Lawcourts

BUIS, EMILIANO JERÓNIMO

Encyclopedia of Greek Comedy

John Wiley & Sons

Lugar: Chichester; Año: 2018;

During the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, the Athenians spent much time in court or dealing with legal business; large numbers served as jurors, litigants or witnesses in court. In democratic times, comic dramas made the most of the functioning of lawcourts on stage; comedy therefore became a *counter-jurisdiction* where justice was debated and conflicts were solved. Old Comedy builds up a sharp satire against the colossal number of popular *dikastai* who were periodically selected by lot to sit in the judicial benches. In a context of a more domesticated democracy, where comedy shifted to a less tense relationship with the polis, New Comedy rather chooses to exploit the staging of arbitral settlements, where disputes are solved before going to trial, rather than setting formal lawcourts. In spite of being notoriously different in the way in which they deal with forensic activity, Old and New Comedy rely on lawcourts as an efficient comic technique.