Abstract
Recent histories of Ancient Greece describe a transition from customary law to public criminal justice between 800 and 400 B.C. This narrative contains three pieces of evidence against the presumption that prisons are a public good and government must provide incarcerations. First, before the rise of a formal government, Ancient Greece had a functioning system of criminal law enforcement. Second, the timeline surrounding the rise of government institutions in Ancient Greece originated with Solon’s penal reforms. Lastly, the rise of a government system was more the result of private rather than public interest.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Allen, D. (1997). Imprisonment in classical Athens. The Classical Quarterly, 41(1), 121–135.
Allen, D. (2000). The world of Prometheus, the politics of punishing in democratic Athens. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Andocides speeches available at: www.perseus.tufts.edu.
Aristotle [1984]. Everson, S. (Ed.). The politics and the constitution of Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Austin, M., & Vidal-Naquet, P. (1972). Economic and social history of Ancient Greece, an introduction. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Avio, K. (2003). The economics of prisons. In A. Tabarrok (Ed.), Changing of the guard: private prisons and the control of crime (pp. 9–56). Oakland: Independent Institute.
Baden, J., & Thurman, W. (1981). Myths admonitions and rationality: the American Indian as a resource manager. Economic Inquiry, 19(1), 399–427.
Barkan, I. (1936a). Imprisonment as a penalty in Ancient Athens. Classical Philology, 31(4), 338–341.
Barkan, I. (1936b). Capital punishment in Ancient Athens. New York: Arno Press.
Barnett, R. (1977). Restitution: a new paradigm of criminal justice. Ethics, 87(4), 279–301.
Barnett, R., & Hagel III, J. (1977). Assessing the criminal: restitution, retribution and legal process. In R. Barnett & J. Hagel (Eds.), Assessing the criminal: restitution, retribution and legal process. New York: Ballinger Publishing Co.
Barnett, R. (1980). The justice of restitution. American Journal of Jurisprudence, 25, 117–132.
Barnett, R. (1986). Pursuing justice in a free society: part two—crime prevention and the legal order. Criminal Justice Ethics, 5(1), 30–52.
Barnett, W., & Block, W. (2007). Coase and Van Zandt on lighthouses. Public Finance Review, 35(6), 710–733.
Barnett, W., & Block, W. (2009). Coase and Bertrand on lighthouses. Public Choice, 140(1), 1–13.
Beccaria, C. (1764). E. Ingraham (translator). Of crimes and punishments. Philadelphia: Nicklin Printer.
Beito, D. (1999). From mutual aid to the welfare state: fraternal societies and social services, 1890–1967. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press.
Benson, B. (1988). Legal evolution in primitive societies. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 144(5), 772–788.
Benson, B. (1989a). The spontaneous evolution of commercial law. Southern Economics Journal, 55(3), 644–661.
Benson, B. (1989b). Enforcement of private property rights in primitive societies: law without government. Journal of Libertarian Studies, 9(1), 1–26.
Benson, B. (1990a). The enterprise of law, justice without the state. San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy.
Benson, B. (1990b). Customary law with private means of resolving disputes and dispensing justice: a description of a modern system of law and order without state coercion. Journal of Libertarian Studies, 9(2), 25–42.
Benson, B. (1991). An evolutionary contractarian view of primitive law: the institutions and incentives arising under customary American Indian law. Review of Austrian Economics, 5(1), 65–89.
Benson, B. (1992). The development of criminal law and its enforcement: public interest or political transfers? Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, 3(1), 79–108.
Benson, B. (1993a). Third thoughts on contracting out. Journal of Libertarian Studies, 11(1), 44–78.
Benson, B. (1993b). The impetus for recognizing private property and adopting ethical behavior in a market economy: natural law, government law, or evolving self-interest. Review of Austrian Economics, 6(2), 43–80.
Benson, B. (1994). Are public goods really common pools? Considerations of the evolution of policing and highways in England. Economic Inquiry, 32(2), 249–271.
