"Dracon" redirects here. In fiction, it may refer also to the home world of the
Dracs. Draco was the first recorded legislator
of Athens in Ancient Greece. He replaced the prevailing system of oral law and
blood feud by a written code to be enforced only by a court. Draco's
written law became known for its harshness, with the adjective
"draconian" referring to similarly unforgiving rules or laws.
Life During the 39th Olympiad, in 622 or 621
BC, Draco established the legal code with which he is identified.
Little is known about his life. He may have belonged to the Greek nobility of
Attica, with which the 10th-century Suda text records him as contemporaneous,
prior to the period of the Seven Sages of Greece. It also relates a folkloric
story of his death in the Aeginetan theatre. In a traditional ancient Greek
show of approval, his supporters 'threw so many hats and shirts and cloaks on
his head that he suffocated, and was buried in that same theatre'.
Draconian constitution The laws that he laid down were the
first written constitution of Athens. So that no one would be unaware of them,
they were posted on wooden tablets, where they were preserved for almost two
centuries on steles of the shape of three-sided pyramids. The tablets were
called axones, perhaps because they could be pivoted along the pyramid's
axis to read any side. The constitution featured several major
innovations: Instead of oral laws known to a special
class, arbitrarily applied and interpreted, all laws were written, thus
being made known to all literate citizens: 'the constitution formed under
Draco, when the first code of laws was drawn up'.
The laws distinguish between murder and involuntary homicide.
The laws, however, were particularly harsh. For example, any debtor whose
status was lower than that of his creditor was forced into slavery. The
punishment was more lenient for those owing a debt to a member of a lower
class. The death penalty was the punishment for even minor offences, such
as 'stealing a cabbage'. Concerning the liberal use of the death penalty in the
Draconic code, Plutarch states: 'It is said that Drakon himself, when asked why
he had fixed the punishment of death for most offences, answered that he
considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater
punishment for more important ones'. All his laws were repealed by Solon in
the early 6th century BC with the exception of the homicide law.
Homicide law After much debate, the Athens answer
decided to revise the laws, including the homicide law, in 409 BC. The
homicide law is a highly fragmented inscription but states that it is up to
the victim's relatives to prosecute a killer. According to the preserved part
of the inscription, unintentional homicides received a sentence of exile.
It is not clear whether Draco's law specified the punishment for intentional
Homicide. In 409 BC, intentional homicide was punished by death, but
Draco's law begins, 'καὶ ἐὰμ μὲ ‘κ [π]ρονοί[α]ς [κ]τ[ένει τίς τινα,
φεύγ]ε[ν]', which is ambiguous and difficult to translate. One possible
translation offers, 'Even if a man not intentionally kills another, he is
exiled'. That leads to the presumption of exile having been the normal penalty
for intentional homicide when Draco wrote the law.
Council of Four Hundred Draco introduced the lot-chosen Council
of Four Hundred, distinct from the Areopagus, which evolved in later
constitutions to play a large role in Athenian democracy. Aristotle notes that
Draco, while having the laws written, merely legislated for an existing
unwritten Athenian constitution such as setting exact qualifications for
eligibility for office. Draco extended the franchise to all free
men who could furnish themselves with a set of military equipment. They elected
the Council of Four Hundred from among their number; nine archons and the
treasurers were drawn from persons possessing an unencumbered property of
not less than ten minas, the generals and commanders of cavalry from those who
could show an unencumbered property of not less than a hundred minas and had
children born in lawful wedlock over ten years of age. Thus, in the event of
their death, their estate could pass to a competent heir. These officers were
required to hold to account the prytanes, strategoi and hipparchoi of
the preceding year until their accounts had been audited. "The Council of
Areopagus was guardian of the laws, and kept watch over the magistrates to see
that they executed their offices in accordance with the laws. Any person who
felt himself wronged might lay an information before the Council of
Areopagus, on declaring what law was broken by the wrong done to him. But, as
has been said before, loans were secured upon the persons of the debtors, and the
land was in the hands of a few." See also
Ancient Greek law Hammurabi, a Babylonian who wrote some
of the earliest codes of law List of Ancient Greeks
List of eponymous laws Notes
References Roisman, Joseph, and translated by J.C.
Yardley, Ancient Greece from Homer to Alexander ISBN 1-4051-2776-7
Further reading Carawan, Edwin. Rhetoric and the Law of
Draco. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York City: Oxford University Press. ISBN
978-0-19-815086-2. Gagarin, Michael. Drakon and Early
Athenian Homicide Law. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN
978-0-300-02627-6. Gagarin, Michael; Cohen, David. The
Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 978-0-521-81840-7. Maine, Sir Henry Sumner. Ancient Law –
Its Connection with the Early History of Society and Its Relation to Modern
Ideas. Boston: Beacon Press. OCLC 1310967.
Phillips, David. Avengers of Blood: Homicide in Athenian Law and Custom from
Draco to Demosthenes. Stuttgart: Steiner. ISBN 978-3-515-09123-7.
Stroud, Ronald S.. Drakon's Law on Homicide. Berkeley: University of
California Press. OCLC 463502977. External links
The dictionary definition of draconian at Wiktionary
Translation of original inscription https:www.atticinscriptions.comIGI3/104