Cretan Laws and Cretan Literacy

Abstract

A high degree of literacy and the appearance of written law are factors that have in the past been seen as necessary conditions for the development of Greek democracy. It would be natural to infer that widespread literacy and written law would occur together in the same regions of Archaic Greece in which democracy would later develop. The purpose of this article is to examine whether this supposition is supported by the relevant archaeological and epigraphic evidence. Crete possesses the best epigraphic evidence for the development of written law in Archaic Greece. Numerous inscriptions of legal character are found on most of the major cities of the island. But signs of informal or widespread literacy in Crete are slight, and it is notoriously a region where democracy never developed. In Attica, on the other hand, there is abundant evidence for widespread craftsmen's literacy in the sixth century, but little epigraphic evidence for written law. The evidence for literacy in Archaic Sparta is examined briefly; the Spartan use of writing has much more in common with Athens than with Dorian Crete. In both Sparta and Athens, an aristocratic, agonistic, and personal use of literacy prevailed throughout the Archaic period. The relationship between literacy, written law, and the social order needs to be thoroughly reexamined. It is suggested that we need a theory of law and literacy that takes greater account of cultural differences within Archaic Greece, in particular the different roles of narrative art and oral performance in Attica, Laconia, and Crete.