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.

The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought

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).

Greek political thought: the historical context

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.

Seneca and Pliny

Kings and constitutions: Hellenistic theories

Poets, lawgivers, and the beginnings of political reflection in archaic Greece

Those who attempt to predict the future are either prophets, savants or fools. Since this writer is none of these, he would rather profit from the lessons of history as Santayana has admonished us, and take a look at the current status of the supplementary school, reflecting upon what Jewish education should be in the year 1990 and beyond — using as a prism the Jewish family, technological advances, financial realities and Jewish leadership.

Needed: Regional Community Congregational Schools

It is not our intention to suggest in this paper that bureau-synagogue relations through funding are more important than bureau services such as consultation, in-service training, testing, etc. Nor do we maintain that every bureau is capable of, or has the resources to provide synagogue schools with financial aid. It is our thesis, rather, that the central agency for Jewish education must begin taking a more active role in the funding of the synagogue school through Federation subventions, grants-in-aid and scholarships, if these schools are to survive the dwindling enrollments and the inflationary “crunch” which characterize our times. We shall first state the criteria which support this thesis, describe the results of a recent survey of eleven central agencies on the subject, and will conclude by relating the experiences of the Bureau of Jewish Education of Rhode Island in the subventing process over a period of twenty-three years.

Elliot S. Schwartz

Papers

Needed: Regional Community Congregational Schools

Bureau-Synagogue Relationships Through Funding