Zaleucus from the Greek city-state of Locri, in southern Italy, became the most famous early Greek lawmaker for his creation of a new law code for his community around 650 B.C.E. He founded his law code on belief in the gods as benefactors of human life. Some of his laws imposed harsh penalties for crimes, literally incorporating the eye-for-an-eye principle of equivalent punishment known from much earlier Mesopotamian law codes. Other laws took a different approach, as shown below. The Locrians respected Zaleucus’s lawgiving so highly that three hundred years later they still required anyone who wished to change a law to make the proposal with a noose around his neck. If his proposal failed, he was strangled on the spot.

As you read, consider this: Do you think that fear of public shame or humiliation is a strong enough deterrent for certain crimes? If so, is it acceptable to use such a fear to change people’s behavior?

Zaleucus’s family came from Locri in Italy, and he was from the upper class. He was a student of the philosopher Pythagoras. Gaining a high reputation in his homeland, he was chosen as lawmaker. Creating a new law code from the foundation up, he began, first of all, with the gods of the heavens.

Immediately in the introduction to the entire code he said that the inhabitants of the city first of all must accept and believe that gods exist, and that, using their minds to inspect the heavens and their beautiful arrangement and order, they should judge that these things had been arranged not by chance or by human beings. Also, the inhabitants must worship the gods as being responsible for everything fine and good in life. They must keep their souls pure from every kind of wrongdoing, believing that the gods rejoice not at the sacrifices or expensive gifts of bad people, but at the just and fine ways of life of good men.

After urging the citizens in this introduction to pious worshipping and justice, he added the command that they should not regard a fellow citizen as an enemy with whom they could never be reconciled. Serious conflict should be conducted in such a way that they could come to a settlement and friendship. Anyone who behaves contrary to this should be considered by the citizens to be savage and wild in his soul. He instructed the officials not to be self-willed or arrogant, and not to give legal judgments based on hatred or friendship.

Among his various laws he came up with many on his own very wisely and extraordinarily. For, although everywhere else women who behaved badly were made to pay fines in money, Zaleucus corrected their out-of-control behavior with an ingenious penalty. He wrote the following: a freeborn woman may not be accompanied by more than one female slave, unless she is drunk; she may not leave the city during the night, unless she is committing adultery; she may not wear gold jewelry or clothing with a woven purple border, unless she is a hired “companion.” A man may not wear a ring gleaming with gold or a cloak in the luxurious style of the city-state of Miletus unless he is partying with a “companion” or committing adultery.

In this way, with his (on the surface) shameful removal of penalties, he easily turned people away from harmful luxury and out-of-control habits. For no one wanted to be the object of ridicule among the citizens by seeming to approve of shameful out-of-control behavior.

He made other fine laws, such as those on contracts and other sources of disputes in life.

Source: Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book 12, chapter 20. Translation by Thomas R. Martin.

Question to Consider

What presumptions about appropriate behavior for women and men are embedded in these laws? Why do you think this is so?