Ancient models in the early modern republican imagination 9789004351387, 9004351388

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Ancient Models in the Early Modern Republican Imagination

Metaforms Studies in the Reception of Classical Antiquity

Editors-in-Chief Almut-Barbara Renger (Freie Universität Berlin) Jon Solomon (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) John T. Hamilton (Harvard University) Editorial Board Kyriakos Demetriou (University of Cyprus) Constanze Güthenke (Oxford University) Miriam Leonard (University College London) Mira Seo (Yale-nus College)

volume 12

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/srca

Ancient Models in the Early Modern Republican Imagination Edited by

Wyger Velema Arthur Weststeijn

leiden | boston

Cover illustration: Caesar van Everdingen, Lycurgus Showing the Importance of Education (1660–61), courtesy of the Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2017027625

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2212-9405 isbn 978-90-04-35137-0 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-35138-7 (e-book) Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents List of Illustrations VII List of Contributors VIII Introduction: Classical Republicanism and Ancient Republican Models 1 Wyger Velema and Arthur Weststeijn 1 Renaissance Historicism and the Model of Rome in Florentine Historiography 20 Jacques Bos 2 The Roman Republic as a Constitutional Order in the Italian Renaissance 40 Benjamin Straumann 3 Commonwealths for Preservation and Increase: Ancient Rome in Venice and the Dutch Republic 62 Arthur Weststeijn 4 Early Modern Greek Histories and Republican Political Thought 86 William Stenhouse 5 A Classical Confederacy: The Example of the Achaean League in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic 109 Jaap Nieuwstraten 6 From Failed Republic to Polite Polis: Ancient Athens in Seventeenthand Eighteenth-Century England 131 Christine Zabel 7 Painting Plutarch: Images of Sparta in the Dutch Republic and Enlightenment France 157 Wessel Krul

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Against Democracy: Dutch Eighteenth-Century Critics of Ancient and Modern Popular Government 189 Wyger Velema

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The Hebrew Republic in Sixteenth-Century Political Debate: The Struggle for Jurisdiction 214 Guido Bartolucci

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The Hebrew Republic in Dutch Political Thought, c. 1650–1675 234 René Koekkoek

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The Helvetians as Ancestors and Brutus as a Model: The Classical Past in the Early Modern Swiss Confederation 259 Thomas Maissen

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Classical Models in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania 285 Tomasz Gromelski

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America’s Antiquities: The Ancient Past in the Creation of the American Republic 306 Eran Shalev

Index 329

List of Illustrations 6.1 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4

Frontispiece to Charles Gildon, The History of the Athenian Society (London, 1692) 145 Caesar van Everdingen, Lycurgus Showing the Importance of Education (1660–61) 162 Charles Cochin, Lycurgus Showing Himself to the People of Sparta After Being Wounded in a Sedition (1761) 169 Louis Lagrenée, A Spartan Mother Admonishing her Son (1771) 177 Jean Pierre Saint Ours, The Selection of Children in Sparta (1784–86) 181 Jean Pierre Saint Ours, The Selection of Children in Sparta, preliminary drawing 183 Jacques-Louis David, Leonidas at Thermopylae, Drawing (1813) 186 Johann Carl Balthasar, Roma teaching Hollandia, Venetia and Helvetia, c. 1690, Lucerne 261 Excerpts of Johannes Stumpf, Landtaflen, Zurich, 1548 273 Excerpts of Johannes Stumpf, Landtaflen, Zurich, 1548 274 Bust of Lucius Iunius Brutus, Zurich town hall, 1698 279

List of Contributors Guido Bartolucci is Assistant Professor of Early Modern History at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Calabria. He is the author of a book on the Hebrew Republic in sixteenth-century European thought, and he has also worked on the origin of the Christian Kabbalah in the fifteenth century and on the life and political thought of the Jewish physician David de’ Pomis. His recent research interests focus on the influence of the Jewish political tradition on Christian thought, particularly in the debate between Calvinist and Lutheran scholars in the seventeenth century. Jacques Bos studied history, philosophy and political science at the University of Leiden. In 2003 he obtained his Ph.D. at the same university with a study of the early modern concept of character. At the moment, he is university lecturer in philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. His main field of research is early modern intellectual history, with an emphasis on the history of the self, the history of the human sciences, and the development of historical thought. Tomasz Gromelski is Research Fellow in the Humanities at Wolfson College, Oxford, and a Research Associate at the History Faculty in Cambridge. His research interests are in the intellectual, social and political history of Britain and Europe in the late-medieval and early-modern periods (c. 1400–1650), and in everyday life and material culture in pre-industrial Europe. His chief interest is in the comparative study of political and constitutional thought and political culture in sixteenth-century Europe. He has published a number of articles and chapters on the subject and is currently completing a study of political thought and political practices in Poland-Lithuania. René Koekkoek is lecturer in Modern European History in the European Studies program at the University of Amsterdam. He holds a Research Master in History from Utrecht University (cum laude) and an MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History from the University of Cambridge (distinction). In 2016, he obtained his PhD from Utrecht University. He published on Carl Schmitt and the challenge of Spinozism in Modern Intellectual History and on Dutch late eighteenth-­century

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political thought. His book manuscript The Citizenship E­ xperiment. Contesting the Limits of Civic Equality and Participation in the Age of Revolutions is currently under review. Wessel Krul is Professor Emeritus of Modern Art and Cultural History at the University of Groningen. He has published widely on art, art theory and historiography from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, and has translated and edited several philosophical classics (Hobbes, Lessing, Burke, J.S. Mill). Recent publications: “A Slight Correction. Petrus Camper on the Visual Arts,” in: Petrus Camper in Context. Science, the Arts, and Society in the Eighteenth-Century Dutch Republic, ed. Klaas van Berkel and Bart Ramakers (Hilversum, 2015), 215–242; “An Ambivalent Conservatism. Edmund Burke in the Netherlands, 1770–1870,” in: The Reception of Edmund Burke, ed. Martin Hugh Fitzpatrick and Peter Jones ­(London, 2016), 149–170. Thomas Maissen has been Associate Professor at the University of Lucerne from 2002 to 2004 and Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Heidelberg. Since 2006 he has been a member of the Heidelberg Academy of Science and H ­ umanities. He was Professeur invité at the ehess Paris, visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, and co-director of the Heidelberg Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context.” Since 2013, Maissen has been the director of the German Historical Institute in Paris. Central areas of his research are the history of political thought, history of religion and mentalities, historical iconography and Swiss history. Jaap Nieuwstraten studied at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he received a Ph.D. in History for a dissertation on the historical and political thought of the Dutch scholar Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn (1612–1653) in 2012. He currently works as a freelance researcher and writer, focussing primarily on the history of the Low Countries, the long nineteenth century and the ‘age of extremes.’ Eran Shalev is Professor of American History and Chair of the History Department at Haifa University. He is the author of Rome Reborn on Western Shores: Historical Imagination and the Creation of the American Republic (2009) and American Zion: The Bible as a Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War (2013).

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William Stenhouse teaches history at Yeshiva University, New York. He works on the history of classical scholarship in the sixteenth century, and especially the reception of ancient material remains. His books include Reading Inscriptions and Writing Ancient History: Historical Scholarship in the Late Renaissance (2005). Benjamin Straumann is Alberico Gentili Senior Fellow at New York University School of Law. A historian of ideas, he works on classical political and legal thought, the history of natural and international law, constitutionalism, and the reception of ancient political thought and Roman law. Benjamin is the author of Roman Law in the State of Nature (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and of Crisis and Constitutionalism: Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2016). He is a co-editor of the new oup series The History and Theory of International Law. Wyger Velema is Jan Romein Professor in the Department of History of the University of Amsterdam. He is specialized in early modern history, with an emphasis on the eighteenth century, the history of political thought - in particular that of ­republicanism - and conceptual history. He has published widely in these fields, including Enlightenment and Conservatism in the Dutch Republic. The Political Thought of Elie Luzac (1993) and Republicans. Essays on EighteenthCentury Dutch Political Thought (2007). He is currently working on a study of the role of the classics in Dutch Enlightenment culture. Arthur Weststeijn teaches Italian history at Utrecht University and was between 2011 and 2017 Director of Historical Studies at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome. He specialises in Dutch and Italian intellectual and cultural history, with a specific focus on early modern political thought, colonialism and imperialism, and the manifold uses of the classical past. He is the author of Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age (Brill, 2012) and, together with Frederick Whitling, Termini. Cornerstone of Modern Rome (Quasar, 2017). Christine Zabel is a Postdoctoral Faculty Member at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, where she teaches courses on cultural and intellectual history. She received her Ph.D. from Heidelberg University, Germany, and a Master of Arts from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (ehess), France. She is

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the author of Polis und Politesse: Der Diskurs über das antike Athen in England and Frankreich, 1630–1760 (Berlin and Boston, 2016). She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University, where she is working on her second book, an intellectual history of “speculation” in early modern Europe tentatively entitled Augmenting Realities: Speculation in Early Modern Europe.

Introduction: Classical Republicanism and Ancient Republican Models Wyger Velema and Arthur Weststeijn Since the middle of the last century, and particularly since the 1970s, the early modern republics have come to occupy a central place in modern historical scholarship. Whereas previously historiography had almost exclusively focused on the early modern rise of the great territorial monarchies and on the growth of the centralised state and of political absolutism, after the second world war historians slowly started to realise that throughout the early ­modern period an alternative tradition of republican political thought and political ­institutions had not only survived, but had been of enormous importance. The experiences of Renaissance Florence and the Venetian Republic paved the way for the United Provinces of the Netherlands and the Swiss Eidgenossenschaft, confederate republican powerhouses in an allegedly absolutist age; the short-lived experiment of the English Commonwealth in the 1650s cast a long shadow over the Atlantic that eventually brought about the Unites States of America; and at the end of the eighteenth century, Revolutionary France and its “Sister Republics” remodelled the republican tradition for a modern world. Within this longstanding tradition, the ancient past always was of paramount importance: classical idioms and examples offered republicans from Niccolò Machiavelli to George Washington an endless source of inspiration. Early modern republicanism was thus in large part identical with what has come to be known in scholarship as “classical republicanism.”

