Abstract
As described above, the " laïcisation " of knowledge and speech at the beginning of the Archaic period would also have led to the emergence of law, after a primitive phase that, following Louis Gernet, is sometimes referred to as " pre-droit ". This pre-law, based on an oral and religious tradition, would give way, in the mid-7th century BC, to a formal, rational and secular law, discussed and displayed in the heart of the cities.
This grand narrative also proves misleading. Here again, we would be wrong to hastily dismiss the " masters of truth ", and especially their qualities as poets. For Greek poetry, composed to be sung during ritual performances, creates the conditions for the enunciation of a normative word. This fact, often admitted in the case of Homeric poetry, did not disappear with the rise of the Greek cities, and the poets' claim to sing the law was still alive and well among the Athenians of the5th century. And yet, against all forms of secularization, it is above all the poet's divine inspiration and ritual enunciation that enable laws to be successfully sung.
