This document provides an overview of Michael Curtis' book "The Great Political Theories Volume 1" which covers ancient Greek political philosophy. It summarizes key ideas from major thinkers including: 1. Plato believed the ideal state requires trained rulers/guardians and common property. Citizens' roles are determined by their character traits. 2. Aristotle viewed the polis/state as natural for humans and the path to happiness. He analyzed different constitutions and advocated for balance/moderation. 3. Epicureanism sought pleasure through limiting desires while Stoicism advocated living according to nature and suppressing emotions for tranquility. Both philosophies emerged as the polis declined and emphasized individual welfare over the

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Summary of Michael Curtis Book: The Great Political Theories Volume 1
Prepared by: Raizza P. Corpuz
Section I: The Greeks
 Political Philosophy began in Greeks.
 Important civilizations: Egyptian, Hebrew, Persian, Hittite
 Greek science owes a considerable debt to Babylonia
 The Fragments in Political Nature and Political Problems:
1. Written code of law
2. A tribal God
3. God as the source of political authority
4. Bureaucracy
5. The nature of the absolute ruler or despot (there are no systematic or exhaustive expositions).
Homer’s 4 different example of political organization:
Greeks created the terminology in 5th
and 4th
B.C
 Politics was inseparable from life in the polis, a city possessing common habits, military strength,
a myth of its origin, its own God and religion and citizens.
 The Athens had a great art and literature
 The Academy and Lyceum- put great stress in education and proclaimed the value of
government, its history of military aggression and intolerance, and economic based slavery.
 The polis contained a community, the sole source of authority, dedicated the purpose of
achieving good life.
 HOW? Through individual participation in communal affairs, a duty the individual voluntarily
accepted and which was desirable both for the community and for its own development.
 OBJECTION: the creation of social balance and harmony, which meant not totalitarian control
but a reconciliation of individual differences need to end anarchy.
 The best kind of self-realization and society was the goal: doing well or living well was the aim of
inquiry and action.
 Politics, therefore, became a proper subject of inquiry, a process concerned with the meaning of
nomos- law and custom- and with the wisdom of social organization.
Sophocles
 Antigone (441B.C) written by Sophocles an immortal drama, the order of the ruler Creon
forbidding the burial of Polyneices is defied by his niece named ANTIGONE.
 It is a timeless drama, the discussion about the problem of disobedience by an individual of the
state and its ruler and the effect of that disobedience on the parties involved.

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 What is the importance of the immortal drama?
1. The play embodies conflict between opposing points of view and principles on a number of basic
issues confronting all political systems.
2. The issue of the nature of law and justice.
3. Differences exists between the claims of divine law and the unwritten laws of God and natural
law and laws made by the existing rulers
4. The expression of individual conscience and will conflicts with the demands of the ruler
5. The ties of blood relationships are opposed to the impersonal loyalty to the state.
6. The struggle exists between men and women, and between young and older people.
Sophists
 The first important group of political thinkers
 The teachers who created subjects by inventing definitions and concepts, and who were paid for
teaching them. Not endowed with university chairs, not attached with a particular culture or
polis
 They traveled every Where to deliver their lectures, helping their students to practical success
 Versatile in their interests, they introduces cosmopolitanism, skepticism, and free thinking,
education for all and academic freedom
 They taught Sophia, the wisdom, knowledge and skill is necessary conduct
 The important thing of all is the study of MAN
 According to Protagoras “man is the measure of all things”
 According to Gorgias, the proper study of mankind is Man
 Gorgias, Protagoras, Prodicus, Hippias, and Trasymachus
Socrates (470-399 B.C)
 Known for being a drinker and his love of inquiry
 He wrote nothing himself
 For Plato Socrates was the great example of intellectual prepared to discuss , the man always
prepared to discuss, the professor who sought not o profess, the teacher who refused to
indoctrinate, who aimed to make men THINK
 His method is through dialectical process of question and answer
 He criticized the Sophists as a group for professing false knowledge, in not penetrating
sufficiently the significance of the subjects they were treating
Plato (427-347 B.C)
 The greatness of the teacher is best shown by the caliber of his students
 Student of Socrates an Aristocratic Athenian (427-347 B.C)
 Founder of the 1st
college, the Academy in 388, the first systematic political theorist
 Plato was the founder of the first college, The Academy, in 388 and was a student of Socrates

