category serving to articulate its understanding of Right [droit]. Just as the pre-eminence of the city over the citizens is still the motto of political vocabulary, so, for juridical vocabulary, the omnipotence of Law remains the most indisputable truth.
Notes
§1. – On the contemporary Greek context: Pierre Lévêque, The Greek Adventure, trans. Miriam Kochan (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968); Claude Mossé, Histoire d’une démocratie. Athènes, des origines à la conquête macédonienne [History of a Democracy: Athens, From its Origins until the Macedonian Conquest] (Paris: Seuil, 1971); Edmond Lévy, Nouvelle Histoire de l’Antiquité, t. 2, La Grèce au Ve siècle. De Clisthène à Socrate [New History of Antiquity, vol. 2, Fifth-Century Greece: From Cleisthenes to Socrates] (Paris: Seuil, 1995); François Lefèvre, Histoire du monde grec antique [History of the Ancient Greek World] (Paris: LGF, 2007). – On Cleisthenes: Pierre Lévêque et Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Clisthène l’Athénien. Essai sur le représentation de l’espace et du temps en Grèce de la fin du VIe siècle à la mort de Socrate [Cleisthenes the Athenian: Essay on the Representation of Space and Time in Greece from the End of the Sixth Century until the Death of Socrates] (Paris: Macula, 1983). – On the concept of isonomia: Martin Ostwald, Nomos and the Beginnings of Athenian Democracy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969); Jacqueline de Romilly, La Loi dans la pensée grecque, des origines à Aristote [Law in Greek Thought, from the Origin until Aristotle] (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1971); Kôjin Karatani, Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy, trans. Joseph A. Murphy (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017). §2. – On the history of the concept of nomos: Louis Gernet, Recherches sur le développement de la pensée juridique et morale en Grèce. Étude sémantique [Investigations into the Development of Juridical and Moral Thought in Greece. A Semantic Study] (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1917); Marcello Gigante, Nomos Basileus (Naples: Glaux, 1956); Martin Ostwald, Nomos and the Beginnings of Athenian Democracy, op. cit.; Jacqueline de Romilly, La Loi dans la pensée grecque, des origines à Aristote, op. cit. – On Solon: Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture. Vol. I. Archaic Greece: The Mind of Athens (1933–1947), trans. Gilbert Highet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986); Moses I. Finley, Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (1953) (London: Chatto & Windus, 1981); Louis Gernet, Droit et société en Grèce ancienne [Right and Society in Ancient Greece] (Paris: Sirey, 1955); Claude Mossé, ‘Comment s’élabore un mythe politique: Solon, “Père fondateur de la démocratie athénienne”’ [‘How to Create a Political Myth: Solon, “Founding Father of Athenian Democracy”’], Annales 54 (1979), pp. 425–437; John D. Lewis, Solon the Thinker. Political Thought in Archaic Athens (London: Bloomsbury, 2008). – On the root *dhè–: Émile Benveniste, Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society, trans. Elizabeth Palmer (Chicago: HAU Books, 2016). §3. – On the rhêtra: Jacqueline de Romilly, La Loi dans la pensée grecque, des origines à Aristote, op. cit.; Françoise Ruzé, ‘Le conseil et l’assemblée dans le grande rhètra de Sparte’ [‘The Council and the Assembly in the Spartan Great Rhetra’], Revue d’études grecques 104/1 (1991), pp. 15–30; Edmond Lévy, ‘La grande Rhêtra’, Ktèma 2 (1997), pp. 85–103; Id., Sparte. Histoire politique et sociale jusqu’à la conquête romaine [Sparta: Political and Social History until the Roman Conquest] (Paris: Seuil, 2003); Jacqueline Christien et Françoise Ruzé, Sparte. Histoire, mythes, géographie [Sparta: History, Myths, Geography] (Paris: Armand Colin, 2017), 2nd edn. §4. – On the root *nem–: Émile Benveniste, Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society, op. cit. – On the connections between nomos and democracy: Martin Ostwald, Nomos and the Beginnings of Athenian Democracy, op. cit.; Moses I. Finley, Politics in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Richard Garner, Law and Society in Classical Athens (London: Croom Helm, 1987); Mogens H. