Law, Politics and Society in the Ancient Mediterranean World.

• Author: 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...