The Making of Classical Republicanism: Syntheses and Controversies

The discovery of the crucial role played by early modern republicanism was a slow and complex process. In its initial phases, it was greatly indebted to the work of Hans Baron on the political thought of the Florentine ­Renaissance. In his The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, first published in 1955, Baron attempted to demonstrate that the early fifteenth-century Florentines, finding themselves under threat from increasingly tyrannical n ­ eighbouring states, developed new ways of defending their republican freedom. With Leonardo Bruni as their most important theorist, they started deploying a ­political

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_002

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v­ ocabulary that Baron termed “civic humanism.” This was, briefly put, a mode of thought inspired by ancient Roman republican liberty. It held that the ­participation of the virtuous citizen in the political process was essential to the existence and continued survival of political liberty.1 Although Baron’s thesis was regarded as highly controversial from the very moment it was first formulated, his pioneering work nonetheless greatly stimulated research into Renaissance republicanism and was instrumental in bringing about, among other things, a renewed interpretation of Machiavelli’s political thought.2 While the importance of “civic humanism” (soon also called “classical republicanism”) for the Italian Renaissance was thus being explored, the presence of similar forms of classically inspired early modern republican discourse was being discovered for England. Already in 1945, Zera Fink had drawn attention to the importance of ancient republicanism to the political thought of ­seventeenth-century England.3 It soon became clear that such patterns of thought survived far into the eighteenth century as well.4 The next phase in the remarkable development of scholarship on early modern republicanism came when historians such as Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood started pointing out that the American revolutionaries of the late eighteenth century, until then usually regarded as unambiguously modern, were in fact deeply indebted to the early modern—and ultimately classical—republican tradition.5 Around the same time, the Italian historian Franco Venturi emphatically pointed to the importance of the European republican tradition for the genesis and development of the Enlightenment.6 1 Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance. Civic Humanism and Republican ­Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1955). 2 For subsequent scholarly discussions of the “Baron Thesis” see e.g. Ronald Witt, “The ­Rebirth of the Concept of Republican Liberty in Italy,” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Hans Baron, ed. A. Mohlo and J.A. Tedeschi (Dekalb, 1971), 173–199; James Hankins, ed., Renaissance Civic Humanism. Reappraisals and Reflections (Cambridge, 2000); David Wootton, “The True Origins of Republicanism: the Disciples of Baron and the Counter-example of Venturi,” in Il repubblicanesimo moderno: L’idea di repubblica nella riflessione storica di Franco Venturi, ed. Manuela Albertone (Naples, 2006), 225–257. 3 Zera S. Fink, The Classical Republicans. An Essay in the Recovery of a Pattern of Thought in Seventeenth-Century England (Evanston, 1945). 4 Caroline Robbins, The Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthman. Studies in the Transmission, Development, and Circumstance of English Liberal Thought from the Restoration of Charles ii until the War with the Thirteen Colonies (Cambridge, ma., 1959). 5 Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, ma., 1967); Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill, 1969). 6 Franco Venturi, Utopia and Reform in the Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1971).

Introduction

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Scholarship on early modern republicanism had now clearly reached a point where a synthetic survey became a distinct possibility. It was J.G.A. Pocock who, in 1975, took up this intellectual challenge with his brilliant Machiavellian Moment.7 This extraordinarily penetrating and strikingly original study, which has been—and continues to be—of immense historiographical importance, definitively established republicanism as one of the central ­topics in early modern scholarship. Yet at the same time it offered a highly specific and far from uncontroversial interpretation of the nature of early modern republicanism. Pocock analysed the early modern republican tradition, with Machiavelli as its central figure, as a mode of discourse that was ultimately rooted in classical conceptions of politics, more specifically in the Aristotelian notion of man as a zōon politikon or homo politicus. He traced the rediscovery and revival of this language in the Florentine Renaissance and its subsequent transmission to quite different contexts, those of seventeenth-century England and of eighteenth-century America. In Pocock’s interpretation, the most important characteristic of this ultimately classical republican language was that it was not primarily concerned with rights, but with active ­citizenship— the vita ­activa civilis—and with virtue. It was a language that was more about positive than about negative liberty, to use Isaiah Berlin’s justly famous distinction.8 If virtue, as best expressed in citizen participation, was indeed the highest human goal, it was of course evident that a classically inspired republic composed of self-ruling citizens was to be regarded as the most desirable form of ­government—as it indeed was by many “civic humanists” or “classical ­republicans” throughout the early modern period.9 Pocock’s account of the early modern republican tradition immediately gave rise to heated debate and even now, more than forty years after its initial ­publication, continues to loom over all discussions of early modern republicanism. It was only a few years after the appearance of The Machiavellian Moment 7 J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975). 8 Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (Oxford, 1958). 9 For Pocock’s views on the relationship between republicanism and other early modern ­political languages see J.G.A. Pocock, “Virtues, Rights and Manners: A Model for Historians of Political Thought,” in J.G.A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, etc., 1985), 37–50. The most important early review of The Machiavellian Moment was published in 1977 by J.H. Hexter in History and Theory and later reprinted as “Republic, Virtue, Liberty, and the Political Universe of J.G.A. Pocock,” in J.H. Hexter, On Historians. Reappraisals of Some of the Makers of Modern History (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 255–303. Thoughtful discussions of Pocock’s work may also be found in D.N. DeLuna et al., eds., The Political Imagination in History. Essays Concerning J.G.A. Pocock (Baltimore, 2006).

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that Quentin Skinner published his Foundations of Modern Political Thought.10 Skinner’s intention in writing these volumes was quite different from Pocock’s: he was not tracing the early modern recovery of a classical republican ­political language and following its subsequent dissemination and development, but was—as the title of his volumes indicated—attempting a comprehensive ­reconstruction of “the process by which the modern concept of the State came to be formed.”11 Yet Skinner and Pocock obviously shared a lot of common ground. Both were trying to develop what Skinner termed a “genuinely historical” way of studying early modern political thought and thereby became the founding figures of what is now known as the Cambridge School.12 Both men, moreover, agreed that such a genuinely historical approach to early modern political thought involved a recognition of the crucial importance of forms of republican discourse of classical derivation.13 It was only after this point had been reached that they seriously began to disagree. For Skinner, early modern republicanism had not suddenly surfaced in the deep political crisis early quattrocentro Florence had experienced, as both Baron and Pocock had maintained, but had emerged much earlier in the late medieval urban world of the Italian communes. Perhaps even more important, however, was his contention that late medieval, Renaissance, and early modern republicanism should not be understood as a revival of a classical Greek conception of political virtue, but as heavily dependent on a quite different Roman and Ciceronian distinction between liberty and slavery. This latter view, embryonically present in the Foundations, has taken centre stage in Skinner’s more recent work as the “neoRoman” theory of liberty.14 Skinner, however, was far from the only historian of political thought to question aspects of Pocock’s interpretation of early modern republicanism as presented in The Machiavellian Moment. Indeed, it may be observed without exaggeration that almost no aspect of this seminal work has remained without criticism. In the process, our understanding of early modern republicanism has become both deeper and more complex. It has, in the first place, been observed by many historians that applying the concept of “classical 10 Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1978). 11 Skinner, Foundations, 1:ix. 12 Ibidem, xi. 13 Pocock and Skinner themselves have written about their similarities and differences in Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, ed. Annabel Brett, James Tully, and Holly Hamilton-Bleakley (Cambridge, 2006), 37–49 and 236–261. 14 E.g. Quentin Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge, 1998) and Quentin Skinner, Hobbes and Republican Liberty (Cambridge, 2008).

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­republicanism” to the world of the early modern republics suggests a considerable degree of continuity with the ancient world. Such a view, these historians have maintained, is deeply misleading, since the world of the early modern republics was, as many of its inhabitants well knew, fundamentally different from the world of the ancient republics. Quite apart from the rather obvious fact that it was Christian, it was also separated from antiquity by, among other things, the invention of the printing press, the growth and consolidation of a system of large territorial states, the advent of global exploration, the rise of commercial society, and the genesis of the modern scientific world view. These and other fundamental differences between the ancient and the early modern world were in turn mirrored by significant differences between ancient and early modern political thought in general, and between classical and early modern republicanism in particular. As a result of all of this, some historians have argued, the classical orientation to be found in so many early modern republics was usually little more than ornamental. Others, such as Jonathan Israel, have gone even further and have claimed that the “democratic republicanism” they see surfacing from the seventeenth century on had absolutely nothing to do with the heritage of antiquity.15 While the controversy over the extent of the indebtedness of early modern republicanism to the classics has so far remained very much open and ­undecided, a second line of criticism of Pocock’s “Atlantic republican tradition” has found more widespread acceptance. Soon after The Machiavellian Moment was published, critics of the work started drawing attention to the fact that Pocock’s analysis evinced a curious and indeed somewhat bizarre flaw: it was strangely limited in its geographical scope, taking the story of early modern republicanism from Renaissance Italy to seventeenth-century England and thence to eighteenth-century America. In doing so, it left out the republicanism to be found in what perhaps were the two most important early modern republican states, the Dutch and the Swiss Republics. Historians have since hastened to fill in this gap, and as a result we are now much better informed about both Dutch and Swiss early modern republicanism.16 It has equally 15

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Paul A. Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern. Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution (Chapel Hill and London, 1992); David Wootton, ed., Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society, 1649–1776 (Stanford, 1994); Jonathan I. Israel, Radical ­Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford, 2001); Idem, Enlightenment Contested. Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1752 (Oxford, 2006); Idem, Democratic Enlightenment. Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750–1790 (Oxford, 2011). On Dutch republicanism see e.g. E.H. Kossmann, “Dutch Republicanism,” in L’età dei Lumi. Studi storici sul settecento Europeo in onore di Franco Venturi, 2 vols (Naples, 1985),

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b­ ecome clear that not even this significant expansion of the field sufficed in order to arrive at a balanced view of early modern republicanism, and that attention also needed to be paid to, for instance, the German free cities and early modern Poland-Lithuania.17 To complicate matters even further, it was increasingly recognised that elements of republican discourse could also be found in early modern monarchical contexts, even absolutist ones.18 Both the doubts voiced about the classical derivation of early modern republicanism and the considerable expansion of the geographical scope in the study of this phenomenon have had the effect of blurring its previously fairly sharp and clear contours. This process was further reinforced by a third development in the scholarship about early modern republicanism. Whereas Pocock, although he was much less dogmatic about it than has often been suggested, attempted to identify relatively separate languages of politics, and claimed that early modern republicans were speaking a language of virtue that was, if not entirely incompatible with, at least fundamentally different from the language of rights, it gradually became increasingly clear that these languages were often used by the same people at the same time.19 It was this insight that led Daniel T. Rogers to remark, as early as 1992, that the o­ ntological status

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1:453–486; Martin van Gelderen, The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt, 1555–1590 (­Cambridge, 1992); Arthur Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age. The Political Thought of Johan and Pieter de la Court (Leiden and Boston, 2012); Wyger R.E. Velema, Republicans. Essays on Eighteenth-Century Dutch Political Thought (Leiden and Boston, 2007). On Swiss republicanism see e.g. Thomas Maissen, Die Geburt der Republik. Staatsverständnis und Repräsentation in der früneuzeitlichen Eidgenossenschaft, second edition (Göttingen, 2008); Marc H. Lerner, A Laboratory of Liberty. The Transformation of Political Culture in Republican Switzerland, 1750–1848 (Leiden and Boston, 2011). For a comparison between these two early modern republics see André Holstein, Thomas Maissen and Maarten Prak, eds., The Republican Alternative. The Netherlands and Switzerland Compared (Amsterdam, 2008). Helmut Koenigsberger, ed., Republiken und Republikanismus im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit (Munich, 1988); Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, eds., Republicanism. A Shared European Heritage, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2002). For France see, for instance, Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution. Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1990). The opposition between republicanism and seignorialism in the Italian Renaissance is deconstructed in Fabrizio Ricciardelli, The Myth of Republicanism in Renaissance Italy (Turnhout, 2015). Daniel T. Rodgers, “Republicanism: the Career of a Concept,” The Journal of American History 79 (1992): 11–38. For an ambitious attempt to dissolve the rigid distinction between “republicanism” and “liberalism” in the late eighteenth century see Andreas Kalyvas and Ira Katznelson, Liberal Beginnings. Making a Republic for the Moderns (Cambridge, etc., 2008).

