The antiquity of Ancient Greece is still prevalent in the modern legal system.
No judiciary court is complete without a statue of blindfolded Themis, the goddess of justice from
Greek Mythology. Ancient Greece could be stated as the perfect midpoint between barbaric justice
and a well-structured legal system. They had court hearings but they also had stoning, crucifixions,
and harsh punishments for petty crimes.
Welcome to Nutty History, today let’s find out what punishments were like in Ancient Greece.
The Greek civilization began pretty much soon after the collapse of the late bronze age that
marked the end of Minoans. In fact, although Crete became part of Greece later on, the two
civilizations have nothing in common except that Minoans were a heavy influence on Greek religion.
But that’s pretty much it. The first three hundred years of Ancient Greece Civilization are known as
the dark age of ancient Greece. From 1200 BC to 900 BC, Ancient Greeks had no official laws or
punishments and the principle of talion dominated the judiciary. The principle of talion in simpler
terms can be defined as an eye for an eye. For example, a man guilty of committing murder would
be offered to the family of the killed victim who in turn have the right to kill the murderer.
However, as you might’ve guessed already, this ruling created a loop of endless feuds
for generations among two families. Just like those mafias killing each other in movies over
an argument of who fired the first bullet. It was not until the middle of the seventh century
BC in the archaic age that the Greeks began to establish official laws. According to Aristotle,
six junior archons or magistrates who were called thesmothetai were appointed in Athens around
683 BC to document perhaps the first-ever laws. Yet, according to modern historians,
the credit for the first constitution and penal system in Greece goes to Draco. Not much is known
who he was or where he came from but the consensus is that he was a Greek nobility from Attica.
But even if Draco’s Code wasn’t the first reduction of Athenian Law into writing,
it was still likely the first comprehensive written code in the history of Greece.
Some might say comprehensive is an overstatement given how linear this penal code was
under Draco’s constitution. Instated during the 39th Olympiad,
Draco’s laws were as simple as they could be. Petty thievery? Off with your head. Killed
someone in cold blood? Off with your head. Living homeless? You guessed it!
It is said that Draco himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most
offenses, answered that he considered these lesser crimes deserving of it, and he had no greater
punishment for more important ones. Dude loooved beheadings! This is why today's governments ruling
with an iron fist are sometimes referred to as “Draconian”. Indeed, Draco’s laws were
problematic for Athens and the cruelty and lack of fairness called for a change in the penal code.
Now if you are wondering what kind of laws the rest of Greece had during this time,
here are two important details. First, as writing wasn’t as fashionable as it is now,
there is not much information available about the rest of the Greek city-states.
Spartans, in fact, downright hated to pick a chisel or quill instead of a sword.
Second, there was never a system of institutions recognized as a legal order in other cities,
they more or less followed Athens's model of the penal system with Sparta being at the extreme
opposite end of it. For Spartans honor and integrity mattered a lot and they treated women
as one should, with equality. This ideology was reflected in their law and punishment system as
well and set them apart from the rest of Greece. Spartans would cast their serious criminals to die
in a dry well, while lesser crimes were punished with whippings, exile, and seizing of property.
The classical age, fifth century to second century BC witnessed the true flash of ancient
Greek legislation. The law became orderly and was divided into branches with the separation
of material and procedural laws. This era began thanks to Solon’s reforms in the early
sixth century BC. Solon took the lawmaking away from rulers and kings and placed it in the hands
of appointed officials who were basically scribes with one purpose… to write laws.
Most of the lawgivers were middle-class members of the aristocracy and many were archons before
becoming a lawgiver. The officials in the government wanted to make sure that lawgivers
won’t take sides or be a part of just one group, otherwise, the judicial system might be unfair.
However, that doesn’t mean they weren’t unfair to women,
because women weren’t even considered human in Ancient Greece. And thus, lawgivers were not
a part of the normal government, they were considered political outsiders.
In a broad sense, Solon’s laws served as guidelines for the judges instead of hard-coded
regulations. These guidelines told step-by-step details how the law should be enforced. Procedural
laws even included such minute details as how many witnesses must be called in each particular case
and who could serve as a witness and so forth. In Ancient Greece, the Judiciary system was pretty
much social work and driven by non-professionals. Court employees were rarely paid,
and most claims were tried on the same day, private cases even more quickly. There were
neither official judges nor lawyers. A normal case consisted of two "litigants," one from each side,
who respectively argued in prosecution and defense. The case was decided by a group of
jurors, who acted almost in the same way as modern juries of Western civilization. It was
their responsibility to discern if a person was either guilty or not guilty, after which another
vote by the jury would decide the punishment. However, like Supreme courts today, Greeks had
archons and ephetai who were the magistrates and had the final say in legal proceedings.
