This paper gives a novel reading of the argument addressed by the Laws of Athens to Socrates in Plato's Crito. Many philosophers have suggested that the argument of the Laws is merely a weak 'rhetorical sop' to Crito. However, I offer an interpretation of that argument that brings out its plausibility, particularly in the context of the post-Oligarchic demos of early fourth-century Athens. For on Crito's plan, Socrates would have undermined a critical form of civic trust in Athens, not by (...) merely disobeying the sentence imposed on him by the jury, but by openly displaying the legal impunity of the rich. -/- We can call this 'legal trust.' By that coinage, I mean citizens' faith in their fellow citizens' willingness and ability to collectively defend the law---to enforce it against the powerful, and refrain from acting to undermine that capacity. When the members of a democratic political community recognize one another's commitment to their legal system, they are able to defend the laws that hold their democracy together; in such a state, the laws are both conceptually constitutive of democratic authority and practically necessary for democracy. -/- Taken in the context of the strategic structure of the Athenian legal system, in the appeal to the filial loyalty Socrates owed the Laws we can see just such an account of the interweaving of law, trust, and citizenship in the preservation of a democracy. The Laws demand that Socrates be trustworthy, and thereby refrain from undermining his fellow citizens' trust in them, where that trust is necessary for the citizens' collective defense of the democratic legal system; they make this demand on Socrates in virtue of the Laws' role in Socrates's identity as citizen. (shrink)

It is a truism of modern discussions of Athenian law and oratory that the Athenians regarded adultery as a more heinous offence than rape. This consensus has been challenged in a valuable paper by E. M. Harris. But although Harris has successfully placed in question a number of assumptions about this area of Athenian law and ethics, I wish to argue that the traditional position is in its broad outlines correct. In this as in so many aspects of Athenian law (...) it is difficult to make firm statements. Firstly, for the Athenian system as a whole we lack evidence for many issues of legal prescription and procedure for the period before the restoration of the democracy, and our evidence is frequently lacunose even for the period after the restoration. As a result we are presented with a ‘snapshot’ of the Athenian system at a particular stage in its development and are rarely able to trace chronological developments in detail and frequently unable to trace them in broad outline. A further result of this ‘snapshot’ effect is a false impression of coherence. Legislative measures belonging to different periods are likely to present themselves as the result of an integrated design rather than the product of accretion. Finally, and most importantly, our sources distort. Occasionally they provide information on the laws and on legal procedure in passing, in order to contextualize an argument or narrative; but in general they are presenting us with information in an attempt to persuade. (shrink)