GREEK LAW 



3682 



GREEK LETTER SOCIETY 



into the West, where once more the 

 traditional fertilising power of 

 Greek influence on Latin minds is 

 exemplified. 



Bibliography. History of ancient 

 Greek Literature, G. Murray, 1897 ; 

 Histoire de la litterature grecquo, 

 1896-99 ; Manuel d'histoire de la 

 littarature grecque, A. and M.Croiset, 

 1900, Eng. trans. G. Ileffelbower, 

 190-1; Les formes littoraires de la 

 pensee grecque, H. Ouvre, 1900; Hist, 

 of Greek Literature, K. O. Muller, 

 Eng. trans. G. Cornewall Lewis and 

 J. W. Donaldson, 1858, an unfinished 

 torso, completed by J. W. D. and 

 the only English work giving an 

 account of Byzantine literature ; 

 History of Classical Greek Litera- 

 ture, J. P. Mahaffy, 1903 ; The 

 Greek Genius and its Meaning to xis, 

 R. W. Livingstone, 1912 ; Intro- 

 duction to Homer, R. C. Jebb, 1898 ; 

 Collected Studies in Greek and 

 Latin Scholarship, A. W. Verrall, 

 1913 ; Classical Essays, F. W. 

 Myers, 1888 ; Greek Studies, W. 

 Pater, 1904 ; Studies of the Greek 

 Poets, J. A. Symonds, 1893, repr. 

 1920; Homer and the Epic, 1893, 

 Homer and his Age, A. Lang, 1906. 



Greek Law. Term generally 

 applied in a restricted sense to the 

 judicial procedure of the Greek 

 states, virtually to that of Athens, 

 the only city, with the exception 

 of Gortyna (q.v.) in Crete, of which 

 a detailed account exists. 



At Athens there were various 

 officials who exercised different 

 functions in the settlement of 

 civil and criminal cases. Thus, of 

 the nine archons, the eponymus 

 had the supervision of family dis- 

 putes, the basileus of religious, 

 especially murder questions, the 

 polemarchus of disputes between 

 resident aliens and foreigners. The 

 court of Areopagtis or the 51 

 ephetae, who sat in different 

 courts according to the nature of 

 the case, tried cases of wilful mur- 

 der, homicide, and arson. 



The Forty, four to each tribe, re- 

 sembled the English magistrates in 

 petty sessions. They went round 

 the demes, settling unimportant 

 private cases in which the sum in- 

 volved was less than 10 drachmae 

 (about 8s. 6d.). Otherwise, the 

 matter was handed on by them to 

 one of the diaetetae or arbitrators, 

 who formed a sort of court of first 

 instance. If his decision was re- 

 jected, he impounded and sealed 

 up all documents and evidence to 

 be reproduced at the regular trial 

 before the heliastae or diccsts, the 

 equivalents of the modern jury, by 

 whom most cases, both civil and 

 criminal, were tried in later times. 

 The dicastae were 6,000 in number, 

 600 from each tribe, and had to be 

 over 30 years of age. The actual 

 number of jurymen, chosen by lot, 

 varied from 201 to 2,501, the odd 

 figure being obviously intended to 



prevent the number of votes from 

 being equal. 



Public and Private Actions 



Actions were distinguished as 

 public (graphe) or private (dike), 

 altbough they frequently ran into 

 one another, dike being used to in- 

 cludo both. When the state was 

 directly or indirectly affected, 

 this constituted ground for a public 

 action. Such an action could be 

 brought by any full citizen, ex- 

 cept in murder cases, where the 

 nearest relatives were obliged to 

 prosecute, but if he failed to secure 

 one-fifth of the votes, he was fined 

 1,000 drachmae (about 40) and 

 sometimes in civil cases he had to 

 pay the defendant one-sixth of 

 his claim. Private suits had to 

 be brought by the person directly 

 affected. 



The process went through three 

 stages. The plaintiff summoned 

 the defendant to appear on a cer- 

 tain day before the magistrate 

 who was to preside. The plaintiff 

 handed a written statement of the 

 charge and of the declarations of 

 the witnesses to the magistrate, 

 who decided whether there was a 

 case. Both parties deposited fees 

 (prytaneia), which went to the suc- 

 cessful litigant. If the defendant 

 failed to appear, judgement went 

 against him by default. 