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 Plato concerned himself with fundamental questions like the meaning of justice, the right kind
of life, the makeup of the human personality, and the purpose of political association.
 Plato describes the state as necessary to meet the needs of every individual.
 The state results from no individual being self-sufficient, individuals “lean” on one another for
certain amenities.
 Plato believed the Athenian ideal of all citizens being involved in politics was ineffective; he
believed ruling was a craft needing a group of trained rulers
 Plato believed that wisdom in the state is vital, and that wisdom comes from those who lead.
 Plato thought that elders (Guardians) should have authority and does what is best for the state,
with younger men “auxiliaries” to enforce the rules of the elders.
 Guardians should have no earthly possessions and should live in a communal fashion, sharing
meals together.
 Guardians should not have wives either, and upon the finding of a Guardian to have more than
he should then he shall be sent back to the general population.
 The three elements of the soul were related to class and to the function of individuals in the
state
1. Courage-warrior
2. Reason-ruler
3. Appetite (referring to satisfaction of physical desires) (laborer)
 Plato believed that at birth certain individuals are identified as being spiritually enhanced with
gold, silver, or brass (iron). Depending on the precious metal each person carried, they would
be taught as this.
 Plato sought equality for men and women, he believed that in order for women to be on an
equal plateau with men they should be taught what men are taught.
 Plato thought that the family should be abolished: Wives are to be held in common, children
are not to know their parents. Plato thought that this would create universal emotions that
would bond the commonwealth.
Aristotle
 A cool dispassionate, moderate observer, the empirical investigator of political institutions and
behavior
 He thus created an exhaustive analysis of existing constitutions and political science.
 He believed that change is teleological, movement toward the natural, predetermined end.
 The end of man’s action was happiness, which is achieved by moderation, in its wealth, size, its
constitution, and its ruling group.
 The end of the state is self-sufficiency achieved through moderation, in its wealth, size, its
constitution, and its ruling group.
 Man and state were linked together
 Man was by nature a political animal who reached perfection and became civilized as a citizen.
 The state was a natural phenomenon to reach man’s end, end to provide good life

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Aristotle is concerned with the best form of POLITICAL ASSOCIATION or CONSTITUTION:
o His classification of states, number of rulers and their aim for the goodness of whole
or only for themselves
o His thought about Democracy
o Supremacy of Law which provides both stability and reason freed from all passion,
distinction between equality, distribution and corrective justice, the concept of
mixed regime guided by moderation as the means in maintaining stability, his
argument about the limitation of material wealth, concept of liberal education, the
function of leisure, nature of citizenship and the HAPPY life
o It’s not about the concept of monarchy
o His emphasis was the need for constitutional stability- to be secured by stable
foundation of economic power, by education and breeding-the great virtue of the
good polis.
 Aristotle was an empirical political philosopher.
 He criticizes many of Plato’s ideas as impracticable, but, like Plato, he admires balance and
moderation and aims at a harmonious city under the rule of law
PLATO’s REPUBLIC
 A state comes into existence because no individual is self-sufficing, we all have many
needs.
 Plato believes that we should look at a community as a way of coming up with our own
senses of justice.
 We should each have our own task for our society to become as efficient as possible,
and we must rely on each other for the means to complete our tasks.
 War is the conflict of desires between different societies.
 The rulers should be the best of the society.
 The rulers should always act in the interest of the commonwealth even when it conflicts
with their own interests.
 We must test the rulers through ordeals of toil and pain to see how they perform.
The rulers must pass through the tests of childhood, youth, and manhood and those
who come out unscathed are fit to be rulers over the commonwealth.
 We also need a religion to establish a divine right to rule.
 The commonwealth must keep the military educated and content.
We must keep the military focused on their objective instead of material wealth.
A state should be allowed to grow only so far as it can increase in size without the loss
of unity
 A community needs to be in a cycle once it reaches a certain point.
 A statesman’s leadership must be wise, brave, temperate, and just.
Plato argues that justice is the servitude of the strong to the weak.
 He also states that these four qualities exist within the individual soul.

