Summary

There were hundreds of Greek city-states during the Classical period, and this number increased considerably during the Hellenistic period with new foundations. Each of these communities had its own set of laws, but there were broad similarities in the substantive principles of Greek laws in areas such as marriage and inheritance, the ownership of land, homicide law, and the status of manumitted slaves. On the other hand, legal procedures often varied significantly from one community to the next. Constitutional governments in Classical and Hellenistic Greece shared several common measures to ensure the rule of law: division of functions, the use of boards of magistrates, the accountability of officials, and the use of entrenchment clauses to protect the stability of the law.