Draco (lawgiver)

Draco
Born	c. 7th century BC

For other uses, see Draco (disambiguation).

Draco (Template:PronEng; from Greek Δράκων, IPA: [drákɔːn]) was the first legislator of ancient Athens, Greece, 7th century BC.

Life

During the 39th Olympiad, in 621 or 620 BC, Draco established the legal code with which he is identified. Little is known about his life. He probably belonged to the Greek nobility of the Atticus region called the Eupatridae, with which the 10th century Suda text records him as contemporaneous, prior to the period of the Seven Sages of Greece. It also relates a story of his ironic death in the Aeginian theater. Ironically, in a traditional ancient Greek show of approval, his supporters "threw so many hats and shirts and cloaks on his head that he suffocated, and was buried in that selfsame theatre". Aristotle specifies that Draco laid down his legal code in the archonship of Aristaechmus (Ἀρισταίχμος), 620 or 621 BC.

The Draconic constitution

The laws (θεσμοί) he laid down were the first written constitution of Athens. So that no one would be unaware of them, they were posted on wooden tablets (άξονες), where they were preserved for almost two centuries, on steles of the shape of three-sided pyramids (κύρβεις). The tablets were called axones, perhaps because they could be pivoted along the pyramid's axis, to read any side.

The constitution featured several major innovations:

• Instead of oral laws known to a special class, arbitrarily applied and interpreted, all laws were written, thus made known to all literate citizens, who could make appeal to the Areopagus for injustices.
• The laws distinguish between murder and involuntary homicide.

The laws, however, were particularly harsh. For example, any debtor whose status was lower than that of his creditor was forced into slavery. The punishment was more lenient for those owing debt to a member of a lower class. The death penalty was the punishment for even minor offenses. Concerning the liberal use of the death penalty in the Draconic code, Plutarch states:

αὐτὸς δ' ἐκεῖνος, ὥς φασιν, ἐρωτώμενος διὰ τί τοῖς πλείστοις ἀδικήμασι ζημίαν ἔταξε θάνατον, ἀπεκρίνατο τὰ μὲν μικρὰ ταύτης ἄξια νομίζειν, τοῖς δὲ μεγάλοις οὐκ ἔχειν μείζονα.

In Stewart and Long's translation,

It is said that Drakon himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most offences, answered that he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment for more important ones.

Draco introduced the lot-chosen Council of Four Hundred (in reality, 401)—distinct from the Areopagus—which evolved in later constitutions to play a large role in Athenian democracy. Aristotle notes that Draco, while having the laws written, merely legislated for an existing unwritten Athenian constitution, such as setting exact qualifications for eligibility for office.

Draco's code was later largely revised by Solon, in the early 6th century BC, with the exception of homicide laws.

Draconian

The stringency of his legal code gave rise to the modern English word "draconian," meaning marked by extreme severity or cruelty, especially about laws or governments. Sample quotes:

• "Emancipation at the price of a ruinous war and a Draconian peace." (G.W. Johnson)
• "by draconian labor laws the regime makes life harder than it need be." (F.C. Barghoorn)
• "The threat…could never be eliminated unless he were empowered to take drakonian punitive measures." (S. Rushdie)
• "the increasingly nasty and draconian measures now used to enforce software copyright." (R. Stallman)