The next step was the pre- 

 liminary examination (anakrisis). 

 At this the defendant could put in 

 a counter-claim or a plea that, 

 even if- the charge made were true, 

 there was some informality which 

 relieved him of the obligation to 

 meet the charge directly. If no 

 such plea was put forward or was 

 rejected by the magistrate, the 

 case was ordered to proceed. 



The dicasts, chosen by lot by 

 the officials called thesmothetae, 

 assembled in their special court, 

 the Heliaea, the same magistrate 

 presiding. Both plaintiff and de- 

 fendant delivered speeches on 

 their own behalf, but they were 

 allowed to have advocates to 

 assist them, and their speeches 

 were often written by persons who 

 made a special business of it. The 

 length of time allowed for each 

 speech was measured by the 

 clepsydra or water-clock. The 

 verdict was given by ballot, bronze 

 voting tablets being used, whole 

 for acquittal, pierced in the centre 

 for condemnation, For acquittal 

 it was necessary that the votes 

 should be equal. There was no 

 appeal from the verdict, but a 

 new trial could be demanded if it 

 transpired that the witnesses had 

 committed perjury. 



Penalties consisted of capital 

 punishment, inflicted by hurling 

 the condemned into a deep pit near 



Athens, or by administering hem- 

 lock to him in prison ; banishment ; 

 atimia or loss of the privileges of 

 citizenship ; confiscation of pro- 

 perty ; and fines. The execution 

 of the sentence was carried out by 

 various officials, that of death by 

 a body called the Eleven. 



Such a method of legal pro- 

 cedure was highly unsatisfactory. 

 The dicasts had no judge's sum- 

 ming up to influence their verdict ; 

 they were not responsible like the 

 regular magistrates, who had to 

 give an account (euthyna) of their 

 term of office ; all kinds of appeals 

 ad misericordiam were made by the 

 litigants, such as bringing in their 

 wives and children dressed in rags. 

 The emoluments appealed to the 

 ordinary citizen, who was able to 

 live on them without doing any 

 other work. J. H. Freese 



Bibliography. Greek Constitu- 

 tional Antiquities, G. Gilbert, 1895; 

 Aristotle's Constitution of Athens, 

 trans. F. G. Kenyon, 1891 ; Appen- 

 dices to C. R. Kennedy's trans, of 

 Demosthenes in Bohn's Series, 

 1856-61. The standard work on 

 the subject is Der Attische Process, 

 Meier-Schomann, new ed. 1 883-87. 



Greek Letter Society. Name 

 given to the secret fraternity of 

 students found in most American 

 universities. It takes its name 

 from the initials of the Greek words 

 adopted as a motto, and these, 

 with their " grips " and rituals, are 

 the only secrets of these societies. 

 A. A.*. (1832), *.T. (1833), and 

 A.K.E. (1844) are perhaps the 

 best known, but there are more 

 than fifty, each with a chapter of 

 from 20 to 30 members in many dif- 

 ferent "institutions. The richer 

 chapters have fraternity houses, in 

 which the members live. 



Fraternities have been con- 

 demned as undemocratic and en- 

 couraging cliques and extrava- 

 gance, laws against them having 

 been actually passed in certain 

 states ; but their numbers and pro- 

 perty make them important. 



The oldest Greek letter society, 

 $.B.K. (initials of the motto, 

 philosophia bio'i kubernetfe, philo- 

 sophy the guide of life), was 

 founded in 1776 at the College of 

 William and Mary, Williamsburg, 

 Virginia. Suspended in 1781 

 through the successive occupation 

 of Williamsburg by the British, 

 French, and American armies, it 

 survived in the chapters it had es- 

 tablished at Harvard and Yale. It 

 has now dropped its social for aca- 

 demic activities, and admission to 

 it is recognized as a true literary 

 distinction. Women undergradu- 

 ates have founded their own Greek 

 letter societies or "Sororities," 

 and the idea has been extended to 

 the professions. 



