Paragraphē and ‘Civil Suits’

Chapter 5 focuses on the one of the signal reforms of the restored democracy, the special plea to bar litigation, paragraphē. This adaptation is documented in Isokrates’ speech (18) for the defendant Against Kallimachos, in a dispute over money that was confiscated under the oligarchy. Initially such suits were barred from the courts and the parties were left to resolve their disputes in arbitration or by other summary decisions. This case comes soon after that iustitium ended but still early in the restoration era (402 or 401). Isokrates frames the issue as a matter of binding agreement: Kallimachos has accepted an arbitrated settlement and cannot go back on that decision; and he cannot prosecute the defendant as an informant because such claims are expressly barred by the Reconciliation Agreement. Isokrates argues that the covenants of the Agreement and the terms of private settlement represent the same principle.

Arbitration · Business · Covenant · Law and economics · Paragraph · Plea · Political science · Settlement (finance) · Sociology · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Law