Simon Harrison

The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought

This book, first published in 2000, is a general and comprehensive treatment of the political thought of ancient Greece and Rome. It begins with Homer and ends in late antiquity with Christian and pagan reflections on divine and human order. In between come studies of Plato, Aristotle and a host of other major and minor thinkers - poets, historians, philosophers - whose individuality is brought out by extensive quotation. The international team of distinguished scholars assembled by the editors includes historians of law, politics, culture and religion, and also philosophers. Some chapters focus mostly on the ancient context of the ideas they are examining, while others explore these ideas as systems of thought which resonate with modern or perennial concerns. This clearly written volume will long remain an accessible and authoritative guide to Greek and Roman thinking about government and community.

Greek political thought: the historical context

Terminology Much of our political terminology is Greek in etymology: aristocracy, democracy, monarchy, oligarchy, plutocracy, tyranny, to take just the most obvious examples, besides politics itself and its derivatives. Most of the remainder – citizen, constitution, dictatorship, people, republic and state – have an alternative ancient derivation, from the Latin. It is the ancient Greeks, though, who more typically function as ‘our’ ancestors in the political sphere, ideologically, mythologically and symbolically. It is they, above all, who are soberly credited with having ‘discovered’ or ‘invented’ not only city-republican forms but also politics in the strong sense: that is, communal decision-making effected in public after substantive discussion by or before voters deemed relevantly equal, and on issues of principle as well as purely technical, operational matters. Yet whether it was in fact the Greeks – rather than the Phoenicians, say, or Etruscans – who first discovered or invented politics in this sense, it is unarguable that their politics and ours differ sharply from each other, both theoretically and practically. This is partly, but not only nor primarily, because they mainly operated within the framework of the polis, with a radically different conception of the nature of the citizen, and on a very much smaller and more intimately personal scale (the average polis of the Classical period is thought to have numbered no more than 500 to 2,000 adult male citizens; fifth-century Athens’ figure of 40,000 or more was hugely exceptional). The chief source of difference, however, is that for both practical and theoretical reasons they enriched or supplemented politics with practical ethics (as we might put it).

Approaching the Republic

Introduction Plato’s shortish dialogue Charmides ends with the following sequence, initiated by a response on the part of Charmides to the question whether he thinks he needs the Socratic ‘charm’ which will cure the soul (176b–d): I am sure, Socrates, that I do need the charm, and as far as I am concerned, there is no obstacle to my being charmed by you daily, until you say that it is enough. Very good, Charmides, said Critias. If you do this / shall take this as a proof of your moderation - that is, if you allow yourself to be charmed by Socrates, and never desert him in things great or small. You may depend on my following and never deserting him, he said. If you who are my guardian command me, I should do very wrong not to obey you. And I do command you, he said. Then I will do as you command, and begin this very day. You there, I said, what are you two making plans about? We are not making plans, said Charmides. We’ve made them. Then you are about to use force, I said, without giving me the chance of a scrutiny? Yes, I shall use force, he said, since he orders me. In the face of this you had better plan what you will do. No plan is left open to me, I said. When you put your hand to action of any sort and are using force, there is no human being who can oppose you. Don’t, then, he said; don’t oppose me, not even you. I won’t oppose you, then, I said.

Herodotus, Thucydides and the sophists

The sophists Let us begin by considering three Athenian texts of the fifth and fourth centuries bc . The first, short enough to quote in full, is a fragment of what was probably a satyr (i.e. serio-comic) play. Controversy continues as to whether the author of these forty-odd lines of verse was the tragedian Euripides (c. 485–c. 406), or Critias, uncle of Plato, versifier, political pamphleteer, and leading member of the oligarchic junta that overthrew Athenian democracy in 404 following Athens’ defeat by Sparta, who was killed in the course of its suppression the following year. The speaker is Sisyphus, archetype of villainy and cunning – whose never-ending punishment was and remains legendary: There was a time when human life had no order, but like that of animals was ruled by force; when there was no reward for the good, nor any punishment for the wicked. And then, I think, men enacted laws ( nomoi ) for punishment, so that justice ( dike ) would be ruler ( turannos )… and hubris its slave, and whoever did wrong would be punished. Next, since the laws prevented people only from resorting to violence openly, but they continued to do so in secret, then I think for the first time some shrewd and clever ( sophos ) individual invented fear of the gods for mortals, so that the wicked would have something to fear even if their deeds or words or thoughts were secret. In this way, therefore, he introduced the idea of the divine, saying that there is a divinity, strong with eternal life, who in his mind hears, sees, thinks and attends to everything with his divine nature ( phusis ). He will hear everything mortals say and can see everything they do; and if you silently plot evil, this is not hidden from the gods, for our thoughts are known to them. With such stories as these he introduced the most pleasant of lessons, concealing the truth with a false account. And he claimed that the gods dwelt in that place which would particularly terrify men; for he knew that from there mortals have fears and also benefits for their wretched lives - from the revolving sky above, where he saw there was lightning, the fearful din of thunder and the starry radiance of heaven, the fine embroidery of Time, the skilful ( sophos ) craftsman. Thence too comes the bright mass of a star, and damp showers are sent down to earth. With fears like these he surrounded men, and using them in his story he settled the divinity in a fitting place, and quenched lawlessness ( anomia ) by means of laws ( nomoi )… Thus, I think, someone first persuaded mortals to believe ( nomizein ) there was a race of gods.

