Law, Politics and Society in the Ancient Mediterranean World.

Matthews, Victor H.

The eleven essays in this volume were delivered as part of the inaugural York University Seminar for Advanced Research; they constitute part of the 1988 Gerstein Lectures at York University. The seminar represented an attempt to promote dialogue among social historians and historically minded philologians dealing with all aspects of antiquity in the Mediterranean basin. The papers pers include three on ancient Near Eastem and Israelite society: Reuven Yaron, Social Problems and Policies in the Ancient Near East"; Maynard P. Maidman, Some Late Bronze Age Legal Tablets from the British Museum: Problems of Context and Meaning"; and Robert R. Wilson, The Role of Law in Early Israelite Society.,, Six articles deal with aspects of classical culture and law: Virginia J. Hunter, Agnatic Kinship in Athenian Law and Athenian Family Practice: Its Implications for Women", Marguerite Deslauriers, Some Implications of Aristotle's Conception of Authority"; Paul R. Swamey, Social Status and Social Behavior as Criteria in Judicial Proceedings in the Late Republic:" Jonathan Edmondson, Instrumenta Imperii: Law and Imperialism in Republican Rome": Deborah W. Hobson, "The Impact of Law on Village Life in Roman Egypt": and Roger S. Bagnall, Slavery and Society in Late Roman Egypt." The remaining two studies encompass the Byzantine and Medieval periods: Patrick T. R. Gray, Palestine and Justinian's Legislation on Non-Christian Religions", and Martin I. Lockshin, "Truth or plsat? Issues in Law and Exegesis."

Among the most interesting of these studies is that by Yaron, who notes that even the earliest Mesopotamian texts exhibit a consciousness of the economic distortions to which disparities in status and wealth can lead. In the Mesopotamian tradition, this includes enforcement of the idea that all citizens are equal before the law. In Biblical Israel, however, protection of inferiors against social superiors was part of the prophet's role, as the cases of David and Bathsheba and Ahab and Naboth illustrate. The publication of the misdeed was in these instances conceived as the sanction against it. In addition, both Mesopotamian and Biblical law codes contain limitations on the sale of land aimed at precluding its alienation from functioning kinship ship groups and giving them right of either first refusal or subsequent redemption of land.

Maidman brings into closer focus, in the publication of some Late Bronze texts, the society of ancient Nuzi and the dialectic between philological recovery of a text's significant characteristics and the historical recovery of the text's institutional and social context. The texts published here come from private archives, typically repositories of business and adoption contracts, deeds, wills, and conveyances. They also include "trial" texts which pennit a fairly detailed reconstruction of the trial process involving no codified law, other than royal edicts, a bench of examining magistrates, and several appellate procedures.

Wilson, in his study, denies that metaphorical legal pleas in prophetic literature can be understood as mirror images of court proceedings. He sets an agenda for the study of Israelite law in its sociological dimensions. In the premonarchic era, models based on kinship studies are most powerful. Lineages are hierarchical in nature and dispute adjudication is smoothest when living lineage heads are able to enforce customary law on those under their jurisdiction. In the monarchical period, increasingly centralized leadership took hold in the judicial system, engendering conflict with lineage custom. Priesthoods gradually developed a body of religious law, not necessarily identical with civil law. Prophets, commissioned by God, will have had the potential to create conflict with existing law. He also notes that the Persian era saw the decline of prophecy and the separation of priestly law from civil.

It is important that ancient Near Eastern documentary evidence be examined, discussed, and compared to classical and medieval sources. For that, the conference and the editors are to be thanked. Certainly, Hunters study of the importance of agnatic relationships and inheritance patterns and Swamey's examination of Cicero's legal speeches are of value in and of themselves (as are the other papers in this collection). Cross-cultural dialogue, as represented by the studies in this volume, has an intrinsic interest for legal historians, but caution must also be exercised since the premises of individual cultures within the same or different time periods cannot be compared uncritically. The volume might have therefore benefited from a section dealing with the exchange between the participants during the conference or perhaps a more extensive introductory chapter.