Some of the most fundamental statutes that Solon established were the right for all male citizens to bring charges against wrongdoers on the behalf of themselves or other crime victims, as well as the right for an appeal to the assembly if the magistrates' verdict was considered unjust (Martin, 6.26).

In fact, by the end of the fifth century B.C., magistrates for the most part ceased rendering verdicts, instead deciding only whether or not a case was serious enough to be granted a court trial. As law courts were continuously awarded more power, the need for them increased, leading to the proliferation of democratic juries (MacDowell, 32-3). While democratic processes developed, Athenians distinguished between nomos, or laws traditionally recognized by society, and psephisma, decrees passed by the assembly's vote (Macdowell, 45). In part, these democratic developments had been fuelled by Solon's reforms, inscribed in the Athenian town hall for all to see (Pausanius, 1.18.3). Many other poleis have similar stories of pivotal law-givers; in Sparta, this monumental figure was believed to be Lycurgus, and in Tegea, it was Antiphanes (Pausanius, 8.48.1).

(Women reading scrolls)
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