Los comienzos de la codificación del derecho en Grecia. Análisis lingüístico de inscripciones griegas arcaicas

Abstract

Despite its incomplete and partial character, the archaic Greek inscriptions
constitute the oldest testimonies in relation to the emergence of law in Greece, both
in the public and private spheres.
It is noteworthy that the first political and legal writings are practically
simultaneous with the introduction of the alphabet in Greek cities. The appearance
of writing brought with it various consequences, such as the codification of useful
experiences in social life, the organization of political activity in cities and the
establishment of rights in them. That is, these documents reveal the mechanisms of
gestation of democracy in the Hellenic world.
In them you can see, on the one hand, how the ancient Greeks began to shape
their civic identity and to define the link with their cities. They reveal in them some
of the features that, later, will identify the concept of πολιτεία, which establishes the
condition and rights of man in his character as a citizen.
They show, on the other, highly significant dialectal peculiarities, unavoidable in
the analysis, beyond the difficulties in reading and interpretation that are presented
in many cases. With full awareness of the limits of this approach in view of the subject
worked, the decision to sustain it is based on the conviction that the remarkable Greek
development in political-legal matters would have been impossible in the absence of
the roots that the inscriptions considered, beyond of its elementary character, allow
us to glimpse.