Dikē is the old Greek word for "law, justice." By the fourth century BCE it was largely replaced by its cognate dikaiosynē, Plato's cardinal virtue, justice.

In early Greece (Homer, Hesiod), dikē ranges in meaning from a specific claim by one party to a dispute, to a judgment or settlement, or to the personified force or goddess Justice/Law. In Homer's Iliad, the trial scene on Achilles's shield (18.497–508) depicts the elders (as judges) in a competition to see who can propose the straightest dikē (the best judgment/settlement). In Hesiod's Works and Days animals eat one another, but Zeus gave humans dikē—law, judicial process—which is far better (276–280), and Dikē sits beside her father Zeus and punishes those who corrupt the judicial process with crooked dikē (256–262).

The sixth-century lawgiver Solon promotes dikē—law-abiding conduct—as part of a general program of eunomia (good order, law...