The Law of Hubris: Greeks and Pride

The concept of hubris in democratic Athens was a concept that defined the Greeks' morality. It represented the concept that the poor were as respectable as the rich and that the rich should not flaunt their greatness. The Law of Hubris was somewhat limited in scope and drastically limited in direct application. However, the centrality of the Law of Hubris - violating the Law of Hubris constituted a violation against all of Athens and the law superseded assault in prosecution[1] - demonstrates that the Greeks considered the subduing of hubristic acts to be of vital importance for the maintenance of a democracy based on laws.

The concept of hubris as a rude and immoral activity existed long before Solon's reforms institutionalized it into a law. Since there was no discrepancy between the definition of the word hubris in the agora and the definition of the word in the courts,[2] it is necessary to define the word to understand the law. Aristotle defined it as a revengeful act that shames the victim for the pleasure that comes from increasing one's own standing by the diminishing of the victim's.[3] Modern scholars define hubris as "the deliberative attack on the timé (honor) of another"[4] and "violence against the knowledgeable and well informed."[5] Douglass MacDowell claims that hubris doesn't need a victim and defines it as an act that is "always involuntary," "always bad," not a religious deed, and characterized by "having energy or power and misusing it self-indulgently."[6] While one absolute definition of hubris is impossible to attain - it is like asking an American for a definition of freedom - the above attempts show the essence of hubris of being exaggerated self pride.

MacDowell lists types of acts found in texts that were considered to be hubristic as the liability to "eat and drink too much," "excessive male desire for women," "undertak[ing] exploits" without "practical usefulness," an irrational desire for violence, and the denial to someone of something they deserve.[7] This shows that there was a hierarchy of hubristic acts that tended to make the rich more likely to commit hubris. One could hardly eat and drink too much on a handful of obols per day or exercise all day if he had to plow a field. So while the rich were not accused of being hubristic merely for their surplus assets and time, they were considered to be more liable and tempted to commit hubris.

The Law of Hubris was one of Solon's reforms and began, "if anyone hybrizei (commit hubris) against anyone, either child or woman or man, free or slave, let anyone who wishes, of those Athenians who are entitled, prosecute him before the [court]."[8] MacDowell argues that this meant that acts of hubris against gods and acts of hubris without a victim were not meant to be punished in court.[9]

The law was special on several accounts. With the law, one of the first in democratic Athens, Solon created a tradition of protection of the poor from the rich and thus a protection of democracy from the oligarchs who had very recently ruled Athens. The Law of Hubris was one of several counterweights against the power inherent in the money, class, and education of the elites.[10]

Unlike other crimes in Athenian law, breaking the Law of Hubris was considered an affront to the entire society and the fines raised by a conviction of hubris would go to the entire city.[11] Fisher quotes Plutarch as saying "the best managed of the cities [is] that city in which those who had not been wronged were no less ready to prosecute and punish the wrong-doers than those who had been wronged."[12]

These concepts of public good and public prosecution were new ideas that created unity among Athenians and created legitimacy in the legal system by incorporating the morals of the society as rationale for laws. This would be revolutionary in an era where the masses were recently ruled by tyrants and oligarchs who made laws for their own hubristic self-interest and fair laws only to prevent thoughts of rebellion.

However, the Law of Hubris failed to create a motivation for someone to accuse another person of hubris in an Athenian law-court. There was considerable individual expense in prosecuting someone without the possibility of financial gain. There were also other lesser laws that overlapped with the Law of Hubris. While an unprovoked physical assault was hubristic, it would not benefit the bystander to charge the assaulter with hubris because of the cost of going to court in both time and money.[13] As for the victim of the crime, he would be more likely to charge his tormentor with the crime of assault and seek financial compensation. The concept of a public crime was incomplete without the concept of a public prosecutor. Collective action dictates that no one person will be willing to put forth all of the money and time to prosecute a crime for the fractional benefit of universal reimbursement.

