Athenian Law Research Guide
Introduction
Research Paper Topic Selection
Searching SCHOLAR and OhioLINK Catalogs
Treatises
Periodicals and Current Awareness Services
Interdisciplinary Research
Web Searching and Resources
Introduction
Researching Legal History can help one to better analyze and critique the foundation and development of current law as well as current cultural, social, economic, and political issues. Perhaps most illuminating, in the face of the doctrine of precedent, legal history provides evidence for how law changes over time and how law changes in relationship to cultural, social, economic, and political change. Researching Athenian Law can specifically help one understand a wide assortment of citizenship; sovereignty; constitutional; legislative, executive, and judicial authority; jurisdictional; court procedure; criminal law; property law; and commercial law issues.
Though it is difficult to completely remove oneself from one's personal philosophies and experiences, when researching legal history one should make every effort to analyze historical figures and their actions according to their environment, language, society, and culture. In addition to objectivity, keen critical evaluation of resources is essential for valid legal history research. For information on general legal history research methods and resources, consult the Legal History guide available on the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library Law Library Publications and Resources Guides page.
Please contact the Law Library's Research Services librarians during their Research Services hours, or via email for help with locating or using any of the resources discussed in this guide.
Research Paper Topic Selection
Selecting an appropriate topic for a research paper may seem more stressful than the writing itself. How can you find an interesting topic in which there's not too much, yet not too little, written?
First, try reviewing current issues and hot topics. Yes, there are "current issues and hot topics" in legal history as well as Athenian Law research. Historians and legal history scholars continuously analyze the past, as well as critique historiography. Browse news and current events on professional or scholarly organization Web sites, such as the American Society for Legal History and American Philological Association. Also, check out Lawtopic.com, which lists over 90 paper topics and includes tips on writing a student article.
Second, once you've identified an appropriate topic, do a quick preliminary literature review to determine whether there are sufficient resources to discuss the topic as well as present your hypothesis and evidence-based conclusion. See the Scholarly Writing research guide, available on the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library Law Library Publications and Resource Guides page, and other sections of this Athenian Law guide for more complete information on conducting print and electronic research for your paper.
Searching SCHOLAR and OhioLINK Catalogs
SCHOLAR is the electronic catalog for Cleveland State University's Law Library and University Library. CSU also participates in the state-wide consortia OhioLINK, which provides access to a state-wide central catalog and numerous research databases. For treatises and other materials on Athenian Law, search the SCHOLAR and OhioLINK catalogs with such subject headings as Law -- Greece -- Athens, Constitutional Law -- Greece -- Athens, Courts -- Greece -- Athens, Democracy -- Greece -- Athens, Justice, Administration of - Greece -- Athens, Rule 0f Law -- Greece -- Athens, and Trials -- Greece -- Athens.
Treatises
Selected treatises in the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library collection concerning Athenian Law include the following:
Antiphon the Athenian: Oratory, Law, and Justice in the Age of the Sophists / Michael Gagarin. University of Texas Press, c2002. JC71 .A41 G34 2002
Aspects of the Athenian Law Code of 410/09-400/399 B.C. / Hardy Hansen. Garland Pub., c1990. CE42 .H36 1990
The Associations of Classical Athens: the Response to Democracy / Nicholas F. Jones. Oxford University Press, c1999. Electronic
The Athenian Constitution after Sulla / Daniel J. Geagan. W.S. Hein, c2004. KL4361.5 .G43 2004
Democratic Virtue in the Trial and Death of Socrates: Resistance to Imperialism in Classical Athens / Ricky K. Green. Peter Lang, c2001. JC75 .D36 G74 2001
Greek Law in Its Political Setting: Justifications Not Justice / L. Foxhall and A.D.E. Lewis, eds. Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press, c1996. KL4121 .G74 1996
Horae Juridicae Subsecivae: a Connected Series of Notes, Respecting the Geography, Chronology, and Literary History of the Principal Codes and Original Documents of the Grecian, Roman, Feudal and Canon Law / Charles Butler. Gaunt, c2001. KL4121 .B88 2001
The Law and the Courts in Ancient Greece / Edward M. Harris and Lene Rubinstein, eds. Duckworth, c2004. KL4345 .L39 2004
Law and Justice in the Courts of Classical Athens / Adriaan Lanni. Cambridge University Press, c2006. KL4345 .L36 2006
Law and Social Status in Classical Athens / Virginia Hunter and Jonathan Edmondson, eds. Oxford University Press, c2000. KL4127 .L39 2000
Law, Sexuality, and Society: the Enforcement of Morals in Classical Athens / David Cohen. Cambridge University Press, c1991. HQ32 .C64 1991
Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens / David Cohen. Cambridge University Press, c1995. KL4115 .A75 C64 1995
