Ancient Greek law

Ancient Greek laws consist of the laws and legal institutions of ancient Greece. The existence of certain general principles of law is implied by the custom of settling a difference between two Greek states, or between members of a single state, by resorting to external arbitration. The general unity of Greek law shows mainly in the laws of inheritance and adoption, in laws of commerce and contract, and in the publicity uniformly given to legal agreements. While the Gortyn code can study its older forms, its influence can be traced in legal documents preserved in Egyptian papyri and it may be recognized as a consistent whole in its ultimate relations to Roman law in the eastern provinces of the Roman empire, with scholars in the discipline of comparative law comparing Greek law with both Roman law and the primitive institutions of the Germanic nations. Ancient Greece lacked a codified law code used across the nation. Ancient Greece existed as a collection of city-states known as polis (Grk: πόλεις), all with different laws. However, numerous ideals within the various laws of the city-states were rooted in the same context, notably, cultural unity. Ancient Greek culture advanced their own religion and language, along with various customs that were rooted in religion and tradition. From Greek culture, common bases in law emerge: δίκη ("law, justice"), κύριος ("lord, master"), βλάβη ("injury"), among other things. With the general discontinuity in law between the various city-states, Athens is typically the model provided for Greek law. There is no systematic collection of Greek laws; the earliest notions of the subject are derived from Homeric poems. The works of Theophrastus, On the Laws, included a recapitulation of the laws of various barbaric as well as of the Grecian states, yet only a few fragments of it remain. The earliest Greek Laws date back to the code of laws by Draco and Solon who both had an immense impact on early Greek Law. Incidental illustrations of the Athenian law are found in the Laws of Plato, who describes it without exercising an influence on its actual practice.