Download or read book Law in the Ancient World written by Russ VerSteeg and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Law in the Ancient World examines the legal philosophy, legal institutions, and laws of the ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. Ancient documents, accounts, and literature provide the basis for a wide perspective of law and the procedural features of these ancient legal systems. VerSteeg delineates and analyzes the elements of ancient laws, explaining how social, religious, cultural, and political forces shaped both procedure and substance. The book is comprised of four units: I. Early Mesopotamian Law; II. Law in Ancient Egypt; III. Law in Classical Athens; and IV. Roman Law. Each unit has three chapters, and the first chapter in each unit begins with an overview which provides essential historial background. Next, each initial chapter considers the role of law in society, exploring law in the abstract, the theoretical bases of justice. The middle chapters in each unit trace the development of the ancient judicial systems, distinguishing the various types of judges, courts, and procedures that were employed to make justice available to both citizens and foreigners. The third chapter in each unit reconstructs the substantive laws, including sections detailing Personal Status, Property, Family Law, Inheritance & Succession, Torts, Criminal Law, and Contracts & Commercial Law. A variety of sources, such as early law collections, land records, wills, sales documents, court chronicles, works of ancient literature, accounts of ancient trials, and great codes such as Justinian's Corpus Iuris Civilis illustrate the sophisticated, often subtle, and complex nature of law in the ancient world.
Download or read book Ancient Greek Laws written by Ilias Arnaoutoglou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-02-21 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comprehensive and accessible sourcebook, Ilias Arnaoutoglou presents a collection of ancient Greek laws, which are situated in their legal and historical contexts and are elucidated with relevant selections from Greek literature and epigraphical testimonies. A wide area of legislative activity in major and minor Greek city-states, ranging from Delphoi and Athens in mainland Greece, to Gortyn in Crete, Olbia in South Russia and Aegean cities including Ephesos, Samos and Thasos, is covered. Ilias Arnaoutoglou divides legislation into three main areas: * the household - marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption, sexual offences and personal status * the market-place - trade, finance, sale, coinage and leases * the state - constitution, legislative process, public duties, colonies, building activities, naval forces, penal regulations, religion, politics and inter-state affairs. Dr Arnaoutoglou explores the significance of legislation in ancient Greece, the differences and similarities between ancient Greek legislation and legislators and their modern counterparts and also provides fresh translations of the legal documents themselves.
Download or read book Ancient Law Ancient Society written by Dennis P. Kehoe and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engaging look at how ancient Greeks and Romans crafted laws that fit--and, in turn, changed--their worlds
Download or read book A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law 2 vols written by Raymond Westbrook and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2003-08-01 with total page 1235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive survey of the Law of the Ancient Near East by a team of specialist scholars, this volume allows non-specialists access to the world's earliest known legal systems.
Download or read book The Law of Ancient Athens written by David Phillips and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2013-10-14 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A topic fundamental to understanding the ancient world
Download or read book Roman Law in European History written by Peter Stein and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-05-13 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Roman law has influenced European legal and political thought from antiquity to the present day.
Download or read book The Code of Hammurabi written by Hammurabi and published by . This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to about 1754 BC. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a man-sized stone stele and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (lex talionis) as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man. Nearly one-half of the Code deals with matters of contract, establishing, for example, the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon. Other provisions set the terms of a transaction, establishing the liability of a builder for a house that collapses, for example, or property that is damaged while left in the care of another. A third of the code addresses issues concerning household and family relationships such as inheritance, divorce, paternity, and sexual behavior. Only one provision appears to impose obligations on an official; this provision establishes that a judge who reaches an incorrect decision is to be fined and removed from the bench permanently. A few provisions address issues related to military service. Hammurabi ruled for nearly 42 years, c. 1792 to 1750 BC according to the Middle chronology. In the preface to the law, he states, "Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared Marduk, the patron god of Babylon (The Human Record, Andrea & Overfield 2005), to bring about the rule in the land." On the stone slab there are 44 columns and 28 paragraphs that contained 282 laws. The laws follow along the rules of 'an eye for an eye'.
