Aeneid

(1) W.A. Camps, “An introduction to Virgil’s Aeneid”, Oxford University Press 1969; “There is much that can justly be understood to be allusive or symbolic in the Aeneid. But this, though important, is incidental to its essential character. In essence it is a story consisting of splendid and moving episodes, organized in a strongly shaped architectural pattern, and told in language of great expressive and emotive power. This story is centred on examples of intensive and emotive power. This story is centred on examples of intense and important human experience, tragedy and vocation. And his experience is not seen in isolation, but in a theological and a historical context. The humans act and suffer in a world governed by laws and powers that are overwhelmingly stronger than they, and that these laws and powers are by human standards morally imperfect enhances the tragic quality of the human experience. The human action and suffering is moreover part of a process leading to an end in history which is felt to matter more than the fortunes of the individual humans yet so as to enhance rather than diminish their value. This end and object of the story is Rome, as the poet contemplates her greatness, and the peace among nations over which she presides, with the heightened emotions of a unique historical moment. /

(2) Passim: The idea of Rome is thus the dominant value in the Aeneid and the primary motive of its action; and many readers both in the ancient and in the modern world have been willing enough to accept this, and to find in the poem an expression not only of a man’s feeling for this country but also of the high role Rome has indeed had in history as an organizing and harmonizing and humanizing agency. It was after all only a generation after Virgil that the seeds of western Christendom were spread in the ground prepared by the Roman peace by a Greek-speaking Jew from Asia Minor who was, like Virgil, a Roman citizen. But in a world no longer sympathetic to empires some way prefer to reflect that the motive of a poem is only one of its constituents, and not always the most important. The success of Paradise Lost as  a poem, for instance, does not depend on whether Milton has had success in his avowed intention to justifying the ways of God to man. And so with the Aeneid, those who cannot enter with sympathy into Virgil’s conception of Rome may find the meaning of his poem for themselves in its complementary theme, the impact of world forces and world movement on the lives of individuals and the human qualities displayed in their response.”

Leer van de staat, Confucianisme

(1) Ian Morris, “Why the West rules for now – The patterns of history and what they revealed about the future”, Profile Books 2010; ”Confucius took the eleventh-century-BCE Duke of Zhou as his model of virtue and dined his gaol as being to restore the moral excellence of the duke’s time by reinstating its system of ritual.’ I transmit bud do not create’, Confucius said.’ I am an admirer of antiquity’.
Archaeology, though, suggest that Confucius actually knew rather little about
the duke’s distant era. It was not the duke but a broad and much later ‘ritual
revolution’ around 850 BCE that had given Zhou society restrained, carefully
graded rites assigning all members of a broad elite to place in a hierarchy.
Then, around 600 BCE that had given Zhou society restrained carefully graded
rites, assigning all members of broad elite to places in a hierarchy. Then,
around 600 BCE, ritual had changed again as few super powerful men began being
buried with huge wealth, setting themselves above the rest of the elite. /
Confucius, one of the educated but not particularly rich shi, was probably reacting against this second change, idealizing the stable ritual order that flourished between 850 and 600 BCE and projecting it back on the Duke of Zhou. ‘So subdue oneself and return to ritual’, Confucius insisted, ‘is to practice humaneness [ren].’ This meant carrying more about the living family than about ancestors; not descent; performing rituals accurately with simple equipment; and following precedent. Confucius insisted that if he could persuade just one ruler to practice ren, everyone would
imitate him and the world would find peace.”

Leer van de staat, Grieken, Homerische

(1) Div., “”Sources in Greek Political Thought – From Homer to Polybius”, The Free Press 1965 – Donald Kagan, “The world of Homer”; “The world of Homer was prépolitical, in the sense that it was a world in which the polis did not yet exist. It is clear, nevertheless, that poems of Homer represents a sharp break with the Oriental view of human governments, despotic and theocratic. It is further true that they foreshadow many political concepts which were to be deepened and elaborated in subsequent centuries.”

Leer van de staat, Midden-Oosten

(1) Sabatino Moscati., The face of the ancient orient– A panorama of Near Eastern Civilization in Pre-classical Times”, Doubleday Anchor 1962; “The temple was more than the centre of religious life. In Sumerian society there is a characteristic symbiosis of activities, and so the temple is also the centre of economic and commercial activity. Jacobsen has written the following account of the origin and structure of this social system: ‘Central in the city-state was the city, and central in the city was the temple of ht city god. The temple of the city god was usually the greatest landowner in the state, and it cultivated its extensive holding by means of serfs and sharecroppers. Other temples belonging to the city god’s spouse, to their divine children and to deities associated with the chief god similarly had large land holdings, so that it has been estimated that round the middle of the third millennium B.C most of the lands of a Mesopotamian city-state were temple lands. The larger part of the inhabitants was accordingly earning their livelihood as sharecroppers, serfs or servant to the gods. In this situation lie the economic and political realties expressed in the Mesopotamian myths which state that man was created to relive the gods of toil, to work on the gods’ estates. For the Mesopotamian city state was an estate, or rather – like the medieval manor with which we have compared it – it had an estate as basis. That basic estate, the main temple with its land, was owned and run by the city god, who himself gave all important orders

 (2) Passim: The guiding rule of the temple community is that the individual should labour in the service of the group. We find the citizens organized in corporations, headed by men assigned the task of apportioning and supervising the work to be done; they distribute food to the member of their groups recompense. the various trades are clearly distinguished; there are shepherds, farmers, hunters, fishermen, lumbermen, carpenters, smiths; there ware also merchants to look after foreign trade. In time of war, and when great public works have to be carried out, the citizens are mobilised; after doing their service they return to their everyday tasks. /Such was the life of the Sumerians. The general impression it leaves is of the profound unity of all its forms, under the dominant force of religion. Every human activity, whether of peaceful words or warlike enterprise, was performed for the benefit of ht gods; man’s every step depended on the gods and not only those activities connected with the cult but those of economic and commercial life which we regard as quite remote from religion .this harmony within the faith, characteristic of the Sumerian conception of the universe, remains a potent and typical feature of all the civilizations which succeeded them in the ancient Orient.”

