CRETAN LAWS AND CRETAN LITERACY

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.