Avengers of Blood

In 621/0 B.C., the Athenians appointed Draco as their first lawgiver. His homicide laws, which alone survived the general recension of Athenian law by Solon (594/3 B.C.), remained in force down through the Classical period. This book traces the development of Athenian legal and social responses to homicide from the legislation of Draco to the time of the orator Demosthenes (d. 322 B.C.), with particular attention to the Athenian institution of private enmity (echthra), the circumstances and aims of Draco’s legislation, familial and religious issues surrounding homicide, and the regime of the Thirty Tyrants and its aftermath.