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I. Basis of Social Organization
A. Development of the state
1. States come about because we all have needs. We gather a group of people together where each
individual has the ability to satisfy other individuals' requirements for living.
2. Example: The farmer needs the builder, the builder needs the merchants; each citizen has a need for
one another. More products will be available when each man is properly suited for his occupation.
B. Who should rule?
1. The most qualified elders must have the authority. Rulers must always act for the good of the
commonwealth.
2. Young men known as "Auxiliaries" will enforce the Rulers' decisions.
C. How should the citizens live?
1. The basic ideal states that in order for the state to be a success, and then the citizens are
not to possess any private property beyond the "barest necessaries."
2. Aim in establishing the commonwealth was not to make any particular class happy,
but to strive for happiness within the community as a whole.
D. The composition of a state
1. Wisdom within the state is very important. Wisdom will come from the knowledge that resides in the
smallest part, the leaders that govern the rest.
2. Two important characteristics still remain to be addressed:
a. Temperance must be established within the community. Each man must have control of his emotions
and his actions.
b. Justice can simply consist of everyone minding their own business and not meddling in the affairs of
others. The presence of justice within the commonwealth insures that wisdom and temperance will be
present as well.
Courage ( being brave) – possesses the power of preserving in all circumstances, a conviction about the
sort of things that is right to be afraid of- the conviction which the law giver has established implanted
through education.
Temperance (orderliness) – it is a control of certain pleasures and appetites. People use the expression,
“mater of oneself”.
E. The composition of the soul

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1. The same three characteristics that exist within the state exist within the soul also.
2. Example: "And so we call an individual brave in virtue of this spirited part of his nature, when, in spite
of pain or pleasure, it holds fast to the injunctions of reason about what he ought or ought not be afraid
of."
II. The Three Waves
A. Equality of women
1. In order for women to be able to do the same tasks as men, then the women must be taught the
same knowledge.
2. Some women will be fitted by nature to do certain jobs, while others will not. This depends on
whether or not the women have the same qualities required of men that are selected for the jobs.
B. The abolition of the family
1. Throughout the commonwealth no one man and no one woman are to live together privately.
"...Wives are to be held in common by all; so too are the children, and no parent is to know his own
child, nor any child his parent."
2. The goal is for all citizens to feel universal emotions. These emotions are what creates their bond with
one another.
C. Philosophers must be kings
1. Because of their desire for wisdom, philosophers would be the best choice to hold the positions as
rulers.
2. Characteristics of a prospective leader
a. passion for knowledge
b. must be truthful and temperate in every aspect of life
D. Is the philosopher useless?
1. Philosophers are only useful if the citizens make use of them.
2. The multitude can never really be philosophical on its own. Those individuals
possessing the potential to be the philosophical rulers will stand out at an early age.
E. Is the philosopher-king possible?
1. If the philosopher is concerned with the order of the world, then he has the ability to become godlike;
however, even with the acquisition of such status there will still be room for doubt and criticism within
the commonwealth.
2. It is the belief that until the philosophers are in power, neither states nor the individuals will be
acquitted of trouble. In this scenario, the imagined commonwealth will never be acknowledged.

