Matteo Barbato
L
Profile
I am a Greek historian with a philological and literary background and international research experience in the field of political and cultural history. After obtaining my PhD in Classics at the University of Edinburgh, I have held the positions of Teaching Fellow in Greek at the University of Edinburgh, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Birmingham, Postdoctoral fellow at the Scuola Superiore Meridionale in Naples, and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
My research mainly deals with the political and cultural institutions of democratic Athens, with a focus on deliberative processes, the public funeral for the war dead, and the political and ideological negotiations between mass and elite. Additional research interests include the political institutions of fifth-century Syracuse, Attic oratory, Greek law, Athenian imperialism, and Hellenistic historiography.
Abstract
“The anti-establishment democracy: leadership and ordinary citizens in classical Athenian democracy”
My research project (‘The anti-establishment democracy: leadership and ordinary citizens in classical Athenian democracy’) investigates leadership and power in Classical Athenian democracy. Through a coordinated study of the institutions designed for monitoring the behaviour of politically active citizens (e.g., ostracism, dokimasia, euthyna) and of the political spectrum as represented in public discourse (e.g. in the speeches in Thucydides as well as in Attic comedy and oratory), the project argues that Athenian democracy institutionalised an anti-establishment ideology which was meant to prevent the creation of a political class (which mostly existed as a rhetorical construction) and encourage the dissemination of political power.