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of early modern republicanism was growing “fainter and more confused.”20 Such warnings about the increasing vagueness of the concept of early modern ­republicanism have not deterred most historians, and they have continued to find it a helpful and indeed indispensable tool in their quest to understand the nature of the early modern political world. Yet they do point to the ­necessity to bring the scholarly discussions about early modern republicanism, and ­especially about “classical republicanism,” back down to earth from the abstract and often somewhat dizzying heights they have reached over the past few decades. The concern about republicanism’s loss of meaning undoubtedly has much to do with the fact that, despite the methodological injunctions of the founders of the Cambridge school to study political thought in a “genuinely historical” and contextualized way, concepts such as “classical republicanism” and the “neo-Roman” theory of liberty seem to have become almost disembodied and have increasingly been divorced from specific historical circumstances and debates. To counter this regrettable trend, the present volume—the ­outcome of a conference held at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome in November of 2013—approaches the problem of early modern republicanism and its relations to the ancient world from a somewhat different perspective. It does not take abstract political languages as its starting point, but investigates the concrete role of specific ancient republican models in the political thought of early modern republics.

Early Modern Uses of the Ancient Republican Past

There can hardly be any doubt that, despite the considerable diversity to be found in both their political institutions and their political thought, most literate inhabitants of the early modern republics were highly aware of a certain family resemblance between their republican states and of the deep political divide separating these states from the surrounding and much larger monarchies.21 In order to clarify and legitimate the republican form of government, early modern republican writers could turn to general theories of politics and 20 21

Rogers, “Republicanism,” 37. Yves Durand, Les Républiques au temps des Monarchies (Paris, 1973); H.G. Koenigsberger, “Republicanism, Monarchism and Liberty,” in Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe. Essays in Memory of Ragnhild Hatton, ed. Robert Oresko, G.C. Gibbs and H.M. Scott (Cambridge, 1997), 43–74; Venturi, Enlightenment and Reform; Koen Stapelbroek, “Republics and Monarchies,” in A Companion to Intellectual History, ed. Richard Whatmore and Brian Young (Malden, ma and Oxford, 2016), 276–287.

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argue, for instance, that liberty could only be found in political communities where the citizens ruled themselves. They also could, and frequently did, compare the political arrangements of their own republican state to those of the other contemporary republics.22 Yet perhaps their most common strategy was the appeal to history. Using the past in order to better understand the nature of republican government and to defend and underpin its legitimacy could be done in many different ways. It could, first of all, consist in the attempt—to be found in, for instance, Renaissance Florence, the Swiss Confederation, and the Dutch Republic—to keep the memory of relatively recent struggles to establish or maintain republican liberty alive.23 Sometimes it entailed reverting to the medieval roots of republican liberty.24 Since generally “early modern people believed things to be true or legitimate only if they could be proven to be old,” however, most often it meant appealing to the real or imagined republics of the ancient world.25 It is this widespread early modern republican use of the ancient republican past that the present volume aims to explore. The manifold early modern republican uses of the ancient past not only reflected the widely held early modern conviction that old equated good, but also and perhaps more importantly depended on the general nature of the early modern sense of the past. Early modern historical thought no longer conceived of the past as entirely similar to and continuous with the present.26 But neither did it view the past as in all respects fundamentally different from the present, since such an historicist perspective, according to many historians, did not emerge until the momentous changes occurring in the period 22

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See, for instance, E.O.G. Haitsma Mulier, The Myth of Venice and Dutch Republican Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Assen, 1980) and Salvo Mastellone, “Holland as a ­Political Model in Italy in the Seventeenth Century,” Bijdragen en Mededelingen ­betreffende de ­Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 98 (1983): 568–582. Erika Kuijpers, Judith Pollmann, Johannes Müller and Jasper van der Steen, eds. Memory before Modernity. Practices of Memory in Early Modern Europe (Leiden and Boston, 2013). R.J.W. Evans and Guy P. Marchal, eds., The Uses of the Middle Ages in Modern European States. History, Nationhood and the Search for Origins (Basingstoke, 2010). The quotation is from Judith Pollmann and Erika Kuijpers, “Introduction. On the Early Modernity of Modern Memory,” in Memory before Modernity, ed. Kuijpers et al., 6. On the early modern sense of the past see, e.g., Peter Burke, The Renaissance Sense of the Past (London, 1969); Anthony Grafton, What was History? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, etc., 2007); Zachary Sayre Schiffman, The Birth of the Past (Baltimore, 2011); Kuijpers et al., eds., Memory before Moderrnity; Jacques Bos, “Historical Thought from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment,” De Achttiende Eeuw 46 (2014): 27–49.

Introduction

9

which Reinhart Koselleck has named the Sattelzeit.27 The early modern sense of the past was thus characterized by a considerable degree of ambivalence. On the one hand, it remained firmly wedded to the conviction that past and present were sufficiently similar for history to remain magister vitae. On the other hand, it permitted and stimulated critical and creative reflection on the differences between the past and the present, as was particularly evident in the extensive early modern debates on the respective merits of the ancients and the moderns.28 This same fruitful tension between historical similarity and historical distance was present in early modern republican writings about the republics of the ancient world. Although evidently falling short of the standards of modern historical scholarship, these writings should nonetheless not be regarded as little more than an exercise in political mythology.29 They were serious attempts to come to grips with the oldest available examples of republican government. Among these, the Greek poleis and the Roman Republic held pride of place.30 In recent years, however, scholars have discovered that early modern republican writers also attached considerable importance to the example of the biblical Jewish Commonwealth or Hebrew Republic.31 Thirdly and finally, there was the ancient republican past of the early modern republics 27

28

29

30

31

On the fundamental changes the Sattelzeit is widely held to have brought about in ­ istorical thought see Reinhart Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlih cher Zeiten (Frankfurt, 1979); François Hartog, Régimes d’historicité. Présentisme et experiences du temps (Paris, 2004); Peter Fritzsche, Stranded in the Present. Modern Time and the Melancholy of History (Cambridge, ma and London, 2004). Hans Baron, “The Querelle of the Ancients and the Moderns as a Problem for Renaissance Scholarship,” Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959): 3–22; Larry F. Norman, The Shock of the Ancient. Literature and History in Early Modern France (Chicago and London, 2011). For the application of the notion of “myth” to the early modern period see C.A. Tamse, “The Political Myth,” in Britain and the Netherlands, volume v: Some Political Mythologies. Papers delivered to the Fifth Anglo-Dutch Historical Conference, ed. J.S. Bromley and E.H. Kossmann (The Hague, 1975), 1–18; Peter G. Bietenholz, Historia and Fabula. Myths and Legends in Historical Thought from Antiquity to the Modern Age (Leiden, etc., 1994); Laura Cruz and Willem Frijhoff, eds., Myth in History, History in Myth (Leiden and Boston, 2009). For general discussions of the role of the Greek and Roman republics in early modern thought see Elizabeth Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford, 1969); Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, Athens on Trial. The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton, 1994); Fergus Millar, The Roman Republic in Political Thought (Hanover and London, 2002). Lea Campos Boralevi, “Classical Foundational Myths of European Republicanism: The Jewish Commonwealth,” in Republicanism, ed. Van Gelderen and Skinner, 1:247–261; Gordon Schochet, Fania Oz-Salzberger and Meirav Jones, eds., Political Hebraism. Judaic Sources in Early Modern Political Thought (Jerusalem and New York, 2008); Eric Nelson,

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themselves that was to be considered, usually with the writings of the Roman historians in an intermediary role.32 Often, one and the same author was active in all three of these areas. Thus the famous seventeenth-century Dutch legal scholar and humanist Hugo Grotius adduced the Hebrew Republic as a model in his De republica emendanda (1601), wrote a lengthy comparison between the Dutch Republic and ancient Greece and Rome in his Parallelon rerumpublicarum (1602), and provided the young Dutch Republic with an ancient native republican past in his De antiquitate Reipublicae Batavicae (1610).33 This comparative approach to republican politics arose in a culture of ­humanist scholarship that attached great importance to the use of exempla. Rhetorical teaching and practice in schools, universities, courtrooms and ­congregations throughout Europe emphasised the usefulness and potency of making a case by referring to an illustrative example from a distant world.34 The notion of resemblances and analogies dominated the intellectual and political mind-set: while the medieval tradition of the mirror for princes genre never truly waned, new modes of thinking about politics came to flourish from the early sixteenth century onwards by playing upon the same tension between reality and representation. Thomas More’s Utopia and Andrea Alciato’s Emblematum liber set the tone for a pan-European fashion of enticing the reader’s imagination through contrasting images of exemplary realms elsewhere.35 ­Antiquarian scholars unearthed, collected and analysed inscriptions, coins and fragments to confront the present with the material culture of ancient pasts.36 The early modern age was in many ways an emblematic age:

32 33 34

35

36

The Hebrew Republic. Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Cambridge, ma and London, 2010). Orest Ranum, ed. National Consciousness, History, and Political Culture in Early-Modern Europe (Baltimore and London, 1975). Henk Nellen, Hugo de Groot. Een leven in strijd om de vrede 1583–1645 (Amsterdam, 2007). Peter Mack, A History of Renaissance Rhetoric, 1380–1620 (Oxford, 2011); Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine, From Humanism to the Humanities. Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Europe (London, 1986); Ann Moss, Printed CommonplaceBooks and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought (Oxford, 1996). See e.g. Hans-Otto Mühleisen and Theo Stammen, eds., Politische Tugendlehre und Regierungskunst. Studien zum Fürstenspiegel der frühen Neuzeit (Tübingen, 1990); Terence Cave, ed., Thomas More’s Utopia in Early Modern Europe. Paratexts and Contexts (Manchester, 2012) and Karl A.E. Enenkel and Arnoud S.Q. Visser, eds., Mundus Emblematicus. Studies in Neo-Latin Emblem Books (Turnhout, 2003). William Stenhouse, Reading Inscriptions and Writing Ancient History: Historical Scholarship in the Late Renaissance (London, 2005); Peter N. Miller, “The Antiquary’s Art of ­Comparison: Peiresc and Abraxas,” Philologie und Erkenntnis. Beiträge zu Begriff und Problem frühneuzeitlicher “Philologie,” ed. Ralph Häfner (Tübingen, 2001), 57–94.

