Greek Justice: Trial and Punishment

The first written laws, which have been credited to Draco, appeared in Athens at about 621 B.C. His laws (Draconian laws) were very cruel and harsh and his basic rule was that every crime warranted the death penalty. The earliest known laws in Athens and the one that remained unchanged for the longest time concerned homicide. As the Greeks believed that murder offended the gods, there were religious sanctions against homicide and anyone who killed …

…not binding on other courts, so each jury and judgement was unique. The decision of an Athenian jury was final and there could be no appeal to a higher court or to the people as the dikastic court was considered to be both the highest court and the people. It is really interesting to see that a lot of the things we do in trials today were started a long time ago in ancient Greece.