Zaleucus
(
Ζάλευκος). The celebrated lawgiver of the Epizephyrian
Locrians, is said by some to have been originally a slave, but is described by others as a man
of good family. He could not, however, have been a disciple of Pythagoras, as some writers
state, since he lived upwards of one hundred years before Pythagoras. The date of the
legislation of Zaleucus is assigned to B.C. 660. His code, which was severe, is stated to have
been the first collection of written laws that the Greeks possessed (Strabo, pp. 259, 398).
Among other enactments we are told that the penalty of adultery was the loss of the eyes
(
V. H. xiii. 24; Val. Max. v. 5, 3). There is a celebrated story of the son of
Zaleucus having become liable to this penalty, and the father himself suffering the loss of
one eye, that his son might not be utterly blinded. It is further related that among his laws
was one forbidding any citizen, under penalty of death, to enter the senate-house in arms. On
one occasion, however, on a sudden emergency in time of war, Zaleucus transgressed his own
law, which was remarked to him by one present; whereupon he fell upon his own sword, declaring
that he would himself vindicate the law (Eustath.
ad Il. p. 62). Other authors tell the same story of Charondas, and of Diocles (
Diod.xii. 19; Val. Max. vi. 5, 4).