Abstract
The advent of writing in the Greek polis administration resulted in the appointment of officials responsible for document management. These were known as grammateis (secretaries). The need for records connected to judicial proceedings led to the involvement of secretaries in the polis legal procedure. Although there remains little evidence of this, in Athens secretarial support was certainly connected with almost every use of writing in a judicial context. Secretaries appear to have received suits, published notifications of trials and recorded fines, but their most well-attested duty is that of the reading of documents brought as evidence in the courtroom. The study of references to secretaries in a judicial context demonstrates that their duties were essential to the persons involved in the administration of justice. By keeping track of judicial documents secretaries helped the officials to keep accurate records for the sake of accountability, while the reading of legal texts enabled the Athenian citizen-judges to get to know verbatim the texts of the state laws and avoid manipulation by litigants who produced their own interpretations of a law. The purpose of this article is to present all the relevant cases of secretarial support in the justice system of Athens and to discuss the contribution made by the secretaries to the Athenian legal procedure.
Acknowledgment
My sincere thanks to Professor E. M. Harris (Durham and Edinburgh) for his comments which greatly improved this manuscript
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Law, Mercy, and Reconciliation in the Achaemenid Empire
- Herodotus’ awareness of the Peloponnesian War
- Risk, chance and danger in Classical Greek writing on battle
- Grammateis (secretaries) and legal procedure in ancient Athens
- Rethinking second-century BC military service: the speech of Spurius Ligustinus
- Collective Military Resistance and Popular Power: Views from the Late Republic (90–31 BC)
- Josephus’ Nabataeans: a vision of Roman power in the Near East
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Law, Mercy, and Reconciliation in the Achaemenid Empire
- Herodotus’ awareness of the Peloponnesian War
- Risk, chance and danger in Classical Greek writing on battle
- Grammateis (secretaries) and legal procedure in ancient Athens
- Rethinking second-century BC military service: the speech of Spurius Ligustinus
- Collective Military Resistance and Popular Power: Views from the Late Republic (90–31 BC)
- Josephus’ Nabataeans: a vision of Roman power in the Near East