GREEK HISTORY AND CULTURE SEMINARS: The rule of Law in classical Sparta

In this presentation, Miltiadis Paikopoulos will aim to shed light on Spartan legal culture, in particular that which was present in Sparta during the Classical Period (the 5^th to 4^th centuries BC). Existing scholarship on Ancient Greek Law focuses heavily on Athens, and what studies do exist on Sparta are often hindered by misconceptions.

So, this presentation hopes to combat these common issues. After a short outline of the historical context, the presentation will focus on four major Spartan legal institutions: (1) the Diarchy, (2) Gerousia, (3) Ephorate and (4) Ekklesia. In doing so, he argues that a unique legal culture did develop in Sparta, and that Spartan Rule of law meant arranging their legal system so as to promote the city’s political morality. So, in describing what Sparta’s political morality was, and how the city-state’s legal institutions promoted that political morality, we may begin to understand what Spartan Rule of Law actually meant.

Miltiadis Paikopoulos is a lawyer, author and classicist. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Classics and Ancient World Studies from the University of Melbourne, and his Juris Doctorate from the University of Melbourne Law School. Miltiadis specialises in international and cultural repatriation law, Ancient Greek law and political theory, as well as Spartan history. He teaches the Classical Greek language and maintains an interest in Byzantine Greek and Latin. He volunteers with his ancestral Greek regional association in Brunswick, the Pallaconian Brotherhood, where he was the founding Youth President. He is currently working on a paperstudying the Byzantine and Crusader castles in his home region of Laconia in Greece, from the 8th century to the middle of the 15th century.

Event Details:

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