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"In this work, one of Latin America's most renowned legal philosophers conducts a comprehensive survey of the ancient Greek understanding of the law, drawing on texts by poets (Hesiod), philosophers (Anaximander), playwrights (Aeschylus and Sophocles), and historians (Herodotus and Thucydides). The book ends with a finely detailed analysis of the relationship between language and reality in Aristotle, and the emergence of the notion of the system and its subsequent introduction into Roman law. The author's in-depth study of all these aspects makes this volume an essential reference for philosophers, jurists, and historians"--

Emiliano J. Buis examines the sources of classical Greece to challenge both the state-centeredness of mainstream international legal history and the omnipresence of war and excessive violence in ancient times. Making ample use of epigraphic as well as literary, rhetorical, and historiographical sources, the book offers the first widespread account of the narrative foundations of the (il)legality of warfare in the classical Hellenic world. In a clear yet sophisticated manner, Buis convincingly proves that the traditionally neglected study of the performance of ancient Greek poleis can contribute to a better historical understanding of those principles of international law underlying the practices and applicable rules on the use of force and the conduct of hostilities