one of the most striking features of athenian laws regulating commercial activities is the absence of any concept akin to the modern legal notion of the partnership or corporation. Despite the presence in Athenian society of numerous koinoniai, groups of individuals cooperating for some purpose, be it commercial or otherwise, Athenian Law concerned itself solely with individual persons and did not recognize the separate legal existence of collective entities. And just as Athenian Law did not recognize the legal existence of partnerships or corporations, it also did not possess the notion of corporate liability. This meant that if someone entered into an agreement with a group of individuals and one of those individuals violated the terms of the agreement, the plaintiff proceeded only against the individual who acted contrary to the agreement, not against the group as a whole. If the plaintiff won his suit, he had a right to receive compensation only from the defendant's private property; he did not have a claim on all the funds held in common by the group.

An understanding of this aspect of Athenian Law helps to explain the puzzling features of the legal dispute between Lycon, a man from Heraclea, and Megacleides of Eleusis, mentioned by Apollodorus in his speech against Callippus ([Dem.] 52.20–1). Since his aim in the part of the speech where the dispute is described is to prove that Callippus and Lycon were not close friends and the details of the dispute are not relevant to this point, Apollodorus gives only a brief summary of the background of the case and of the nature of Lycon's charge against Megacleides.