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Abstract
In archaic societies the oath is not an explanation given in particular form by an official order, but, at the very most, a selfcondemnation and therefore, together with trial by ordeal and duel, a means to ending serious conflicts. In the early Greek epos there is only one single paragraph that still testifies to such a regulation (by πρόκλησις ‘challenge’, as the later term says); and less than 200 years later Xenophanes describes what happens when in the legal reality of more secular/enlightened societies the old piece of evidence remains preserved.
Published Online: 2010-11-26
Published in Print: 2010-11
© by Akademie Verlag, Regensburg, Germany
