The View of Encyclopedia
Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and Academic Skeptic, who tried to uphold optimal principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. Marcus Tullius Cicero Scarcely had the work of Polybius, praising the Roman constitution, been completed before the period of agitation and civil war … Read more
Polybius The Roman Historian. No discussion of the principles of Roman government was attempted until after Rome had become the greatest state in the world, and a beginning was then made by a Greek. Polybius (204-122 B.C.) was one of the statesmen who directed the policy of the Achaean League at the time when Macedonian … Read more
Roman Theory of Law. The Roman idea of law developed gradually. The first Roman laws were a mixture of religious regulations, customary rules, and popular conceptions of justice. As usual among early peoples, religion was an important element in authority, with offenses against public order being regarded as injuries to the gods rather than as … Read more
Nature of Roman Political Thought. In general, the Romans derived their philosophical ideas from the Greeks, the doctrines of the Stoics being especially popular. Deliberate purpose played little part in the creation of Roman political institutions. Aside from the general policy of playing off her enemies one against another, and of attaching each newly conquered … Read more
Rome contributed little to the literature of political thought. Roman political institutions and legal system, however, exerted a tremendous influence on political evolution; and for many centuries after her fall the idea of the state was based upon the institutions that Rome had established. Rome first appeared as a city-state, formed by a union of … Read more
Aristotle and the Decline of Greece. The Greek ancient & philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history. Aristotle made significant and lasting contributions to nearly every aspect of human knowledge, from logic to biology to ethics and aesthetics. Though overshadowed in classical times by the work of his teacher Plato, … Read more
The life of Plato is Classical period in Ancient Greece. Founder of the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Plato has also often been cited as one of the founders of Western religion and spirituality He is widely considered a pivotal figure in the … Read more
Socrates The Sophist philosopher. The contribution to the political philosophy of Socrates and of his pupil Plato must be viewed in the above light. They believed that these new and corrosive doctrines were responsible for the disintegration of Greek society, which was taking place all around them. To prevent this, society had to be pulled … Read more
The Sophist’s Philosophy. Traces of political thought appear in the earliest literature of the Greeks. Homer portrayed a patriarchal regime in which kings were descended from the gods, exercised despotic authority, and held the mass of the people in contempt. In Hesiod and the fragmentary writings of the Seven Sages, the support of monarchy was … Read more
Nature of Greek Political Thought. Perhaps the chief characteristic of Greek thought was its concern for first principles or the central rules controlling the universe. One early Greek philosopher, as evidence of this spirit, declared that he would rather discover one causal law than be king of Persia. The Greeks conceived the universe as the … Read more