Drakoni taking action
- Athens, c. 621 or 622. Drakon, who held the position of eponymous archon of the city, was the first to write a code of laws that extended orally until then.
Little is known about Drakon's life, as well as a curious story about his death: He died at Egina Theatre, showing his support and admiration in a traditional way, drowning under the hat, cloak and shirts of his followers.
Therefore, Dakron is known above all for its legal code. And because of the drastic measures to deal with the coronavirus crisis, its name is on the lips of many. In fact, the encyclopedia thus defines the word “Drakoniense”: a very hard law or decision.
Drakon's code gathers this meaning because it also established the death penalty for minor crimes, such as the theft of a cabbage. Plutarch (c. 50-120), according to the Greek historian: “When asked why he had been sentenced to death for most of the crimes, Drakon said that, in his view, the smallest crime was worthy of death and that, for the most serious crimes, no heavier punishment occurred.”
And because of the drastic measures to deal with the coronavirus crisis, its name is on the lips of many.
However, many more modern historians have wanted to highlight the positive contributions made by Drakon’s code: first separated murder and involuntary homicide, annulled the penalty of slavery for debts (only when the debtor was a high-level citizen)… However, many others question all of this, because the original text allows many translations and interpretations.
But after all, the mere fact of collecting the laws in writing made Athens a little more democratic. In the past, oral laws were only known to members of a small powerful elite, who interpreted and established them at their own discretion. Thanks to Drakon, they came to a slightly older elite that I could read.
London 1928. At the Victoria and Albert Museum there was a very special painting: in the painting there is a black man, with wig and Levite, surrounded by books and scientific instruments. Thus it was catalogued in the Museum: “Unique satirical portrait representing a failed... [+]
Ethiopia, 24 November 1974. Lucy's skeleton was found in Hadar, one of the oldest traces of human ancestors. The Australian hominid of Australopithecus afarensis is between 3.2 and 3.5 million years old.
So they considered it the ancestor of species, the mother of all of us. In... [+]
A group of archaeologists from the University of Berkeley, California, USA. That is, men didn't launch the lances to hunt mammoths and other great mammals. That was the most widespread hypothesis so far, the technique we've seen in movies, video games ...
But the study, published... [+]
Zamora, late 10th century. On the banks of the Douro River and outside the city walls the church of Santiago de los Caballeros was built. The inside capitals of the church depict varied scenes with sexual content: an orgy, a naked woman holding the penis of a man… in the... [+]
Born 7 November 1924. A group of anarchists broke into Bera this morning to protest against the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and to begin the revolution in the Spanish state.
Last October, the composition of the Central Board was announced between the displaced from Spain... [+]
Washington (EE.UU. ), 1807. The US Constitution banned transatlantic slave trade. This does not mean that slavery has been abolished, but that the main source of the slaves has been interrupted. Thus, slave women became the only way to “produce” new slaves.
So in 1845, in... [+]
A group of interdisciplinary researchers from the Free University of Berlin and the Zuse Institute have developed a complex mathematical model to better understand how Romanization spread in North Africa.
According to a study published in the journal Plos One, the model has... [+]
Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States launched an atomic bomb causing tens of thousands of deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; although there are no precise figures, the most cautious estimates indicate that at least 210,000 people died at the end of that year. But in... [+]
While working at a site in the Roman era of Normandy, several archaeology students have recently made a curious discovery: inside a clay pot they found a small glass jar, of which women used to bring perfume in the 19th century.
And inside the jar was a little papelite with a... [+]
Born 2 October 1968. A few months earlier, the student movement started on June 22 organized a rally in the Plaza de las Tres Cultura, in the Nonoalco-Tlatelolco unit of the city. The students gathered by the Mexican army and the paramilitary group Olympia Battalion were... [+]
A team of researchers led by the Japanese archaeologist Masato Sakai of the University of Yamagata has discovered numerous geoglyphs in the Nazca Desert (Peru). In total, 303 geoglyphs have been found, almost twice as many geoglyphs as previously known. To do so, researchers... [+]
On the northern coast of Peru, in the deposit of Diamarca, mochica culture (c. 330-H. C. 800) have found a trunk room. This culture is known for its impressive architecture, vast religious imaginary and colorful walls full of details.
The room found confirms these... [+]
Tijarafe (Canary Islands), mid-14th century. When the first Catholic monks came to the area of the island of La Palma, the Awares, the local Aborigines, saw that they worshipped the sun, the moon and the stars.
And this has been confirmed by the archaeological campaigns carried... [+]
Maule, 1892. Eight women from the Salazar Valley headed home from the capital of Zuberoa, but on the way, in Larrain, they were shocked by the snow and all were killed by the cold. Of the eight, seven names have come: Felicia Juanko, Felipce Landa, Dolores Arbe, Justa Larrea,... [+]