Introduction

11

k­ nowledge was shaped and organized by establishing parallels, which could be easily illustrated through resonant commonplaces, adages, and maxims— mainly taken from the most obvious and inexhaustible source available: the classical corpus of Greek and Latin literature. Some of the most widely read authors within this corpus can be characterised as republican commentators, who offered their early modern audience insiders’ insight into the development and demise of classical republics. ­Aristotle and Cicero held pride of place as timeless interpreters of the manifold workings of political society, while historians such as Livy and Sallust provided widely popular narratives of the origins, ascendancy and eventual collapse of the Roman Republic.37 It is no coincidence that Machiavelli’s Discorsi, since Pocock’s groundbreaking analysis commonly regarded as the foundational text of early modern republicanism, was framed as a commentary on Livy’s history of early Rome. Moreover, Machiavelli expressly juxtaposed the Roman model to that of other ancient republics, mirroring Romulus with his fellow lawmakers Solon and Lycurgus in Athens and Sparta, as well as with Moses in the ­Hebrew Republic.38 Such comparisons were further elaborated throughout the sixteenth century, for example in the work of the late Renaissance scholar Carlo Sigonio. Apart from his wide-ranging treatises on the history of ancient Rome, in which he made a clear caesura between Republic and Principate by deliberately ­finishing his narrative with Caesar and Augustus, Sigonio also published a work on Athens, De republica Atheniensum in 1564, followed by De republica Hebraeorum in 1582.39 The increasing use of Hebraic sources and the gradual rediscovery of Greek authors, such as Polybius and Plutarch, enriched the scholarly confrontation with the ancient past, as did the rising popularity of Tacitus, especially after the seminal editions of his writings by Justus Lipsius. By 1600, the comparative approach to ancient states had become an outright fashion, as exemplified by Lipsius’ own project of writing a series of treatises on the polities of the ancient world (of which only his work on Rome was f­ inished before his death), or by Jean Bodin’s analysis of contemporary politics through 37 38

39

Cf. Peter Burke, “A Survey of the Popularity of Ancient Historians, 1450–1700,” History and Theory 5.2 (1966): 135–152. See e.g. Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders. A Study of the Discourses on Livy (Chicago and London, 1979) and John H. Geerken, “Machiavelli’s Moses and Renaissance Politics,” Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999): 579–595. William McCuaig, Carlo Sigonio. The Changing World of the Late Renaissance (Princeton, 1989); Guido Bartolucci, La repubblica ebraica di Carlo Sigonio. Modelli politici dell’età moderna (Florence, 2007).

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the lens of classical examples.40 The cases of Lipsius, defender of the Habsburg monarchy, and Bodin, advocate of absolutist rule, serve as a clear warning not to equate the early modern interest in ancient forms of government with republican ideology. But it is also important to acknowledge that even overtly non-republican classical authors, such as Caesar and Tacitus, could be used as republican source material to reveal the debauchery of single rule or to prove the existence of a venerable native republican past, as was the case in, for example, Venice, the Swiss Confederation, and the Dutch Republic. In the seventeenth century, the comparative approach to republican models arguably reached a climax in the series of “Republics,” small and cheap political treatises published by the famous publishing house of Elzevier in Leiden in the course of the 1620s–1640s. This series contained descriptive surveys of various countries and states from antiquity onwards, including a compilation of works entitled Respublica romana, Ubbo Emmius’ Graecorum respublicae, Petrus Cunaeus’ De republica Hebraeorum, as well as authoritative republican interpretations of the history of Venice by Gasparo Contarini and Donato Giannoti, and descriptions of the Helvetiorum respublica and of the Dutch Republic. The “Elzevier Republics” proved to be immensely popular and were widely read throughout Europe, offering generations of readers a handily comprehensive overview of ancient and modern politics.41 Even when their impact waned later in the century, the tradition of comparing the ancients and the moderns continued, perhaps even increased. Rekindled by the Querelle des anciens et des modernes, the classical framing of cultural and political developments obtained new intensity during the Enlightenment, a quintessentially classicising age.42 Eighteenth-century critics of autocracy from François Fénelon to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the abbé de Mably based their analyses of modern 40

41

42

Gerhard Oestreich, Antiker Geist und moderner Staat bei Justus Lipsius (1547–1606). Der Neustoizismus als politische Bewegung, ed. Nicolette Mout (Göttingen, 1989); Marc Laureys, “‘The Grandeur That Was Rome’: Scholarly Analysis and Pious Awe in Lipsius’s Admiranda,” in Recreating Ancient History. Episodes from the Greek and Roman Past in the Arts and Literature of the Early Modern Period, ed. Karl Enenkel et al. (Leiden, 2001), 123–146; Julian H. Franklin, Jean Bodin and the Rise of Absolutist Theory (Cambridge, 1973); A.M. ­Lazzarino del Grosso, “La Respublica Hebraeorum come modello politico ‘scientifico’ nella Methodus di Jean Bodin,” Il pensiero politico 35 (2002): 382–398. Vittorio Conti, Consociatio Civitatum. Le Repubbliche nei testi elzeviriani (1625–1649) (­Florence, 1997); J.A. Gruys, “De reeks ‘republieken’ van de Elzeviers en Johannes de Laet,” in Boekverkopers van Europa. Het 17de-eeuwse Nederlandse uitgevershuis Elzevier, ed. B.P.M. Dongelmans et al. (Zutphen, 2000), 77–114. Dan Edelstein, “The Classical Turn in Enlightenment Studies,” Modern Intellectual History 9 (2012): 61–71.

Introduction

13

politics and morals on a continuous confrontation with the classics.43 Athens, Sparta, Rome and also Carthage still provided the principal measuring rods against which the contemporary world could be evaluated and criticised,44 even when calls for revolution set the European ancien régime ablaze towards the end of the eighteenth century.45 Eventually, the classics also crossed the Atlantic, when Rome was reborn on Western shores with the creation of the United States of America.46 Ancient models thus proved to be a lasting inspiration for the early modern republican imagination.

Approach and Content

This volume surveys these processes of inspiration and imagination from a broad and inclusive perspective. In the existing scholarship on the role of ancient models in early modern political thought, two general approaches can be discerned. The first approach considers models mainly in institutional terms, as concrete examples from the past that could be copied directly or that could serve as means of identification. This institutional focus highlights the role and impact of constitutional structures and legislative models, such as the ancient template of the mixed regime, specific forms and elements of government such as ephors, tribunes and assemblies, or the models offered by 43 44

45

46

Chantal Grell, Le Dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquité en France 1680–1789, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1995). Philip Ayres, Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England (­Cambridge, 1997); Doohwan Ahn, “From ‘Jealous Emulation’ to ‘Cautious Politics’: British Foreign Policy and Public Discourse in the Mirror of Ancient Athens (ca.1730–ca.1750),” in Ideology and Foreign Policy in Early Modern Europe (1650–1750), ed. David Onnekink and Gijs Rommelse (Farnham, 2011), 93–130; Stephen Hodkinson and Ian Macgregor Morris, eds., Sparta in Modern Thought. Politics, History and Culture (Swansea, 2012); Christopher Brooke, “Eighteenth-Century Carthage,” in Commerce and Perpetual Peace, ed. Béla ­Kapossy, Isaac Nakhimovsky, and Richard Whatmore (Cambridge, forthcoming). Claude Mossé, L’Antiquité dans la Révolution française (Paris, 1989); see also Catrien ­Santing, ed., Atti del convegno internazionale “Repubbliche sorelle,” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome, vol. 57 (Assen, 2002) and Joris Oddens, Mart Rutjes and Eric Jacobs, eds., The Political Culture of the Sister Republics, 1794–1806. France, The ­Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy (Amsterdam, 2015). Eran Shalev, Rome Reborn on Western Shores. Historical Imagination and the Creation of the American Republic (Charlottesville and London, 2009); Carl J. Richard, The Founders and the Classics. Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1994); M.N.S. Sellers, American Republicanism. Roman Ideology in the United States Constitution (Houndmills and London, 1994).

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individual ancient lawgivers such as Solon and Lycurgus. Particularly strong in Italian and German historiography, this approach generally seeks to link the history of ideas with the social history of doctrinal structures.47 The second approach takes a more abstract view on models, identifying conceptual systems that engender discursive traditions and specific political categories such as virtue, justice and liberty. This, indeed, is the approach that can be associated with Pocock’s Machiavellian Moment, as well as with his recent series on narratives of barbarism and Roman decline and fall, or for example with Eric Nelson’s The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought.48 The aim of the present volume is to bridge the gap between these two approaches, flexibly combining a focus on concrete institutional models from antiquity with a discussion of genealogical models in conceptual terms. This means that the chapters in this volume ecumenically switch between different forms of ancient models, from Roman constitutionalism to Brutus as exemplary freedom fighter, from the confederate and jurisdictional models of the Achaean League and the Hebrew Republic to the notion of Athens as a paradigm of politeness, and of Sparta as a utopian society. Moreover, the volume also underlines the negative role that these models could play as anti-models, taking seriously various early modern condemnations of ancient republican practices, such as Rome’s imperialism, Athens’ popular government, and the theocracy of the Hebrew Republic. The inclusivity of this approach is further strengthened by a broad use of sources. Apart from the scholarly treatises and the canonical works from Machiavelli to James Madison that are commonly central in the study of early modern intellectual history, the volume also, if not especially, discusses less familiar sources: minor, secondary authors, anonymous reports, pamphlets and newspaper articles, academic disputations and theatre plays, as well as images and paintings. Likewise, the volume has a wide geographical range, moving decisively beyond the still dominant focus on Renaissance Italy and the Anglophone Atlantic. It connects various local republican traditions and developments, from Florence and Venice to Switzerland, the Dutch Republic and the United States of America, establishing parallels with the monarchical contexts of papal Rome, Habsburg Spain, France, England, Denmark and 47

48

See esp. Vittor Ivo Comparato, Modelli nella storia del pensiero politico (Florence, 1987) and Magistrature repubblicane, modelli nella storia del pensiero politico, Il Pensiero Politico, vol. 40 (Florence, 2008). Cf. as well Wilfried Nippel, Mischverfassungstheorie und Verfassungsrealität in Antike und früher Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 1980); Idem, Antike oder moderne Freiheit? Die Begründung der Demokratie in Athen und in der Neuzeit (Frankfurt, 2008). John G. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 6 vols. (Cambridge, 1999–2015); Eric Nelson, The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought (Cambridge, 2004).

