Studies on Greek Law, Oratory and Comedy

Douglas M. MacDowell (1931–2010) was a scholar of international renown and the articles included here cover a significant area of classical scholarship, discussing Athenian law, law-making and legal procedure, Old Comedy, comedy and law, politics and lexicography. All of these articles, published between 1959 and 2010, bear the characteristic marks of his scholarship: precision, balanced judgement, brevity and deep learning; they are rational and sober accounts of complicated and controversial issues. Many of these essays are virtually inaccessible as they were originally published in celebratory volumes or article collections which are now out of print or difficult to find outside major libraries. This collection of MacDowell’s articles will make these works available to a broad scholarly audience, and make it easier to bring this scholarship to the classroom as part of courses in Classics, ancient history, legal history and theatre studies. The volume includes a biography of MacDowell by Christopher Carey, based on the testimony of his closest colleagues and personal friends, which was presented to the British Academy.

Konstantinos Kapparis is Associate Professor of Classics and Director of the Center for Greek Studies at the University of Florida, USA. He has published four books and numerous articles, book chapters and book reviews. His research interests include the Attic orators, the history of gender and sexuality, and the history of medicine and medical ethics.

Ilias Arnaoutoglou is a graduate of the Faculty of Law (Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, 1987) and a Doctor of Classical Studies (Glasgow, 1993). He has been an assistant editor of the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, a researcher in the Research Centre for the History of Greek Law at the Academy of Athens since 2000, and a contributor in the Copenhagen Associations Project. He is the author of Ancient Greek Laws: A Sourcebook (1998) and Private Religious Associations in Hellenistic Athens (2003).

Dimos Spatharas is Assistant Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Crete, Greece. His recent publications include a commentary on Isocrates’ Against Lochites and a co-edited volume on private life and public discourse in ancient Greece and the Enlightenment. His published articles focus on the Attic orators, social history in classical Athens, the Sophists and the social construction of emotions.