Benson, B. (1996). Restitution in theory and in practice. Journal of Libertarian Studies, 12(1), 75–98.
Benson, B. (1998a). Evolution of commercial law. In P. Newman (Ed.), The new Palgrave dictionary of economics and the law. London: Macmillan Press.
Benson, B. (1998b). To serve and protect: privatization and community in criminal justice. New York: New York University Press.
Benson, B. (2003). Do we want the production of prison services to be more “efficient”? In A. Tabarrok (Ed.), Changing of the guard: private prisons and the control of crime (pp. 163–217). Oakland: Independent Institute.
Benson, B. (2005). The mythology of hold out as justification for eminent domain and public provision of roads. Independent Review, 10(2), 165–194.
Benson, B., & Wollan, L. (1989). Prison overcrowding and judicial incentives. Madison Paper Series, 3, 1–22.
Bentham, J. (1787 [1995]). Panopticon or The Inspection-House: Containing the idea of a new principle of construction applicable to any sort of establishment, in which persons of any description are to be kept under inspection; and in particular to penitentiary-houses, prisons, houses of industry, work-houses, poor-houses, lazarettos, manufactories, hospitals, mad-houses and schools: with a plan of management adapted to the principle: in a series of letters. Available at: http://www.cartome.org.
Bentham, J. (1830 [2004]). The rationale of punishment. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific.
Bernstein, L. (1992). Opting out of the legal system: extralegal contractual relations in the diamond industry. Journal of Legal Studies, 21(1), 115–157.
Bertrand, E. (2006). The Coasean analysis of lighthouse financing: myths and realities. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 30(3), 389–402.
Bertrand, E. (2009). Empirical investigations and their normative interpretations: a reply to Barnett and Block. Public Choice, 140(1–2), 15–20.
Bidinotto, R. (Ed.) (1994). Criminal justice? The legal system vs. individual responsibility. Irvington-on-Hudson: Foundation for Economic Education.
Billheimer, A. (1938). The Seisachtheia and inflation. The Classical Journal, 33(8), 471–478.
Boettke, P., & Coyne, C. (2007). An entrepreneurial theory of social and cultural change. In V. Perez-Diaz (Ed.), Markets and civil society (pp. 77–103). New York: Berghahn Books.
Bowman, G., Hakim, S., & Seidenstat, P. (Eds.) (1993). Privatizing correctional institutions. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Bucher, K. (1893 [1906]). Die enstehung der colkswirtschaft: vortrage und versuche (The origins of national economy). Berlin: H. Laupp’sche Buchhandlung.
Cabral, S., Lazzarini, S., & Azevedo, P. (2009). Private operation with public supervision: evidence of hybrid modes of governance in prisons. Public Choice, Nov. 15.
Cahill, T. (2004). Sailing the wine dark sea: why the Greeks matter. New York: Anchor.
Cairnes, D. (1996). Hubris, dishonour, and thinking big. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 116, 1–32.
Calhoun, G. (1927). The growth of criminal law in Ancient Greece. Berkley: University of California Press.
Case, T. (1888). Chronology of the Solonian legislation. The Classical Review, 2(8), 241–242.
Chadwick, E. (1829). Preventative police. London Review, 1, 252–308.
Chrimes, K. (1932). On Solon’s property classes. The Classical Review, 46(1), 2–4.
Christie, N. (1993). Crime control as industry: gulags western style? New York: Routledge.
Clay, K. (1997). Trade without law: private order institutions in Mexican California. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 13, 202–231.
Coase, R. (1974). The lighthouse in economics. Journal of Law and Economics, 17(2), 357–376.
Cohen, D. (1991). Sexuality, violence, and the Athenian law of “hubris”. Greece and Rome, 38(2), 171–188.
Cohen, D. (1995). Law, violence, and community in classical Athens. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Cohen, D. (2005). Introduction. In D. Cohen & M. Gagarin (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Ancient Greek law. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Cohen, E. (1992). Athenian economy and society: a banking perspective. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Combellack, F. (1965). Untitled Review. Classical Philology, 60(3), 195–196.
