Administration of Justice in Boeotia Author(s): Robert J. Bonner and Gertrude Smith Source: Classical Philology, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Jan., 1945), pp. 11-23 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/266231 Accessed: 20/08/2009 18:37 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Classical Philology. http://www.jstor.org ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN BOEOTIA ROBERT J. BONNER AND GERTRUDE SMITH IN THE Homeric catalogue of ships the conceded that throughout Boeotia the forces of central Greece are enumer- little villages around one larger town con- ated first, and those of Boeotia head stituted a sort of synoecism, just as they the list. Twenty-nine towns are included, did in later times. So when Hesiod pic- which together assembled fifty ships, with tures Ascra as a minor town attached to an average of one hundred and twenty Thespiae, he is giving a picture which may men to each ship. Among the twenty-nine be applied to all Boeotia. Hesiod's re- towns is Hypothebae, which is identified marks about the basileis are aimed specif- as the lower quarters of the town of ically at those of Thespiae and its neigh- Thebes, Thebes itself having been de- borhood, but the same aristocratic gov- stroyed by the Epigoni.1 Hypothebae ernment obtained throughout the Boeo- does not have a conspicuous position in tian towns. The poem indicates a far more the list. With the epithet "a well-built highly developed judicial system than city," it is included with no prominence the one known in Homer. Recourse to over others in the list. It is clear that the peaceful settlement of disputes was prac- Boeotians are looked upon as. a unit. ticed in the Homeric period, but as yet Orchomenus is not grouped with the there was no compulsion to resort to arbi- Boeotian towns; but this city, along with tration. In such matters, however, public Aspledon, follows immediately after the opinion is a strong force, and in the Works Boeotians with a muster of thirty ships. and Days it would appear that, if a claim At the time of the composition of the were brought against a man, he had to catalogue, then, Orchomenus was not a submit to arbitration and to accept the member of the Boeotian group. It is called decision of the basileis. This is the really Minyan Orchomenus. important element which puts the judi- Hesiod, our next authority on Boeotia, cial system in the age of Hesiod consider- presents to us in his Works and Days a ably in advance of that of Homer. Oblig- political, social, and economic picture in atory arbitration had been developed. an epoch, after the heroic age, of which Within each district the chiefs who made little is known.2 It is clear that the whole up the dominant aristocracy met with government rested in the hands of the some regularity in the chief city, and be- basileis, who were not only rulers but also fore them the people brought their dis- judges. Hesiod describes the situation in putes for adjudication.3 Witnesses were his own village of Ascra, but it may be commonly used to substantiate the claims of Both and the 1 Iliad ii. 494 if. On the position of Boeotia in the litigants. they litigants catalogue cf. Allen, The Homeric Catalogue of Ships gave their statements under oath. Side by (Oxford, 41 ff. 1921), pp. side with compulsory arbitration, the less 2 Hesiod is variously dated. Allen, Origins and Transmission of Homer (Oxford, 1924), p. 88, on formal system of the heroic age continued astronomical and other grounds, places his floruit to flourish; i.e., private arbitration, as dis- around 800 B.c.; the Cambridge Ancient History, III, Synchronistic Table I, places the age of Hesiod at 750 tinct from compulsory, continued to be 3 B.C.; Bethe, Einleitung zur Altertumswissenschaft, I, Bonner and Smith, Administration of Justice 281, brings him down to 650-600 B.C. from Homer to Aristotle, I (Chicago, 1930), 44-48. [CLASSICALPHILOLOGY, XL, JANUARY,19451 11 12 ROBERT J. BONNER AND GERTRUDE SMITH practiced. The evidentiary oath was em- This appears to be the natural interpreta- ployed in the settlement of disputes, and tion of Hesiod's account; but several other self-help still played an important part in explanations have been suggested, e.g., the redress of wrongs. Homicide continued that Hesiod had appealed the case,7 or at to be regarded as the concern of the rela- least reopened it,8 or that the case had tives of the victim; but the idea that been heard but not yet decided.9 But moral pollution was attached to homicide these suggestions do not alter the situa- may be assumed to have been familiar to tion materially. If Hesiod really believed Hesiod and his contemporaries. This was that the nobles were corrupt and would the first step toward the intervention of decide the case unjustly for the sake of the state in homicide cases. bribes, it is difficult to believe that he Hesiod's litigation with his brother would ever have consented to accept Perses is the only actual suit which has them as arbitrators, if he had not felt come down from this period. When their compelled to do so. He could either have father, who appears to have been a sub- refused to do anything further about the stantial farmer, died, the two brothers di- matter or have insisted on other arbitra- vided his property. Apparently, by brib- tors. As he did neither, it is likely that he ing the nobles who sat in judgment on the had to submit to the judgment of the case, Perses obtained more than his share. court. Hesiod represents Perses as improvident. The unwritten law administered by the He soon needed more money and threat- magistrates under the early aristocracy ened to bring further legal proceedings was naturally vague and was easily modi- against Hesiod. Just what the grounds for fied and interpreted to suit the interest of the action were to have been is not ap- the ruling class. In the seventh century, parent. Perhaps Perses hoped by fur- however, owing to the dissatisfaction of ther bribery to suppress the fact that he the people with the uncertainty and diffi- had already had his fair share and thereby culty of obtaining justice, there was gener- to acquire part of Hesiod's portion.4 In- al codification of the laws throughout stead of refusing to appear again before Greece.10 Among the early lawgivers the judges, as he might have done had it Philolaus is mentioned by Aristotle as been a matter of voluntary arbitration,5 having come from Corinth, as having set- Hesiod appealed to his brother to settle tled in Thebes for the remainder of his the case out of court by impartial award- life, and as having become a Theban aXX' avOL LCaKpLvW,!.EOaVELKOS iOe0flaL 6iKnS.6 legislator.1l Aristotle seems to point out in He proposed then arbitration by agree- the case of each lawgiver what he con- ment as an alternative to submitting the siders to be his outstanding contribu- case to the adjudication of the nobles. tions. So in the case of Philolaus, after 4 Cf. Burn, The World of Hesiod (New York, 1937), crediting him vaguely with laws on many p. 35. other things, he selects for special men- 5 Works and Days 37-39: 7 Ehrenberg, Die Rechtsidee im frihen Griechen- I6r ji'v y&p KXipov i8aTcrAl,eO',&XXa Tre WoXXd tum (Leipzig, 1921), p. 63. apTrad&wvOpfpets r&ya KvSalvwv BaaOtLXas 8 Die durch Urteil, Swpo&a'yovs ot TrvAe 8K.v iQOiXovOt&SLKaraat. Steinwenter, Streitbeendigung Schiedsspruch und Vergleich nach griechischem Schoemann emended the MSS reading iOiXovrL &K6rcaaa Rechte (Munich, 1925), p. 41. Schol. also so read) to iefXovrt i&Kaoraav, which as- (the 9 Hesiodos' Mahnlieder an Perses (Berlin, sumes that the case had already been decided. For the Kirchhoff, 1889), p. 43. arguments against the emendation cf. Sinclair, Hesiod, 10 Works and Days (London, 1932), ad loc. Cf. Bonner and Smith, op. cit., I, 67 ff. B Works and Days 35 f. 11Arist. Pol. 1274 a-b. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN BOEOTIA 13 tion the nomoi thetikoi, the laws relating and by the end of the century she had to adoption, which he introduced especial- opened her own mint.