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Section II
HELLENISM AND ROMAN STOICISM
Athenian pride was humbled by defeat at Chaeronea at the hands of Philip.
Greece paid the penalty for its failure to unite, and became part of the Macedonian Empire.
Polis became little more. Greece became part of expanding Rome.
Greek influence remained strong and the empire tried to Hellenize itself through Greek books and
teachers.
This is a period, too, in which the concept of divine right, of semi-divine kings, emerges from the
influence of Eastern despotic tradition.
Polis was no longer the end of political organization.
The possibility of a universal law emerged. Moreover, the welfare of the individual was no longer
inextricably bound up with that of his city.
Two leading philosophies developed in this period were Epicureanism and Stoicism.
Lucretius, rather than Epicurus. Athenian citizen in Samos in 341, founded his school in his garden, a
symbol of retirement from the world, in 306 and died in 270 B.C.
The universe was chaotic and anarchic, composed of atoms and the void.
All knowledge was acquired by sense perception; observation was therefore essential to understanding.
There are infinite number of worlds, formed by the chance combination of atoms in infinite space.
The Gods, unconcerned about human affairs.
Man himself was made up of body and soul. Death was not to be feared. There was no such thing as
immortality; after death, atoms of the soul were scattered.
The aim of life therefore was pleasure, the pursuit of which brought happiness, the final end.
The injunction to follow nature meant, seek pleasure.
Everything was desirable insofar as it led to pleasure, but above all, the aim was absence of pain and the
achievement of peace of mind.
This would be obtained personally by possible to those that were strictly necessary.
Limitation of social relationships – “live unknown” – Refusal to be involved in family or political affairs,
skepticism toward religion, which the Epicureans considered largely superstition.

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Society was not a natural phenomenon, but rather a deliberate vernation aimed at bringing order out of
chaos.
Pleasure was augmented by the presence of law, provision for punishment and preservation of order.
Opportunity for man to make his own environment that led Marx to choose Epicurus as one of two
writers on whom to do his doctoral dissertation.
 Stoicism is derived from “stoa” or porch, where Zeno, originally a Phoenician, began teaching
about 300 B.C. Natural order of the universe; which included the process of change was at the
same time divine. A part of this divine order was capable of understanding. Virtue depended on
knowledge, and knowledge was obtained through reason. The golden rule was “follow nature.”
Live consistently with nature; obey the universal law of nature.
Happiness was the result of internal harmony.
Man, living through reason, ought to suppress emotions like fear, lust of anxiety, to reach the desired
state of apathia, or inner tranquility.
Self-control of the individual, it also had far-reaching social implications.
Men, possessed reason, law of nature applied to all, a universal society with cosmopolitan citizenship
existed. The natural law capable of being understood by man and providing a basis for political
organization.
Men were all members of a universal brotherhood, equally a share of the stock of reason.
Stoicism therefore implied equality, certainly between the sexes, and in the spiritual sphere.
And it provided a beginning for interstate relations as a means of settling disputes.
Universal brotherhood is only the political aspect of the view that the universe is a unity, pervaded by
reason. Rationalization of the perplexity of man, seeking security and certainty in the face of a mighty
empire.
Roman Stoicism
1. Romans who merged some of their conservative, chauvinistic characteristics with it.
2. Civilized ethic in theory, often belied in practice.
3. The emotional self-restraint, the refusal to give vent to pity of grief, the display of courage,
especially in the face of death, the heroic virtue – qualities that Shakespeare has portrayed so
magnificently in his Volumnia in Coriolanus.
4. Rationalization of the need to live under oppressive rule in a period with little cultural,
philosophical or agricultural development. Happiness depended on the absence of desires.
5. It was a personal rather than a social philosophy.
6. It took for granted the hierarchical static order of society. It was to maintenance of conditions as
they were, “Stoicism” remarked Baudelaire,”is a religion with only one sacrament, suicide.”

