Analyzing the "democratic" features and institutions of the Athenian democracy in the fifth century B.C., Martin Ostwald traces their development from Solon's judicial reforms to the flowering of popular sovereignty, when the people assumed the right both to enact all legislation and to hold magistrates accountable for implementing what had been enacted.

Martin Ostwald is W. R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Classics at Swarthmore College, Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of Autonomia: Its Genesis and Early History (1982).

"A searching philological analysis of contemporary documents."—Joseph V. Dolan, Ethics

"Splendid. . . . Ostwald's book is written in English but his approach is in the best traditions of meticulous German Philologie, which embraces every aspect of classical scholarship. . . . Recommended warmly."—Simon Hornblower, The English Historical Review

"The scholarship is so thorough and the footnotes so clear and complete that Martin Ostwald's discussion will be an indispensable reference tool; . . .the intellectual energy brought to each issue is so great that new light is shed on at least some aspect and stale problems are given new life."—Richard Garner, American Historical Review

"[Ostwald] works at the interface between political, social, and cultural history and his forte is meticulous, diachronic analysis of language in its social context."—David Whitehead, Times Literary Supplement