Around 403 and 402 BC, they were replaced by Dikastai who were democratically elected jurors.
Greeks believed during the classical age that the foundation for the punishment was
“anger” of a person and thus he should pay the price for expressing it towards others.
Guilty would be forced to pay victims and sometimes Athens city as well for his wrongdoings.
In a way, money had replaced the principle of talion. Imprisonment was only used for those
who weren’t able to afford the fine. More severe punishments such as exile or capital punishment
could be used for crimes that touched society as a whole. Apart from homicide, this also included
disrespect towards the state or official religion. Despite being a democracy, Greeks weren’t much
fond of freethinking and considered it dangerously insulting. This is why so many philosophers,
who later formed the pride of Greece, had to pass through criminal procedure and punishment.
Socrates, who had been convicted to death by poisoning, was the most famous of them.
Speaking of Socrates, the philosopher was supposed to get crucified. Did you know that? At that time,
crucifixion was not as bloody and graphical as you may have seen on Jesus’ figures and movies.
In Classical Age Greece, the convict was fastened to a board with iron collars around wrists,
ankles, and neck, and the collar around the neck was tightened to strangle the wrongdoer. Socrates
too would probably have suffered such fate had he not had wealthy friends. From the end of the 5th
century, the Athenians seem to have been willing to let wrongdoers convicted to death use hemlock
to commit suicide in advance of their execution provided they could afford to pay for the dose
which cost 12 drachmas. It is hard to put an exchange value to ancient currencies in modern
perspective but that hasn't stopped economists and historians from estimating the value of drachma
according to purchasing power parity. By their calculation an ancient Greek drachma
would cost about 46 dollars, making the cost of poison nearly worth 540 dollars!!
That is one costly way to take your own life! However, Exile was a more preferred and popular
punishment among Athenians. Even prisoners on death row were expected to make a jailbreak and
not return to Athens for a long period. Exile life wasn’t as easy as you might be thinking.
Making money as a foreigner in strange lands wasn’t as feasible back in the day.
When Solon was appointed lawgiver after Draco in about 594 BC, he drafted many new laws;
terminating much of draconian rules except for the homicide law. Before becoming an archon,
Solon was the reason behind Athens's win over Megara for the claim of the island of Salamis.
But without him, Athens perhaps would never have become a world-renowned democracy as
his reforms laid the foundation for helping Athens become a fairer city-state, women,
and slaves not included. During Solon's time, many Greek city-states had seen the emergence
of tyrants like Draco who followed the same ideology of death to all criminals and opponents.
Under Solon, however, laws had specific penalties for specific crimes. Most crimes were punished by
monetary (payment) penalties. For example, the fine for sexual assault, which would be nearly
4700 dollars in modern times. Not going to lie, that sounds like an awful way to deal with such
a delicate matter, but this was the time and place where women were considered subhuman. The
penalty for theft depended on the amount stolen and the guilty would have to pay back double.
Murderers and kidnappers were thrown into a pit of sharp spikes called the Baratheon.
But when it came to women, foreigners, and slaves; equality was an alien concept. Women and slaves
weren’t allowed to represent themselves in court and had to have their guardian or owner stand for
them respectively. Flogging and whipping were quite common punishments for slaves.
Women were prone to stoning or being put into stocks when being found guilty. But nothing came
close to Rhaphanidosis. An oddity among the other more humane punishments for Greek men,
rhaphanidosis was a punishment reserved for extreme cases. It is mentioned by Aristophanes as
a punishment for adultery in Classical Athens in the fifth and fourth century BC. Rhaphanidosis was
allegedly sentenced for other sex-related crimes as well perhaps such as adultery and sodomy.
Mind you, assaulting and violating a woman was only fined in contrast with a hundred drachmas.
So, what was rhaphanidosis? Botanists watching this video may have already recognized the use of
the genus Raphanus in the term. The Raphanus genus contains mostly root-based food-producing plants
such as radishes. Rhaphanidosis was the act of publicly inserting the root of a plant-like radish
into the rectum. Rhaphanidosis was pretty much a humiliating death sentence; the radish had thorns
attached to them, causing the guilty to die of internal hemorrhage on “receiving” the punishment.
However, was such extreme punishment ever used or it was a brainchild of a rather creative writer of
that time, is still up to debate among historians. So, what do you think? Does the Greek Penal system
need a revival or are we lucky to live in a more humane and sophisticated era? Tell us in
the comments and don’t forget to smash that like button! Oh and thanks for watching Nutty History!