Hubris and the Unity of Greek Law

David D. Phillips (University of California, Los Angeles)

The question of the unity of Greek law has been a subject of intense debate since the publication of Finley’s influential essays on the topic (1951, 1966 (≈1975)). While scholars on the European continent have generally championed the concept, those in North America and Britain have tended to follow Finley in rejecting it. Most recently, Gagarin (2005) has proposed a compromise: while making a persuasive case for unity in legal procedure, he finds no meaningful unity in the substantive law of the numerous poleis. This paper will argue that significant evidence for unity in Greek substantive law does exist in the specific case of hubris.

Since the Greek poleis were politically autonomous (as a rule) and geographically disparate, yet at the same time possessed a common heritage of culture and custom (Hdt. 8.144), we need explicit criteria by which to judge questions of Greek legal unity: we should not assume either that the former factor excludes unity or that the latter guarantees it. Most commonly, proponents of unity cite legal similarities between discrete poleis, especially Athens, Gortyn, and/or Sparta (e.g., Sealey (1994) 59-89). Equally significant, however, is the presence of a legal phenomenon or institution in a community composed of Greeks from various poleis, since we may reasonably posit that the laws of such communities tend to reflect the common denominator of the legal systems of their inhabitants’ cities of origin (cf. Biscardi (1982) 8-9).

A substantive legal concept of hubris meets both of these criteria. Hubris, as a named offense, appears not only in Athens, where it is best attested (e.g., Dem. 21.47), but also in Por(d)oselene/Nasos (IG XII 2.646 = Stauber (1996) no. 36), possibly in Sparta (Hdt. 6.85), and presumably elsewhere (cf. Arist. Pol. 1267b37-9). Hubris was also employed as a formal category of substantive law in at least two communities comprising members from throughout the Greek world: the temporary virtual polis of the Ten Thousand Greeks (Xen. Anab. 5.7-8) and Alexandria (PHalensis 1 col. IX, lines 210-13). Moreover, the descriptions of hubris in all the sources that offer them conform to the Athenian-Aristotelian definition (see Fisher (1992), esp. 37-85). Hubris, therefore, should be recognized as a characteristic element of Greek – and not merely Athenian or Alexandrian – substantive law.