The collection and disposal of rubbish and waste and the maintenance of a decent standard of hygiene was as much a problem for ancient city authorities as for modern town councils. The responsibility for the removal of waste would often be dependent upon the nature of the rubbish and the facilities which city authorities offered. Thus early in the fourth century B.C. the agoranomic law from Piraeus prohibited individuals from piling earth and other waste on the streets and compelled the (...) offender to remove it. The astynomic law from Pergamon, which probably dates originally to the Hellenistic period, similarly forbade the dumping or piling up of earth or the mixing of mortar on the streets of the city. As one of Demosthenes' speeches indicates, the effect of dumping rubbish indiscriminately was to raise the level of the road surface, which consequently restricted access and endangered adjacent property. Excavation of a triangular hieron to the south west of the agora at Athens further illustrates the results of dumping. Here it was found that, between the construction of the hieron in the late fifth century B.C. and the beginning of the fourth century B.C, the road surface on its northern side rose more than half a metre and covered the lower part of the wall of the hieron and its boundary marker. The accumulated fill included a deep layer of marble chips, which had been dumped in the area by marble workers. The laws from Piraeus and Pergamon were thus designed to keep streets passable, protect adjacent buildings, and safeguard pedestrians. (shrink)

Solon's fragments 9–11 are preserved in three late authors: frr. 9 and 11 by Diodoros Sikelos , 9.20.2, Plutarch , Solon 3.6 and 30.3 respectively, and Diogenes Laertios , 1.50 and 1.51 respectively; and fr. 10 by Diogenes Laertios alone, 1.49. They are all quoted in the context of Solon's reaction to Peisistratos. Stories on this theme were circulating by the time of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia , and Rhodes' scepticism about them is well founded. Its author did not garnish (...) his version of events with these poems, nor indeed with any Solonian utterance, and he explicitly states that myth-making on this subject had already resulted in two stories about Solon and Peisistratos which were chronologically impossible. (shrink)

Plutarch, Aet. Graec. 5, p. 292 B: “Τνεσ ο παρ' ‘Αρκσι κα δακεδσιμονοισ χρηοτο;” δακεδαιμνιοι Τεγεταισ διαλλαγντεσ ποισαντο συνθκασ κα στλην π' 'αλΑειι κοινν νστησαν, ν ι μετ τν γγραπται Μεσσηνουσ κβαλεν κ τσ χρασ κα μ ξεναι χρηστοσ ποιεν. ξηγομενοσ ον 'αριστοτελησ τοτο πησι δυνασθαι το μ ποκτιννναι βοηθενασ χριν τοσ λακωνιζονσιν τν Τεγεατν.

One of the most striking features of Athenian laws regulating commercial activities is the absence of any concept akin to the modern legal notion of the partnership or corporation. Despite the presence in Athenian society of numerous koinoniai, groups of individuals cooperating for some purpose, be it commercial or otherwise, Athenian law concerned itself solely with individual persons and did not recognize the separate legal existence of collective entities. And just as Athenian law did not recognize the legal existence of (...) partnerships or corporations, it also did not possess the notion of corporate liability. This meant that if someone entered into an agreement with a group of individuals and one of those individuals violated the terms of the agreement, the plaintiff proceeded only against the individual who acted contrary to the agreement, not against the group as a whole. If the plaintiff won his suit, he only had a right to receive compensation from the defendant's private property; he did not have a claim on all the funds held in common by the group. (shrink)

7 πῖαρ Plut.: πυαρ pap.Ath. Pol.ἀνταράξας … ἐξεῖλε pap., coniecerat Gildersleeve: ἂν ταράξας ἐξέλη Plut.Solon is answering his critics. Thedemoshas never had it so good. The ‘bigger and stronger men’, μείζους καὶ βίαν ἀμείνονες, also have cause to thank him. For if anyone else had had this office, ‘he would not have restrained thedemos, nor would he have stopped, before’, etc. Plutarch introduces the lines in almost the same words.V. 7 is difficult. Bergk and others construe: ‘until, having stirred up (...) the milk, he had taken the cream’. There are two objections to this. Firstly, the word order would involve an interlacing of main and participial clauses which Greek normally eschews. Bergk claims that Solon is peculiar in the freedom of his hyperbaton, but the examples he quotes are not of this type and are very much easier. Secondly, the sense: ‘it is not usual to stir up milk when it is wanted to skim off cream’. Linforth recognised the force of this argument, and concluded, in the truth of the ancient evidence, that πῑαρ refers to butter. (shrink)