Le traduzioni su Zaleuco. Storia politico-sociale di un codice e di un legislatore leggendari

Abstract

- Zaleucus is known to modern historical-legal and philosophical-political literature as the author of the first written code of laws, dating back to the foundation of Epizephyrian Locri in the seventh century BC. The history of these laws, which were drawn up before those of Draco and more extensive, is found in several stories about the city dating back as far as the fourth century BC in Greece. These records are short, fragmentary, often contradictory and scattered in space and time across a multiplicity of sources that provide no coherent picture of the historical and political situation of the Locri colony at the time of its foundation. Even the question of Zaleucus' very existence is enveloped in mystery. As for the celebrated laws of Epizephyrian Locri, while they are sometimes attributed to Zaleucus, on other occasions they seem to be no more than the fruit of good government. Aware that it is only possible to identify narratives, but also of their value for the purpose of tracing stories of a legal nature and their social and cultural function, the author's aim is to restrict her analysis to piecing together some of the threads that contribute the weaving of the pattern. Most of the traditions taken into consideration can be ascribed to the period from the fifth to the third centuries BC and concern not only Zaleucus himself, but the context of the culture of and knowledge about Epizephyrian Locri and its laws. In conclusion, this story's great relevance in modern times is illustrated by examining a reconstruction of Zaleucus' Code made in 1800 by one Bonaventura Portoghese, a royal judge of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and an enthusiastic scientist and archaeologist.