Staat, Azteken

(1) Bruce G. Trigger, “Understanding early civilizations – A Comparative  Study”,  Cambridge University Press 2003; “The Aztec king was selected, often amidst considerable rivalry, from among the brothers or sons of the dead king by a council made up of the four highest officers of the state. These officials were usually members of the royal family, and the new king was one of them. The Cihuacoatl, acting as regent, also played a role in the selection. It is reported that in the formative period of the Aztec monarchy the election of a new king had been confirmed by all the men and women of the state, but later the people merely acclaimed the new ruler.  As the Aztec state grew more powerful, succession shifted from a father-to-son pattern to one in which the kingship often passed from one brother to anther before descending to the next generation. This change is believed to have been intended to increase the number of experienced adult candidates from whom a new ruler might be selected. The new procedure favoured the appointment of a member of the royal family who was already militarily and politically successful. As the Aztec state came to dominate more neighbouring kingdoms, such qualities were increasingly valued in a leader.”

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(2) Bruce G. Trigger, “Understanding early civilizations – A Comparative  Study”,  Cambridge University Press 2003; “The Aztec, together with their Texcocan and Tlacopan allies, constituted the so-called Triple Alliance, which they had established in the early 1400.. By the early sixteenth century this military alliance had come to dominate about the 450 city-states, spread over the whole of the Valley of Mexico and much of central Mexico from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Tlacopan was a minor partner, perhaps included in the alliance primarily for ritual purposes, and over time the Aztec came to dominated heir Texcocan allies. Tributary payments were imposed on conquered city-states within the areas controlled by each of these three states, and tributary rulers were required to provision alliance armies passing through their territory and to convey tribute from farther away trough their domains to hegemonic capitalis.Yet, in general the Aztec and their allies left local kings in pace and intervened only occasionally in the routine administration of conquered city-states. States located beyond the valley of Mexico tended to be governed internally as before. If a local king was especially troublesome, the Aztec might replace him with a more accommodating relative. Only rarely did they replace such a ruler with a more accommodating relative. Only rarely did they replace such a ruler with Aztec governor. Only a few very intractable city-states, located in crucial areas where alliances with powerful external enemies were possible, were dismantled. The men and women were killed, their children distributed for adoption among neighbouring city-states, and the emptied cities repopulated with colonists from the Valley of Mexico under the leadership or lords who were related to the Triple Alliance kings.

(3) Passim: Despite historical accounts of such resettlements, little in the way of Aztec art or cultural influences was evident beyond the Valley of Exico This is a clear symptom of an early tribute-paying society. Art is a matter for the court, not the local community.) . For the most part, life continued as before in conquered city-states, except that commoners had to either work harder to met tribute payment or accept a lower standard of living and that it was more difficult to disobey local kings. The Aztec sought to control distant tributary states by spying on them, mercilessly crushing overt resistance, and imposing still heavier tribute upon reconquered states. / Within the Valley of Mexico, the Aztecs and their allies intervened to a greater degree in the affairs of tributary city-states. They politically reorganized the smaller en weaker states in order to facilitate tribute collection. These charges took the form of more effectively centralizing some states and amalgamating others. The Texcocans went farther than the Aztec by appointing the rulers of nearby tributary city-states to Texcoco’s governing councils, including the highest-ranking one, which advised the Texcocan Tlatoani. This arrangement did not, however, extinguish the formal independence of these states, which continued to be ruled by their own kings. To a greater extent than outside the Valley of Mexico, the Aztec and Texcocan rulers married their daughters and those of high-ranking nobles to the kings of subordinate city-states. By doing so they ensured that eventually any of these rulers were related to their hegemons. Subordinate kings were required to attend major religious rituals, including coronations and victory celebrations, in Techonticlan and Texcoco. Land that was exchanged as wedding presents made rules of tributary city-states increasingly dependent on property located outside their own city-states and therefore supportive of the larger order created by the tripe Alliance. Rulers of nearby tributary states were frequently called upon to supply soldiers for military campaigns outside the Valley of Mexico and labour service for maintaining palaces and undertaking public construction projects in the Aztec and Texcocan capitals. The hegemonic states also used their power to rearrange interstate market cycles and trading patterns to their own advantage and turned much of the Southern islands of the Valley of Mexico into food-producing areas for Tenochtitlan and Texcoco. /

(4) Passim: Yet the economic integration of the Valley of Mexico greatly outstripped its political integration. The most extreme example of political incorporation was the Aztec’s annexation of the neighbouring city-state of Tlateolco in the late fifteenth century. Te capitals of these two states had been located alongside each other on the same island in Lake Texcocoe, wher both cities had expanded until they had physically coalesced. Growing rivalry had resulted in the Aztec’s conquering Tlatelolco and suppressing its ruling dynasty. Yet Taltelolco retained its civic centre and remained a highly prosperous fifth administrative division of the Aztec capital. The treatment of Tlatelolco suggests that groups living in the Valley of Mexico were very reluctant to suppress existing states. / Events that occurred during the Spanish conquest demonstrate that even the Valley of Mexico, which was more politically and economically consolidated than the rest of the Aztec tributary system, still consisted of a series of city-states, varying in size and subjected, with varying degrees of willingness, to the Aztec and their allies. Kings of states located within a few kilometres of Tenochtitlan allies themselves with the Spanish in order to stop paying tribute to the Aztec. When the king of Texcoco died shortly before the Spanish arrived, the Aztec pressured their Texcoco allies to make his young son by the sister of the Aztec king their new monarch. () Passim: This resulted in a civil war that divided Texcoco. An older half-brother of the new texcocan king allied himself with the Spanish in a bid to seize the throne. It is thus clear that, while the Aztec if interfered in the affairs of tributary and allied states for various political and economic reasons, their empire’ remained a tributary system imposed on a large number of city-states that had remained self-governing. Whatever manipulations went on, there does not appear to have been any concerted plan to transform these states in to a larger and more consolidated political entity.”