Socrates and Plato: an introduction

Approaches to Platonic interpretation To introduce Socrates and Plato is to introduce the problem of the relation between them. Although other contemporaries left portraits of Socrates as well, it is Plato’s writings – primarily a body of dialogues in which Plato himself never appears – which stamped the figure of his teacher indelibly on the history of Western philosophy. Because Socrates is best known to us as a character in Plato’s writings, there arises what has been called the ‘Socratic problem’. Can a real or ‘historical’ Socrates, with distinctive beliefs, be identified on the basis of the testimony roughly contemporaneous with his life which survives from Aristophanes, Plato, Xenophon, and (a generation later) Aristotle? Or is, perhaps, the Socrates we value largely the portrayal Plato makes of him? The ‘Socratic problem’ is complicated by the fact that Plato’s ‘Socrates’ seems to argue for contradictory positions in different dialogues. For example, in Protagoras (352–8) Socrates argues that because no one does wrong willingly, vice results simply from ignorance, an argument which assumes that only rational beliefs determine action. But in Republic IV he explains vice as due to the two irrational, or less than rational, parts of a tripartite soul when not stably governed, as they should be, by the third and rational part. This apparent contradiction has often been resolved by assuming that the Protagoras is one of a group of dialogues written early in Plato’s career (the ‘early’ dialogues), in which the character ‘Socrates’ is meant by Plato to represent the historical Socrates’ views, whereas the Republic is one of the ‘middle period’ dialogues in which Plato is using Socrates simply as a mouthpiece for his own theory.

Aristotle: an introduction

The key to Aristotles conception of politics is the figure of the legislator. In proposing a general study of legislation Aristotle indicates two distinct sorts of reason for undertaking the enterprise. First, successful lawgiving, and the ability to assess the merits of particular legislation, are largely matters of experience. Second, Aristotle complains that his predecessors have left the field of legislation uninvestigated. Aristotles identification of the true politician with the architectonic lawgiver reflects a common Greek understanding of how their political institutions were and indeed should be created, which is reflected, for example, in popular conceptions of the work of Lycurgus and Solon, in the role actually assigned to lawgivers in the foundation of colonies, and not least in the legislative project of Platos Laws. At its most general and fundamental level Aristotles analysis of the polis is a highly abstract exercise in rational choice theory.

Seneca and Pliny

A century after Cicero’s death, another Roman senator, also a gifted orator, again demonstrated the power of philosophical writing in Latin, but in a different vein and a different style. Like Cicero Seneca regarded the moralis pars philosophiae , which traditionally included political theory, as the most important branch of philosophy, but unlike Cicero, who used a leisured periodic style suited to the balanced tone of a sceptical Academic, Seneca expounded ethics in a nervous epigrammatic style suited to the passionate tone of a committed Stoic. And whereas Cicero had been inspired by the example of Plato and the Peripatetics to compose a de Re Publica and to embark on a de Legibus , Seneca did not write about the relative merits of different constitutions and showed little confidence in what could be achieved by legislation. Indeed it is often said that Seneca showed no interest in political theory and restricted the moralis pars philosophiae to individual ethics. Similar points have been made about Hellenistic philosophy itself, including Stoicism, and Seneca’s de Clementia , his most explicit work of political theory, is clearly indebted to lost Hellenistic works on kingship, of which there were many Stoic examples. Moreover, between Cicero’s time and Seneca’s there had been important political developments with the advent of the Principate. Cicero had placed his faith in the Roman Republican constitution which, he believed, had once realized the Greek ideal of the mixed constitution, equitable and durable. The divisive trends he perceived, however, led to protracted civil wars and Caesar’s dictatorship, which shattered the dream of constitutional stability.

Xenophon and Isocrates

Xenophon (c.430 to at least 356 bc ) and Isocrates (436–338 bc ), contemporaries of Plato, had the opportunity to learn from Socrates and other philosophers who aimed to produce political virtue. Isocrates’ own ‘philosophy’ took the form of an ‘education through speaking and writing’ that prepared pupils to play their part in domestic and international politics. His speeches served as models. Xenophon spent his maturity in exile from Athens ‘hunting, writing his works and entertaining his friends’ in Scillus in the Peloponnese. His works also offer a ‘philosophic’ education in political virtue and sound government. Aristotle believed that the aim of community government was to implement the common good. For him the polis was the supreme community, and its goal the greatest good ( Pol. 1252a1–7; cf. 1278b30–1279a21, 1282b14–22). Xenophon and Isocrates addressed the government of other communities as well as the polis. Xenophon’s Cyropaedia sought to explain Cyrus’ successful government of eastern kingdoms (1. 1. 1–6); his Hiero dramatized the reform of tyrannical rule of a polis, while his Oeconomicus 7–21 examined Ischomachus’ successful government of his household; his Constitution of the Spartans (Lacedaimoniōn Politeia) described the excellent laws of the Spartan Lycurgus. These works made a lasting impression on political thought. Xenophon’s models seem undemocratic (a Persian prince, a tyrant, an aristocratic householder, Sparta), and he had no reason to love the Athenian democracy that had procured his exile and executed his teacher Socrates, but the principles that inform his models are consistent and have broad application. Isocrates wrote speeches that also endorse various kinds of government: Areopagiticus (probably 354) persuades the Athenians to restore their ancestral constitution, while Panathenaicus (339) proves their ancestral constitution superior to the Spartan constitution; ad Nicoclem (c.372) shows the prince Nicocles of Cyprus how to rule his subjects, while Nicocles (c.368) shows his subjects how to behave toward their king; Panegyricus (380) and Ad Philippum (346) persuade first the Athenians and then Philip of Macedon to unite and lead the Greeks against Persia.