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7. Seneca, born of a wealthy Spanish family in Cordoba, Spain about 5 B.C.
SENECA
Stoic Philosophy
Avoid luxury, avoid debilitating prosperity which makes men’s minds soggy and which, unless something
intervenes to remind them of the human condition, renders them comatose as in unending inebriation.
All excesses are injurious, but immoderate prosperity is the most dangerous of all.
Scorn poverty: no one is as poor as he was at birth. Scorn pain: either it will go away or you will. Scorn
death: either it finishes you or it transforms you. Scorn Fortune: I have given her no weapon with which
to strike your soul. I have taken pains that nothing should detain you against your will: the way out lies
open. If you do not wish to fight you may escape.
The dedications of philosophy are impregnable; age cannot raise their memory or diminish their force.
Each succeeding generation will hold them in ever higher reverence; Philosopher’s life is therefore
spacious; He alone is exempt from the limitations of humanity.
We shall be content if we have learned to be content with thrift, without which no amount of wealth
can satisfy with which any amount suffices, especially since a remedy is available: even poverty can
transform itself into wealth by applying thrift.
We must learn to strengthen self-restraint, curb luxury, temper ambition, moderate anger.
 Fortune . . . . All life is bondage. Man must therefore habituate himself to his condition,
complain of it as little as possible, grasp whatever good lies within his reach. No situation is so
harsh that a dispassionate mind cannot find some consolation in it . . . Apply good sense to your
problems; the hard can be softened the narrow widened, and the heavy made lighter by the
skillful bearer.
Our desires must not be set wandering far afield; since they cannot be wholly confined we may give
them an airing in the immediate vicinity. What cannot be or can hardly be we should leave alone. Follow
what is near at hand and in reach of hope, but in the knowledge that all alike are trivial.
We should not leave the decision to Fortune, but ourselves come to a halt far this side the reaches
suggested by precedent. The aspirations a man may entertain will keep the mind alert, but because they
are limited they will not lead him into uncharted and ambiguous regions. . .
Avoidance of labor for empty ends or out of empty motivation. We must not covet what we cannot
attain, or what, when we have attained it, will make us realize too late and shamefacedly the vanity of
our desires. Labor should not be vain in the sense that it produces no result, nor should the result, if it
produces any, be unworthy of the labor; whether the attainment is nil or embarrassing, the
consequence is melancholy.
Many people lead an antlike-existence; restless indolence would not be a bad name for it. Wretches
dashing as to a fire make a pitiful spectacle; they crash into people going the other way and go sprawling

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with their victims, and all this hurry is to pay a morning call on a man who will never return it, or attend
the funeral of a man they do not know, or the trial of some litigious pettifogger, or the engagement
reception of much-married lady . . .
False ideas drive them to insanity.
A man who keeps himself within the bounds of nature will not feel poverty; but one who exceeds those
bounds will be pursued by poverty even in the greatest opulence. For necessities even exile is sufficient,
for superfluities not even kingdoms are. It is the mind which makes men rich. Itself light and
unencumbered, ready to soar aloft as soon as it shall be released. In the meantime, so far as the curbs of
the members and the heavy load of body which surrounds it allow, it contemplates things divine in swift
and airy thought.
 Sense of participation, of belonging to mankind, being a member of society. Be careful that our
efforts to awaken admiration are not ludicrous or odious. Our principle, you remember, is “life
according to nature”; but it is against Nature to torment one’s body, to loathe neatness easily
come by, to make a point of squalor, to use victuals that are not only cheap but loathsome and
repulsive. To desire dainties is a mark of luxury; it is just as much a mark of lunacy to avoid
ordinary food that is not expensive. It is frugality that philosophy asks, not affliction, and
frugality need not be slovenly.
Life should be steered between good mores and public more, men should respect our way of life, but
they should find it recognizable. . . .
Wise man and the devotee of wisdom is indeed attached to his body, but in his better part he is
elsewhere; his thoughts are directed to lofty matters. He is disciplined neither to love life nor hate it; he
puts up with mortality, though he knows there is a fuller kind of existence. . . . .
My body I oppose to Fortune. My body is the party of me that is subject to injury, my soul dwells in this
vulnerable domicile. Never shall this flesh drive me to fear, never to assume a posture unworthy of a
good man; never shall I lie out of consideration for this paltry body. When it seems right I shall sever my
partnership with it, and even now, while the attachment holds, we are not equal partners; the soul can
claim complete jurisdiction. Contempt of body is unqualified freedom . . . .
Train your soul against poverty, and you may stay rich. Arm yourself to scorn pain; your health may
continue safe and sound and never put your virtue to the test. Teach yourself to bear the loss of loved
ones bravely, and all of them will happily survive you. This one training must one day be put to use.
Men of the meanest condition have made a mighty effort to break through to deliverance, and when
they were not allowed to die at their discretion or choose their instruments for dying they snatched up
whatever was ready to hand, and by their own strength transformed implements naturally harmless into
weapons. . . .
The essential soul has an irrational factor and also a rational. The irrational serves the rational and is the
one element which is not referred to something else but refers all things to itself. For the divine reason,
too, is sovereign over all things and subordinate to none, and our reason possesses the same quality
because it is derived from the divine . . . Happy life depends solely on our reason being perfect. Perfect