Download or read book Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans written by Andrew M. Riggsby and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-14 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Riggsby provides a survey of the main areas of Roman law, and their place in Roman life.
Download or read book International Law in Antiquity written by David J. Bederman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-03-05 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of the origins of international law combines techniques of intellectual history and historiography to investigate the earliest developments of the law of nations. The book examines the sources, processes and doctrines of international legal obligation in antiquity to re-evaluate the critical attributes of international law. David J. Bederman focuses on three essential areas in which law influenced ancient state relations - diplomacy, treaty-making and warfare - in a detailed analysis of international relations in the Near East (2800–700 BCE), the Greek city-states (500–338 BCE) and Rome (358–168 BCE). Containing topical literature and archaeological evidence, this 2001 study does not merely catalogue instances of recognition by ancient states of these seminal features of international law: it accounts for recurrent patterns of thinking and practice. This comprehensive analysis of international law and state relations in ancient times provides a fascinating study for lawyers and academics, ancient historians and classicists alike.
Download or read book Women and the Law in the Roman Empire written by Judith Evans Grubbs and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sourcebook fully exploits the rich legal material of the imperial period, explaining the rights women held under Roman law, the restrictions to which they were subject, and legal regulations on marriage, divorce and widowhood.
Download or read book Control of the Laws in the Ancient Democracy at Athens written by Edwin Carawan and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive book on judicial review in Athens from the 5th through the 4th centuries BCE. The power of the court to overturn a law or decree—called judicial review—is a critical feature of modern democracies. Contemporary American judges, for example, determine what is consistent with the Constitution, though this practice is often criticized for giving unelected officials the power to strike down laws enacted by the people's representatives. This principle was actually developed more than two thousand years ago in the ancient democracy at Athens. In Control of the Laws in the Ancient Democracy at Athens, Edwin Carawan reassesses the accumulated evidence to construct a new model of how Athenians made law in the time of Plato and Aristotle, while examining how the courts controlled that process. Athenian juries, Carawan explains, were manned by many hundreds of ordinary citizens rather than a judicial elite. Nonetheless, in the 1890s, American apologists found vindication for judicial review in the ancient precedent. They believed that Athenian judges decided the fate of laws and decrees legalistically, focusing on fundamental text, because the speeches that survive from antiquity often involve close scrutiny of statutes attributed to lawgivers such as Solon, much as a modern appellate judge might resort to the wording of the Framers. Carawan argues that inscriptions, speeches, and fragments of lost histories make clear that text-based constitutionalism was not so compelling as the ethos of the community. Carawan explores how the judicial review process changed over time. From the restoration of democracy down to its last decades, the Athenians made significant reforms in their method of legislation, first to expedite a cumbersome process, then to revive the more rigorous safeguards. Jury selection adapted accordingly: the procedure was recast to better represent the polis, and packing the court was thwarted by a complicated lottery. But even as the system evolved, the debate remained much the same: laws and decrees were measured by a standard crafted in the image of the people. Offering a comprehensive account of the ancient origins of an important political institution through philological methods, rhetorical analysis of ancient arguments, and comparisons between models of judicial review in ancient Greece and the modern United States, Control of the Laws in the Ancient Democracy at Athens is an innovative study of ancient Greek law and democracy.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Law written by Michael Gagarin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-09-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Companion volume provides a comprehensive overview of the major themes and topics pertinent to ancient Greek law. A substantial introduction establishes the recent historiography on this topic and its development over the last 30 years. Many of the 22 essays, written by an international team of experts, deal with procedural and substantive law in classical Athens, but significant attention is also paid to legal practice in the archaic and Hellenistic eras; areas that offer substantial evidence for legal practice, such as Crete and Egypt; the intersection of law with religion, philosophy, political theory, rhetoric, and drama, as well as the unity of Greek law and the role of writing in law. The volume is intended to introduce non-specialists to the field as well as to stimulate new thinking among specialists.
Download or read book Religions of the Ancient World written by Sarah Iles Johnston and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking, first basic reference work on ancient religious beliefs collects and organizes available information on ten ancient cultures and traditions, including Greece, Rome, and Mesopotamia, and offers an expansive, comparative perspective on each one.
