The present article aims to provide an alternative perspective on the corpus of Greek inscriptions known as “sacred laws”. Work on a new online version of this corpus has begun as a project of the Fonds National de Recherche Scientifique at the University of Liège, under the direction of the present authors. This article therefore serves as part of a preliminary introduction to a new collection of documents regularly called by this name and, more importantly, as a necessary redefinition of what might be implied by this designation.
A first section provides an overview along with a critique of recent work on the subject. Despite highlighting the difficulties inherent in the modern rubric “sacred law” and the heterogeneity of the inscriptions gathered under it, contemporary scholarship has for the most part contented itself with both the customary designation and the traditional content of the corpus. Greek terminology, while potentially helpful, is naturally varied and inconsistent, a...