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reason keeps the soul from being submissive and stands firm against Fortune; it assures self-sufficiency
in whatever situation.
A man is happy when no circumstance can reduce him; he keeps to the heights and uses no buttress but
himself, for a man sustained by a bolster is liable to fall.
What is the happy life? Self-sufficiency and abiding tranquility. This is the gift of greatness of soul, the
gift of constancy which perseveres in a course judged right. Order, measure, decorum a will that is
without malice and benign, focused undeviatingly upon reason, at one amiable and admirable. The wise
man’s soul should have the quality of a God’s. Happy life will be comprised of elements other than
honorable.
If the honorable alone does not satisfy you, then you must desiderate either the repose which the
Greeks call aokhlesia (“undisturbedness”) or else pleasure.
When the mind is at liberty to survey the universe and nothing distracts it from the contemplation of
nature it is free of disturbance. Pleasure, is the good of cattle; this is to add the irrational to the rational,
the dishonorable to the honorable . . . .
The irrational part of the souls has two divisions (2): one spirited, ambitious, headstrong, swayed by
passion, and the other passive, unforceful, devoted to pleasure.
“Happy” is what is in accordance with nature, and what is in accordance with nature is directly obvious,
just as wholeness is obvious. The endowment according to nature which comes to us at birth I call not
good but the inception of good . . . . As far as perception of good and evil is concerned, both are equally
mature; an infant is no more capable of the good than is a tree or some dumb animal.
Any why is the good not present in tree or dumb animal? Because reason is not.

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SECTION III: ROME
Roman system was one in which several groups possessed power, each connected with and limited by
the power of the others. (p. 122)
CICERO
Living during the final crisis of the Republic. He attacked the Gracchi, those two members of the
senatorial class who had betrayed it to gain popular support, caused civil war, and disturbed senatorial
authority founded on wise statesmanship. The disadvantages of the three familiar constitutional
systems; Monarchy meant that all but one lacked rights; Aristocracy limited power to a few; Democracy
led to incompetent rule.
Stoic inheritance: De Republica (on the Commonwealth), modeled on Plato’s Republic; Cicero himself
Appeared as “M”, the leading speaker; and De Officiis (On Duties), dealing with moral duties.
Cicero was no original theorist, but he expressed clearly and concisely – as one would expect of a great
lawyer and orator – the main Stoic thesis. He argued cogently the ideas of law as supreme reason, the
existence of reason in both man and God, the possession of right reason in common, the equality of
men, since all were capable of possessing virtue. He developed the idea of natural law to which all
conformed and all understood through their reason, and which governed the universe. He emphasized
the bonds that linked men together and distinguished them from animals, and defined a people as a
group, associated by consent and a natural gregariousness. Government was a trust dedicated to
welfare of citizens.
ROMAN LAW
The specific contributions of Rome to civilization were a magnificent system of roads, a competent
administrative structure and bureaucracy, the arch, and law.
The Stoic ideal of a universal society was put into practice almost by accident: Political need of the
Roman Empire for a uniform system of law. They founded the study of jurisprudence as a system of
general rules by which actions could be classified clearly and with definitiveness. Their treatises –
written by Gaius, Paulus, Ulpian – are systematic presentations of constitutional and political
institutions.
The civil law (jus civil) of Rome was inappropriate of for its empire. A system of law was needed to unify
the disparate peoples and colonies it had conquered, to deal with the numerous aliens in its midst, to
promote a common citizenship and, above all, as its commerce expanded, to help settle commercial
cases in which foreign traders were involved.
P. 124

