Theme Of Law In Antigone

Ancient Greek Society

In the play Antigone written by Sophocles the main theme apparent in the play was law. The theme of law leads into the extensive subject of the Ancient Greek society mainly to do with the law and city-states. The city-states held an important role in the Greek society; they held their own government and the citizens thought of themselves as from their city-states not from Greece. The law of the Greeks dictated most everything they did.

Ancient Greek city-states or poleis had many different ways of living, although they all spoke Greek and considered themselves Greek. The Greek poleis first formed after what is known as The Greek Dark Ages. The Greek Dark Ages were a time when old major settlements of

the Greeks were abandoned and a significant decline in population occurred. The Greeks still living in this time became nomadic and had different needs. Historians do not know the full extent of the Dark Ages because no records were kept of the time period which leads to the conclusion they became illiterate at the time of the Dark Ages. Eventually between a time period of 950 to 750 BC the Greeks reinvented their old forgotten literature and based their new language on the Phoenicians alphabet. During the next 200 years the Greeks population bounced back and they formed poleis. The poleis often had their own armies and sometimes even navy's if they were large enough. In these poleis the people formed their own forms of law and government for the entire population. Most of the larger poleis also used written laws to help keep their law system fair.
Because of the confusion of the masses most poleis kept their laws written.

No laws or punishments were set by a governing force as the Dark Ages ended because no government force was apparent at the time. The act of committing a homicide was the base of the first written law by the Greeks because of the endless blood feuds from the family's committing revenge for the homicide. The first Greek lawmaker Draco wrote the law and the law stated if the act of murder was committed then the penalty was exile. This is one of the few laws used after Solon became the next law writer and wrote laws for the four main groups of laws the Greeks had. The four main groups of laws the Greeks had were the Tort, Family, Public, and

Procedural.
Similar to laws we have today, the Tort Laws deal punishment when someone has harmed a person or property of another person and they set rules and codes for building and payments on them. The first two law writers Solon and Draco wrote many of these laws. Some of the laws were about rape, theft, and the offense of a dog bite. The punishments for the crimes were specific and upheld by the city-states. The Family Laws on the other hand were meant for regulating the behaviors for men and women. These laws had no official punishment and were upheld by the heads of the family's. Many marital and adoption allowances appeared in the Family Laws as well. Such as laws concerning women and their kyrios, or official guardian, which was either the woman's father or husband. The next set of law was the Public Laws. The Public laws were set to dictate and to provide how public services and functions should be used to help the citizens. These laws set regulations on items such as the amount of land a man owned and it created bans such as the ban on exported goods except for olive oil by Solon. Lastly the Regulatory Laws were used to set guidelines in the judicial system on how to observe and interpret laws.
Unlike any other ancient societies, the Greeks did not have any officials for their judicial system.

The Greeks did not have a professional judicial system with professional jurors or lawyers, they had what we now call amateurs. Usually the cases consisted of a prosecutor, a defendant, and the jurors. The prosecutors and the defendants were known as litigants. While the litigants argued over if the unlawful act was committed the jurors voted guilty or not depending on the arguments. These cases would usually take a day at most before the jurors would decide punishment. These "court officials" were paid little to nothing.

As you can see the Greek society needed many functioning factors to complete the poleis and law. The Greek society’s complex unofficial judicial system would not work without the specific and extensive laws written by Draco and Solon. The laws also could not have been written if it were not for the forming of the poleis after the dark ages. All of these factors are tied together and all stemmed from the theme of law from the play

Antigone.