Matt Simonton

I am a historian of ancient Greece specializing in the areas of politics, social conflict, the history of institutions, constitutional thought, and law. I bring perspectives from contemporary political science to bear on the ancient evidence in order to explain both stability and change in Classical Greek politics. My first book, Classical Greek Oligarchy: A Political History (Princeton University Press, 2017), uses institutional analysis to show how wealthy elites maintained themselves in power in the face of democratic opposition.