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(5) Bruce G. Trigger, “Understanding early civilizations – A Comparative  Study”,  Cambridge University Press 2003; “Tenochtitlan’s extraordinary size, political power, and roll as the central of a tributary network that extended far beyond the Valley of Mexico made its political organization different in many respects from that of neighbouring city-states. All the city-states in the valley participated in a regional network, which was controlled to a large extent by the Aztec and were subject in varying degrees to Aztec domination. / The smallest unit of Aztec political organization was the Calpolii/Tenochtitlan was said to have been composed of twenty large Calpollis, each of which played a part in the city’s complex ritual life. For religious reasons there may have been resistance to increasing this number. In reality, by 1519 Tenochtitlan may have had four times that number of Calpolis [called tlaxilacalli]. Each Calpoliie or Tlaxilacali had one to two Calollecs [hereditary leaders]. Their task was to manage the group’s affairs with the advice and assistance of a council of elders drawn from member families. Together they oversaw the operation of the Calpoli temple, the school where young commoners were trained as soldiers, and the military brigade. The leadership also settled internal disputes, collected taxes, and organized corvées to carry out public works, which included cleaning streets and dredging counsel taxes in kind consisted largely of crops produced by young men working fields that remained the collective property of calollis. This food was used to support corporate institutions and leaders and to pay taxes to the central government. Leaders were also responsible for keeping records, in particular concerning the assignment of land to members. They were assisted in collecting taxes and organizing corvée work by fiscal supervisors [tequitlatogue] who supervised groups of twenty to one hundred households.

(6) Passim: It is unclear to what extent these officers were the same as the elders who sat on the Calpolli  council. Calpoli leaders had intermarried with the royal family soon after the establishment of the Aztec monarch and thus had acquired noble status. The power of the Calpoli leaders in Tenochtitlan had been curtailed by the state administration. Accorded in to the Spanish, Calpolli leaders had to report to het palace daily to receive order from royal fiscal officers. Frederick Hicks suggest that in Texcoco, in contact to Tenochtitlan, Calpolis’s were no longer self-governing but organized and controlled by the upper classes.  / At the top of the state administration were the king and the chief decision makers, who bore the title tecuhtli [lord]. In Tenochtitlan next in rank after the king among this group were the Cihuacoatl and the members of the Council of Four. The Cuacoatl became regent when the king was ill or not in the capital. Routinely supervised the priesthood, and was in charge of various fiscal and routinely supervised the priesthood, and was in charge of various fiscal and legal matters. Two members of the Council of Four were the commanders in legal matters. Two members of the council of four were the commanders in chief of the army. Together the four were the king’s chief advisers and administrators and may have forgone the four quarters into which the capital was divided. / The king and these five officials headed a hierarchy of administrative, military, and religious officials recruited from among the members of the royal family, other members of the nobility, and ennobled warriors. One of these offices was hereditary; individuals were appointed by them by the king. Appointment to the most important offices, however, depended on the high status of the candidate’s forebears as well on his own talents and achievements.

(7) Passim: High-ranking officials assisted the king in formulating major policy decisions and administered in the palace law courts with the help of numerous secondary officials called calpixque. These lower-ranking members of the nobility oversaw the collection and distribution of taxes and tribute, the construction of state temples and public works such a causeways, aqueducts, and dyes to control water levels, the management of state land and royal property, and the amassing of the weapons, armour, and for supplies that were needed to provision the armies while on campaigns. Most official worked in Tenochtitlan, but some were located in major towns throughout the regions that the Aztec dominated to supervise relations with subject states oversee the collection of tribute, and ensure the delivery of in war won field that had been ceded to the Aztecs as tribute. These officials were probably assisted by numerous record-keepers, the youngest and least recognized members of the hereditary nobility. All administrators and record-keepers would have required training in the schools where members of the nobility were educated. . Former commoners who had been ennobled as a reward for military valour but lacked special administrative training guarded the king and various public buildings, arrested and executed people on orders from the king and high official, and trained young men to be soldiers in the commoner schools of the Calpolis from which they came. The markets were regulated by pochteca [long-distance traders] who were empowered by the king to establish fair prices, control weight and the quality of good being sold, and impose fines and other penalties on those who defrauded buyers.

(8) Passim: In Tenochtitlan the power of the king and nobles was greatly strengthened by military success and royal control of the material resources received from the Aztec tributary network In smaller en all powerful city-state the influence of Calpoli and other community layers remained stronger. Although the Texcocan king shared hegemony with the Aztec monarch, the much smaller Texcocan capital consisted of six words, each with its own ruler and palace. The Texcocan ruler had, however, gone farther than the Aztec king in integration and neighbouring city-states into a common political system. Fourteen small nearby city-states that were tributary to Texcoco participated to some extent in a common government The Tlatoani of Texcocy was advised by a high council attend by the kings of these neighbouring states as well as by the high-ranking Texcocan official who presided over the councils of war, finance, religion, and justice. Commoners, palace officials, and other nobles from these subordinate city-states and from the Texcoco served on these councils. In some much smaller en weaker states there was more than one Tlatoani, and decisions relating to these communities had to be reached by the consensus among these leaders. In small states with a single king, councils representing sectional interests such as those of quarters, Calpolies, and communities played general decision-making roles that were much more important than the roles played by corresponding bodies in Tenochtitlan and Texcoco. Towns and villages beyond city-state capitals were composed of one or more Calpolis. While some larger communities had their own council and a subordinate ruler as their head, other communities had the same relation to the king, as Calpoliis in urban centres. / () Passim: While there was a vast  amount of variation in the degree of internal centralization among the states in the Valley of Mexico, on the whole there appears to have been more centralization in this region than there was among the Yoruba or in Southern Mesopotamia. At least in part this difference may be attributable to the sharp distinction between hereditary nobles and commoners, which provided a basis for consolidating power structures that the other two-city-state systems lacked.” (En gedeeltelijk ook doordat de oudere structuren nog geen tijd gehad hadden, om op te lossen in een eenheidsstelsel. Het Aztekenrijk bestond gewoon nog te kort om volwassen eenheidsstructuren te ontwikkelen.)

