This timely volume brings together leading scholars and rising researchers in the field to examine the role played by the law in thinking and practice in the legal system of classical Athens. The aim is not to find a single perspective or method for the study of Athenian law but to explore the subject from a variety of different angles. The focus of the collection on ‘use and abuse’ raises fundamental questions about the status of law in the Athenian constitution as well as the use of law(s) in the courts, the nature of law itself, and the elusiveness of a definition of ‘abuse’. An introduction sketches the major developments in the field over the last century.

Table of Contents:
Abbreviations Notes on Contributors Introduction  Chris Carey Part 1 Conceptualising The System 1 Abuse Is in the Eye of the Beholder  Michael Gagarin 2 The Elasticity of Athenian Law  Robin Osborne 3 The Athenian View of an Athenian Trial  Edward M. Harris 4 Bridging the Divide Between Public and Private: dikē exoulēs and Other Hybrids  Chris Carey Part 2 Procedural Manoeuvres 5 Isaeus 6: A Case of Procedural Abuse (and Scholarly Misunderstandings)  Brenda Griffith-Williams 6 Anakrisis and Legal Argumentation in Athenian Public Trials  Christos Kremmydas 7 The Postponement of the Trial by Jury in Athens: The Timing of the graphē paranomōn  László Horváth 8 Abusing Legal Procedures for Impeding the Legal Process  Noboru Sato Part 3 The Rhetoric of Law 9 Clauses out of Context: Partial Citation of Statutes in Attic Forensic Oratory  Lene Rubinstein 10 Twisting the Law in Ancient Athens  Ilias Arnaoutoglou 11 (Re)constructing the Athenian Legal System  Ifigeneia Giannadaki 12 Liturgies and the Rhetoric of Law in Fourth Century Athens: A Case Study on an antidosis ([Dem.] 42)  Kostas Apostolakis 13 Jurisdiction and Jurisprudence in Demosthenes 23  Victoria Wohl 14 ‘Theft’ as a Metaphor for the Abuse of Legal Process at Athens  S.C. Todd Part 4 Specific Areas of Law 15 Laws Against Laws: The Athenian Ideology of Legislation  Mirko Canevaro 16 Abuse of the eisangelia in the Latter Half of the Fourth Century BC  Eleni Volonaki 17 Athenian Homicide Law and the Model Penal Code  David D. Phillips 18 Abuse of Inheritance Law in Isaeus?  Rosalia Hatzilambrou Glossary Bibliography Index of terms Index of names and places Index locorum