Rules, Practices, Narratives::Managing Decrees and Decree-Making in Classical Athens

In this paper I analyse how decree-making activity was governed and, to a degree, restricted by a combination of formal and informal rules in fourth-century Athens. In what follows, I shall assess the nature<br/>of the rules which established the status of decrees (Section 2), laws about<br/>proposers and speakers at the Assembly and conduct in that arena (3 and 4)<br/>and the organisation of its meetings (5). In Section 6, I shall explore what the<br/>arguments in extant speeches relevant to the graphe paranomon process can tell<br/>us about the formal and informal legalistic regulation of decrees, before turning<br/>to the evidence for specific restrictions on honorific practices (7) and other<br/>decrees (8). In the final section (9), I will sketch the range of informal rules that<br/>influenced classical Athenian approaches to decrees.