The Histories by Herodotus p.227-228: The Argument Against Monarchy

(Commonplace Book)

From The Histories by Herodotus 

"In my opinion," he said, "we should abandon any notion of installing one of us as sole ruler. there is nothing either pleasant or noble about monarchy. You saw for yourselves how far Cambyses went in abusing his power, and you have had some experience as well of the Magian's brutality and arrogance. How can monarch ever create ordered governance, when a monarch can do what he pleases and not be answerable for it? Install even the very best of men in such a position of authority and his customary personality will be quite transformed.  All the good qualities that he possesses will foster an abusive arrogance in him--and as for envy, well, that is ingrained in men from birth. These twin characteristics will suffice to render him a repository of every kind of evil, and every crime he commits will be traceable to a surfeit of insolence and jealousy.  By rights, of course, a man who rules as a tyrant should be proof against envy, bearing in mind all the pleasant things that he enjoys. In reality, however, instinct imbues him with an attitude towards the citizenry which is quite the opposite.  Just as he resents the continued existence of the city's elite, so he exults in those who make up its dregs--nor is there anyone quicker to listen to malevolent gossip.  A solo ruler is also more prone to violent swings of mood than anyone.  Express only a moderate admiration for him, for instance, and your relative lack of deference will throw him into a towering rage--but behave with a creeping subservience and hew will grow irate with you for being a flatterer.  And that is not all: I now come to mention his gravest offences.  A monarch plays havoc with ancestral customs, he rapes women and he executes men without trial.  Rule by the majority, on the other hand, bears that fairest of all titles: 'Equality before the law'.  Not only that, but it has this second quality: it gives rise to none of the actions which a monarch characteristically takes.  Those in office have their authority courtesy of a lottery, and wield it in a way that is strictly accountable.  Every policy decision must be referred to the commonality of the people. that is why I give it as my opinion that we should abolish the monarchy and foster the rule of the masses.  Everything, after all, is contained within the multitude."

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This is from a section of Herodotus where the Persian Grandees are debating the form of government they want to take next.  But it is, of course, the Greek Herodotus who is putting the words in the mouths of the Persians.

I found it a useful reminder that radical democratic ideas are not new to the modern era.  The ancient Greeks were also fierce advocates of democracy.  (Something we all learn in school, of course, but something we tend to sometimes forget when we think about democracy as being a modern idea.  Or at least I do.)

In fact, I think I hear echoes of Bakunin's writings against dictatorship in the above passage.  Below is a quotation from Bakunin (which I took from Karl Marx: His Life and Environment by Isaiah Berlin).  Admittedly it's not beat for beat the same, but a very similar tone I feel:

We believe power corrupts those who wield it as much as those who are forced to obey it. Under its influence, some become greedy and ambitious tyrants, exploiting society in their own interest, or in that of their class, while others are turned into abject slaves. Intellectuals, positivists, doctrinaires, all those who put science before life…defend the idea of the state and its authority as being the only possible salvation of society-quite logically, since from their false premises that thought comes before life, that only abstract theory can form the starting-point of social practice…they draw the inevitable conclusion that since such theoretical knowledge is at present possessed by very few, these few must be put in control of social life, not only to inspire, but to direct all popular movements, and that no sooner is the revolution over than a new social organization must be at once be set up; not a free association of popular bodies…working in accordance with the needs and instincts of the people but a centralized dictatorial power concentrated in the hands of this academic minority, as if they really expressed the popular will….The difference between such revolutionary dictatorship and the modern State is only one of external trappings. In substance both are a tyranny of the minority over the majority in the name of the people-in the name of the stupidity of the many and the superior wisdom of the few-and so they are equally reactionary, devising to secure political and economic privilege to the ruling minority, and the…enslavement of the masses, to destroy the present order only to erect their own rigid dictatorship on its ruins.