Cowen, T. (1991). Public goods and market failures: a critical examination. New York: Transaction.
Cowen, T. (1992). Law as a public good: the economics of anarchy. Economics and Philosophy, 8, 249–267.
Davies, J. (1977). Atheniancitizenship: the descent groupand the alternatives. The Classical Journal, 73(2), 105–121.
Davies, S. (2002). The private provision of police during eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In D. Beito, P. Gordon, & A. Tabarrok (Eds.), The voluntary city: choice, community and civil Society. Oakland: Independent Institute.
Demosthenes’s Speeches, available at: www.perseus.tufts.edu.
Demsetz, H. (1967). Towards a theory of property rights. The American Economic Review, 57(2), 347–359.
De Soto, H. (1989). The other path. New York: Basic Books.
De Soto, H. (2000). The mystery of capital: why capitalism triumphs in the west and fails everywhere else. New York: Basic Books.
DiIulio, J. (1991). No escape. New York: Basic Books.
Dinarchus’s Speeches, available at: www.perseus.tufts.edu.
Dixit, A. (2004). Lawlessness and economics, alternative modes of governance. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ehrenberg, V. (1937). When did the polis rise? The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 57(2), 147–159.
Ekelund, R., & Dorton, C. (2003). Criminal justice institutions as a common pool: the 19th century analysis of Edwin Chadwick. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 50(3), 271–294.
Ellickson, R. (1991). Order without law: how neighbors settle disputes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Finley, M. (1953a [1981]). Economy and society in Ancient Greece. New York: The Viking Press.
Finley, M. (1953b). Land, debt, and the man of property in classical Athens. Political Science Quarterly, 68(2), 249–268.
Finley, M. (1994). Politics in the ancient world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fisher, N. (1976). Hybris and dishonour: I. Greece and Rome, 23(2), 177–193.
Fisher, N. (1979). Hybris and dishonour: II. Greece and Rome, 26(1), 32–47.
Fisher, N. (1990). The law of hubris in Athens. In P. Cartledge, P. Millett, & S. Todd (Eds.), NOMOS: essays in Athenian law, politics and society. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline & punish: the birth of the prison. New York: Vintage Books.
Freeman, K. (1963). The murder of Herodes and other trials from the Athenian law courts. Indianapolis: Hackett.
French, A. (1956). The economic background to Solon’s reforms. Classical Quarterly, 6, 11–25.
Friedman, D. (1979). Private creation and enforcement of law—a historical case. Journal of Legal Studies, 8(2), 399–415.
Friedman, D. (1989). The machinery of freedom: guide to a radical capitalism. La Salle: Open Court.
Friedman, D. (2006). From imperial China to cyberspace: contracting without the state. Journal of Law, Economics, and Policy, 1(2), 349–370.
Friedman, L. (1993). Crime and punishment in American history. New York: Basic Books.
Gagarin, M. (2005). The unity of Greek law. In D. Cohen & M. Gagarin (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Ancient Greek law. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Garnsey, P. (1988). Famine and food supply in the Graeco-Roman world: responses to risk and crises. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Geltner, G. (2008). The medieval prison: a social history. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Giertz, J., & Nardulli, P. (1985). Prison overcrowding. Public Choice, 46, 71–78.
Glaeser, E., Johnson, S., & Shleifer, A. (2001). Coase versus the Coasians. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(3), 853–899.
Glotz, P. (1928). La cite Greque. Paris: Le Renaissance Du Livre.
Greif, A. (1989). Reputation and coalitions in medieval trade: evidence on the Maghribi traders. Journal of Economic History, 49(4), 857–882.
Greif, A. (1993). Contract enforceability and economic institutions in early trade: the Maghribi traders’ coalition. American Economic Review, 83(3), 525–548.
Hammond, N. (1940). The Seisachtheia and the Nomothesia of Solon. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 60, 71–83.
