The idea of law has been at the heart of Western civilization since its beginnings in ancient Greece. All that we consider distinctive about our civilization, above all its genius for maintaining a peaceful communal life that leaves room for a remarkable variety in thought and action, is bound up with the idea of law.

Yet why that is so, or even whether it is so, despite a long and rich history of reflection on the meaning, merits, and intricacies of the idea of law, has remained obscure. Indeed, so marked has been the indifference to examining our understanding of the idea of law (as opposed to studying the operation of legal systems) that attempts to repudiate the idea of law have gone unnoticed. As a result, we stand in danger of losing our greatest blessing without having learned to understand or appreciate it.

But if the nature of the idea of law, and the pattern of its development, has remained elusive, the starting point for such an inquiry is easily discerned in ancient Greece. In the fifth century b.c., where the story begins, the word used to denote law was nomos, and the historical phenomenon to which the discussion of nomos referred is readily identified. The nomoi of Athens were the rules collected by a group of anagrapheis or “inscribers” who had been empowered to engrave them on stone.