Surely everyone has heard at some point the adjective draconian, generally applied to laws or conditions, which the RAE defines as “excessively severe.” But do we know where that word comes from? It derives from the name of a historical figure, a legislator of Ancient Greece who compiled the existing legislative codes and, since these prescribed very harsh penalties for offenses, became associated with that rigor, despite the fact that he actually contributed very few laws of his own. His name was Draco.
Very little is known about his life, to the point that some have even questioned his very existence, given that drakōn in Greek means serpent and that the Athenians worshipped a sacred snake kept on the Acropolis; it might therefore be a metaphor for the laws themselves. Assuming, then, that he was real, he was born in the mid-7th century BC in Attica, the Greek region located on the Aegean peninsula of the same name, which at that time was not yet fully subject to Athenian control but was undergoing a gradual process of unifying its communities around that city.
Nevertheless, aristocratic families lived outside the urban centers, leading fairly independent lives, and they would continue to do so until the tyranny of Pisistratus and the reforms of Cleisthenes turned Athens into the capital.
If he truly existed, Draco probably belonged to one of those aristoi families. But his entry into history came as eponymous archon, a magistracy whose holder was chosen by lot from among citizens who put themselves forward as candidates and which originally shared powers with the archon basileus (a kind of king) and the archon polemarch (military commander). Later, however, the number of archons was expanded to nine—three principal ones and six thesmothetai or judges; Cleisthenes would add a tenth with secretarial duties.
It appears that Draco was a thesmothetēs before being elected eponymous archon, whose duties consisted of overseeing civil administration and justice. In fact, it seems that the Athenians entrusted legislative reform to a group of thesmothetai before Draco, but they failed, and so they decided to place the task in the hands of a single man.
The rise to power of Draco, who was chosen for the role, was determined by the tense situation the polis had been experiencing since 632 BC, when the archon Cylon attempted a coup with the support of his father-in-law Theagenes, the tyrant of Megara, in order to resolve the struggle for power between the eupatrids (the ruling landowning nobility) and the demos (wealthy merchants who also aspired to their share of power). The plan did not turn out as expected because he made the mistake of employing Megarian soldiers, which particularly offended the Athenians, and he was forced to take refuge on the Acropolis with his followers.
But when they attempted to escape, they were discovered and killed by Megacles, another archon. Unfortunately, he did so in violation of his promise to spare their lives if they surrendered and, moreover, on sacred ground, so he was expelled from the city along with his family, the Alcmaeonids (it was customary for the fall from grace of a public figure to also affect his relatives).
The Alcmaeonid clan held great importance in Athenian politics, so their absence gave rise to a struggle among the other lineages to occupy the vacuum they left, while the demos persisted in its demands. “The mass of the people were enslaved to the few, and the people rose against the nobles. The strife was fierce, and for a long time the two sides fought against one another.” This is how Aristotle described the situation when a sector of the nobility led by Draco understood that something had to be done to put a stop to it, or else they would be heading toward a social revolt.
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Tyranny was not an option, as we have seen, so the eupatrids agreed to relinquish part of their prerogatives in favor of the demos demand for a legislative code that would grant the state full authority in judicial matters. Until then, disputes between families were settled privately and in a customary manner, that is, with judgments derived from tradition rather than written laws.
Times were changing, and blood feuds or brawls implied by that system were no longer acceptable; it was necessary for laws to be set down in writing as a common reference for all and for justice to be administered by a court.
Thus, around 621 or 620 BC, what some consider the first constitution of Athens came into being. It was written on axones, wooden—later stone—tables, pyramidal in shape and rotating so that each of their sides could be read. They distinguished between murder and involuntary homicide but, above all, punished infractions with extreme harshness.
Debts were punished with enslavement—unless the creditor belonged to the lower classes—and the death penalty was common even for minor offenses such as theft, something that, according to Plutarch, was due to the fact that Draco could find no greater punishment for serious crimes. Criminal responsibility was no longer familial but lay exclusively with the offender, who was judged according to intent.
Judicial authority was confirmed for the Areopagus, which served to judge religious matters and deliberate crimes (murders, arson, bodily harm, etc.) and was composed of a group of elders who had previously been archons. However, blood crimes were to be judged by the philobasileis, military leaders of the tribes into which the Athenian population was divided, although it first had to be established whether they had been committed deliberately or involuntarily, a decision made by a court of fifty-one ephetai, possibly drawn from the Areopagus. It is difficult to be more precise because the original code was lost and sources are scarce.
The Draconian reform established four census classes of citizens and allowed access to lower magistracies for hoplites, that is, those who were not aristocrats but had sufficient capital to pay for full military equipment. This was yet another sign of the legislative attempt to limit the power of the upper hierarchies and incorporate the lower ones into political life, thus avoiding the danger that the latter might choose to do so by force.
Paradoxically, although these laws benefited the people and curtailed judicial arbitrariness, Draco’s severity was generally considered excessive, and he ended up being expelled from Athens after undergoing the corresponding euthyna (the process by which every public official had to account for his administration before a committee composed of ten logistai or auditors and ten euthynoi or inspectors—one for each tribe—plus two paredroi or advisers).
Draco was forced into exile on Aegina, where he died at an unknown date; it seems he was around fifty years old. There is an implausible version of his death according to which it occurred in that city’s theater by suffocation, caused by the quantity of cloaks thrown over him by an overly enthusiastic crowd of supporters.
What truly matters is that in 594 BC the Areopagus appointed Solon, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, as archon and diallaktēs (arbiter), granting him full powers to undertake a new legislative reform. Solon enjoyed, in Plutarch’s words, “the satisfaction of the rich, because he was well-to-do, and of the poor, because of the reputation of his integrity.”
With that backing, he repealed Draco’s laws—except for those on homicide—left the death penalty only for murderers (to be judged by the Areopagus, while involuntary killers would be judged by courts of ephetai); established the seisachtheia (the freeing of those enslaved by debt and the cancellation of debts); created another council to complement the Areopagus (the Boule, with four hundred members chosen by the ekklesia and renewed annually); and granted citizenship to the lower classes, which gave them the right to hold offices and honors if they met the requirement of possessing the stipulated amount of property.
In short, he instituted what is known as the timocratic system, that is, the division of society—in this case into four classes—according to property and income, something Aristotle considered the purest form of government, as opposed to democracy, which the philosopher regarded as a degeneration of timocracy.
It served as an example for the entire Mediterranean, to the point that the Roman Law of the Twelve Tables was directly inspired by the new code, since Rome sent envoys to Athens to copy it. Nevertheless, Draco’s legal provisions regarding murder remained in force for another century and a half.
This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on November 26, 2019: Dracón, el legislador ateniense expulsado de la ciudad por la severidad de sus leyes
