The Physicality of Justice in Aristophanes: Emotions, Gestures and Bodily Contact in the Comic Staging of Athenian Law

BUIS, EMILIANO JERÓNIMO

Hamburgo

Congreso; Symposion 2019 - Gesellschaft für griechische und hellenistische Rechtsgeschichte; 2019

The *performative turn* in legal studies has provided interesting theoretical tools for a better examination of the practice of justice in specific societies across history. This, of course, is particularly true for Athenian law, taking into consideration both its agonistic and rhetorical nature and the preeminence of procedure over substantive norms. In spite of the centrality of performance, however, little attention has been given so far to the concrete physical elements involved in the praxis of Athenian law. My intention here is to study Aristophanes? references to law from a perspective based on the importance of the bodies involved in litigation: since comedy is pervaded by bodily contact (i.e. punches and blows) and emotional involvements, I am interested in exploring the materiality of subjects and objects related to justice, the affections and senses involved in their relationship and the potentiality of human and non-human contact (what I will call the *physicality* of law).