EJ+Crime&Punishment+types+of+punishment

= = =What Were the Main Punishments in Ancient Greece?=

As many of you would think the main punishment in any ancient civilization was the death penalty but with ancient Greece being the advanced civilization that it was it had many other common and useful punishments in its time. After the laws were changed by Solon in 594 B.C death was not the only option, fines were commonly used as punishments in very specific ways such as paying back what you stole, in the form of a fine. No more, No less. Most punishments were made specifically for certain crimes by the government of Greece.

Permanent exile was also a popular punishment and surprisingly used fittingly to what the crime was. When a murder was commited the criminal was given the death penalty but if the murder was accidental they were given permanent exile from Greece. This may not have been the fairest rule but it at least shows that they distinguished murder and manslaughter. This (like many other things) was a stepping stone for our modern law system.

There were strict laws concerning what women could and couldn’t do because they were considered to be second class citizens. The punishments for breaking these laws was surprisingly not death but physical violence used on the women in question. This was done because women were too valuable to be killed, but they could still (for the lack of a better term) slap them back to work. This would normally be done by the women’s Kyrios (Their “owner” which is at first there father bur after marriage their husband).

They even had forms of public humiliation which were used as a punishment. If someone created a serious fight or a public nuisance they were put on a rope in a public place not to do any harm but for embarrassment. The ancient Greeks probably experimented with punishments throughout their time but these were the ones that stuck.

Today we have of course changed most of our punishments such as the death penalty but we have alo kept a lot of the punishments from back then. ancient Greece’s fine system is something that we have definitely expanded on.
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