Athenian Law and Imperial Desire in Old Comedy: *Kyrieia*, Marriage and Sea Power

BUIS, EMILIANO JERÓNIMO

Atenas

Conferencia; Curso *Greek Law*, Master *Legal Cultures: Public and Private Law*; 2017

Department of Public Administration, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences

The purpose of this paper is to present analogies between coordination and subordination in Greek international law and Athenian domestic law, especially considering comedy as a source to understand law and justice in ancient Greece. I suggest here to reveal that comic references to imperial attitudes and naval colonization are better understood if read under a set of metaphors related to the legal exercise of manliness over the ?others?. This shows that the imaginary of active masculinity can serve as an efficient framework to understand, by means of marriage metaphors, the power underlying foreign control and juridical supremacy in classical Athens.