Download or read book Ancient Laws and Modern Problems written by John Sassoon and published by Intellect (UK). This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Sassoon's study of the written laws of four thousand years ago puts paid to the belief that the most ancient laws were merely arbitrary and tyrannical. On the contrary, the earliest legal systems honestly tried to get to the truth, do justice to individuals, and preserve civil order. They used the death penalty surprisingly seldom, and then more because society had been threatened than an individual killed. Some of the surviving law codes are originals, others near-contemporary copies. Together they preserve a partial but vivid picture of life in the early cites. This occupies more than half the book. Comparison of ancient with modern principles occupies the remainder and is bound to be controversial; but it is important as well as fascinating. The first act of writing laws diminished the discretion of the judges and foretold a limit on individual justice. Some political principles such as uniformity of treatment or individual freedom have, when carried to extremes, produced crises in modern legal systems world wide. But it is tempting but wrong to blame the judges or the lawyers for doing what society require of them.
Download or read book Law in Ancient Egypt written by Russ VerSteeg and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Law in Ancient Egypt examines the legal philosophy, legal institutions, and laws of the ancient Egyptians. Ancient documents, accounts, and literature provide the basis for a wide perspective of law and the Egyptian legal system. VerSteeg delineates and analyzes the elements of Egyptian law, explaining how social, religious, cultural, and political forces shaped both the procedural and substantive aspects of law. Part I considers the theory of justice in ancient Egypt, exploring the role of law in society. Part I also traces the development of the judicial system distinguishing the various types of judges, courts, and procedures that were employed to make justice available to all. Part II reconstructs the substantive laws of the ancient Egyptians, including chapters detailing property, family law, inheritance and succession, tort and criminal law, contracts, and status. Land records, wills, sales documents, court chronicles, works of ancient fiction, and accounts of ancient trials illustrate the sophisticated, often subtle, and complex nature of law in ancient Egypt. This study provides an introduction to law in ancient Egypt. It is the first comprehensive overview of the subject written from the perspective of someone trained as an American lawyer who is also sufficiently familiar with the discipline of Egyptology. The book will be of interest to Egyptologists, legal historians, law students, and educated non-specialists who are interested in the interaction of law, history, and ancient culture.
Download or read book The Discovery of the Fact written by Clifford Ando and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Discovery of the Fact draws on expertise from lawyers, historians of philosophy, and scholars of classical studies and ancient history, to take a very modern perspective on an underexplored but essential domain of ancient legal history. Everyone is familiar with courts as adjudicators of facts. But legal institutions also played an essential role in the emergence of the notion of the fact, and contributed in a vital way to commonplace understandings of what is knowable and what is not. These issues have a particular importance in ancient Greece and Rome, the first western societies in which state law and state institutions of dispute resolution visibly play a decisive role in ordinary social and economic relations. The Discovery of the Fact investigates, historically and comparatively, the relationships among the law, legal institutions, and the boundaries of knowledge in classical Greece and Rome. Societies wanted citizens to conform to the law, but how could this be insured? On what foundation did ancient courts and institutions base their decisions, and how did they represent the reasoning behind their decisions when announcing them? Slaves were owned like things, and yet they had minds that ancients conceded were essentially unknowable. What was to be done? And where has the boundary been drawn between questions of law and questions of fact when designing processes of dispute resolution?
Download or read book Law and Crime in the Roman World written by Jill Harries and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-15 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was crime in ancient Rome? Was it defined by law or social attitudes? How did damage to the individual differ from offences against the community as a whole? This 2007 book explores competing legal and extra-legal discourses in a number of areas, including theft, official malpractice, treason, sexual misconduct, crimes of violence, homicide, magic and perceptions of deviance. It argues that court practice was responsive to social change, despite the ingrained conservatism of the legal tradition, and that judges and litigants were in part responsible for the harsher operation of justice in Late Antiquity. Consideration is also given to how attitudes to crime were shaped not only by legal experts but also by the rhetorical education and practices of advocates, and by popular and even elite indifference to the finer points of law.
