E-Books →Keeping to the Point in Athenian Forensic Oratory Law, Character and Rhetoric

Free Download Keeping to the Point in Athenian Forensic Oratory: Law, Character and Rhetoric (New Approaches to Ancient Greek Institutional History) edited by Edward M. Harris, Alberto Esu
English | January 31, 2025 | ISBN: 1399523872 | True EPUB | 304 pages | 0.5 MB
When a litigant initiated a lawsuit in Classical Athens, he submitted a written plaint to the relevant magistrate. This document contained his name, the name of the defendant, the legal procedure employed, and the specific violations of part of the law. If the magistrate accepted the plaint, the legal charges were read to the court before and after the litigants spoke, and the judges swore in their oath to vote only about the charges in the plaint, that is, whether the defendant had violated a specific law or not. In private suits, litigants took an oath to 'keep to the point', that is, discuss only the legal charges. In public cases litigants were under the same obligation.