Leer van de staat, Egypte

(1) Joyce Tyldesley, “Chronicle of the queens of Egypt – From early dynastic times to the death of  Cleopatra”, Thames & Hudson 2006; “difficult for us to pin down, although some of the explicit titles born by later queens (‘God’s Wife’; ‘God’s Hand’) hint at a duty to provide the necessary feminine element in rituals designed to arouse male gods. It clear that the queen’s religious responsibilities went far beyond the ability to observe or participate in routine ceremonies. Just as the king of Egypt stood as a representative for all mortal men before the gods, and could represent either all or one of the gods to his people, so his queen could stand for all women and represent either all or one of the goddes. The queen of Egypt quickly became an essential female element in the monarchy, with the king and queen together forming an unbeatable partnership -a perfect brother-sister balance of male and female -they would serve the gods, rule Egypt and confound chaos at the same time. Meanwhile the King’s Wife and the King’s Mother, both bearers and supporters of divine kingship, developed their own close bond. This is the theology that we will see developing as the dynastic age progress becoming most apparent during the New Kingdom Amarna Period. In absence of any real scientific understanding, it is a theology that helped the Egyptians make sense of their world.”

Staat, Romeinen, Vroege republiek

(1) Olga Tellegen-Couperus, “A short history of Roman Law”, Routledge 1993; “Many people support the view expressed by the famous German legal historian Theodor Mommsen, namely that in 509 BC the absolute power of the king was transferred to two highranking magistrates and that the senate retained its advisory function.2 However, this view is being challenged increasingly, and with good reason. It is unlikely that after overthrowing the king the leading Roman families would have wished to become dependent again on the whims of one or two persons. It is much more likely that the leading citizens, coming together in the senate, took power into their own hands and charged one or more of their fellowsenators with a specific task whenever the need arose. In the first 150 years of the republic all kinds of constructions must have been used to define these tasks; in the sources one comes across various names for magistrates, e.g. praetor, consul, decemviri legibus “

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(2) Fustel de Coulanges, “A classic study of the religious and civil institutions of ancient Greece and Rome”, Double Day 1956; “In Italy affairs were in much the same condition as in Greece. The cities of Latium, of the Sabines, and of Etruria were distracted by the same revolution and the same struggles, and love of the city disappeared. As in Greece, every man was ready to join a foreign city, in order to make his opinions and interests prevail in his own. / These dispositions of mind made the fortune of the Romans / they everywhere supported the aristocracy; everywhere too, the aristocracy were their allies. Let us take a few examples. . The Claudian gens left the Sabines because Roman institutions pleased them better than those of their own country. At the same epoch many Latin families immigrated to Rome, because they did not like the democratic government of Latium, and the Romans had just established the reign of the patricians. At Ardea, the aristocracy and the plebs begin at enmity, the plebs called the Volscians to their aid, and the aristocracy delivered the city to the Romans. Etruria was full of dissentions; Veii had overthrown her aristocratic government; the Romans attacked this city, and the other Etruscan cities, wher the sacerdotal aristocracy still held sway, refused to aid the Ventines. The legend adds that in this war the Romans carried away a Veientine haruspex, and made him deliver them an oracle that assured them the victory. Dos not this legend signify that the Etruscan priests delivered the city to the Romans? / Later, when Capua revolted against Rome, it was remarked that the knights – that is to say, the aristocratic body – took no part in that insurrection. In 313, the cities of Ausona, Sora, Minturnae, and Vescia were delivered to the Romans by the aristocratic party. When the Etruscans were seen to form a coalition against Rome, it was because popular governments had been established among them. A single city – that of the aristocracy still prevailed in Arretium – refused to enter this coalition; and this was because the aristocracy still prevailed in Arretium. When Hannibal was in Italy, all the cities were agitated; but it was not a question of independence. In every city the aristocracy were for Rome and the plebs for the Carthaginians.

(3) Passim: The manner in which Rome was governed will explain this constant preference which the aristocracy entertained for it. The series of revolutions continued as in other cities but more slowly. In 509, when the Latin cities already had tyrants, a patrician reaction has succeeded at Rome the democracy soon afterwards, but gradually and with much moderation and self-restraint. The Roman government was, therefore, for a longer time aristocratic than any other, and was long the hope of the aristocratic party. / The democracy, it is true, finally carried the day in Rome; but even then the proceedings and what on might call the artifices, the government remained aristocratic. In the comitia centuriata the votes were distributed according to property. It was not altogether different with the comitia tribuata: legally no distinction of wealth was admitted there; in fact, the poor class, being including the four city tribes, had but four votes to oppose the thirty-one of the class of proprietors. Besides, nothing was more quit, ordinary, than these assemblies; no one spoke there, except the president, or someone who m he called upon. Orators were little heard there, and there was little discussion. More generally there was simple a vote of yes or no, and a count of the votes. This last operation, being very complicated, demanded much time and patience. Add to this that the senate was not renewed annually, as in the democratic cities of Greece; it sat for life, and very nearly recruited itself. It was really an oligarchic body.

