NŎMOS

( νόμος ). This word comprehends the notion not only of established or statute law, but likewise of all customs and opinions to which long prescription or natural feeling gives the force of law. Before any written codes appeared, law was promulgated by the poets or wise men, who sang the great deeds of their ancestors, and delivered their moral and political le ons in verse. As civilisation advanced, laws were reduced to writing, in the shape either of regular codes or distinct ordinances, and afterwards publicly exhibited, engraved on tablets, or hewn on columns. The first written laws we hear of are those of Zaleucus. The first at Athens were those of Draco, called θεσμοὶ , and by that name distinguished from the νόμοι of Solon. The laws of Lycurgus were not written. He enjoined that they should never be inscribed on any other tablet than the hearts of his countrymen. Those of Solon were inscribed on wooden tablets, arranged in pyramidal blocks, turning on an axis, called ἄξονες and κύρβεις . They were first hung in the Acropolis, but afterwards brought down to the Prytaneum.