Image: Wikimedia Commons

Draco

First legislator of Athens in Ancient Greece

PersonhumanQ28626

Born: 650s BCE
Died: 600s BCE
Birthplace: Athens
Place of death: Aegina
Citizenship: Classical Athens
Occupation: legislator
Positions held: eponymous archon(-0620–-0619)
Languages spoken, written or signed: Ancient Greek

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Draco was the first legislator of Athens in Ancient Greece according to Athenian tradition and was active about 625 to 600 BC. He replaced the system of oral law and blood feud by the Draconian constitution, a written code to be enforced only by a court of law. His laws were supposed to have been very harsh, establishing the death penalty for most offenses. Tradition held that all of his laws were repealed by Solon, save for those on homicide. An inscription from 409/8 BC contains part of the current law and refers to it as "the law of Draco about homicide". Nothing is known about the specifics of other laws established by Draco.

Overview

Named after them

2 linked to Draco in Wikidata

All data

63 statements · 16% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Sex or gender: male
Field of work: legislator
Member of the deme: none
1
Sources
1.Stated in Prosopographia Atticaarchive.org/stream/prosopographiaa00kircgoog#page/n319/mode/2up
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Residence: Athens
Name in native language: Δράκων
Significant place: Classical Athens
1
Sources
1.Stated in Noctes Atticae
View statement on Wikidata ↗

On other databases

47 identifiers linking Draco across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

16%

externally sourced

Source last edited September 15, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). Draco (Q28626). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/draco-Q28626