(4) Passim; The manner of the Romans were still more aristocratic than their institutions. The senators had seats reserved at the theatre. The rich alone served in the cavalry; the grades of the army were in great part reserved for the young men of the great families. Scipio was not sixteen years old when he already commanded a squadron. /The rule of the rich class was kept up longer at Rome than in any other city. This was due to two causes. One was, that Rome made great conquests, and the profits of these went to the class that was already rich; all land taken from the conquered were possessed by them; they seized upon the commerce of the conquered countries, and joined with it the benefits derived from the collection of duties and the administration of the provinces. These families, thus in creating the wealth with every generation, became immeasurably opulent, and each one of them was a power, compared with the people. The other cause was that the Roman, even the poorest had an innate respect for wealth. Long after real clientship had disappeared, it was, in certain sense, resuscitated under the form of a homage paid to great fortunes; and it became a custom for the poor to go every morning to salute the rich. / it does not follow from this that the struggle between rich and poor was not seen at Rome, as well as in other cities; but it commenced only the time of the Gracchi, – that is to say, after the conquest was almost achieved. Besides, this struggle never had at Rome the character of violence which it assumed everywhere else. The lower orders of Rome never ardently coveted riches. They aided the Gracchi in a lukewarm manner; they refused to believe that these reformers were working for them, and abandoned them at the decisive moment. The agrarian laws, so often presented to the rich as a menace, always left the people indifferent, and agitated them only on the surface.

(5) Passim: It is clear that they were not very eager to posses lands; for , if they were offered a share in the public lands,- this is to say, in the domain of the state, – there at least never had a thought of despoiling the rich of their property. Partly from inveterate respect, and partly from a habit of doing nothing, they loved to live by the side of the rich, and as it were in their shadow.  / The rich class had the wisdom to admit to its circle the most considerable families of the subject and allied cities. All who were rich in Italy became gradually to form the rich class of Rome. This body continued to increase in importance, and became the master of the state. The rich alone filled the magistracies, because these cost a great sum to purchase. They alone composed the senate, because it required a very large property to be a senator. Thus we see this strange fact, that, in spite of democratic laws, nobility was formed, and that the people, who were all-powerful, suffer this nobility to take rank above them, and never made any real opposition to it. / Rome, therefore, from the third to the second century before our era, was the most aristocratically governed city that existed in Italy or Greece.

(6) Passim: Finally, let us remember that, if the senate was obliged to manage the multitude on home questions, it was absolute master so far as concerned foreign affairs. It was the senate that received ambassadors, they concluded alliances, that distributed the provinces and the legions that ratified the acts of the generals, that determined the conditions allowed to the conquered – all acts which everywhere else belonged to the popular assembly. Foreigners, in their relations with Rome, had, therefore, nothing to do with the people. The senate alone spoke, and the idea was held out that the people had no power. This was the opinion which Greek expressed to Flaminius. ’In your country’, said he, ‘riches alone govern, and all else is submissive to it.’/ As a result of this, in all the cities the aristocracy turned their eyes towards Rome, counted upon it, looked to it for protection, and allowed its fortunes. This seemed so much the more natural, as Rome was a foreign city to nobody; Sabines, Latins, and Etruscans saw in it a Sabine, Latin, or Etruscan city, and the Greeks recognised Greeks in it.”

Staat, Egypte

(1) Jan Assmann, “Herschaft und Heill – Politische Theologie in AltAgypten, Israel und Europa”, Fischer 2002; “De Egyptische staat verschijnt als een gesloten huis, door geen bovenaardse lamp verlicht. Dat is het beeld, dat de bijbel van Egypte tekent. Van binnen gezien treed dit met alle duidelijkheid naar voren: de Egyptische staat begrijpt zich zelf niet als een in-transcedent naar boven gesloten huis met farao als pyramidevormige spits. Farao heeft veelmeer, hoewel zelf god, de hele godenwereld en aan haar top de ene hoogste, de staatsgod, boven zich. / Hij was een verwijsfiguur, die op iets hogers duidde en hogere dingen vertegenwoordigde, zoals de top van de pyramide op de zon wees, die zich op haar neerliet. Zonder dit van boven ontvangen en gereflecteerde licht had farao niet als goddelijk gegolden. In zoverre kan men hem niet met een totalitaire dictator van onze dagen vergelijken, die op niets anders als naar de politieke mythe van een partij of een ‘idee’ verwijst. Maar wanneer ooki farao de door hem beheerste ordening op een hoger iets transcendeert, dan trancendeert dit hogere weliswaar de sfeer van menselijke beschikbaarheid, maar niet de kosmos. Het goddelijk, waarop de farao verwijst, is van binnen-wereldlijke goddelijkheid. God en koning zijn machten van ‘deze’ wereld en vertegenwoordigers van een en dezelfde ordening, want er is alleen maar deze wereld. Daarmee word de heerschappij [dus de politiek gevormde en geinstitutionaliseerde macht] aan iedere kritiek onttrokken. Farao belichaamt de gerechtigheid [Ma’at], in zijn beslissingen en handelingen verwerkelijkt zich het ideaal van een rechtvaardige ordening. /

(2) Passim: Daarin vertegenwoordigt Egypte een extreme positie, ook in de context van de politieve politieke theologien, die op het principe van de vertegenwoordiging baseren. In Mesopotamie bijvoorbeeld moest de koning zich laten meten aan de richtlijn van de goddelijke orde. De Babylonische vorstenspiegel rekent doorgaans met de mogelijkheid, dat een koning aan deze orde kan falen en zich daardoor als een slechte of zwakke heerser kan bewijzen. In China word de overgang van het ‘ mandaat van de hemel’ van een dynastie op de andere daarmee begrond, dat de voorgaande dynastie dit mandaat heeft verspeeld. In Israel vormt de kritiek van het koningsdom naar de maatstaf van de wet het principe van de deuteronomistische geschiedschrijving. In Egypte laat zich deze voorstelling pas in een tekst uit de Ptolemaische tijd [3^e eeuw N.C. nawijzen], de Demotische Chroniek, die in de vorm van een orakelcommentaar ongeluk en succesloosheid van de 28. Tot de 30. Dynastie aan de ‘godloosheid’ van de koningen en hun afwijking van de ‘wet’ terugvoert. IN de geschiedenis van de Egyptische literatuur stelt deze tekst de uitzondering voor, die de regel bevestigd: de regel, dat de koning als inbegrip van de Ma’at en belichaming van de god Horus het recht helemaal niet van het recht kan afwijken. /