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The answer was found by the formulation of a law of nations (just gentium), alongside the Stoic law of
nature (jus natural), the law common to all nations and the law common to all men. At first there
seemed coincidence between the two, since the common practice of all nations was likely to be the
natural law.
Roman lawyers were primarily interested in the distinction between public law – in essence
constitutional law – and private law – that which concerned individuals – especially the laws of property
relationships. The liberty of the citizen, traditional in the unwillingness of lawyers to digress very far
from the path of their predecessors, Roman law is still a monumental achievement in its clarity and
practicality. The Roman concept of a scientific jurisprudence has influenced the whole of Western
thought.
There are three (3) ideas in particular in the Roman system that are of interest: auctoritas, imperium,
leading to sovereignty, and representation.
Auctoritas meant possession of some personal quality or social or family position – prestige or
experience – that elicited obedience even where there was no legal compulsion or coercion. Where a
group of such distinguished people was gathered, as in the Senate, their collective advice was invariably
accepted – acutoritas senates – by the magistrate. This was a realistic confession of Roman inequality,
already admitted in another way: some citizens, who had exercised political power or military
command, were endowed with dignitas. Those who had not, possessed only libertas, the power of doing
what law allowed.
Imperium, the unlimited power possessed by the divinely approved early kings, who fulfilled a number
of roles: lawgiver, priest, military commander, judge, Carried over into the Roman Republic, this power
was limited in tenure, the community being able to delegate it. In times of crisis, the power was given to
a dictator or a magister populi.
Conception of sovereignty; the right to make laws and demand obedience. The emperor was “a kuvubg
kaw ib earth,” “bound by the laws,” The community could transfer the sovereign power to those it had
shocesn to act on its behalf, in the same way as property rights could be transferred to others.
Limitations to governmental action in this idea of representation, since the community was the ultimate
sovereign. The whole of power had been transferred, and there was no sense of limitation by contract.
A small state, aware of its destiny, yet continually beset with political and constitutional problems, a
nation readily accepting the philosophy of the Hellenists, an aristocratic republic that had not yet fully
relinquished its tribal nature changing into a greate empire. It produced a number of political writers
and ideas that have had lasting significance.
Political organization was complex and experimental. It was based on the conflict between the patrician
and the plebeian, the former possessing political privilege based on birth and tradition. The assembly of
curiae, the earliest unit of the Roman community, had been virtually replaced by the assembly of the
Centuries, which became the most responsible assembly of the whole people. The plebeians elected

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from among their own members the Tribunes, concerned with portection of group against the
patricians.
Leadership was really in the hands of the patricians, and in the Senate. The resolutions passed by the
plebeians meeting in council (Concilium) needed the approval of the patres (the head of aristocratic
families), as well as of the assembly of the Centuries.
Polybius wrote his Univeral History, Polybius, born about 200 b.c. in Arcadia, the son of a prominent
statesman and an important statesman and soldier in his own right, had been taken as a prisoner from
Greece to Rome, where became a friend of Scipio, practical politician, demonstrated the virtues of the
Roman system, and explained its success.
This success was the result of mixed constitution.
NATURE OF LAW
M. Law is the highest reason, implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids
the opposite. This reason, when firmly fixed and fully developed in the human mind, is Law. And so the
most learned men believe that Law is intelligence, whose natural function it is to command right
conduct and forbid wrongdoing. This quality has derived its name in Greek from the idea of granting to
every man his own, and in our language. The idea of fairness to the word law, so we have given it that of
selection, though both ideas properly belong to Law. The origin of Justice is to be found in Law, for Law
is a natural force, the mind and reason of the intelligent man, the standard by which Justice and
Injustice are measured.
Law is not a product of human thought, nor is it any enactment of peoples, but something eternal which
rules the whole universe by its wisdom in command and prohibition. Law is the primal and ultimate
mind of God, whose reason directs all things either by compulsion or restraint. Law which the Gods have
given to the human race has been justly praised; for it is the reason and mind of a wise lawgiver applied
to command and prohibition.
Laws were invented for the safety of citizens, the preservation of States, and the tranquility and
happiness of human life, that those who first put statutes of this kind in force convinced their people
that it was their intention to write down and put into effect such rules as, once accepted and adopted,
would make possible for them an honourable and happy life; and when such rules were drawn up and
put in force, it is clear that men called them "laws."
The very definition of the term "law" there inheres the idea and principle of choosing what is just and
true.
Law is the disctinction between things just and unjust, made in agreement with that primal and most
ancient of all things, Nature's standard are framed human laws punishing and defending the good.
RIGHT REASON AND NATURE

