On the location of inscribed Athenian nomoi in the 4th century BCE

Abstract

In the late 5th cent. BCE, after a legislative reform, the Stoa Basileios became a symbolic space
to house all the Athenian laws. In the 4th cent., the portico lost its ideological significance and
the criteria for displaying nomoi shifted. The purpose of this paper is to systematically analyze
the 4th-cent. laws to gain an understanding of the new motivations behind their publication in
the urban space. Such a study builds on the groundbreaking work of M. Richardson (2000),
who identified two primary criteria that influenced the choice of display locations: the content
of the laws and the intended audience. While this observation remains valid, a more detailed
analysis of each nomos, focusing on its content, findspot, and historical context, reveals that the
two criteria may have different implications for the choice of exhibition sites in public space,
and may even be mutually exclusive.