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Arnold Wycombe Gomme and P. J. Rhodes
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Mark Golden
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Mark Golden
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Edward Harris
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Paul Cartledge
The Agiads were the senior royal house at Sparta, descended mythically from the elder of Heraclid twins (Hdt. 6. 52; see
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Alain Bresson
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Percy Neville Ure and Simon Hornblower
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Stephen Todd
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George Law Cawkwell
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D. M. MacDowell
Ankhisteia (ἀγχιστεία), a kinship group, extending to second cousins, or perhaps only to first cousins once removed. In Athenian law the nearest relatives within this group had the right to inherit property (see
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D. M. MacDowell
In Athens was a legal procedure concerned with *liturgies. Liturgies were supposed to be performed by the richest men. If a man appointed to perform one claimed that another man, who had not been appointed and was not exempt, was richer than himself, he could challenge him either, if he admitted being richer, to perform the liturgy or, if he claimed to be poorer, to exchange the whole of his property for that of the challenger, who would then perform it. If the challenged man failed to fulfil either alternative, the case went to trial (diadikasia) by a jury, who decided which man should perform the liturgy; this was probably the most usual upshot, though actual exchanges of property sometimes did take place.
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Michael Gagarin
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P. J. Rhodes
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Edward Harris and Anna Magnetto
One of the most important decisions a litigant could make was the choice whether to submit his dispute to a private arbitrator or to go to trial. Private arbitration had several advantages because it provided a more flexible procedure and afforded the possibility of compromise solutions aimed at promoting good relations between the parties. By contrast, a trial was an all-or-nothing procedure, which created winners and losers. Nevertheless, there were disadvantages to private arbitration: the arbitrators might be reluctant to vote against a friend, or one of the parties might not agree to arbitration. Because public officials were not involved, documents might be lost. The institution of public arbitrators retained the advantages of private arbitration but avoided several of the disadvantages. Above all, it aimed to promote good relations between the parties and to avoid a bitter fight in court.
Interstate arbitration is identified by the sources as a genuine Greek tradition, attested to be from the Archaic period, that was employed and fostered by other powers, such as the Hellenistic Kings and Republican Rome. It allowed two parties in conflict to solve disputes by resorting to the judgment of a third party agreed upon by both. Its use contributed to the establishing of forms of international law, encouraging the poleis to identify a set of shared principles and rules, at least for territorial disputes, the most common kind of controversy.
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Arnold Wycombe Gomme and P. J. Rhodes
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Edward Harris
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Victor Ehrenberg and P. J. Rhodes
The term is applied by modern scholars to the regimes of early Greece in which states were ruled by the noble families which had emerged from the Dark Age with the most landed property and political power, but the word aristokratia is not found before the 5th cent.