(3) Passim: Het onderscheid tussen de koning als ‘belichaamde wet’ en de wet als wil van de koning is niet makkelijk te begrijpen. De voorstelling dat de koning aan een objectief, onafhankelijk van hem bestaande en voorgeschreven wet gebonden is, zou men niet als ‘belichaming’ uitdrukken. IN tegendeel, dit begrip impliceert veelmeer dat zich iedere koning tegenover de wet vrij en creatief verhoud, hij vind het niet, doch belichaamt het, in ieder geval echter stelt hij het in kracht, zonder zijn machtwoord heeft geen overleefde wet rechtsgelding. Dat is de reden waarom in Egypte de wetten niet gecodificeerd werden: de rol van de farao als heer van de wetten laat zich niet vereenbaren met de voorstelling van een wetboek, dat aanspraak maakt op geldigheid over de regeringstijden van verschillende koningen in permanentie. Dat is in Mesopotamie niet veel anders, want ook wanneer de wetten hier in zogenaamde codices verzameld werden, komt dit toch geenszins de boven-tijdelijke geldingskracht van ‘wetboeken’ ten goede in strenge zin: het gaat veelmeer om werken van de kennisliteratuur, het historische recht overleveren, om een juridische schatkist aan weten vast te stellen, op wiens basis iedere koning vrij is om eigen recht uit te stelllen. Toch schildert b.v. Diodorus de Egyptische koning in zijn eerste boek van zijn Bibliotheca historica als een aan strikte wetten gebonden en op in alle bijzonderheden van het dagelijks bestaan vastgelegde mens, wiens regeringsstijl het tegendeel van willekeurige heerschappij voorstelde.

(4) Passim: Daar men ervan moest uitgaan dat Diodorus zich zowel hier als ook elders in zijn Egypte-boek, op zijn belangrijkste getuige Hekataios van Abdera steunde, mar met daarin wel eerder het programma als de beschrijving van een heersersrol zien, dus een soort van vorstenspiegel. Zo wilde hij het Farao-ambt vervuld zijn in zover mogelijk afstand van het schrikbeeld van de oriëntaalse despotie, zoals het sinds de Perzische oorlogen de Griekse ideologie pleegde te doen. In het Griekse denken behoorden de begrippen vrijheid en wet evenzo samen als de begrippen despotie c.q. tyrannis en willekeur. Daarom heeft het begrip van de wetgebonden monarchie een vernieuwende, ja zelfs paradoxale stootkracht. De Egyptenaren hadden andere zorgen. Hun schrikbeeld was niet de oriëntaalse despotie, doch de anarchie, die men zich als een toestand voorstelde, in welke de zwakken door de krachtigen onderdrukt en neergeslagen werden. In de faraonistische staat zag de Egyptenaar de enige mogelijkheid om gerechtigheid op aarde door te zetten, en daarom kon men zich ook de koning niet anders voorstellen als gewijd aan het project van de gerechtigheid. /

(5) Passim: Natuurlijk berust het beeld van een volledig spannings- en conflictloze harmonie tussen koning en volk, staat en maatschappij, ‘boven’ en ‘beneden’ in het hiërarchische bestel van de Egyptische maatschappij, zoals het de Egyptische bronnen kentekenen, zonder enige tijfel op een idealiserende constructie, waaraan de feitelijke toestanden niet kunnen hebben beantwoord. Want deze spanning behoort tot de fundamentele gegevenheden van iedere politieke ordeningen het is eerder een reden tot onrust, dat de stemmen van de oppositie – helemaal in tegenstelling tot Mesopotamie – in de Egyptische teksten geen plaats heeft. Is het schrift in Egypte uitsluitend een instrument in de handen van de heersenden? / Het beeld van de despotie gaat uit van het idee van een dwangmatige eenheid van heerschappij en heil, dus van het model van het caesaropapisme. De religie bied geen autonome en kritische instelling tegenover de staat, doch word door haar gemonopoliseerd. Hier word een eenheid onder de voorwaarden van secundaire religie geconstrueerd. De totalitaire staat streeft naar de overwinning van een scheiding, die de vroege staan onbekend is. In Egypte hebben wij het daarentegen met de voorwaarde van primaire religie te doen. Onder deze voorwaarden is de onderscheiding tussen politieke en religieuze ordening niet mogelijk. Onder deze voorwaarden is de onderscheiding tussen politieke en religieuze ordening niet mogelijk, omdat alle ordening als zodanig religieus gefundeerd en heilig is. Dat is een eenheid, die niet door dogmatische constructie gemaakt is, doch door non-onderscheid naar voren gekomen is. / Het beeld van de despotie gaat in de tweede plaats uit van een wilsbegrip dat niet toepasselijk is op Egypte. Weliswaar zegt men van de koning ‘als hij wil, dan doet hij’, c.q. hij doet wat hij wil, maar zijn wil aan die van Ma’at – aan waarheid, ordening, gerechtigheid – gebonden. Zijn ‘speelruimte van het willen’ is op belangrijke wijze ingeperkt. Daar ‘ willen’ en ‘liefhebben’ in het Egyptische door hetzelfde woord benoemd worden en aar het ondenkbaar lijkt dat een heerser het slechte kan liefhebben, is de wil = liefde van de koning op het goede vastgelegd. Aan de kant van de theologie [het spreken over de goden’ komt dat overeen met de ‘conformiteit van de rollen’ van de goden, die op het in stand houden van het kosmische leven en hun rol in dit drama vastgelegd zijn.”

