Do not be fooled by the title of this well-edited, generally cohesive volume on classical Athenian democracy into thinking it is a homage to ‘Great Man’ history. Rather, the volume, originating in a 2009 conference, uses these two men as a vehicle for challenging some assumptions prevailing in current scholarly approaches to Athenian democracy. The volume especially challenges the assumptions that classical democracy was a static, stable entity from its conception and that its conception was revolutionary. It also, refreshingly, generally treats the life of democracy after Chaeronea as a dynamic period instead of as a period of decline. There is an emphasis throughout on the classical period as an evolving continuity instead of being marked by discrete periods of rupture. The contributors, steeped in the tradition of Loraux, Vidal-Naquet, Lévêque and Vernant, seek to explore the democracy, not strictly on an institutional level (la politique) but at the intersection of institutions and social practice (le politique, or, in Greek, to koinon). The essays (seventeen essays divided into six sections, plus introduction by the editors and concluding remarks by C. Mossé) cover a great deal of territory, but the strong editorial hands of A. and I. can be sensed both in the introduction (an immensely useful guide to the underlying logic of the following essays) and throughout.

Part 1, ‘L’événement et sa trace: réécritures anciennes et modernes', contains two essays on the reception of Cleisthenes and Lycurgus. P. Payen explores modern receptions since the fifteenth century emphasising Grote's transformation of Cleisthenes into a revolutionary founding father. Payen demonstrates the impact of modern contexts on interpreting these two figures and their legacy. G. Camassas discusses the lack of a tradition in classical Athens of such an image of Cleisthenes as founder and considers the implications.

Part 2, ‘Politique de l’événement: mobilisation et prise de décision', begins with E. Flaig's brief reflection on why the Athenians would prefer to locate the origins of their democracy in the myth of the tyrannicides, rather than in its true origins. Following Leveque and Vidal-Naquet, F. asserts the continuity of Cleisthenes' action with archaic institutional practices and the absence of any popular revolution. In his view, it was the institution of the Boule of 400 that led the people against the revolutionary actions of Isagoras. Given the subject, I was surprised not to see any engagement with Anderson (2003). In the second essay, M. Faraguna concludes that we are justified in talking about a ‘Lycurgan Athens’, which formed a distinctive and an important bridge between the post-Chaeronea democracy and Hellenistic Athens.

Part 3, ‘Vraies coupures, fausses césures: problèmes de temporalité’, focusses on the organisation of Athenian socio-political structures: citizen status (A. Duplouy), the Cleisthenic tribes (F. de Polignac), economy and military (G. Oliver) and burial practices (D. Marchiandi). Although the topics may seem miscellaneous, all argue for continuity between the period preceding the lawgivers and the reforms attributed to them. De Polignac's fascinating essay examines the tribal eponym Hippothon as a figure whose marginality is reflected in the demes that comprise the tribe. Importantly, he emphasises that such a configuration intentionally tied the periphery to the centre, and aligned tribe and eponym in a way that reflected the characteristics and traditions of the regions incorporated into the tribes. This remodelling assumed existing local realities; it did not radically depart from them. Marchiandi is, perhaps, the exception in this section in that he does not emphasise continuity with earlier periods. Still, he concludes that the elaborate, private tombs lining the roads outside Athens were not intended to elevate the family of a few elites over the city; instead, through the standardised imagery, they reflected a citizen's performance of obligatory social roles by people who shared the ideals of the polis but were of varying social statuses.

Part 4, ‘Redéfinir le koinon: cristallisations politiques’, focusses on redefining the connection between communal practice and the political. While I. discusses Cleisthenes' deme reforms within the scope of other affiliations the Athenians had (phratry, especially), the other essays all discuss aspects of Lycurgan Athens. S. Lambert views the laws passed during the years 352–322 b.c.e. as a way of reflecting upon the more glorious fifth-century past. The laws, he suggests, reflect an attitude of people who saw themselves as in decline. He argues that it was in the Lycurgan period that the fifth century gained the elevated status it retains today. Through an engaging reading of Against Leocrates, A. argues that we can see a distinctive change in the period concerning what was private and what was to koinon. M.C. Monaco rounds out the section with an examination of the archaeological remains that may be attributed to the Lycurgan period in the Agora and on the Acropolis and refutes the view that the archaeological evidence shows a substantive ‘democratic resistance’ to Macedonian rule.

Part 5, ‘Revisiter les normes du «modèle Athénien»: le politique élargi’, expands the definition of the political further. It focusses on three different aspects of the Cleisthenic and Lycurgan periods: the sacred (J. Blok), gender (V. Sebillotte Cuchet) and social space (E. Scheid-Tissinier). Blok contends that, more so than possession of political office or participation in the courts, it was the relationship to the sacred that defined one's citizen status. Sebillotte Cuchet offers a second close reading of Against Leocrates that questions received notions of civic ideology and gender, suggesting that Lycurgus conflated oikos and polis, merging the private and to koinon, a reading that supports A.'s analysis. Scheid-Tissinier effectively discusses the space of the deme as a place where the city itself needed to mediate citizenship and social conflict if the city was to function.

The final section, ‘De Clisthène à Lycurgue: parcours transversaux’, contains two essays comparing the two statesmen. P. Schmitt Pantel focusses on epitêdeumata (collective social practices) and their relationship to politics. Although she engages with I.'s essay throughout, her main goal seems to be defining the idea of le politique (as opposed to la politique) through the way in which the sources present Cleisthenes and Lycurgus. The essay seems somewhat disjointed, and her habit of reflecting upon her previous publications is a less effective approach to understanding the relationship between epitêdeumata and the political than a more straightforward analysis might have been. J. Ober deploys a type of visual mapping common in political science to compare the democracies in the Cleisthenic and Lycurgan periods. He concludes that the reforms of Lycurgus were not a betrayal of the 508 b.c.e. ‘revolution’ (a ‘revolution’ disputed by other contributors). Although quantitative approaches to the study of antiquity can be suggestive, this particular methodology may not be suitable for sources that provide very little quantitative data. Still, the essay is in keeping with the spirit of the volume and the editors' statement that modern methodologies used for the study of antiquity are valuable if they provide new avenues of exploration and open up new questions.

This intelligent and exciting volume has much to offer the student of Athenian democracy: it engages with an expanded idea of politics beyond the limitations of political institutions and explores the development of democracy as a continuum from the archaic world that preceded the Cleisthenic reforms to Lycurgan Athens. As the volume eloquently argues, Athens's democracy did not develop ex nihilo, nor did it disappear after Chaeronea, nor was it static and unchanging in the period between, nor was it limited to mechanisms of voting and the judiciary.