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Nature as our guide, to contribute to the general good by an interchange of acts of kindness, by giving
and receiving, and thus by our skill, our industry and our talents to cement human society more closely
together man to man.
Reason and speech constitute the most comprehensive bond that unites together men as men and all to
all; and under it the common right to all things that Nature has produced for the common use of man is
to be maintained.
Man is the only animal that has a feeling for order, for propriety, for moderation in word and deed. No
other animal has a sense of beauty, loveliness, harmony in the visible world; and Nature and Reason,
extending the analogy of this from the world of sense to the world of spirit, find that beauty,
consistency, order are far more to be maintained in thought and deed.
That animal which we call man, endowed with foresight and quick intelligence, complex, keen,
possessing memory, full of reason and prudence, has been given a certain distinguished status by the
supreme God who created him; for he is the only one among so many different kinds and varieties of
living beings who has a share in reason and thought, while all the rest are deprived of it. The first
common possession of man and God is reason. Right reason is Law, we must believe that men have Law
also in common with the Gods. Those who share Law must also share Justice; so are to be regarded as
members of the same commonwealth, a commonwealth of which both Gods and men are members.
A true law – namely, right reason – which is in accordance with nature, applies to all men, and is
unchangeable and eternal. Law summons men to the performance of their duties; by its prohibitions it
restrains them from doing wrong. There will be one law, eternal and unchangeable, binding at all times
upon all people; and there will be, as it were, the common master and ruler of men, namely God, who is
the author of this law, its interpreter, and its sponsor. The man who will not obey it will abandon his
better self, and, in denying the true nature of a man, will thereby suffer and severest of penalties,
though he has escaped all the other consequences which men call punishment.
JUSTICE
Laws, therefore, are obeyed because of the penalties they may inflict and not because of our sense of
justice. The law has no sanction in nature. Men are not just by nature. They mean that, while there is
diversity in human legislation, good men follow true justice rather than that which is merely thought to
be just? For rendering unto everything its deserts is said to be the mark of a good and just man.
Inasmuch as the whole human race is bound together in unity, it follows that knowledge of the
principles of right living is what makes men better.
The corruption caused by bad habits is so great that the sparks of fire, so to speak, which Nature has
kindled in us are extinguished by this corruption, and the vices which are their opposites spring up and
are established. Justice would be equally observed by all. For those creatures who have received the gift
of reason from Nature have also received right reason, and therefore they have also received the gift of
Law, which is right reason applied to command and prohibition. Men have received reason; therefore all

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men have received Justice. . . For Justice is one; it binds all human society, and is based on one Law,
which is right reason applied to command the prohibition.
Justice is conformity to written laws and national customs, and if, as the same persons claim, everything
is to be tested by the standard of utility. Nature is not to be considered the foundation of Justice, that
will mean the destruction [of the virtues on which human society depends]. If the principles of Justice
were founded on the decrees of peoples, the edicts of princes, or the decisions of judges, then Justice
would sanction robbery and adultery and forgery of wills, in case these acts were approved by the votes
or decrees of the populace. If law can make Justice out of Injustice, can it not also make good out of
bad? But in fact we can perceive the difference between good laws and bad by referring them to no
other standard that Nature; indeed, it is not merely Justice and Injustice which are distinguished by
Nature, but also and without exception things which are honourable and dishonourable. For since an
intelligence common to us all makes things known to us and formulates them in our minds, honourable
actions are ascribed by us to virtue, and dishonourable actions to vice; and only a madman would
conclude that these judgments are matters of opinion, and not fixed by Nature.