In undertaking this study I have drawn on more kindnesses done me by more people than I can specify. The immediate impulse to write came from re-reading H. S. Maine’s Ancient Law, which was first recommended to me long ago by the late Idris Deane Jones. It will be readily apparent that I have drawn extensively on studies published by the late H. J. Wolff, and by E. Ruschenbusch and M. H. Hansen. Even though I have disagreed with each of them on some points, my debts to them are far greater than my doubts. Private discussion with D. Cohen has brought me pleasure and profit. I have had singularly considerate treatment from Mr. Philip Winsor of the Pennsylvania State University Press and from his two readers.
Choosing a title for the book proved to be unexpectedly difficult. English has no word precisely equivalent to Rechtsstaat. “The Athenian polity” was considered, but the word is archaic and affected. “Republic” is better, even though somewhat comprehensive. It excludes the arbitrary rule of a despot. Besides it resounds across European centuries from res publica to rzeczpospolita.
Many of the ideas presented here were developed in more polemical form in the following articles: “Probouleusis and the sovereign assembly,” CSCA. 2 (1968): 247–69; “The origins of demokratia,” CSCA. 6 (1973): 253–95; “The Athenian concept of law,” CJ. 77 (1981–82): 289–302; “The Athenian courts for homicide,” CP. 78 (1983): 275–96; “On lawful concubinage in Athens,” CA. 3 (1984): 111–33; and “How citizenship and the city began in Athens,” AJAH. (forthcoming). I thank the editors of those journals for publishing my arguments in the first place and for agreeing to my renewed use of them.
I am also indebted to the Superior Court of Alameda County for showing me how bad Californian law is. So I decided to expound a decent system of law to some Californian students, and this book is a by-product of the lectures which I gave.
If I have succeeded in keeping my feet on the ground, I owe that to the example set by the dedicand.
Raphael Sealey
Berkeley, California