The concept of political obligation, and its role in civic communities, has always been fascinating and problematic at the same time, for ancient and modern political theorists alike. In this concise volume, H. makes his contribution to the long debate about the idea of political obligation by adopting a comparative approach, as he did in previous publications for the same series, such as The Tradition of Ancient Greek Democracy and its Importance for Modern Democracy (2005). The result is an interesting work, which combines ancient and modern reflections on political obligation with an analysis of the historical evidence for the institutional practice of oath-taking in the Greek poleis.

H.'s volume is structured into seventeen short chapters. The preface and the following seven chapters deal with the theoretical foundations of the essay. The other eight chapters provide a historical overview of the practice of civic oaths in Greek poleis, which he interprets as one of the foundations for the establishment of political obligation in ancient Greece. The book closes with a chapter titled ‘An Alternative View on Political Obligation’.

In the first part of the volume, H. outlines the philosophical debate on political obligation in modern thought, beginning with the theory of the social contract as the origin of political societies. H. presents well the main points of social contract from the earliest theorisation in Plato's Republic (358e–59b) to eighteenth-century debate (pp. 10–13). H. then briefly focuses on how the most recent political philosophy tackles the issue of civic obligation by drawing a distinction between the advocates of two views (pp. 14–15); on the one hand, those who argue that citizens implicitly agree to obey the laws of the state by their civic behaviour; and, on the other hand, ‘philosophical anarchists' who believe no general commitment to obey the laws is possible without a formal oath of allegiance.

This allows H. to explore the extant ancient literary evidence for discussions of political obligation. The focus is on the dialogue between Socrates and the laws of Athens in Plato's Crito (50a–54e). As H. argues, there are surprisingly few other ancient literary texts which tackle the issue of political obligation and its justification. The dialogue with the personified laws of the polis in the Crito builds up the case that Socrates, as an Athenian citizen who participated in the advantages and activities of citizenship, had given his implicit consent to obeying the laws. H. points out that many of Socrates’ arguments for political obligation, such as those based on gratitude towards the laws, fair play and tacit consent, as well as his emphasis on the necessity of laws for the existence of the city, are also key points mentioned in modern philosophical debates. These different themes have been handled with differing approaches both by modern advocates of the theory of implicit consent and by those philosophers who reject that notion by requiring explicit voluntary acceptance of laws (pp. 18–24).

Building on these philosophical reflections, H. introduces the historical part of the essay, in which he makes a case for the relationship between political obligation and civic oaths in ancient Greece (pp. 24–6). In spite of not being mentioned by Socrates in Plato's Crito, oaths sworn across many city states constituted expressions of explicit consent to accept the laws of the city. H., however, suggests that the Socratic case was an exceptional one. Socrates was bound to the laws of Athens even though he had not taken a formal oath because he had decided not to move to another city, which was the most common means to escape political obligation in one's own native city (pp. 26–31). By living in Athens his whole life, Socrates gave his implicit agreement to respect its laws, according to H., this is the reason why the Platonic account is so similar to modern discussions of political obligation.

H. then examines the civic oaths preserved in epigraphical and literary sources of the Classical and Hellenistic periods (pp. 32–53). H. singles out six categories of civic oaths with different purposes – oaths for young citizens on coming of age; oaths of allegiance to the established constitution; oaths sworn by members of synomosiai (conspiracies); oaths of reconciliation after civil strife; oaths accompanying a synoecism between two poleis; and oaths for the foundation of a colony – but he deliberately chooses not to include an analysis of oaths taken by officials and judges in Athens or the oaths sworn to accompany interstate treaties, since the latter types of oath were usually not taken by all citizens. The judicial oath, however, would have been a particularly interesting addition because it included explicit promises to uphold the laws in Classical Athens (E.M. Harris, The Rule of Law in Action in Democratic Athens [2013], pp. 101–37). Every year 6,000 citizens were selected by lot to serve as judges in the law courts. At the end of the fourth century, the Athenian citizens were also bound by the ephebic oath, but this oath was not considered sufficient for the institutional task of the dikastai, who had to apply the statutes in giving their verdicts according to the judicial oath.

Thus, for each type of oath, H. provides two or more relevant examples, such as the reconciliation oath after the restoration of democracy in Athens in 403 (ou mnesikakein), the Athenian ephebic oath (Rhodes–Osborne GHI 88) and the oath sworn by the Dikaiopolitans in the reconciliation agreement in the 360s b.c. (SEG 57 576) (See also B.D. Gray, Stasis and Stability. Exile, the Polis, and Political Thought, c. 404–146 bc [2015], pp. 36–78). However, the use of the decree of Demophantus as evidence of an anti-tyrannical oath taken by the Athenians after the fall of the Four Hundred in 410 is problematic. H. accepts the authenticity of this document, which is included in Andocides' On the Mysteries (1.96–8), although Canevaro and Harris have convincingly shown that it is a later forgery, a point further reinforced by Harris in a recent article with additional arguments (M. Canevaro and E.M. Harris, CQ 62 [2012], 98–129; E.M. Harris, Τεκμήρια 12 [2014], 121–53; contra H. GRBS 55.4 [2015], 884–901).

The role of anti-tyrannical legislation in the Greek poleis is expanded upon in the following chapter, ‘Extents and Limits of Political Obligation’, where H. explores the relaxation of legal obligations in democratic city-states when laws were passed allowing the murder of a tyrant or extra-judicial punishment for those who set up an oligarchical or tyrannical regime; in these cases extraordinary actions were permitted, for the sake of safeguarding the democracy. In the chapter ‘Stasis’, H.'s focus is on the purpose of civic oaths in episodes of civil strife as a tool to restore homonoia when the relationships and obligations holding together the polis had broken down (pp. 61–8).

H. concludes by drawing an analogy between political obligation in democratic Athens as pictured in Pericles' Funeral Speech (Thuc. 2.40) and Parekh's distinction between legal obligation to obey the laws and political obligation, in which the latter comprises the moral obligation to be an active and critical citizen (B. Parekh, Polit. Stud. 41 [1993], 236–51). H. thinks that passive obedience to the laws was not highly esteemed by the Greeks, who conceived of political obligation as an active involvement in civic life. Therefore, the ancient sources stating that respectable citizens should keep out of public life in fact show the legacy of an ‘old aristocratic attitude’ (pp. 70–1).

The volume is well produced, with no typographical errors. The Greek texts are always translated, making the volume accessible to a wide audience. The style is elegant and readable – no surprise for anyone familiar with H.'s prose. Occasionally it would have been good to see more analysis of the differences between the historical and social contexts of some of the ancient laws discussed. For example, the analysis of the ‘Oath of the Settlers’ (ML 5) of Cyrene would have benefited from wider contextualisation, including discussion of the issues of the construction of an archaic community and its collective memory (M. Giangiulio, in N. Luraghi, Historian's Craft in the Age of Herodotus [2001], pp. 116–37). This book is a valuable contribution to a captivating topic and may constitute a starting point for broader comparative work on ideas and practices of political obligation in the ancient and modern worlds.