Abstract–Leisure Rules in Archaic Greece: Legislation on Inebriation and Foul Play in Literary and Epigraphic Sources


Archaic legislation reflects the effort of the Greek communities to regulate a wide spectrum of conflictive public issues. Rules for communal wine-drinking and athletic competition were also included in this legislative impulse, as revealed by two relatively recent epigraphic findings, an anti-inebriation law from Eleutherna (SEG XLI 739) and the earliest epigraphic testimony of Olympic rules (BullÉpigr 2000 349), which will be the focus of the present paper. They are representative of the historical context of change and crisis in which they were promulgated and contribute to complete the picture of Archaic society transmitted by contemporary literary evidence.