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This article examines the early Hellenistic honorific decree for the Athenian general Aristeides of Lamptrai (I.Rhamnous 404). After discussing the decree’s date and the external evidence about the honorand, the article provides a detailed analysis of Aristeides’ meritorious deeds in the order in which they are recounted in the motivation clause of the decree. In particular, the article considers the ways in which this decree advances our understanding of the Athenian revolt against Demetrios Poliorketes in 287, of Athenian relations with the Antigonids in the late 280s and early 270s, and of the early phases of the Chremonidean War.

This article is a short response to a recent contribution by Dietze-Mager in Erga-Logoi 10.2. There, within a larger discussion of the reliability of the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia as a historical source, Dietze-Mager argues against our proposed identification of the Athenian nomothetai with a special session of the Assembly. In response, we start with a concise summary of our interpretation of the constitutional stages in the Athenaion Politeia in light of the socio-economic methodology of Politics IV, and clarify the role of Aristotle’s political theory in our reconstruction. We then provide a close reading of some key evidence about the identity of the Athenian nomothetai (particularly Aeschin. III 38-40). We demonstrate that Dietze-Mager’s proposed reading of the relevant passage is linguistically and syntactically problematic, arguing that the only possible interpretation of the relevant procedure as described at Aeschin. III 38-40 involves identifying the nomothetai with a special lawmaking session of the Assembly.

This article tackles the problem of the changes to the merismos – the law that in the fourth century allocated Athenian funds to various treasuries and magistrates – ordered by decree in IG II3 1 327, 452 e 355, yet to be ratified by the nomothetai. By analysing these inscriptions within the wider context of Athenian finances and lawmaking, the article proposes a new reconstruction of how these changes were institutionally legitimised, and of the effects that this legitimation had on the role of the nomothetai and on the development of Athenian financial administration. In doing so, the article uses methodologies from New Institutionalism and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of traditional approaches to Greek institutional history.

Scholars have often identified the Greek polis, and Athenian democracy in particular, as the first example of majority rule. This chapter reviews the evidence for Greek deliberative procedures and reassesses how much they conformed to majority rule, and how much they made use of consensus‐deliberation, understood through engagement with current work on deliberative democracy. It discusses the evidence of Hellenistic decrees from the Greek poleis for which we have voting figures, to show that what we find is for the most part unanimity or near‐unanimity. It then discusses the Athenian evidence to reassess whether the deliberative system in Athens practiced strict majority rule, or left space for considerable consensus seeking and even unanimity. It argues that consensus‐ based forms of deliberation were a key element of Greek decision making, which secured the cohesion of Greek communities as well as the synthesis of wide‐spread knowledge.

Nel 2012 M. Canevaro ed E. M. Harris pubblicarono un saggio sui documenti inseriti nel testo del discorso Sui Misteri di Andocide: il decreto di Patrocleide (Andoc. 1.74- 76), il decreto di Tisameno (Andoc. 1.83-84), le cosiddette Nuove Leggi (Andoc. 1.85 e 87) e il decreto di Demofanto (Andoc. 1.96-98). L’analisi mostrava che questi docu- menti sono falsi composti in un periodo successivo alla composizione del discorso, e inseriti poi nel testo dell’orazione Sui Misteri. M. H. Hansen ha recentemente cercato di difendere l’autenticità dei documenti che si trovano in Andoc. 1.74-76 e 83-84. In questo articolo, Canevaro e Harris mostrano che le sue argomentazioni non sono con- vincenti e offrono nuove prove della non autenticità di questi documenti., In 2012 M. Canevaro and E. M. Harris published an essay about the documents inserted into the text of Andocides’ speech On the Mysteries. These included the decree of Pa- trocleides (Andoc. 1.74-76), the decree of Teisamenus (Andoc. 1.83-84), the so-called New Laws (Andoc. 1.85 and 87) and the Decree of Demophantus (Andoc. 1.96-98). This analysis showed that these documents were forgeries composed during a later period and inserted into the text of On the Mysteries. M. H. Hansen has now attempted to defend the authenticity of the documents found at Andoc. 1.74-76 and 83-84. In this essay, Canevaro and Harris show that his arguments are not convincing and provide additional evidence against the authenticity of these documents.

This essay explores how Aristotle’s normative function of nomophylakia (guardianship of the laws), as described in the Politics, shapes the assessment of the constitutional stages of Athenian history in the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia, and especially of the restored democracy after 403 BCE. It argues that the methodological baseline governing the Aristotelian account of Athenian constitutional history in the Ath. Pol. is the socio-economic ‘anatomy of the city’ theorised in Politics IV chapter 3, pre-eminent over the institutional taxonomy of chapter 4. Thus, the socio-economic mixing of different ‘parts of the city’ (the wealthy, the mesoi and the demos) represents the key measure for evaluating the adherence of a constitution to the principle of the sovereignty of the laws. As result, within Aristotle’s framework, the function of nomothesia cannot be exercised by the same part of the city that deliberates in the assembly and appoints the magistrates. This theoretical framework explains the Ath. Pol.’s judgement of the eleventh metabole as an extreme democracy, and the puzzling absence of nomothesia in the account of the fourth-century institutions of Athens. It is the same part of the city, the demos, that controls every institutional function including the nomothesia procedure, which does not constitute an effective form of nomophylakia. The first part of this paper discusses the Aristotelian methodology in Politics IV and his two anatomies of the city (section 1). Building on this section, the essay then analyses the Aristotelian assessment of the successive constitutional regimes in the first part of the Ath. Pol. with emphasis on their organisation of the nomophylakia (section 2). In section 3, it provides a concise account of the institutional architecture of nomothesia in fourth-century Athens. Finally, this essay explores the silence on nomothesia in the second part of the treatise and identifies the nomothetai with demos legislating in the Assembly (section 4).