BC
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508-507 | Greece
Cleisthenes established highly sophisticated political system of representation in Athens. The large territory of Attica was divided into more than one hundred 'demes' ('districts', consisting mostly of villages and parts of towns) which were assigned important functions in cult and self-administration. These were combined into 'thirds' (trittues) and 'tribes' (phulai) so that each tribe united citizens from various areas. Members of the same tribe served in important communal functions (especially in the polis army, in cults and festivals, and in the new Council of Five Hundred, into which every deme delegated elected members according to its population). The purpose of Cleisthenes' far-reaching reforms was to encourage familiarity and collaboration among the citizens, to connect the outlying demes with the political centre where council and assembly met to make communal decisions, to get the citizens involved in communal responsibility on the local and polis levels, and to create a thoroughly integrated community.
[Source: The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (2005)]
V - IV centuries | Greece
Only few hegemonic poleis (principally Athens, Sparta and Thebes) enjoyed freedom and independence. They dominated the mass of smaller Greek poleis through their leagues, or polities (such as Caria under Mausolus in 377/6-353, and Thessaly under Jason in the 370s). Athens was the last of the hegemonic poleis.
[Source: The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (2005)]
End of the IV – middle of the II century | Greece
The advance of the kingdom of Macedon during the reign of Philip II (359 – 336) and Alexander the Great (336-323) marked a period of significant political transition. In about four decades Greece was subdued, the massive Persian Empire – conquered, and democracy in Athens crushed (in 319). The unified Macedonian empire quickly gave way to the Successor Kingdoms of the Hellenistic age based on Macedon, Syria and Egypt (which in turn were absorbed, finally and conclusively, by Rome). These states were ruled by monarchs, who controlled an extensive web of city-states. Following the example of Alexander, Hellenistic kings were ready to exploit, for the extra authority that they bestowed, the connotations of divinity and absolutism. Hellenistic writers – Stoic as well as Platonic (Neopythagoreans) – presented kings as emulators of god, his representatives on earth and the incarnation of the divine logos.
[Source: The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (2005)]
AD
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III century | Rome
An elevation of the status of the emperor and a change of his image were notable developments of the third century. In rapid turnover of emperors the men who rose to the top were no longer members of the leisured and propertied aristocracy, but professional soldiers, who placed a higher valuation on strength, discipline, authority and security, than on traditional practices and ideology. The novelty of their power, usurped rather than inherited, the circumstances in which it was won, and their authoritarian temper led them to widen the gap between themselves and the rest of humanity, including the aristocracy, and to surround themselves with a mystique with religious overtones. In titulature emperors starting with Aurelian (AD 270-5), so long as they were pagan, were 'master and god' (dominus et deus). Diocletian (AD 284-305) took the title Jovius Augustus after Jupiter, and Maximian his colleague Herculius Augustus after Hercules.
[Source: The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (2005)]
III-IV century | Christianity
The practice of direct relation with gods that roman emperors seeked and expressed could not survive the conversion to Christianity. A Christian emperor could not be a god. He could, however, be represented as divinely chosen, the viceregent, companion and 'heavenly messenger' of God, and his court portrayed as a model of heaven. Eusebius of Caesarea (262-339), who theorized such notions with the cooperation and approval of Constantine, was influenced by the earlier (pagan) kingship theory.
[Source: The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (2005)]
1579 | Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos |
Monarchomachs
Publication
of Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos ("Defences [of liberty] against tyrants")
— an influential Huguenot tract published in Basel. Divided in four questions,
the work suggests grounds for popular resistance, drawing on the basis of the
theological view of covenant and the legal understanding of contract to show
why resistance can be justified. The
author of the tract remains uncertain, since it was written under the pseudonym
of "Stephen Junius Brutus", but in general scientists tend to agree that
this was Philippe de Mornay, yet not unanimously. The “Vindiciae” is also
considered as an account of the so called “monarchomachs” (term coined by
William Barclay in 1600, which means “those who fight the monarch”). Proclaiming
the principle that the King (rex) is “singulis major, universis minor”, which
means superior among the people but lesser than them all as a community, the
monarchomachs influenced directly the English parliamentarian supporters during
the civil war against the Stuart monarchy in the 1640s.
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