The main topics to be discussed in the context of the course are: 1. Law’ claim and the positive law/natural law divide. The exemplary situation of Sophocles’Antigone 2. The duty to obey the city’s laws in Plato’s Crito. 3. Aristotle’s Politics and the claim for democratic acceptance. 4. Cosmopolitan despotism and the stoic cult of Law. Cicero, Seneca and the great jurisconsults of the middle empire. 5. The resurgence of Neoplatonism at the late empire. StAugustine and the long platonic dream of a universal christian state. 6. The voluntaristic reversal of platonism by the nominalists and the averroist reading of Aristotle. The conciliation attempt of StThomas of Aquin. 7. Into modernity: Jus civile. Hegemony and the new concept of nature. 8. Modern natural law and the invention of rights of man. Students will be provided with a selection of excerpts from classical texts, which they are allowed to freely use during tests and examination.