Author(s):
Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham)
|
Ameling, Walter (Jena)
(νομογράφος/
nomográphos, ‘law-writer’) [German version] I. Greece In some Greek cities individual, specially qualified men were entrusted during the archaic period with the task of writing laws for the pólis. This could include writing down the existing legal practice as well as creating new laws. Known
nomográphoi are, for example, Zaleucus in Locri Epizephyrii, Charondas in Catane, Draco [2] and later Solon in Athens. At times, but not always, this commission was associated with a regular office of state. Thus, Solon was at the same time an
árchōn (Archontes [1]) in Athens but Dracon does not seem to have held a regular office. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the word
nomográphoi was sometimes used for commissions that draughted laws to make them available to the people's assembly or other bodies, and sometimes for a commission that had to archive laws that were already passed.
Nomográphoi with both tasks are found in Megalopolis (Megale polis; IMagn 38 = Syll. 3 559). Rhodes, Peter J. (Durham) Bibliography I Archaic period: K.-J. Hölkeskamp, Arbitrators, Lawgivers and the ‘Codification of Law’ in Archaic Greece, in: Metis 7, 1992, 49-81 Id., Schiedsrichter, Gesetzgeber und Gesetzgebung im archaischen Griechenland, 1999 R. Osborne, Law and Laws: How Do We Join Up the Dots?, in: L.G. Mitchell, P.J. Rhodes (ed.), The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece, 1997, 74-82. Hellenistic and Roman periods: P.J. Rhodes, D.M. Lewis, The Decrees of the Greek States, 1997, 498f., 521. [German version] II. Egypt …