Matt Simonton

Matt Simonton received a doctorate in Classics and an MA in Political Science from Stanford University in 2012. His research brings contemporary social science theory to bear on ancient Greek history, particularly political history. He is interested in how the Greeks crafted social and political institutions in response to crises and how those institutions shaped history over time. Simonton's work also analyzes how Greek political actors appropriated existing cultural features of the ancient city-state - such as religious festivals, public spaces, and monumental architecture - for partisan purposes.

In his first book, Classical Greek Oligarchy: A Political History (Princeton University Press, 2017), Simonton approaches the phenomenon of Classical Greek oligarchy, or the "rule of the few," from an institutional standpoint, comparing oligarchic political practices to those of contemporary authoritarian regimes. The book won the Anglo-Hellenic League's Runciman Award in 2018.

In his second book project, tentatively titled "Watchdogs of the People: Demagogues and Political Culture in Ancient Greece," Simonton seeks to provide a history of demagoguery (popular leadership) in Greece from its beginnings in fifth-century Athens through the Roman Imperial era. Drawing on theories of popular culture, the study will approach the words and actions of demagogues as a potential window onto the everyday thoughts and values of non-elite Greeks.

Simonton has published on civil war and reconciliation, stability and violence in democratic Athens, the politics of Greek hero-cult, local history, Hellenistic demagoguery, and other historical phenomena of the ancient Greek world in venues such as Classical Quarterly, the Journal of Hellenic Studies, TAPA, Hesperia, Historia, and Classical Antiquity.

He is currently Book Review Editor at Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought and serves on the Editorial Board at Classical Antiquity.