During the 39th Olympiad, in 621 or 620 BCE, Draco established the legal code with which he is identified. The laws he laid down 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 made known to all literate citizens, who could make appeal to the Areopagus for injustices. The laws distinguish between murder and involuntary homicide.
The laws, however, 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 debt to a member of a lower class. The death penalty was the punishment for even minor offenses. The stringency of his legal code gave rise to the modern English word "draconian," meaning marked by extreme severity or cruelty, especially about laws or governments……
