Читать книгу Harvey Wallbangers and Tam O'Shanters - Martin Hannan - Страница 23

We look back to the Athens of between 2,300 and 2,700 years ago as the breeding ground in which so many of our decent, modern concepts – democracy, drama, philosophy – were wrought. The city was at the heart of Greek cultural development, which in turn influenced so many contemporary and later cultures, including those of Egypt and, above all, Rome. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle alone would have guaranteed Athens its place in history, but add the magnificence of the Acropolis inspired by the genius of Pericles, both a great general and art lover, and so many more writers, artists and philosophers, and you understand why classical Athens was and is so influential.

Yet it was not all sweetness and light in Athens. The city was ruled by powerful families with a system of blood feuds and unwritten laws until a much-maligned yet inspirational figure emerged towards the end of the 7th century BC.

Dracon, or Draco of Athens, basically invented zero tolerance to deal with lawlessness in the city. We know very little about the man himself, but he was clearly in a position of power around 620BC when he wrote the first constitution of Athens.

The laws he laid down were extremely tough, so much so that they were reputed to be written in blood. Death was the punishment for just about every misdemeanour, even that of getting into excessive debt. On the other hand, Dracon was the first lawmaker to differentiate between murder and involuntary killing, a fairer law which underpins the western approach to capital crime to this day.

There is no doubt that, in a few short years, Dracon’s laws transformed Athens into a peaceable place, and we can certainly speculate whether the arts and philosophy would have flourished there without his brutal code. His successor Solon came along and brought in a much less cruel legal system, but Dracon had made it possible for him to do so.

The people of Athens allegedly showed their gratitude to Dracon in a bizarre fashion – in the custom of the time, one night in the theatre they honoured him by showering cloaks, capes, hats and other clothing upon him, which promptly buried poor Dracon and smothered him to death.

His name lives on as a byword for harshness, however, and, when JK Rowling was looking for a name for the ‘baddie’ in her Harry Potter series, she conjured up ‘Draco’ Malfoy.