Introduction

15

Poland-Lithuania. Thus, the volume continues and deepens the transnational approach that in recent years has enriched the study of early modern republicanism, especially in English historiography.49 The Dutch Republic, arguably the most powerful republican polity in early modern Europe, stands at the centre of the volume, as a crossroads of republican beliefs and illusions triggered by the lure of antiquity. The considerable variety within that republican imagination is underscored by the manifold ways in which ancient republican models were used to create, justify and criticise various political and moral constellations throughout the early modern age, for example in defence of constitutional mixed government and confederate collaboration, of political freedom and social (in)equality, of commercial expansion, urban civility and religious toleration. The volume kicks off with a historiographical and conceptual reflection on the early modern sense of the past. Critically reviewing the notion of historicism and the peculiarities of Renaissance historical thought, Jacques Bos examines the role of ancient Rome in the work of the three most prominent historians of the Florentine Renaissance: Bruni, Machiavelli, and Guicciardini. His discussion shows how a historicist understanding of the past as different from the present gradually developed over the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, but also that this understanding remained contested and cannot be easily categorised. The Renaissance sense of the past was ambiguous in embracing both historical sameness and diversity, an ambiguity that remained in vogue throughout the early modern period. In the second chapter, Benjamin Straumann more directly takes issue with the dominant views on the model of ancient Rome in Renaissance republicanism. While Bruni, Machiavelli and Guicciardini also figure prominently in the work of Baron, Pocock and Skinner as key transmitters of the republican languages of virtue and “neo-Roman” liberty, Straumann shifts the attention to a different Renaissance understanding of Rome as primarily a constitutional order. This understanding, originating in Cicero and still present in Pomponius’ interpretation of the lex regia, resurfaced prominently in the early fourteenth century with Ptolemy of Lucca, and was further elaborated in early sixteenth century Rome by Mario Salamonio. A contemporary of Machiavelli, Salamonio assessed ancient Roman history for its constitutional and contractual significance, developing a republican interpretation wholly different from Machiavelli’s. The dominance of the “­Machiavellian tradition” is further challenged in Chapter 3, which moves 49

See Rachel Hammersley, The English Republican Tradition and Eighteenth-Century France: Between the Ancients and the Moderns (Manchester, 2010); Gaby Mahlberg and Dirk ­Wiemann, eds., European Contexts for English Republicanism (Farnham, 2013).

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the focus from Florence and Rome to Venice and the Dutch Republic. Arthur Weststeijn shows how these two most successful and longstanding early modern republics discarded the example of ancient Rome because of its failure to combine liberty with empire. Focusing especially on Paolo Paruta and Trajano Boccalini in Venice and on Grotius’ Parallelon rerumpublicarum in the Dutch Republic, Weststeijn argues that around 1600, an anti-Roman republican t­ radition came into being that significantly prioritised social concord and commerce over military virtue and expansion. Ancient Rome generally dominates the scholarship on the early modern classical tradition, although even in the case of the Roman Republic, most attention is commonly paid to its cultural and political uses from 1800 onwards.50 The Greek poleis of antiquity, however, have fared far worse, remaining largely absent within the existing historiography on early modern republicanism.51 It is one of the principle purposes of this volume to redress this deficit and to highlight the importance of ancient Greek models in the early modern ­republican imagination. William Stenhouse, in the fourth chapter, breaks new ground with an extensive survey of the rising scholarly interest in the classical Greek past during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. His analysis unearths a widespread tradition of Greek history writing throughout ­Europe, from Guillaume Postel in France to Carlo Sigonio in Bologna, Johannes ­Meursius and Ubbo Emmius in the Dutch Republic, Nicolaus Cragius in Denmark and the pupils of Bartholomaeus Keckermann in Gdansk. The variety of their work, with specific attention for Athens and Sparta, opened up many possibilities of comparing past and present, often with highly specific political motivations. This becomes clear from the next chapter by Jaap Nieuwstraten, which zooms in on a very concrete example of such politicised uses of Greek antiquity: the Achaean League as a confederate model in seventeenth-century Dutch political debate. Surveying the work of two Dutch academics, Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn and Martinus Schoock, Nieuwstraten shows how early modern commentators creatively mined the arsenal of classical republican history to make sense of their times and to forward highly topical arguments. When the city-states of Rome, Athens or Sparta did not handily fit that purpose, another model such as the Achaean League could be effectively mobilised instead. 50

51

See e.g. the special issue The Legacy of the Republican Roman Senate, Classical Receptions Journal 7.1 (2015), which jumps from late antiquity directly to the late eighteenth century. A good discussion of the seventeenth century is Freya Cox Jensen, Reading the Roman Republic in Early Modern England (Leiden, 2012). For a recent exception, see the special issue The Legacy of Greek Political Thought, C ­ lassical Receptions Journal 8.1 (2016), especially Rachel Foxley, “Sparta and the English Republic,” 54–70.

Introduction

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Athens nonetheless remained the most celebrated ancient Greek state, and its history was equally open to many and diverse readings and interpretations. In Chapter 6, Christine Zabel analyses the appropriations of Athens in England, where the idea that Athens was a failed republic because of its constitutional defects, a widespread view among English republicans in the mid seventeenth century, gradually made place for a much more positive depiction of Athens as a cultural and educational model of politeness, civility, and learning. Originating in France with the moralist Jean de la Bruyère, this interpretation of Athens was particularly brought forward in the early eighteenth century by the Whig theorist Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury. For Shaftesbury, liberty and politeness were mutually reinforcing, for refined conversation can only flourish in a free political debate. Athens was the timeless model of such urban refinement and freedom. The other most celebrated Greek polis, Sparta, enjoyed an altogether different reputation. Wessel Krul explores in Chapter 7 how the idea of Sparta as a highly disciplined but also brutal republic was developed and transformed in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic and eighteenth-century France, especially in painting. Following Dutch politicised depictions of Lycurgus, imagery of Spartan examples during the French Enlightenment attested how Sparta was increasingly considered as a model for contemporary society from the 1760s onwards. The ambiguities of that model were best captured in the work of Jean Pierre Saint-Ours, on show in the first revolutionary Salon in Paris in 1791, where Saint-Ours followed Rousseau in idealising ancient morality while also embracing a sentimentalist notion of brotherhood and sympathy. In the same revolutionary years, the classical past continued to be of paramount importance in the political debate in the Dutch Republic as well, as is shown by Wyger Velema in Chapter 8. Not only reformers and revolutionaries but also conservative critics of popular participation in politics used the ancients for making their case, especially by referring to the disastrous example of democratic Athens. The newspaper editor Johan Luzac, his cousin Elie Luzac and the patrician Johan Meerman concurred in discerning the dangerous features of revolutionary modernity in the fateful mirror of ancient Athens. Meerman did so in his comments on the edition of Grotius’ Parallelon rerumpublicarum that he published between 1801 and 1803; this particular text thus connects various republican readings of Rome and Athens between the very start and the ultimate demise of the Dutch Republic in the early modern age. While the Roman Republic and Greek poleis such as Athens and Sparta proved to be of primarily political and moral significance throughout the ­sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the example of the Hebrew Republic was specifically pertinent to the pressing issue of the relationship between church and state. In Chapter 9, Guido Bartolucci argues that this

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­particular use of the Hebrew model already originated in antiquarian studies from the second half of the sixteenth century, especially in the work of Corneille Bertram, Carlo Sigonio and Benedict Arias Montano. They employed Mosaic Law and the example of Joshua to reveal the source of political power and to assess the jurisdiction over ecclesiastical affairs, indirectly intervening in the political debates concerning the status of the Reformed Church in Geneva, the limits of papal authority in Italy, and the conflict with the papacy in Habsburg Spain. This did not necessarily imply a distinctively republican position, but the on-going significance of this kind of argumentation for a specific republican context is shown in the next chapter by René Koekkoek. In the third quarter of the seventeenth century, the Hebrew Republic continued to inform the heated debate on the relationship between state and church in the Dutch Republic. As Koekkoek shows, while orthodox Calvinists championed the notion of a Dutch Israel, republican radicals such as Johan and Pieter de la Court, Lambertus van Velthuysen and Adriaen Koerbagh used the Hebrew model for claiming civil sovereignty over the church. Especially in the political ­philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, moreover, this stance merged with an outright rejection of Hebrew theocracy as an anti-model of intolerance. Both the analysis of Bartolucci and that of Koekkoek significantly challenge recent scholarship on the role of the Hebrew Republic in early modern political thought. The last three chapters of the volume are devoted to the use of ancient models in three specific national contexts. In Chapter 11, Thomas Maissen ­analyses how the classical past awakened a republican consciousness in the Swiss Confederation from the late fifteenth century onwards. Humanist scholarship engendered the invention of an ethnic Helvetian identity, based on classical sources, and ensuing claims for the territorial integrity of the ­Confederation, for example in the work of the sixteenth-century historian Aegidius Tschudi. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Roman ­models, ­especially ­Lucius Iunius Brutus, continued to be appropriated as a parallel to the republican character of the Swiss. In the theatre plays of Johann Jacob Bodmer, this cult of Brutus culminated in Enlightened notions of natural equality and popular sovereignty, paving the way for the creation of a democratic Swiss n ­ ation-state. Chapter 12 shifts the focus to the PolishLithuanian ­Commonwealth. Tomasz Gromelski reviews a range of sources to show the lasting impact of classical antiquity on noble culture and humanist education throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth century, resulting in classical ­notions of liberty and virtue, but also of serfdom and civic inequality. I­ nstitutionally, the ­Commonwealth was often considered a perfect mixed government, to be compared to the ancient models of Sparta, Athens and Rome, but also to modern Venice. The extent to which such diverse historical

Introduction

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examples could be used together in the creation of an entirely new state, is shown effectively in the last chapter of the volume by Eran Shalev. Challenging the view that America was a nation born modern, Shalev shows the extensive employment of ancient history in the making of the United States. An idealised notion of Anglo-Saxon liberty, cherished by American colonists, turned after Independence into an intense identification with the Roman Republic, especially during the constitutional debates of the 1780s, when Roman characters dominated the New York newspapers. The most enduring model, however, was the Hebrew Republic, which not only provided biblical parallels of a chosen people and a promised land, but also a federal blueprint for the United States. Taking the example of Enoch Wines’ 1853 study on the Mosaic constitution, Shalev concludes the volume with revealing the lasting impact exercised by ­ancient models on the republican imagination deep into the nineteenth century. Collectively, the chapters in this volume revive and concretise the debate on “classical republicanism” in a transnational perspective, revealing the extent to which ancient models were not only perceived to be of moral significance, in terms of virtue and liberty, but were also considered to teach important constitutional lessons. While the moral aspects and arguments of early modern republicanism have taken centre stage in the recent historiography, the focus can now be adjusted to include also the constitutional dimension, and to reach a more balanced and more comprehensive analysis of the continuous republican use of ancient models throughout the early modern period. From the early Renaissance to the Age of Revolution, appropriations of the ancient past loomed large over political debates and processes of republican identification, in terms of imitation and emulation as well as condemnation. Certainly, not everyone was happy with this on-going obsession with the classics. As the Dutch publicist Elie Luzac complained in his commentary on Montesquieu from 1763, “people keep referring to the classical republics as examples without realising that they have nothing whatsoever in common, except their name.”52 This volume shows that in this aspect at least, Luzac was wrong: the republican models of antiquity, no matter how much they differed from each other and no matter in how many different ways they were appropriated, proved to be of enduring significance precisely because they shared a venerated history and a classical status as ancient republics.

