Martin Ostwald
German-born American classical scholar specializing in ancient Greek political institutions and thought; long-time professor at Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania, noted for works such as From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law and his translation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
Books
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1. From Popular Sovereignty To The Sovereignty Of Law
Law, Society, and Politics in Fifth-Century Athens
A study of how fifth-century Athenian democracy redirected authority from the assembly’s ad hoc decrees to a stable framework of codified law, highlighting the ideological and institutional shift that elevated nomos over popular impulse. It analyzes reforms such as the creation of nomothetai, the sharpening of the distinction between laws and decrees, and the role of procedures like the graphe paranomon, situating these developments amid the political crises of the late fifth century and the postwar settlement of 403/2 BCE to show how democratic legitimacy was reconstituted under the sovereignty of law.
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