<P> While its older forms can be studied by the laws of Gortyn, its influence can be traced in legal documents preserved in Egyptian papyri and it may be recognized as a consistent whole in its ultimate relations to Roman law in the eastern provinces of the Roman empire, with scholars in the discipline of comparative law comparing Greek law with both Roman law and the primitive institutions of the Germanic nations . </P> <P> There is no systematic collection of Greek laws, thus the knowledge the earliest notions of the subject is derived from the Homeric poems . The works of Theophrastus' ' On the Laws', included a recapitulation of the laws of various barbaric as well as of the Grecian states, yet only a few fragments of it remain . </P> <P> Incidental illustrations of the Athenian law are found in the Laws of Plato, who describes it without exercising influence on its actual practice . Aristotle criticized Plato's Laws in his Politics, in which he reviews the work of certain early Greek lawgivers . The treatise on the Constitution of Athens includes an account of the jurisdiction of the various public officials and of the mechanics of the law courts, and thus enables historians to dispense with the second - hand testimony of grammarians and scholiasts who derived their information from that treatise . </P> <P> Other evidence for ancient Athenian law comes from statements made in the extant speeches of the Attic orators, and from surviving inscriptions . </P>

How were laws made in the greek golden age