The Birth of Nomos

Thanos Zartaloudis

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Year: 2018
• Edition: 0
• eBook ISBN:
  9781474442022
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: Law

This is a highly original, interdisciplinary study of the archaic Greek word nomos and its family of words. More recently used to mean simply 'law' or 'law-making', Thanos Zartaloudis draws out the richness of this fundamental term by exploring its many roots and uses over the centuries. The Birth of Nomos includes extracts from ancient sources, in both the original and English translation, including material from legal history, philosophy, philology, linguistics, ancient history, poetry, archaeology, ancient musicology and anthropology. Through a thorough analysis of these extracts, we gain a new and complete understanding of nomos and its foundational place in the Western legal tradition.

Table of contents

• THE BIRTH OF NATIONS
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface Anthroponomikos
• Part One Homeric Nomos
• One The Nomos of Feasts and ‘Sacrifices’
• Two Nomos Moirēgenēs
• Three The Nomos of the Land
• Four Pastoral Nomos
• Five Nemesis
• Part Two Post-Homeric Nomos
• Six The Nomos of the Post-Homeric Poets
• Seven The Nomos of Heraclitus
• Eight Nomos Basileus
• Nine The Nomos of the Tragedians
• Ten Nomos Mousikos
• Bibliography
• 1. The idea of nomos
• 2. Pré-droit
• 3. Preliminary linguistic aspects
• 1. Distribution-sharing
• 2. Feasts
• 3. ‘Sacrifice’
• 4. Meat
• 5. Commensality
• 6. Sympotic distribution-sharing
• 7. A distributive ēthos?
• 1. Moira
• 2. Klothology: weaving a life
• 3. Apportionment
• 4. Binding
• 5. Weighing the scales
• 6. Dunamis
• 7. One cannot go permanently without sleep
• 8. Meropes anthrōpoi
• 1. Nemō-land
• 2. Mycenaean land-‘holding’
• 3. Homeric land-‘holding’
• 4. Klēros
• 5. Apoikia
• 6. Oikos
• 7. Temenos
• 8. The word that wasn’t there
• 1. Pastoral oikonomia
• 2. Homeric shepherds
• 3. Pastoral ēthos
• 4. Nemein
• 5. Nomós
• 6. Nomios
• 7. A nomad nomós
• 1. Indignation
• 2. Visibilities
• 3. Aidōs
• 4. Huperdikon Nemesin
• 1. Hesiod’s cosmonomy
• 2. Hesiodic nómos
• 3. Alcman, Alcaeus, Archilochus and Theognis
• 1. Kosmology
• 2. Nemō
• 3. Nomizein
• 4. Fr. 114
• 5. Palinomia
• 1. Pindar’s nemein
• 2. Nomos basileus
• 3. Heracles
• 4. Diomedes and Geryon
• 5. Bia and dikē
• 6. Agamben’s nomos basileus
• 7. Hölderlin’s un-Heraclean nomos
• 8. Cosmonomy
• 9. Neither a nomodicy nor a nomomachia
• 1. Prologue
• 2. Nemein
• 3. Nōmaō/Nōmōn
• 4. Nómos
• 1. Bios mousikos
• 2. A note on ‘ritual’ mousikē
• 3. Διὰ mούσας
• 4. Harmonia
• 5. Mousikos nómos
• 6. The early law-givers’ song