Plato's Penal Code : Tradition, Controversy, and Reform in Greek Penology / Trevor J. Saunders.

Incluye referencias bibliográficas e índices.

I. From Homer to the mid-fourth century -- Punishment in Homer -- Is Homer usable? -- Homeric society -- Aggression and retaliation -- Is there punishment in Homer? -- Anxieties and surrogates -- Gods as punishers -- Post mortem punishments -- Curses, oaths, Erinues -- Punishment of the living by the dead -- Pollution -- The Oresteia -- The overall effects -- Crime specif punishments -- Historical practice and controversy -- II. Plato's penology and penal code -- Plato's medical penology -- The penology of Plato's myths -- The structure of Magnesia -- Homicide -- Wounding -- Assault -- Theft -- Impiety -- Military offences -- Offences in court -- Class distinctions in Plato's penal code -- Summary and Assessment -- Appendix: Crime-specific punishments. Assemblage of evidence.

This book assesses Plato's penal code within the tradition of Greek penology. Saunders provides a detailed exposition of the emergence of the concept of publicly controlled, rationally calculated, and socially directed punishment in the period between Homer and Plato. He outlines the serious debate that ensued in the fifth century over the opposition by philosophers to popular judicial assumptions, and shows how the philosophical arguments gradually gained ground. He demonstrates that Plato advanced the most radical of the philosophical formulations of the concept of punishment in his Laws, arguing that punishment is or should be utilitarian and strictly reformative. This first comprehensive and detailed study of Plato's penology gives deserved attention to the works of a most important political and legal thinker.