ABSTRACT
The impact of geography on law would make an interesting thesis. While the mountains of North Carolina confined Cherokee communities, the mild climate and fertile river valleys of the Middle East produced growth and prosperity. The reason why Greece has a special place in the history of civilization is not merely that most departments of literature and the visual arts were there raised to levels which later ages agreed to regard as classical, that is, as permanent standards of excellence. In any treatment of Greek civilization, including Greek law, there is a tendency for Athens to bulk very large, and often to seem synonymous with Greece itself. The materials for the history of Greek law are not to be found in Greek legal texts; the Greeks, so fertile in so many areas of the intellect, never produced a practical legal science; the Roman jurists were to be the first to give this to the world.