Hammond, N. (1961). Land tenure in Attica and Solon’s Seisachtheia. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 81, 76–98.
Harding, P. (1974). Androtion’s view of Solon’s ‘Seisachtheia’. Pheonix, 28(3), 282–289.
Harrison, A. (1968 [1971]). The law of Athens volumes 1 and 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hart, O., Schleiffer, A., & Vishny, R. (1997). The proper scope of government: theory and application to prisons. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(4), 1127–1161.
Hatry, H., Brounstein, P., & Levinson, R. (1993). Comparison of privately and publicly operated corrections facilities in Kentucky and Massachusetts. In G. Bowman, S. Hakim, & P. Seidenstat (Eds.), Privatizing correctional institutions (pp. 193–212). New Brunskwick: Transaction.
Hayek, F. (1945). The use of knowledge in society. American Economic Review, 35(4), 519–530.
Hayek, F. (1973). Law, legislation and liberty volume I: rules and order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Herivel, T., & Wright, P. (2003). Prison nation: the warehousing of America’s poor. New York: Routledge.
Herivel, T., & Wright, P. (2007). Prison profiteers: who makes money from mass incarceration. New York: The New Press.
Hesiod (1991). R. Lattimore (translator). The works and days, Theogony, and the shield of Herakles. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Hobbes, T. (1651 [1985]). Leviathan. London: Penguin Classics.
Holcombe, R. (1997). A theory of the theory of public goods. Review of Austrian Economics, 10(1), 1–10.
Homer (1996). R. Fagles (translator). The Odyssey. New York: Penguin Books.
Homer (1951). R. Lattimore (translator). The Iliad of Homer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Howard, S. (1981). Definitions and values of archaism and the archaic style. Leonardo, 13(4), 41–44.
Hume, D. (1739 [2005]). A treatise of human nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hunter, V. (1994). Policing Athens. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hunter, V. (1997). The prison of Athens: a comparative perspective. Pheonix, 51, 296–326.
Jeffrey, L. (1976). Archaic Greece: the city-states c. 700–500 BC. London: London and Tonbridge.
Johnsen, D. (1986). The formation and protection of property rights among the southern Kwakiutl Indians. Journal of Legal Studies, 15(1), 41–67.
Johnston, N. (2000). Forms of constraint: a history of prison architecture. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Jung, H. (1990). Introductory report. In H. Jung (Ed.), Privatization of crime control collected studies in criminological research (Vol. 27). Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
Kaminski, M. (2004). Games prisoners play: the tragicomic worlds of polish prisons. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kirk, G. (1964). The Homeric poems as history. The Cambridge ancient history (Vol. 35). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Klein, D. (1990). The voluntary provision of public goods. Economic Inquiry, 28(4), 718–812.
Kranton, R. (1996). Reciprocal exchange: a self-sustaining system. American Economic Review, 86(4),830–851.
Kyriazis, N. (2009). Financing the Athenian state: public choice in the age of Demosthenes. European Journal of Law and Economics, 27(2), 109–127.
Landes, W., & Posner, R. (1975). The private enforcement of law. Journal of Legal Studies, 1(4), 1–46.
Lanza-Kaduce, L., Parker, K., & Thomas, C. (1999). A comparative recidivism analysis of releases from private and public prisons. Crime and Delinquency, 45(1), 28–47.
Leeson, P. (2009a). The calculus of piratical consent: the myth of the myth of social contract. Public Choice, 193(3–4), 443–459.
Leeson, P. (2009b). The laws of lawlessness. Journal of Legal Studies, 38(3), 471–503.
Levitt, S. (1996). The effect of prison population size on crime rates: evidence from prison overcrowding litigation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 111(2), 319–51.
Lloyd, W. (1890). Seisachtheia. The Classical Review, 4(6), 271.
Locke, J. (1690 [1980]). C. Macpherson (Ed.). Second treatise of government. Indianapolis: Hacket.
Logan, C. (1990). Private prisons: cons & pros. New York: Oxford University Press.