52 Montesquieu, De L’Esprit des Loix. Nouvelle Edition. Avec des Remarques Philosophiques et Politiques d’un Anonyme [Elie Luzac], etc., 4 vols. (Amsterdam and Leipzig, 1763), 4:187. See Chapter 8 by Wyger Velema.

chapter 1

Renaissance Historicism and the Model of Rome in Florentine Historiography Jacques Bos Ancient Rome was a central point of reference for historians in Renaissance Italy. They commonly traced the origins of their cities to Roman times, and used comparisons with Roman history to make sense of events in later periods. In Renaissance historical writing Rome was, in other words, both a temporal point of departure and a mirror or model. The use of the Roman past as a model had both a conceptual and a practical dimension: it provided historical parallels to describe and understand what happened in other periods than ­Roman antiquity, and it provided exemplary cases of morality and prudence (or immorality and imprudence). In our modern eyes, these two dimensions seem to be clearly distinct, but it should be noted that to Renaissance historians the difference was probably not that clear-cut. The use of the Roman model in Renaissance historiography is inextricably linked with the broader issue of the nature of the Renaissance perspective on the past. Some authors have argued that the Renaissance was the first era that knew a form of historicism, a sense that the past was different from the present and that past events should be interpreted in terms of the context in which they occurred. The emergence of a marked sense of anachronism in humanist philology is often regarded as an important indication of the development of a historicist view of the past in the Renaissance, as is the deep contrast that ­Renaissance authors tended to see between their own time and the Middle Ages. Other authors, however, point out that the Renaissance sense of history was essentially cyclical, based on the assumption that the ancient past could somehow return in the present. At first sight, the ubiquitous use of the Roman past as a model in historiography seems to be at odds with the thesis of an emerging Renaissance historicism. If Roman history is to function as an interpretative scheme for the description of later historical periods or a moral ­paradigm for the present, a basic similarity between these periods and the ­Roman past must be presumed. Any substantial form of historicism, however, would call into question the possibility of this kind of correspondence between different historical eras.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_003

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This, in a nutshell, is the problem to be discussed in this first chapter. The Roman past is an omnipresent model in Renaissance historiography, but what does that tell us about the Renaissance perspective on the past? Can we still speak of the emergence of a form of historicism in the Renaissance, or is that precluded by the intertemporal similarities presupposed in the application of the Roman model to other periods? As a first step in dealing with these questions I shall give an overview of the debate on Renaissance historicism. The second half of this chapter turns to the work of three well-known Florentine historians, Leonardo Bruni, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini. Each of them has strong views on the use of the Roman model in historical writing, and each of them has been connected with the rise of Renaissance historicism, although definitely not unequivocally. Needless to say, many more authors could be analysed in connection with the problem discussed in this chapter. It is not my intention, however, to construct a detailed genealogy of the relation to the Roman past in Florentine historiography. The aim of this opening chapter is to explore what is conceptually involved in the use of the Roman model in the Renaissance by probing into the work of three authors who are almost universally regarded as important innovators of historical ­writing. It is often assumed that the historiographical innovations of Bruni, Machiavelli and Guicciardini entail a fundamentally new, historicist perspective on the past, but this presupposition warrants a critical analysis.

The Concept of Historicism

The term “historicism” is primarily used to denote a form of historical consciousness and a practice of historical writing that surfaced around 1800, ­especially in Germany, and that still dominates our present-day thinking about history. Yet, it is not unusual to apply this term to other periods as well, and the Renaissance is one of the most notable of these periods—or perhaps even the single era most commonly associated with the rise of historicism apart from the early nineteenth century. Of course, it might be argued that it is i­ nherently problematic to apply the essentially nineteenth-century concept of historicism to the Renaissance. Yet, using the term “historicism” as an analytical tool could also deepen our understanding of the Renaissance approach to the past, provided we do not anachronistically interpret the Renaissance sense of the past as some kind of prefiguration of modes of historical consciousness ­originating in the nineteenth century.

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Before turning to the scholarly discussion on the problem of Renaissance historicism I shall give a brief overview of the way the term “historicism” is used in connection with more modern forms of historical writing and historical consciousness. This excursion into the more recent past will be helpful in order to avoid anachronistic interpretations of the Renaissance sense of ­history and to make implicit comparisons more explicit. That a modern form of historicism came into being around 1800 is an almost universally accepted claim. What that kind of historicism exactly involves, however, is a matter of dispute. A diverse range of meanings is attributed to the term “historicism,”1 and there exist significant differences of opinion about which of these meanings are more or less central. Some authors, for instance, regard the form of historicism that arose in the nineteenth century primarily as a scientific paradigm in academic historiography, and focus on epistemological ideals and research methods.2 Others, however, do not see modern historicism as a phenomenon limited to the realm of professional historical writing, but as a worldview that has had a profound influence on modern culture as a whole.3 Despite the variety of perspectives from which modern historicism has been studied, it is not impossible to point out a common ground in its different manifestations. That common ground—which I would like to call the ontological core of historicism—is the idea that the world is quintessentially historical. This means in the first place that various periods in history are supposed to be fundamentally different, and that past events, actions and thoughts are regarded as products of specific historical circumstances. It also means that entities in the sociohistorical world, such as nations or states, do not have unchanging, timeless essences, but develop over time.4 This development over time can be conceptualised in various ways. One possible perspective on the fluctuating nature of the socio-historical world is a form of nominalism. According to this nominalist view, there are no lasting 1 Georg G. Iggers, “Historicism: The History and Meaning of the Term,” Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995): 129–152. 2 Jörn Rüsen, Konfigurationen des Historismus (Frankfurt am Main, 1993); Horst Walter ­Blanke, Historiographiegeschichte als Historik (Stuttgart, 1991); Friedrich Jaeger and Jörn Rüsen, ­Geschichte des Historismus: Eine Einführung (Munich, 1992). 3 Karl Mannheim, “Historismus,” Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik 52 (1924): 1–60; Daniel Fulda, “Historicism as a Cultural Pattern: Practising a Mode of Thought,” Journal of the Philosophy of History 4 (2010): 138–153. 4 Frederick C. Beiser, The German Historicist Tradition (Oxford, 2011), 2. This view on the philosophical underpinning of historicism can already be found in the foundational text of the present-day academic analysis of historicism, Friedrich Meinecke, Die Entstehung des H ­ istorismus (Munich, 1936).

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beings in the socio-historical world apart from individual people and physical objects; when we speak of, for instance, the role of nations or states in the historical process, we simply use a name or a label to organise certain arrays of events, without assuming that there exist historical entities that remain essentially identical over a wider span of time.5 An alternative historicist ontology is the view that the historical process is shaped by various kinds of individualities. Human beings belong to this category of historical individualities, but in this perspective there also exist higher-order individualities such as nations and states. In nineteenth-century German historicism, this is unmistakably the prevailing ontology. The development of higher-order individualities in the socio-historical world is usually regarded as an organic process, comparable to the growth and decay of plants and animals. This makes it possible to conceive of historical change while maintaining a strong sense of unity and coherence in history. It also enables nineteenth-century historians and philosophers to address the relation between lower-order and higher-order individualities. This relation is described in organic terms as well: individual people are ­regarded as distinct entities that are nevertheless inseparably connected with larger socio-cultural groups, in a similar way as leaves are connected to trees. Very characteristic of the nineteenth century is the conflation of an organic conception of socio-historical individualities with an idealistic philosophical stance: many authors regard the historical development of entities such as ­nations and states as expressions of underlying ideas, which are supposed to be the most fundamental elements of socio-historical reality.6 Besides an ontological core modern historicism also has an epistemological core. Perhaps not surprisingly, this epistemological core is closely related to—if not entailed by—the basic assumptions of the historicist ontology. Since past actions and thoughts are products of their historical context, they should also be understood in terms of that context. At the epistemological heart of historicism is the demand for contextualisation and the avoidance of ­anachronistic descriptions and explanations. In the nineteenth century these fundamental epistemological beliefs were elaborated into two potentially conflicting views on the nature of historiography. The first view assumes that scientific objectivity can function as a guarantee against anachronistic distortions of the past. This is what Ranke expresses in his famous dictum that historians should ­describe the past wie es eigentlich gewesen. Historians claim a scientific 5 Beiser, German Historicist Tradition, 5–6. 6 Jacques Bos, “Individuality and Interpretation in Nineteenth-Century German Historicism,” in Historical Perspectives on Erklären and Verstehen, ed. Uljana Feest (Dordrecht, 2010), 207–220.

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­status for their discipline by characterising it as strictly empirical and objective; in this respect there is supposed to be no difference between history and the natural sciences.7 The second strand in historicist epistemology regards history not as an empirical but as an interpretative discipline. Its proponents conclude from the distinctness of the past that acquiring historical knowledge is not just a matter of accumulating empirical data, but involves a more complex bridging of the gap between past and present. Likewise, the ontology of individuality can lead to the epistemological conclusion that unique historical individualities cannot be fully understood by empirical research. Thus, writing history necessarily comes to involve interpretation (the programmatic German term for this form of historical understanding is Verstehen). On this view, history and other disciplines in the humanities may claim a status as scientific fields, but their interpretative method of producing knowledge is regarded as fundamentally different from the empirical method of the natural sciences.8

The Debate on Renaissance Historicism

The question whether the Renaissance knew some form of historicism has been answered in radically diverging ways. The difference of scholarly opinion on this subject fits into a broader lack of consensus about the nature and the significance of Renaissance historiography.9 Furthermore, the assessment of Renaissance historical thought often involves more wide-ranging claims about the modernity—or lack of modernity—of the Renaissance. Supporters of the thesis that the Renaissance discovered historicism usually regard this as an important sign of the breakthrough of a more modern mode of thinking, while those opposing this thesis tend to have reservations about the modernity of the Renaissance. The great variety of perspectives on the problem of Renaissance historicism is not only a matter of divergent interpretations of Renaissance thought, but also reveals conflicting notions of what historicism exactly involves. As a starting point for my analysis of Renaissance historical consciousness I shall give a concise overview of the most important scholarly positions regarding this subject, and try to point out how these positions relate to the conceptual model of historicism sketched above. 7 Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical P­ rofession (Cambridge, 1988). 8 Viktor Lau, Erzählen und Verstehen: Historische Perspektiven der Hermeneutik (Würzburg, 1999). 9 Eric Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago, 1981), xi-xiii.