Even if someone did not care about financial compensation and merely wanted to see their assaulter publicly humiliated by the charge of hubris, they would have to consider that a court case on hubris is "a major, public, trial of strength where the shame of failure" was greater even than the sweetness of revenge.[14] This danger of false accusation was made more pressing by the difficulty of conviction. There are no records that survive that prove a conviction on a graphé hubreos[15] and there is only evidence of a few cases, for crimes such as depravation of citizenship and "a horrifically brutal revenge whipping."[16]Hubris is defined by the "motive and state of mind of the offender"[17] which is very difficult to prove in court.

These difficulties were evidently recognized by the Athenians. A "probolé procedure" was instituted specifically for acts of hubris committed at public events. The procedure involved the incorporation of an Assembly vote on acts of hubris. A vote of conviction in the Assembly had no immediate effect. But it could be used as evidence in the courts that the act was characteristic of hubris.[18] This change did not radically alter the number of graphé hubreos but instead turned the probolé into a political tool. Demosthenes dropped his charge of hubris against Meidias after succeeding in humiliating Meidias with an affirmative vote in the assembly on a probolé charge.[19]

While the Law of Hubris had little application, the allegation of hubris was weighty in both the streets and the courts of Athens. In trials for alternative crimes, rhetorçs punctuated their arguments with insinuations that the defendant acted in a hubristic manner.[20] Since in an Athenian law-court, public opinion and conventional morality played a competing role with sovereign law, the accusation of hubris could affect a trial for a different crime.

The law of hubris, in conception, attempted to cultivate a sentiment in the people for public prosecution for crimes against the public good even if formal charges were rare. What the law lacked in functional application it made up for in its influence on the justice system. While Athenians were rarely prosecuted on a graphé hubreos, the motivation of the law - that the peasants could not be ridiculed or taken advantage of by the affluent - dominated Athenian thought on fairness. Acts displaying wealth and excess that in contemporary society might have been thought of as the entitlements of the rich, were made shameful by the concept of hubris and illegal by the law against it. Hubris demonstrated the principle of the poor controlling the rich. Even though it did not make being rich a crime, hubris created a society where the way the rich gained respect and status was either by acting poor in modesty or using their advantage to benefit the poor with charis and euergetçs.

[1] Fisher, Nick. "The law of hubris in Athens." Nomos : Essays in Athenian Law, Politics, and Society. Cambridge England ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. p. 127.

[2] MacDowell, Douglas M. "'Hybris' in Athens." Greece & Rome 23.1 (1976): p. 24

[3] "[You commit hubris if you intend] to cause shame to the victim not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.^" - Aristotle, and George Alexander Kennedy. Rhetoric. English; on Rhetoric : A Theory of Civic Discourse. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Book 2, Chapter 2. 1378b

[4] Fisher, op. cit., p. 126

[5] Ober, Josiah, and American Council of Learned Societies. Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens. 2nd printing, with corrections. ed. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1990. p. 190.

[6] MacDowell, op. cit., pp. 21-22.

[7] Ibid, pp. 14-31.

[8] Ibid, p. 24.

[9] Ibid, p. 24.

[10] Ober, op. cit., p. 211 "If individual citizenship could be destroyed at the whim of a powerful man, not only was each citizen threatened, but the collective rights of citizenship, that is to say the democracy itself, were endangered by the excessive power of the wealthy few."

[11] MacDowell, op. cit., p. 29.

[12] Fisher, op. cit., p. 124.

[13] Ibid, p. 133."Many actual victims of hubris may have wished to gain a financial reward besides revenge, as well as to avoid the financial penalties that could result from a grossly unsuccessful graphé."

MacDowell, op. cit., p. 29.

[14] Fisher, op. cit., p. 133.

[15] MacDowell, op. cit., p. 29. "I do not know of any quite certain case in which a person was formally found guilty of hybris in an Athenian law court."

[16] Fisher, op. cit., pp. 125-126.

[17] MacDowell, op. cit., p. 28.

[18] Fisher, op. cit., pp. 134-135.

[19] Fisher, op. cit., p. 136.

[20] Ibid, p. 135.