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(4) Bruce G. Trigger, “Understanding early civilizations – A Comparative  Study”,  Cambridge University Press 2003; “In Egypt, the hereditary nobility were in turn descended from begins who had lived when the creator gods still ruled directly over the terrestrial realm. They included descendants of kings and possibly also of cooperative local rulers whose territory had been absorbed in the Egyptian state after the time of its unification. Officials of commoner organ and their descendants were raised to this rank as a reward for especially meritorious service. Less prestigious honorary titles, such an h3ty [notable], smr w’ty [unique friend of the king], smr [friend of the king], and htmt bity [ryal sealer] were assigned to favoured officials of their lifetimes. The hereditary title ‘p’t’ was meaningful so long as an individual command sufficient wealth tolled in an n appropriate fashion. Such wealth was derived from administrative offices, and land bestowed on individuals as gifts by the ruler, inherited estates, and that was purchased using wealth accumulated from government stipends. / In contrast to members of Inca panaquas, the Egyptian hereditary nobility did not constitute a formally organized group or series of groups that enjoyed collective economic privileges or political advantages. Instead, individual titleholders had to look after their own interests. The most important and finely individuals might occupy in the state administrative system. These positions were an important source of power and wealth. The formal role that individual nobles played in relation to this hierarchy and in administering Egypt varied from one period to another. During the fourth Dynasty many of the highest state offices were occupied by sons and other close male relatives of the king. Later in the old kingdom such individuals were for a time excluded from these offices. Without private wealth or patronage and economic support for the king, nobles were in danger of lacking sufficient wealth to remain active members of the upper class. Both the non-corporate nature of the hereditary nobility and the role of the civil service ranking system in defining status reflected the importance of winning royal or official favour for preferment and career advancement.”

Bronnen van conservatief denken, Grieken

(1) Ellen Meiksins Wood and Neal Wood, “”Class Ideology & Ancient Political Theory; “Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in Social Context”’, Basil Blackwell 1978;””The Socratics, to a very significant degree, defend and justify the decadent Athenian social Group, the traditional, landed aristocracy in opposition to the growing number of traders, manufacturers, aritans, shopkeepers, and wage labourers. The aristocracy consistedof leisured members of noble families, many of whom claimed descent from the gods themselves. Originally a warrior class, they had become welleducated, cultured and refined, living to a great extent upon wealth from inherited landed property worked by slaves, wage labourers, and tenants.Intermarrying , they formed an interlocking web of great families with a distinctive class culture charcterized bu proud independence, disdain for labour and the nouveau riche, polished manners, sophisticated form and style of conduct, speech, and apparel, and devotion to sport, music, and dancing.After Pericles’death in 429 bc Athenian politics was no longer dominated by aristocratic values and leadership.A growing disnechantment with civic affairs and withdrawal from active political participation typified the most conservative aristocrats througout the fourth century.Because of the destruction of the land during the Peloponnesian War , many of the nobilty suffered grievious econimic losses.In general the country-side was badly hit, many peasants being forced to give up their holdings and to migrate to the city where they became wage labourers. By the end of the fourth century agriculture had ceased to be so central to an increasingly complex and diversified Athenian economy, and the peasantry—so important in the fifth century—had given way to urban aristans, shopkeepers, and wage labourers as the backbone of Athenian democracy.

(2) Passim: Some country gentlemen attempted to recoup their heavy Financial losses and to rebuild their diminishing capital by investment in the business world and the arrangement of profitable marriages with the swiftly increasing class of wealthy commercial and manufacturing families.In such a time of troubles, young bucks of distinguished and venerable lineage were exhausting their already depleted fortunes in extravagant consumption: ganbling, heavt drinking, and indulging in a variety of erotic pleasures .In the midts of their corruption and disintegration Athenians of noble birth appeared to become increasingly conscious of their identity, emphasizing the distinction of ‘gentlemen’(kaloi kagathoi) and the ‘better sort’(chrestoi) in contrast to ‘bad men’(poneroi), prosperous business men(Agoraioi), and the nouveau riche of the commercial ans manufacturing world or neoploutoi, a term beginning to be used frequently during the period. Awareness of the growing division between urban and rural life developing at all levels in Athenian society, not only between gentry and men of business but also between peasants and kapeloio r shopkeepers and artisans.From the standpoint of the peasant, an urban dweller or asteions came to mean ‘city slicker’, while to a shopkeeper or artisan the agroikos or rural dweller began to signify ‘country bumpkin’. Fearing further devastion of their estates during the first half of the fourth century espoused peace at any price as against the more belligerent stance of the urban classes, and in the second half of the century many of the aristocracy tended to become pro-Macedonian. At the end of the century most of the famous noble family names still common during the first half had disappeared from view.

