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English
Etymology
From Drakon + -ian; or, with Drako, a Hellenized spelling of Draconian.
Adjective
Drakonian (comparative more Drakonian, superlative most Drakonian)
- Alternative spelling of Draconian.
1847, George Grote, “Ionic Portion of Hellas.—Athens before Solon.”, in History of Greece, volume III (part II (Continuation of Historical Greece)), London: John Murray, , →OCLC, page 100:Probably neither Drako, nor the Lokrian Zaleukus, who somewhat preceded him in date, were more rigorous than the sentiment of the age: indeed the few fragments of the Drakonian tables which have reached us, far from exhibiting indiscriminate cruelty, introduce, for the first time, into the Athenian law, mitigating distinctions in respect to homicide; founded on the variety of concomitant circumstances.
1990, Philip Brook Manville, “Laws, Boundaries, and Centralization”, in The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, published 1992 (2nd printing), →ISBN, page 81:The text of the Drakonian homicide law adumbrates another kind of boundary beginning to form: a public distinction between Athenians and non-Athenians.
1996, Joseph M[ichael] Bryant, “Toward Democracy in Athens”, in Moral Codes and Social Structure in Ancient Greece: A Sociology of Greek Ethics from Homer to the Epicureans and Stoics, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN, section 3 (Archaic Greece), subsection I (Social Structure: The Emergence of Polis Society), page 68:Within a decade of the Kylon affair, the first Athenian lawcode was written down by Drako, no doubt largely in response to the growing political unrest. Little is known of these Drakonian laws apart from their alleged harshness (“written in blood,” tradition records), but codification did provide something of a check against the arbitrariness of themis-giving nobles.
2015, Josiah Ober, “Citizens and Specialization before 550 bce”, in The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, published 2016 (3rd printing), →ISBN, page 148:It remains unclear what (if any) other matters were addressed in the laws of Drakon, although in later Athenian legend, he was believed to have prescribed death for a wide range of offenses. Whatever their scope and intent, the Drakonian laws did not lead to a stable social order.