Taking up in consideration the codes of the Cyrenaic city-state, we are led to find out the traits of the Hellenic political and social structure as compared with the oriental system.<BR>The results of the Italian excavations in Africa are collected and published under the title: " Documenti antichi dell'Africa Italiana ", the second volume of which contains the oracular law of that state, consisting of 19 articles in its preserved form. The twelfth article concerns the maiden (αρκος) in the service of Artemis, whose status was analogous to that of a priest (προφητης) for Apollo: they were not hereditary; they had need to have any preliminary education for priesthood. Some articles providing the tithed, that is, the condemned to forfeiture of one tenth of their property; reveal that priesthood was an effective instrument of the laic state power. Though their oracular power stood firm in virtue of these articles, it does not show itself as constituting a theocratic power. On the contrary, when we analyse the sacred law with reference to the constitutional development of the Cyrenaic state, we must come to the con-elusion that political submission of the priestly power to the non-religious power had been completed in Cyrenaica. This was the result of the open and latent struggles engaged between laic power on one hand and spiritual one on the other, the result to be seen overall in the other parts of the Hellenic world too, while in the oriental society remained to prevail the theocratic form of government.<BR>The gist of the present article consists in the efforts made to clarify the Hellenic character of the Cyrenaic political and social structure, as opposed to the oriental world, through its historical vicissitudes.