A high degree of literacy and the appearance of written law are factor
s that have in the past been seen as necessary conditions for the deve
lopment of Greek democracy. It would be natural to infer that widespre
ad literacy and written law would occur together in the same regions o
f Archaic Greece in which democracy would later develop. The purpose o
f this article is to examine whether this supposition is supported by
the relevant archaeological and epigraphic evidence. Crete possesses t
he best epigraphic evidence for the development of written law in Arch
aic Greece. Numerous inscriptions of legal character are found on most
of the major cities of the island. But signs of informal or widesprea
d literacy in Crete are slight. and it is notoriously a region where d
emocracy never developed. In Attica, on the other hand, there is abund
ant evidence for widespread ''craftsmen's'' literacy in the sixth cent
ury, but little epigraphic evidence for written law The evidence for l
iteracy in Archaic Sparta is examined briefly; the Spartan use of writ
ing has much more in common with Athens than with ''Dorian'' Crete. In
both Sparta and Athens, an aristocratic, agonistic, and personal use
of literacy prevailed throughout the Archaic period. The relationship
between literacy, written law, and the social order needs to be thorou
ghly reexamined. it is suggested that we need a theory of law and lite
racy that takes greater account of cultural differences within Archaic
Greece, in particular the different roles of narrative art and oral p
erformance in Attica, Laconia, and Crete.