S. C. Todd

Lady Chatterley's Lover and the Attic Orators: the Social Composition of the Athenian Jury

The starting-point of this paper is one of the most disastrous pieces of advocacy in modern legal history. In October 1960, Penguin Books were prosecuted under Section 2 of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act for publishing an unexpurgated edition of Lady Chatterleys Lover. On the first day of the trial, Mr. Mervyn Griffith-Jones, Senior Treasury Counsel (i.e. Crown Prosecutor), did his best to wreck his case on the strength of one remark. He had previously tried to show that he was himself a man of the world: ‘Let me emphasize this on behalf of the prosecution: do not approach this matter in any priggish, high-minded, super-correct, mid-Victorian manner’. He now proceeded to work this out in practice: ‘Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters—because girls can read as well as boys—reading this book? Is it a book that you would have lying around in your own house? Is it even a book that you would wish your wife or your servants to read?’

Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, Politics and Society

Notes on contributors List of abbreviations Preface 1. Law, society and Athens Stephen Todd and Paul Millett 2. The purpose of evidence in Athenian courts Stephen Todd 3. Fowl play: a curious lawsuit in classical Athens Paul Cartledge 4. Plato and the Athenian law of theft Trevor Saunders 5a. Vexatious litigation in classical Athens: sykophancy and sykophant Robin Osborne 5b. The sykophant and sykophancy: vexatious redefinitions? David Harvey 6a. The law of hubris in Athens Nick Fisher 6b. The Solonian law of Hubris Oswyn Murray 7. The social context of adultery at Athens David Cohen 8. Sale, credit and exchange in Athenian law and society Paul Millett References Glossary Index.