(3) Passim: Obviously, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were not crude apologists or simplistic rationalizers of the declining aristocracy.They fully recognized and condemed aristocratic degeneration, but throught that the way of life and values of the nobility could be reformed and revitalized so as once more to become the foundation of civic life in order to stem the levelling tide of democracy, the tyranny of the majority, and the vulgar commercialism that thay were engulfing Athens and the whole of Greece.In a significant way their political thoughts can be conceived of as the supreme intellectual expression of the increasing class consiousness of the aristocracy during the the fourth century, a consciousness that seemed to become more pronounced as the class was progressively threatened with extinction. If the political thought of the Socratics was by nom means identical with the values and attitudes of the Athenian Aristocracy , there was a commonly shared perspective , an ideological core, or set of socio-political belief also held in part by non-aristocratic members of the upper class like Isocrates who attempted to emulate the nobility. An important component of the ideology shared by the Socratics with many aristocrats was a deep-rooted hatred of democracy.The people were held to be ignorant and incompetent, motivated by the narrow selfish interests, contemptuos of law, disrespectful of their superiors, insolent and vulgar, irresponsible and fickle, a rabble subject to the blandishments of demagogues, and the envious victmizers of the noble and weathy.Denouncing democratic politics, many of the nobles considered it to be a sign of gentlemanly virtue to remain aloof and detached from civic life, a trend culminating in the aristocratic Epicures’withdrawal into the Garden.Likewise many denounced the esteemed aristocratic leaders of the people of the fifth century like Pericles who were considered to be traitors to their class and responsible for the current mob rule.Many nobles were Laconizers although not necessarily completely uncritical admirers od Sparta as a model of law and order, patriotic solidarity, and aristocratic authority.Again ther was widespread nostalgia for the ancient constitution of Solon wit hits respect for law and the governing privileges that it reserved for the upper classes.Increasing sentiment for enlightened monarchy, felt to be necessary for cubing the excesses of democracy and the civic disorders arising form the rule of the people, took such divers e forms as sympathy for the Platonic philospher-king , and Xenophon’s romanticized ideal of Cyprus the Great.Finally, there was a condemnation of commercialism, closely associated with democracy, and of commercial and urban values.Rural life and aristocratic values were eulogized—at the time they seemed most threatened—with a stress upon the country as a nursery of virtue and manhood in contrast to the corrupting influence of the banausic callings of the city. /

(4) Passim: All these attitudes became integral parts of the outlook of the Socratics, fundamental to the elaborate intellectual contructions of Plato and Aristotle.They weaved them together into coherent and persuasive formulations buttressed by a philosophic idealism that had long seemed to attract thinkers of probable aristocratic orgin like Parmenides and Pythagoras.The philosophic idealist could offer transcendence of the vulgar and materialistic world of sensory experience to which the masses were confined, and comprehension of such transcendence as the exclusive privilige of a cultured and leisured few, the men of golden souls of nobility and inherited wealth—the kaloi kagathoi.Thus, philosophic idealism served to convey their readers aristocratic, antidemocratic, and agrarian values and beliefs, giving them the stamp of absilute intellectual authority and authenticity .In addition to being the paramount intellectual expression of the consciousness of a decaying social class, Socratic political thought was a powerful weapon that might well have been designed to convince upper-class readers of the basic rightness of their attitudes, the urgent need fors elf-reform and regeneration, the character of the common enemy, and the ideal of a ‘rational’ polis as a guide for social and political change through concerted action. / Among other things, therefore , Socratic political thought was an intellectually sophisticated and ingenious justification for counterrevolution in democracy and maintenance of the status-quo in oligarchy.”

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Burgerschap, Oudheid-Algemeen

(1) Div., “Seminar: Die Entstehung der antiken Klassengesellschaft”, Suhrkamp 1977; “De grondeigendom in klassiek griekenland was geen abstract privé-eigendom: eigendom aan land zette het burgerrecht van de eigenaar vooruit. Tenslotte was niet het individu, doch de oikos de eigenaar. Pas in het laatste derde deel van de 5e eeuw werd het in Attica gebruik om land ook aan vreemden te verkopen. In Judea is deze ontwikkeling pas in de 1e eeuw N.C. te bewijzen, maar zeker ouder. Nu kon de eienaar het land definitief verkopen c.q. het testamentair na te laten wanneer hij wilde [vrijheid om na te laten]. / Dit is echter één kant van de ontwikkeling. De oorspronkelijke toestanden – de collectieve vervoering van de clan over de landloten – zijn in de vorm politieke eisen actief gebleven. In Griekenland was er bijvoorbeeld vanaf de 7e eeuw de eis van het anadasmos ges, de herverdeling van het land onder de burgers. Deze eis correspondeert met een situatie, in welke het eigendom aan land uit het burgerrecht ontsprong. Micha 2. 1-5: ‘Wee degenen, die op geweld zint in zijn huis en het uitvoert, wanneer het dag word. Want het staat in hun macht! Zij begeren velden – en nemen ze met geweld, huizen – en nemen ze als pand. Zij bedrijven geweld aan man, huis en grond. Daarom, zo heeft Jahwe gesproken: ‘Zie, nu plan ik onheil tegen dit geslacht, daar kunnen jullie je nek niet aan onttrekken en niet meer rechtop lopen, want het is een boze tijd’… Daarom zal er niemand voor jullie zijn, die het lot werpt in de verzameling van Jahwe.’Hiertoe behoort ook in wijdere zin de eis naar een heilige wet t.b.v. een heilig jaar, waarin eenieder weer tot zijn bezit en zijn clan kan terug keren. /

(2) Passim: Dit zijn allemaal politieke postulaten, die met de grrp op de tradities van in-bezit-name van land de aristocratische in-bezit-name van het land bestrijden. // Vormen van de verdeling van grondeigendom-de instituties: Regelmatige herverdeling van landloten onder de familie’s van de clan’s. / Erfelijkheid binnen de families. / Gedwongen verlening/verkoop van privaat eigendom van de burgerhuishouding. / Onbeperkte verkoopbaarheid. // Daartegenover de eis: loskoop door nieuw-opdeling. // Deze tabel maakt nog eens duidelijk, dat de aristocratische heerschappij zich het land niet door koop, maar door gewelddadige toe-eigening bemachtigde. Omgekeerd zijn de politieke eisen tegen deze aristocratische praktijk gedeeltelijk door de institutionalisering van het eigendom ingelost worden. Deze vorm van grondeigendom stond daarom niet in de context van een verandering van de grond in een object van handel, doch zou de afzonderlijke huishouding in de burgerlijke gemeente de autareia zekeren [Aristoteles, Politiek 1252 b].”

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