Historical Reality in Ancient and Modern Political Terminology: In Search of a Common

скачать Автор: Andrey M. Smorchkov - подписаться на статьи автора
Журнал: Social Evolution & History. Volume 24, Number 2 / September 2025 - подписаться на статьи журнала

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2025.02.08

Andrey M. Smorchkov

Russian State University for the Humanities; Russian Pres-idential Academy of National Economy and Public Admin-istration; HSE University (National Research University ‘Higher School of Economics’), Moscow, Russia

In the presented paper, I will consider one of the most important examples from two categories of political terms. I include in the first category the terms from modern science that originate from classical antiquity. This is the most numerous category, as modern political terminology is almost entirely based on classical languages. The main challenge here is the misleading similarity of terms, since their modern meaning differs fundamentally from that of antiquity (a classic example is res publica and the republic). The second category includes terms generated exclusively by antiquity or by modern times (e.g., polis and state). Accordingly, the question arises as to what extent each of them is applicable to another civilization. I would describe these two groups of political terms as being deceptively similar and deceptively dissimilar. Due to the limited format, I will limit myself to presenting my own views without providing detailed arguments or historiography.

In the first category, I will consider the concept of ‘democracy’, which is currently one of the most widely used in political discourse. Roman political theory was familiar with the idea of participation (and even formally dominant participation) of the people (citizens) in power and accepted it as just. Cicero's famous expression res publica – res populi means that public property (res publica), understood very broadly – from tangible things to power and ideology – belongs to the civil collective (populus), i.e. the people. But it is important to emphasize that the Roman populus differs from the Athenian demos, for it includes all citizens, including the ruling elite. Moreover, the Romans came up with the idea of ‘the people is the source of power’, i.e. it is not the people who rule (literally ‘democracy’), but the people who determine who will rule, which anticipates modern views.

In historiography, the opinion about the non-democratic nature of the political system of the Roman Republic throughout its history is absolutely dominant. However, after the discussion caused by works of Fergus Millar (starting in 1984), it is noted that the Roman Republic of the third–first centuries BC had democratic potential but nothing more. Millar expressed confidence that it was possible ‘to restore the Roman people to their proper place in the history of democratic values’ (Millar 2002: 158). Similar ideas were expressed before Millar, but it was his works that gave rise to a very sharp and very fruitful discussion, although his conclusions were rejected by most researchers to one degree or another. But Millar took the bright and unique Athenian democracy as a model for democracy, likening the Roman political system to it (Millar 2002: 112; 139). In my opinion, Millar's opponents made the same fundamental mistake in making it easier to criticize him because it is impossible to equate the Roman Republic with Athens at the height of its democratic system.

But modern parliamentary democracies are just as far removed (if not further) from the Athenian model, and, from the point of view of ancient theory, clearly fall under the definition of oligarchy, since representative democracy cannot be recognized as direct power of the people. A paradoxical situation arises: the ancient term is applied to regimes that ancient theories would never recognize as democracies, while criteria are applied to Rome that do not apply to modern democracies. In other words, by proving that Rome did not have democracy, one is actually only proving that Rome did not have the Athenian version of democracy. This is true: according to ancient theory, the Roman Republic in its heyday clearly falls under the definition of aristocracy. However, even today, citizens of large democratic states are unlikely to feel more involved in lawmaking and governance than Roman citizens. And this feeling reflects the real situation, not doubts about the existence of democracy. Therefore, it is completely incomprehensible why the political system of the Roman Republic should be judged using much stricter criteria than modern ones.

The real and most serious claim of Republican Rome from the point of view of democratic principles is the lack of a concept of quorum in the activities of popular assemblies. In other words, most important decisions were actually made by a minority of citizens, and a random minority at that. This is an objective problem for direct democracy when the number of citizens exceeds a fairly narrow range. And for the modern understanding of democracy, ensuring the opportunity to vote, even if the voter does not exercise it, is an important criterion for the legitimacy of the system. But is representative democracy a solution to the problems inherent in direct democracy? After all, elected deputies proceed from their own understanding of state and public interests, without the opportunity or even the need to consult their voters on every issue.

When speaking about the achievements of the civil society in ancient Rome, we should not forget about the question of its effectiveness, the correspondence between the content and declared goals and forms, but the same problem also faces modern institutions of civil society in the most democratic countries. Accordingly, if we recognize one, we must also recognize the other: i.e. recognize the Roman Republic as a democracy, of course, with its own specific features (in fact, modern democracies also differ greatly from each other). In other words, we are talking about the meaning of the term, and not about the presence or absence of the phenomenon itself.

As for the second category, the key problem here is the relationship between the concepts of polis and state. The concept of polis is limited to classical antiquity and has not entered the modern political lexicon. I will turn to its meaning, which, in my opinion, determines the specificity of ancient civilization. The theory of polis was developed primarily on Greek material, which is natural given its diversity. However, the characteristics of the polis must also include the Roman civitas, otherwise the unity of classical world would be torn apart.

And as much as the polis is an ancient phenomenon, the concept of the state is a product of modern science. We will not find an adequate correspondence to ‘state’ in ancient theory. Res publica and ta koina pragmata express the idea of community, while the state has contradictory, though mutually recognized relations with society. In my opinion, the polis and the state are different taxonomic categories. Therefore, strictly speaking, interpreting the polis as a state (city-state, citizen-state) is not entirely correct. The widespread interpretation of the polis as ‘civil community’ is actually one of the meanings of the word polis, and accordingly, it is itself a term. But it clearly shows that the polis is part of the conceptual series of ‘community’, in other words, it is a self-regulating association of people. This circumstance determines, in particular, the limitation of its territorial and numerical size. Going beyond the limits within which self-organization of the community is possible leads to the transformation of the polis into other structures. The state arises when society is unable to self-regulate, both due to objective contradictions that divide it or other complex problems facing society, and because it goes beyond the limits within which self-regulation is possible. Under such conditions, society's preservation requires an external force, i.e., the state, whose main task is to maintain order and organize social life in its various aspects.

The Polis and the state are closely related, respectively, the polis determines the form and features of the state, which is reflected in the concept of ‘polis state’. This state differs from other types of states by the specific organization of the population stratum that is admitted to power (to one degree or another). Here, the ruling elite is forced to share political power (of course, in varying amounts) with the majority of the free population, which, with other paths of state formation, turns them into a subordinate and exploited stratum. Relations of exploitation, domination, and subordination are taken outside the polis, since the polis as a collective of citizens does not include the exploited categories of population, but they undoubtedly exist outside this civil collective, constituting the necessary ‘external’ conditions for its existence.

This union of the ruling elite and ordinary citizens, which in turn constitutes only a part of the population on the territory of the polis, is based on principles of community, the most natural and usual for that stage of development. Accordingly, I propose the following definition: ‘Polis (civitas) is a politically dominant community of full-fledged residents of an ancient state (citizens), uniting the top of society and a part of the ordinary population.’ Of course, such a formulation emphasizes formal features, but their actual functioning is another matter. But this is a problem for any terminological definition.

Paradoxically, the ancient polis is not exclusively an exhibit of the historical cabinet of curiosities. In connection with the development of the Internet, ancient direct democracy is becoming increasingly possible and therefore more relevant, as evidenced by studies on the phenomenon of the so-called network polis.

REFERENCE

Millar, F. 2002. Rome, the Greek World and the East. Vol. 1. The Roman Republic and Augustan Revolution. Ed. by H. M. Cotton and G. M. Rogers. Chapel Hill – London: The University of North Carolina Press.