Long, R. (1996). The Athenian constitution: government by jury and referendum. Formulations, available at: www.libertariannation.org.
Long, R. (1998). Civil society in Ancient Greece: the case of Athens, presented at Liberty Fund Conference on Civil Society. Arlington, available at: www.praxeology.net.
Lysias’s Speeches, available at: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu.
MacDowell, D. (1976). Hybris in Athens. Greece and Rome, 23(1), 14–31.
MacDowell, D. (1978). The law in classical Athens. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
McKenzie, R., & Tullock, G. (1975 [2006]). The economic aspects of crime. In The selected works of Gordon Tullock: volume 10, Economics without frontiers (pp. 56–72). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Menger, C. (1871 [1994]). Principles of economics. Grove City: The Libertarian Press.
Milgrom, P., North, D., & Weingast, B. (1990). The role of institutions in the revival of trade: the medieval law merchant, private judges, and the champagne fairs. Economics and Politics, 2(1), 1–23.
Mill, J. (1826) ([1982]). Essays on England, Ireland and the empire. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Mill, J. (1848). J. Robson (Ed.). The collected works of John Stuart Mill, volume VI—Essays on England, Ireland, and the empire. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Millet, P. (1991). Lending and borrowing in Ancient Athens. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Milne, J. (1938). The monetary reform of Solon: a correction. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 58(1),96–97.
Milne, J. (1943). The chronology of Solon’s reforms. The Classical Review, 57(1), 1–3.
Molinari, G. (1849). The production of security. Journal des Economistes, 277–290.
Montesquieu, C. (1752 [1914]). T. Nugent (translator). The spirit of the laws. London: Bell & Sons, Ltd.
Morris, N., & Rothman, D. (Eds.) (1998). The Oxford history of the prison, the practice of punishment in western society. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nardulli, P. (1984). The misalignment of penal responsibilities and state prison crises: costs, consequences, and corrective actions. University of Illinois Law Review, 2, 365–387.
North, D. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. New York: Cambridge University Press.
North, D. (2005). Understanding the process of economic change. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, state and utopia. New York: Basic Books.
Ober, J. (2008). Democracy and knowledge: innovation and learning in classical Athens. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Peacock, M. (2006). The origins of money in Ancient Greece: the political economy of coinage and exchange. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 30(4), 637.
Perrin, P., & Coleman, W. (Eds.) (1998). Crime and punishment: the colonial period to the new frontier. Carlisle: Discovery Enterprises.
Plato’s Apology (1997). J. Cooper (Ed.). Plato, complete works. Indianapolis: Hacket.
Plommer, W. (1969). The tyranny of the Archon list. The Classical Review, 19(2), 126–129.
Pohlmann, R. (1925). Geschichte der sozialen frage und des sozialismus in der alten welt II. Munich: C.H. Beck’sche.
Posner, R. (1980). A theory of primitive society, with special reference to primitive law. Journal of Law and Economics, 23(1), 1–53.
Posner, R. (1981). The economics of justice. Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press.
Reiman, J. (1979). The rich get richer and the poor get prison: ideology, class, and criminal justice. Boston: Pearson.
Rhodes, P. (1970). Solon’s penal codes. The Classical Review, 20(3), 358–359.
Rihll, T. (1989). Lawgivers and tyrants (Solon, frr. 9-11 west). The Classical Quarterly, 39(2), 277–286.
Rothbard, M. (1970). Power and market. Kansas: Sheed Andrews and Mcmeel, Inc.
Rothbard, M. (1973 [2002]). For a new liberty: the libertarian manifesto. San Francisco: Fox and Wilkes.
Rothbard, M. (1985). The ethics of liberty. New York: New York University Press.
Ruschenbusch, E. (1968). Untersuchungen zur geschichte des athenischen strafrechts. Grazistische abhandlungen, 4, 96.
Ryan, M. (1996). Prison privatization in Europe. Overcrowded Times, 7(2), 1, 16–18.
Sallares, R. (1991). The ecology of the Ancient Greek world. New York: Cornell University Press.
