Combining contemporary political philosophy with historical, literary, and philosophical texts, this study examines a series of remarkable individuals who promoted justice in early Iron Age, archaic, and classical Greece. From the earlier periods, Homer's Achilles and Odysseus were represented as heroic individuals who are also prototypical citizens, and Solon the lawgiver, wrote the scripts of statute law and the jury trial. The book's focus later turns to dialogues between a citizen's moral autonomy and political obligation in democratic Athens.

Combining contemporary political philosophy with historical, literary, and philosophical texts, this study examines a series of remarkable individuals who promoted justice in early Iron Age, archaic, and classical Greece. From the earlier periods, Homer's Achilles and Odysseus were represented as heroic individuals who are also prototypical citizens, and Solon the lawgiver, wrote the scripts of statute law and the jury trial. The book's focus later turns to dialogues between a citizen's moral autonomy and political obligation in democratic Athens.