Responsibility and Legal Thought in Ancient Greece

The aim of the present paper is to analyze how the concepts of guilt and responsibility evolved from Homer to Aristotle. Whereas the former (albeit with two significant exceptions) considers an individual always responsible for an action, regardless of their mens rea, the latter – relying also on the important remarks developed by the sophists in the second half of the fifth century – provides a definition of “intentional” and “unintentional” that ultimately excludes responsibility for individuals who are not guilty of an unintentional action.