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology, trans. J. A. Crook (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999); Claude Mossé, Au Nom de la loi. Justice et politique à Athènes à l’âge classique [In the Name of the Law: Justice and Politics in Classical Athens] (Paris: Payot, 2010). §5. – On the connections between nomos and philosophy: Jacqueline de Romilly, La Loi dans la pensée grecque, des origines à Aristote, op. cit.; Pierre Aubenque, ‘La loi chez Aristote’ [‘Law in Aristotle’], Archives de philosophie du droit 25 (1980), pp. 147–157; Kôjin Karatani, Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy, op. cit. §6. – On Heraclitus and nomos: Pierre Guérin, L’Idée de justice dans la conception de l’univers des premiers philosophes grecs, de Thalès à Héraclite [The Idea of Justice in the First Greek Philosophers’ Conception of the Universe, from Thales to Heraclitus] (Paris: Alcan, 1934); Jacqueline de Romilly, La Loi dans la pensée grecque, des origines à Aristote, op. cit. §7. – On the development of Greek Right: Louis Gernet, The Anthropology of Ancient Greece, trans. John Hamilton and Blaise Nagy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981); Douglas M. MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens (London: Thames & Hudson, 1978); Michael Gagarin, Early Greek Law (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). – On the concept of the polis: Mogens H. Hansen, Polis and City-state: An Ancient Concept and its Modern Equivalent. Symposium, January 9, 1998 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1998); Id., Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-state (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). §8. – On the root *ar–: Émile Benveniste, Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society, op. cit. – On thémis and dikè: Gustave Glotz, La Solidarité de la famille dans le droit criminel en Grèce [Family Solidarity in Criminal Right in Greece] (Paris: Albert Fontemoing, 1904); Michael Gagarin, ‘Dikè in the Works and Days’, Classical Philology 68 (1973), pp. 81–94; Id., ‘Dikè in Archaic Greek Thought’, Classical Philology 69 (1974), pp. 186–197; Eric A. Havelock, The Greek Concept of Justice, from its Shadow in Homer to its Substance in Plato (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978); Marcel Detienne, ‘Religions de la Grèce ancienne’ [‘Religions of Ancient Greece’] École pratique des hautes études. Section des sciences religieuses. Annuaire 99 (1990–1), pp. 243–246; Jean Rudhardt, Thémis et les Hôrai. Recherches sur les divinités grecques de la justice et de la paix [Thémis and the Horae: Investigations into the Greek Gods of Justice and Peace] (Geneva: Droz, 1999); Pierre Judet de la Combe and Barbara Cassin, ‘Thémis’, Vocabulaire européen des philosophes [European Dictionary of Philosophers], under the direction of Barbara Cassin (Paris: Seuil/Le Robert, 2004) pp. 1291–1296. §9. – On phusis and the Sophists: Felix Heinimann, Nomos und Physis. Herkunft und Bedeutung einer Antithese im griechischen Denken des 5. Jahrhunderts (1945) (Basel: Friedrich Reinhardt, 1965); Mario Untersteiner, The Sophists, trans. Kathleen Freeman (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1954); George B. Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Jacqueline de Romilly, The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens, trans. Janet Lloyd (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); Gérard Naddaf, L’Origine et l’évolution du concept grec de phusis [The Origin and Development of the Greek Concept of Phusis] (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1992); Barbara Cassin, L’Effet sophistique [The Sophistic Effect] (Paris: Gallimard, 1995).§10. – On politès: Émile Benveniste, ‘Two Linguistic Models of the City’, in Problems in General Linguistics, trans. Mary Elizabeth Meek (Coral Gables, FA: University of Miami Press, 1971).
INTERLUDE 1
§B. Chaos. Anomia is an-archè: the absence of Law is the absence of foundation, principle or rule, understood as the mode of consistency of everything that is – starting with human cities,
