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Lecture, Barnard's Inn Hall, Thursday, 20 Feb 2025 - 18:00
Unwritten Laws? Legacies from Antigone and Lycurgus
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Sophocles’ Antigone refers to “unwritten laws”, as does Thucydides’ Pericles. From the late fifth century BCE, the idea that laws are more effective when learned by memory and observation than when written down creates a distinctive current in political reflections. Plutarch even claimed the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus had prohibited the writing down of his laws.
This lecture considers how Greek authors’ reflections on the interplay between writing and orality remain relevant to modern debates about ethical formation.
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