The thought of the ancients and the activity of the Judiciary today
some reflections
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70622/2236-8957.2026.731Keywords:
Ancient thought, judicial activity, collective-individual relationship, common good, justiceAbstract
This exploratory essay proposes a cross-temporal reading between ancient thought and the modern Judiciary’s activities, focusing on the relationship between the collective and the individual, the common good and justice. The article uses excerpts from Aeschylus, Gorgias, Cicero, and Plato to discuss themes such as the search for beauty and the good in city organization, the purpose of law, the Judiciary’s role as rights guarantor, and the tension between statutes, precedents, and concrete cases. It raises whether ancient rhetoric bears similarities to contemporary legal discourse, especially regarding the adversarial principle and the justification of judicial decisions. The analysis draws on Plato’s Republic to problematize judicial consequentialism, the primacy of the collective, and the notion of justice as “giving to each what is due,” considering whether such justice should rely on abstract criteria or take case-specific circumstances into account. Additional discussion covers the shift from vengeance to justice as a public institution, the Judiciary’s role in affirming social rights, and the contextual assessment in applying binding precedents, aiming to criticize modern law through insights from the Ancient World.
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