[Readers sufficiently interested in ancient Athenian law may want to look at the

of my current seminar, which contains a link to my

of an excellent book on the subject]

In classical Athens, the victim of theft was entitled to search the home of the accused; if he found his property he could recover it and receive a damage payment of twice its value. This provided an obvious opportunity for fraud—plant the supposedly stolen property while pretending to search for it. The Athenians came up with a simple and elegant solution to that problem.The accuser was entitled to search—but he had to do it naked.We have our own version of the same problem—the risk that police officers may plant drugs while pretending to search for them. Perhaps we should take a lesson from the ancient Athenians.