Draconian, draconic. Around 620 B.C., the Athenian lawmaker Drakon introduced what was said to have been the first written code of laws in Greece. A later Greek writer described it as "written in blood": practically every crime was punishable by death. Within a generation or so the code was much softened, by Solon, but nearly twenty-five centuries later we still speak of draconic or draconian legislation or government.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Draconian
From Loose Cannons, Red Herings, and other lost metaphors by Robert Claiborine.
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