Draconian is an adjective meaning great severity , that derives from Draco .

Draco was the first recorded legislator of Athens in Ancient Greece. He replaced the prevailing system of oral law and blood feud by a written code to be enforced only by a court. Draco was the first democratic legislator , inasmuch as he was requested by the Athenian citizens to be a lawgiver for the city-state, but the citizens were fully unaware that Draco would establish harsh laws . Draco's written law was characterized by its harshness . To this day, the adjective draconian refers to similarly unforgiving rules or laws , in English and other western languages.


Little is known about his life. He may have belonged to the Greek nobility of Attica, with which the 10th-century [Suda] text records him as contemporaneous, prior to the period of the Seven Sages of Greece. It also relates a folkloric story of his death in the Aeginetan theatre. In a traditional ancient Greek show of approval, his supporters 'threw so many hats and shirts and cloaks on his head that he suffocated, and was buried in that same theatre'. The truth about his death is still unclear, but we do know that Draco was driven out of Athens by the Athenians to the neighbouring island of Aegina, where he spent the remainder of his life.

The laws that he laid were the first written constitution of Athens . So that no one would be unaware of them, they were posted on wooden tablets, where they were preserved for almost two centuries on steles of the shape of three-sided pyramids. The tablets were called axones , perhaps because they could be pivoted along the pyramid's axis to read any side.

The constitution featured several major innovations:
Instead of oral laws known to a special class, arbitrarily applied and interpreted, all laws were written, thus being made known to all literate citizens (who could appeal to the Areopagus for injustices): 'the constitution formed under Draco, when the first code of laws was drawn up'.
The laws distinguish between murder and involuntary homicide .
The laws were particularly harsh . For example, any debtor whose status was lower than that of his creditor was forced into slavery . The punishment was more lenient for those owing a debt to a member of a lower class. The death penalty was the punishment for even minor offences, such as 'stealing a cabbage'. Concerning the liberal use of the death penalty in the Draconic code , Plutarch states: 'It is said that Drakon himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most offences, answered that he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment for more important ones'.

All his laws were repealed by Solon in the early 6th century BC, with the exception of the homicide law.
After much debate, the Athenians decided to revise the laws, including the homicide law, in 409 BC. The homicide law is a highly fragmented inscription but states that it is up to the victim's relatives to prosecute a killer. According to the preserved part of the inscription, unintentional homicides received a sentence of exile.

It is not clear whether Draco's law specified the punishment for intentional homicide. In 409 BC, intentional homicide was punished by death, but Draco's law begins , 'καὶ ἐὰμ μὲ ‘κ [π]ρονοί[α]ς [κ]τ[ένει τίς τινα, φεύγ]ε[ν]', which is ambiguous and difficult to translate. One possible translation offers, 'Even if a man not intentionally kills another, he is exiled' .