Cross-cultural studies in the public areas and democratic codes in ancient Greece

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

1. In the first place the Head Investigator has tried to figure out the whole structure of the democratic codes in classical Athens by collecting literary and epigraphical evidence on the public areas and civic codes in ancient Greek poleis. As a result, he suggests that the democratic codes of classical Athens lacked a consistent and coherent system, as is found in modern constitutions, and consisted of a wide range of social values and ideologies, which had been formed in the course of historical developments from the Archaic period : the Athenian citizens believed that their democracy was a traditional style of life, rather than a political institution.2. Secondly he goes on to examine the evidence on the litigious cases described by the Attic orators in the fourth century B. C. in order to find out how the Athenians successfully solved social conflicts on the daily basis without intervention of police power, and discovers an idea of public mindedness that did not need a centralized authority. In case of litigious conflicts the concerned parties were assisted not only by their relatives, close friends, and fellow members of their demes, but also by 'hoi parontes', passers-by, who occasionally witnessed the injured parties and were public-minded enough to help them from the standpoint of public interests.3. The Head Investigator concludes from the above-mentioned considerations that the public areas of the Athenian democracy had a multilayered structure, consisting of various interemadiate groups such as families, friends, contemporaries, demes and phratries, and also that every citizen could nevertheless be expected to behave in terms of the public interests of the polis, which superseded the particular interests of each intermediate group.