Samuelson, P. (1964). Economics: an introductory analysis (6th ed.). New York: Robinson.
Saunders, T. (1990). Plato and the Athenian law of theft. In P. Cartledge, P. Millett, & S. Todd (Eds.), NOMOS: essays in Athenian law, politics and society. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Schaps, D. (2004). The invention of coinage and the monetization of Ancient Greece. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Schmidtz, D. (1991). The limits of government: an essay on the public goods argument. New York: Westview Press.
Scully, S. (2003). Reading the shield of Achilles: terror, anger, delight. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 101, 29–47.
Seaford, R. (2004). Money and the early Greek mind: Homer, philosophy, tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Seebohm, F. (1911 [2005]). Tribal custom in Anglo-Saxon law. New York: Adamant Media Corporation.
Shichor, D. (1995). Punishment for profit: private prisons/public concerns. London: Sage.
Sidgwick, H. (1894). The trial scene in Homer. The Classical Review, 8(1/2), 1–3.
Sinclair, R. (1988). Democracy and participation in Athens. Cambridge: University Press.
Skarbek, D. (2008). Putting the ‘con’ into constitutions: the economics of prison gangs. Journal of Law, Economics, & Organizations, Nov. 7.
Smith, A. (1763 [1978]). Lectures on jurisprudence. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Sobel, R., & Osoba, B. (2009). Youth gangs as pseudo-governments: implications for violent crime. Southern Economic Journal, 75(4), 996–1018.
Sparks, R. (1994). Can prisons be legitimate? Penal politics, privatization and the timeliness of an old idea. In R. King & M. Maguire (Eds.), Prisons in context. Oxford: Clarendon.
Spierenburg, P. (1991). The prison experience: disciplinary institutions and their inmates in early modern Europe. London: Rutgers University Press.
Starr, C. (1977). The economics and social growth of early Greece: 800–500 B.C. New York: Oxford University Press.
Stone, I. (1989). The trial of Socrates. New York: Anchor.
Stringham, E. (1999). Market chosen law. Journal of Libertarian Studies, 14(1), 53–77.
Tabarrok, A. (2003). Introduction. In A. Tabarrok (Ed.), Changing of the guard: private prisons and the control of crime (pp. 1–9). Oakland: Independent Institute.
Thomas, R. (2005). Writing, law, and written law. In M. Gagarin & D. Cohen (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Ancient Greek law. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Thomsan, M. (2006). Ripping off a democracy is as old as Ancient Athens. Common Dreams.org. September 28.
Thucydides. The Peloponnesian war, available at: www.perseus.tufts.edu.
Tinsley, P. (1999). Private police a note. Journal of Libertarian Studies, 14(1), 95–100.
Todd, S., & Millet, P. (1990). Law, society and Athens. In P. Cartledge, P. Millett, & S. Todd (Eds.), NOMOS: essays in Athenian law, politics and society. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Todd, S. (1993 [1995]). The shape of Athenian law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tooley, J. (2005). Reclaiming education. New York: Continuum Press.
Van Zandt, D. (1993). The lessons of the lighthouse: ‘government’ or ‘private’ provision of goods. Journal of Legal Studies, 22(1), 47–72.
Vanderpool, E. (1980). The state prison of Athens. In K. De Vries (Ed.), From Athens to Gordion: the papers of a memorial symposium for Rodney S. Young (pp. 17–31). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Venkatesh, S. (2006). Off the books: the underground economy of the urban poor. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Vlastos, G. (1946). Solonian justice. Classical Philology, 41(2), 65–83.
Von Reden, S. (2003). Exchange in Ancient Greece. London: Duckworth.
Weber, M. (1956 [1968]). Economy and society. Berkley: University of California Press.
Weber, M. (1976). The agrarian sociology of Ancient civilization. New York: Verso.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
D’Amico, D.J. The prison in economics: private and public incarceration in Ancient Greece. Public Choice 145, 461–482 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-009-9575-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-009-9575-z