The Lawcourts at Athens: Sites, Buildings, Equipment, Procedure, and Testimonia / Alan L. Boegehold with contributions by John McK. Camp II ... et al. American School of Classical Studies at Athens, c1995. DF287 .A23 A5 v.28
The Litigious Athenian / Matthew R. Christ. Johns Hopkins University Press, c1998. KL4115 .A75 C48 1998
Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, Politics, and Society / Paul Cartledge, Paul Millett, and Stephen Todd, eds. Cambridge University Press, c1990. KKE4980 .A9 N65 1990
One God, One Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Greco-Roman Law / John W. Martens. Brill Academic Publishers, c2003. B689 .Z7 M27 2003
Plato's Democratic Entanglements: Athenian Politics and the Practice of Philosophy / S. Sara Monoson. Princeton University Press, c2000. JC75 .D36 M65 2000
The Rule of Law and the Nature of the Fourth-Century Athenian Democracy / Mark J. Sundahl. Museum Tusculanum Press, c2003. KL4115 .A75 S96 2003
The Shape of Athenian Law / S.C. Todd. Clarendon, c1993. KL4115 .A75 T63 1993
Socrates against Athens: Philosophy on Trial / James A. Colaiaco. Routledge, c2001. B318 .E8 C65 2001
Trials from Classical Athens / Christopher Carey, ed. Routledge, c1997. KL4115.3 .C37 1997
Periodicals and Current Awareness Services
See the Finding Articles in Law Reviews, Journals and Other Legal Periodicals guide for an explanation of the legal periodical indexes and databases available to Cleveland-Marshall College of Law students and the CSU community. That guide covers print and electronic indexes, as well as electronic full-text journals. In particular, note OhioLINK's Electronic Journal Center and its 11 subject clusters, such as "Social Sciences," which includes Politics, Political Science, and Law journals, and "Arts and Humanities," which includes History journals.
See also the list of over 25 electronic Classics journals maintained by the American Philological Association.
Interdisciplinary Research
No matter what topic you select for your Athenian Law research paper, to fully understand and appreciate the myriad issues involved in it, you will likely need to conduct interdisciplinary research in historical, cultural, social, economic, and/or political areas.
The OhioLINK state-wide library consortia provides access to over 100 Research Databases arranged in 40 topical groups. For example, the "Law and Legislation" group includes LexisNexis Academic; Oxford Reference, Law; and Oxford Reference. The "History" group includes Historical Abstracts and Oxford Reference, History. Both of these two topical groups include Dissertation Abstracts; Historic New York Times; New York Times; PapersFirst; ProceedingsFirst; and Social Sciences Citation Index. All of the OhioLINK topical Research Databases groups include WorldCat, an international library consortia catalog of over 43 million records of materials dating from 1000 BC to the present.
The Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library Web site includes links to numerous Legal Reference materials and Law Library Publications and Resource Guides. New Resource Guides, covering topics such as Athenian Law, are also being added on a continuous basis.
Web Searching and Resources
If you're inexperienced with searching the WorldWideWeb, or having poor luck doing so, consult the Web Searching guide available from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library Law Library Publications and Resource Guides page. It includes information on evaluating Web sites, principles and guidelines for Web searching, Web directories, Web search engines, Web metasearch engines, and the Invisible Web.
Key Web sites with resources of interest to one researching Athenian Law include the following:
American Philological Association
"The principal learned society for Classical Studies in North America."
American School for Classical Studies at Athens: Athenian Agora Excavations
Provides an interactive tour of the Agora and Hellenistic Stoa of Attalos museum which houses public documents, jurors' identification tickets and thousands of other artifacts excavated from the site.
Association of Ancient Historians
Constitution Society: Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics: Ancient Greek and Latin Library
Ghent University: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History of Europe: Dr. Koenraad Verboven: Internet Ancient History Resource Guide
Harvard University: Center for Hellenic Studies
See in particular its Discussion Series, such as "Athenian Law."
See in particular the Law and History Review, available here in full-text.
NOMOI: Bibliography on Ancient Greek Law
A cooperative project of the Simon Fraser University Department of Humanities and Academy of Athens Research Centre for the History of Greek Law. Includes resources on the polis, status, family and inheritance, property, law of obligations, commercial law, procedure, crime and punishment, religion and law, and inter-poleis relations.
Oxford University: Classics Centre: Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents
Research center organizing and digitizing a huge archival collection of Greek inscriptions.
Perseus Digital Library: Classics / Greek and Roman Materials
"Primary and secondary sources for the study of ancient Greece and Rome." Links to over 450 primary texts and over 100 secondary sources.
The Stoa: a Consortium for Scholarly Publication in the Humanities: Dêmos: Classical Athenian Democracy
"A digital encyclopedia of classical democracy."
Yale Law School: Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy: Pre 18th Century Documents: The Athenian Constitution
Laura E. Ray, MA, MLS
Educational Programing Librarian
February 2007