Was the Athenian Gnome Dikaiotate a Principle of Equity?

Abstract

Modern scholars have expressed divergent views on the role played in Athenian law courts by , ‘the most just opinion,’ which the dikasts swore to observe in the heliastic oath. The most common view is that this embodied a principle of equity under which the precise letter of the law could be overridden. Hirzel and Vinogradoff are the leading advocates of this view. A variant has been proposed by Jones and Plescia, whereby this was not the intention of the oath, but it was used by speech-writers and accepted by the jury-courts in this fashion.A minority view is advanced by Meyer-Laurin, Wolff and Meinecke, that ‘the most just opinion’ was only a subsidiary means of decision, applied only when the law gave no guidance on a particular point. Biscardi proposes a middle way, in that ‘most just opinion did not override the letter of the law but was used as a principle of equity in the interpretation and formulation of the laws.’