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According to a rather widespread interpretation, Renaissance h ­ istorical thought should be seen as a direct precursor of nineteenth-century historicism, or even as a perspective on the past that is historicist to all intents and purposes. Peter Burke regards the Renaissance approach to the past and nineteenth-century historicism as essentially similar, describing the latter as “curiously like” the first, and as “a continuation and intensification” of the ­Renaissance discovery of the past.10 In Burke’s analysis of the Renaissance sense of history we find all the key features of nineteenth-century historicism, conjoined in a seemingly self-evident way. According to Burke, Renaissance historians treated the past as fundamentally different from the present, avoided anachronistic interpretations, used critical research methods, and were interested in contextualist explanations, relating events to, for instance, the spirit of the age. Comparable conclusions are drawn by Donald Kelley and George Huppert in their studies of sixteenth-century French humanism. Kelley argues that the use of philological methods in the historical study of Roman and feudal law brought about a sense of historical relativity comparable to that of the nineteenth century. In his opinion, “historicism must be traced to the ­humanists of the Renaissance.”11 Huppert’s thesis is very similar. In sixteenth-century French historiography he observes the emergence of a “historical-mindedness” that he explicitly equates with historicism. The root of this early modern form of historicism was the application of critical research methods to the study of h ­ istory. As a consequence of this epistemological reorientation, the o­ ntological assumption that past and present were fundamentally different took hold, a sense of historical relativism appeared, and Huppert even observes the rise of an individualising and developmental perspective on the past.12 The view that modern historicism emerged in the Renaissance is certainly not universally shared. Most students of nineteenth-century historicism tend to regard the period around 1800 as a crucial shift in thinking about the past, rooted in certain strands of eighteenth-century thought, but fundamentally different from older approaches to the past.13 Reinhart Koselleck argues that early modern Europeans still believed that they could draw lessons from the 10 11 12 13

Peter Burke, The Renaissance Sense of the Past (London, 1969), 144. Donald R. Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and ­History in the French Renaissance (New York and London, 1970), 302. George Huppert, The Idea of Perfect History: Historical Erudition and Historical Philosophy in Renaissance France (Urbana, Ill. and Chicago, 1970), 3–11, 151–169. This view plays a central role in Meinecke’s foundational study of the rise of historicism, and has generally been accepted by later scholars. See Meinecke, Entstehung des Historismus.

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past, an attitude summarised in the Ciceronian dictum historia magistra vitae. The assumption underlying this belief is that nothing substantially new will happen in the future. In the late eighteenth century, however, a new conception of historical time started to emerge: according to Koselleck, people came to see the future as open and unpredictable, and began to regard the historical process as a succession of incomparable episodes.14 Janet Coleman also argues that there was no substantial form of historicism in the Renaissance, though from a different perspective. In her opinion, the limited historicist tendencies that can be observed in the Renaissance were already present in medieval philosophy, more specifically in the debate between the realist via antiqua and the nominalist via moderna. According to Coleman, the philosophy of the via ­moderna discovered that the use of language is context-bound and that truths can be expressed in various ways. This opened the way for an awareness of linguistic anachronism, in Coleman’s opinion an invention of the Middle Ages, not of the Renaissance. She stresses that Renaissance debates about history should be understood in terms of the opposition between the via antiqua and the via moderna, the first school regarding the past as present and universal, the second as past and particular. What is innovative in Renaissance ­historiography, is not a groundbreakingly new kind of historical consciousness, but merely the use of new literary forms.15 Some authors try to find a middle ground in this discussion. Zachary Schiffman rejects the view of Renaissance historicism brought forward by Kelley and Huppert, claiming that “it correctly attributes a growing awareness of historical and cultural relativity in the sixteenth century to developments in historical scholarship, but it incorrectly identifies this sense of relativity with historicism.”16 Schiffman argues that the sixteenth-century perspective on the past cannot be called historicist, because it did not explain historical change in terms of the development of organic entities in relation to their circumstances. In a recent comprehensive study of Westerm historical thought S­ chiffman analyses the Renaissance approach to the past as a somewhat ambivalent phenomenon. On the one hand, Renaissance historical thought started to d­ iscover the difference between past and present, although without extending its sense 14

15 16

Reinhart Koselleck, “Historia Magistra Vitae: Über die Auflösung des Topos im Horizont neuzeitlich bewegter Geschichte,” in Vergangene Zukunft: Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt am Main, 1979), 38–66. A similar point of view can be found in François Hartog, Régimes d’historicité: Présentisme et expériences du temps (Paris, 2003). Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge, 1992). Zachary Sayre Schiffman, “Renaissance Historicism Reconsidered,” History and Theory 24 (1985): 170–182, 170.

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of anachronism into a general theory of historical relativity. At the same time, the Renaissance regarded the past as a “living past” that could be used as a supply of examples for the present.17 A similar position is defended by Ronald Witt, who argues that the Renaissance effort to imitate ancient authors amounted to the cultivation of “a complex, almost oxymoronic sense of accessibility and historical distance.” Renaissance scholars were increasingly aware of the temporal distance between the classical past and the present. Yet, despite this growing sense of anachronism, the Renaissance continued to assimilate the ancient past as a source of examples for imitation.18 A perspective that is especially important in the context of this volume is the analysis that connects Renaissance historical thought with the rise of classical republicanism. Hans Baron prepared the ground for this approach with his thesis about the emergence of what he called “civic humanism” in Florence in the years around 1400. In this period Florence was involved in a war with Milan that imperilled its existence as an independent city-state. A ­ ccording to Baron, this situation resulted in a major intellectual reorientation, in which humanist classicism—in itself a fairly novel phenomenon around 1400—­acquired an important political dimension. Florentine humanists began to read classical texts in search of examples of civic virtue deemed to be essential for the s­ urvival of their own free republic. The history of republican Rome became the main source for these examples. Baron points out that this shift towards civic humanism in the years around 1400 involved significant reassessments of the political meaning of the past. The growing emphasis on the Roman Republic as a model for present-day political action was mirrored by a decreasing appreciation of the Roman Empire. This had been the principal template for medieval political thought, which mainly theorised about a universal Christian empire. In line with this general reconsideration of the classical past the evaluation of specific historical persons and events also changed. Whereas many medieval authors had a high regard for Caesar as the founder of the Roman empire, the civic humanists of the early fifteenth century came to see him as a tyrant. On the other hand, they praised Caesar’s killer, Brutus, for his republican virtue, while their predecessors tended to condemn him as a ­murderer. The ­foundation of the city of Florence was rethought as well: the medieval view was that Caesar had founded Florence, but after 1400 the city was generally assumed to be a colony of the Roman Republic.19 17 18 19

Zachary Sayre Schiffman, The Birth of the Past (Baltimore, 2011), 138–152, 254–265. Ronald G. Witt, “In the Footsteps of the Ancients:” The Origins of Humanism from Lovato to Bruni (Leiden, 2000), 500–501. Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny (revised edition; Princeton, 1966 [1955]),

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Leonardo Bruni is the central figure in Baron’s narrative. On the basis of a detailed examination of the chronology of Bruni’s works Baron argues for his thesis that the emergence of a new view on history and politics was closely intertwined with the Florentine-Milanese struggle. Bruni was one of the leading philologists of his time, but his work shows, according to Baron, that humanism cannot be correctly understood by merely focusing on its philological pursuits, without taking into account the centrality of its civic dimension. This civic dimension was not just a way of dealing with the threats to the ­independent existence of Florence in the years around 1400, but remained a crucial aspect of humanism in the later Renaissance. In Baron’s perspective, civic humanism is in the first place a theory of history. It involves a reinterpretation of specific elements of the classical past, but also a change of attitude towards history as such. As Baron writes, humanism after 1400 “sought to learn from antiquity not as a golden age never again to be realised, but as an exemplary parallel to the present.” This did not mean that Renaissance humanists believed that past and present were exactly similar, and that classical models could be copied indiscriminately. What mattered was trying to rival antiquity in the modern world: “in dealing with one’s own state, language, and literature, one should act as the ancients acted in dealing with their states, languages, and literatures.”20 The Machiavellian Moment by J.G.A. Pocock equally has the role of classical models in Florentine political thought as its starting point, but Pocock’s analysis is not primarily centred on Bruni, as Baron’s, but on later authors such as Machiavelli and Guicciardini. Furthermore, Pocock strongly emphasises the influence of ancient theories on the nature of political communities, such as Aristotelian philosophy, on Renaissance thought, whereas Baron is mainly concerned with the way Renaissance authors related to historical examples. Nevertheless, Pocock’s thesis about republicanism in political theory is also a thesis about historical thought; the rise of classical republicanism is inextricably intertwined with the emergence of a new kind of historical consciousness. According to Pocock, medieval thought was focused on the eternal and the universal, and did not really allow for the particularity of historical events; it “lacked means of explicating the succession of particulars in social and

47–78. For an overview of the debates on Baron’s thesis, see James Hankins, “The ‘Baron Thesis’ after Fourty Years and Some Recent Studies on Leonardo Bruni,” Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995): 309–338 and James Hankins, ed. Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections (Cambridge, 2000). 20 Baron, Crisis, 460–461.

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­political time.”21 In comparison with their medieval predecessors, Renaissance authors had a much stronger interest in history. Pocock connects this historical awareness with the rediscovery of the classical notion of the civic vita activa— as opposed to the philosophical vita contemplativa. Social and political life was much more than before regarded as the product of intentional human action, which could be a more or less virtuous reaction to circumstances (here the crucial conceptual pair of virtus and fortuna comes into play). The continued existence of a republic depends on the virtue of its citizens, but since this kind of civic virtue is not a given, decline is a real possibility, or even something that almost necessarily occurs at some moment in time. Thus, a preoccupation with processes of rise and decline became a distinctive aspect of the historical consciousness of the Renaissance.22 Baron and Pocock regard the rise of a new kind of historical awareness as a central element of the Renaissance departure from medieval patterns of thought. We could see this as a vindication of the thesis that the Renaissance was the birthground of historicism. Yet, the historicism described by Baron and ­Pocock has a rather limited and paradoxical character. What matters to them, is the ontological dimension of the relation between past and ­present; they barely write about the epistemological problems humanists might have encountered in seeking to get to know the past. According to Baron and ­Pocock, Renaissance authors started to understand the historical process as a contingent product of human action, an idea that was very problematic in the eyes of medieval authors. This emphasis on the contingency of the historical process implies some minimal awareness of the difference between past and ­present: if history is made in a contingent interplay of fortuna and virtus, past and ­present will never be the same. Yet, at the same time republican humanism presupposes that past and present are sufficiently similar for past examples to be applicable in the modern world, and the conceptualisation of history in terms of exemplary cycles of rise and decline also seems to suggest that past and present might not be radically different.

Bruni, Machiavelli, Guicciardini

Leonardo Bruni (c.1370–1444) has frequently been described as the first modern historian, or at least as a central figure in the development of ­historiography. 21 22

J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Republican Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975), 48. Ibidem, 49–80.

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Authors who hold this view point out that he wrote historical narratives instead of chronicles, analysed the historical process in terms of causes and motives, displayed a critical attitude towards his sources, and was one of the first historians to make a distinction between ancient, medieval and modern history.23 When we take this view of Bruni at face value, there would not be much of a difference between his approach to the past and that of nineteenth-century historicism. As we have seen above, Bruni is also the crucial i­ ntellectual pioneer in Baron’s thesis about the emergence of civic humanism in the early fifteenth century. In more recent studies, however, Bruni’s role tends to be presented as somewhat less pivotal, though nevertheless important. Gary Ianziti’s comprehensive book about Bruni’s work is a case in point. Ianziti’s central claim is that Bruni’s historical work should be read as an answer to the political needs of the oligarchy ruling Florence in the early fifteenth century. In discussions among Florence’s rulers about the right course of political action, historical arguments played an important role—with examples taken from both Roman and Florentine history. According to Ianziti, this is the principal background to Bruni’s critical revision of the received ideas about Florence’s past as they were formulated in the traditional chronicles of the city’s history. His approach to the past was in several respects a significant breach with earlier traditions, but it was, in Ianziti’s opinion, not primarily motivated by philosophical notions from the republican tradition, nor by an autonomous quest for methodological innovation.24 Other interpretations of Bruni’s work emphasise its rhetorical character. This reading of Bruni stresses his use of stylistic instruments from the ­rhetorical tradition, and argues that Bruni did not regard the past as a realm distinct from the present, but as a part of a continuous rhetorical space filled with examples for moral and political action. The oft-repeated Ciceronian commonplace historia magistra vitae quite clearly expresses what is at stake in this rhetorical perspective on history. According to Nancy Struever, in the Renaissance rhetoric and history are closely related fields, because both are ways of dealing with the flux of human life, without trying to efface contingency by

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Berthold L. Ullman, “Leonardo Bruni and Humanistic Historiography,” Medievalia et H ­ umanistica 4 (1946): 45–61; E.B. Fryde, Humanism and Renaissance Historiography (­London, 1983), 3–53. For an overview and an evaluation of the arguments brought forward in the assessment of Bruni’s position in the development of historical writing, see Gary Ianziti, “Leonardo Bruni: First Modern Historian?,” Parergon 14 (1997): 85–99. Gary Ianziti, Writing History in Renaissance Italy: Leonardo Bruni and the Uses of the Past (Cambridge, Mass., 2012).

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the use of abstract philosophical principles.25 An element that the rhetorical perspective on ­Bruni’s work has in common with Baron’s and Ianziti’s interpretations is the idea that Bruni primarily regarded the past as a source of examples. Opinions differ, however, on the precise function that examples from the past would have had in Bruni’s eyes. Proponents of the rhetorical interpretation of his work tend to emphasise the moral nature of historical examples, as does Baron, although in his view morality tends to amount to political virtue. In Ianziti’s opinion, however, Bruni’s examples from the past primarily serve practical political goals. When history is primarily seen as a source of examples, this presupposes that past and present are not fundamentally discontinuous. An unproblematic application of past examples to the present is only possible if past and present are sufficiently similar. This suggests that we probably will not find many significant traces of historicism in the work of Bruni, who turns to the past in search of immediately relevant examples for action in the present. In order to get a clearer view of Bruni’s perspective on the past, I shall now turn to the way he deals with Roman history in his writings. This analysis does not pretend to completeness. Tracing all of Bruni’s references to Rome would not be feasible in the framework of this chapter, yet it is not impossible to draw meaningful conclusions on the basis of a more limited consideration of Bruni’s writings. I shall focus on two texts, the renowned Historiae florentini populi, generally regarded as Bruni’s main work, and a less well-known treatise, the Laudatio florentinae Urbis. The Laudatio is one of Bruni’s earliest works, written around 1400; it is a rhetorical text praising the greatness of the city of Florence, but it also involves a significant amount of historical analysis. Therefore, scholars tend to read this text as a precursor to the Historiae florentini populi; Ianziti characterises it as “a sort of trial run” for the latter work.26 This connection was already extensively discussed by Baron, who regarded the Laudatio as one of the key texts in the development of Bruni’s civic humanism, and tried to support this interpretation with a detailed examination of the position of this treatise in the chronology of Bruni’s works.27 The central historical thesis in Bruni’s Laudatio is that 25

Nancy S. Struever, The Language of History in the Renaissance: Rhetoric and Historical Consciousness in Florentine Humanism (Princeton, 1970). 26 Ianziti, Writing History, 96. 27 Baron, Crisis, 191–224; idem, “Chronology and Historical Certainty: The Dates of Bruni’s Laudatio and Dialogi,” and “Imitation, Rhetoric, and Quattrocento Thought in Bruni’s Laudatio,” in From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni: Studies in Humanistic and Poltical Literature (Chicago, 1968), 102–137 and 151–171.

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Florence was founded by the ancient Romans, and that this ancestry justifies the city’s aspiration to play a dominant political and cultural role in Italy. Bruni discusses the ancient Romans as the paradigmatic case of a virtuous people: For the fact that the Florentine race arose from the Roman people is of the utmost importance. What nation in the entire world was ever more distinguished, more powerful, more outstanding in every sort of excellence than the Roman people? Their deeds are so illustrious that the greatest feats done by other men seem like child’s play when compared to the deeds of the Romans. Their dominion was equal to the entire world, and they governed with the greatest competence for many centuries, so that from a single city come more examples of virtue than all other nations have been able to produce until now. In Rome there have been innumerable men so outstanding in every kind of virtue that no other nation on earth has ever been equal to it.28 This passage is a very straightforward rhetorical praise of Roman moral and political virtue, a textbook case of classical republicanism. There is not much historicism here: the virtues of the Romans are not connected with the specific historical circumstances in which they lived, and their exemplary value for the present is taken for granted. History provides a direct connection between the Romans and the Florentines of Bruni’s days: he claims that the Florentines have inherited the virtuous character of the Roman founders of their city. Bruni’s historical argument emphasises the continuity between past and present, and not the possible differences between the two. Furthermore, Bruni’s discussion of the origins of Florence has a strong political dimension. He claims that Florence was founded during the heyday of the Roman Republic, around 100 bc, when “the Caesars, the Antonines, the Tiberiuses, the Neros—those plagues and destroyers of the Roman Republic—had not yet deprived the people of their liberty.”29 As a result, the Florentines are more attached to republican liberty than the inhabitants of other cities. Although the Historiae florentini populi is a different genre of text than the Laudatio—an extended historical narrative instead of a rhetorical laudatio of a limited length—the kind of arguments and analyses brought forward by 28

29

Leonardo Bruni, “Panegyric to the City of Florence,” trans. Benjamin G. Kohl, in The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society, ed. Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt (Philadelphia, 1978), 135–175, 149–150. A modern edition of the Latin text of the Panegyric can be found in Baron, From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni, 232–263. Bruni, “Panegyric,” 151.

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­ runi are very similar, especially in the first book, which deals with the origin B of ­Florence and its history in Roman times. The main difference is that in the Historiae florentini populi Bruni gives more specific details and expands the scope of his historical investigation. He reiterates his earlier thesis that Florence was founded as a colony of the Roman Republic, but now adds that the founders of Florence were veterans sent to Tuscany by Sulla. Furthermore, Bruni extensively discusses the Etruscan past of Tuscany, describing the Etruscans as strongly attached to their liberty and comparable to the Romans in political virtue and cultural development. By connecting Florence not only with its foundation in the time of the Roman Republic, but also with its Etruscan prehistory, Bruni strengthens the claim that love of liberty is a historical characteristic of the Florentine people. He presents Roman history both as a positive model and as a warning to the Florentines. In the nearly five centuries that they had a republican form of government, the Romans, “the free people of a single city,” managed to conquer large parts of the world known to them. Decline commenced, however, “almost from the moment that Rome gave up her liberty to serve a series of emperors.”30 In the preface to the Historiae florentini populi Bruni explicitly asserts that the aim of the study of the past is to provide examples for actions in the present: from history “we may learn with ease what behaviour we should imitate and avoid, while the glory won by great men, as therein recorded, inspires us to perform acts of virtue.” Bruni does not let this didactic function of historical writing be undermined by historicist contextualisation, not even in a l­imited form. As a consequence, comparisons of episodes from different historical periods do not seem problematic to Bruni; they are undertaken in a very straightforward way, without accounting for the fact that the episodes under discussion took place in different historical contexts. About Pisa, which was conquered by the Florentines, Bruni writes in his preface that it is “fair to call that city another Carthage.”31 Thus, for Bruni history is a continuous space of examples and comparisons, not to be examined in its own terms, but in the light of its usefulness for present action. To a large extent, the same can be said of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), who lived and worked a century after Bruni. A massive amount of academic literature has been produced about Machiavelli, most of it dealing with his political theory. Machiavelli’s historical work has received much less attention, although it occupies a central place in his oeuvre. At the end of his life, he wrote 30 31

Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People, ed. and trans. James Hankins, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 2001–2007), 1:49, 87. Ibidem, 3.

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a comprehensive history of Florence (Istorie fiorentine), and his Discorsi sopra la prima Deca di Tito Livio are, needless to say, just as much a historical treatise as a work of political theory. In modern academic appraisals of M ­ achiavelli’s historical writing we can observe similar tendencies as in the debate about Bruni. Some authors emphasise the rhetorical nature of Machiavelli’s work and its huge debt to classical models of writing.32 Others, most notably Felix Gilbert, point out that Machiavelli was primarily interested in the practical political use of historical knowledge, and that this is a significant departure from the historiographical orientation of humanist historians such as Bruni.33 As we have seen above, however, it can be argued that Bruni’s approach as well is much more practical than rhetorical. The use of Roman history as a model for political action in the present is the central theme in Machiavelli’s Discorsi. In this work Machiavelli comments on the first ten books of Livy’s History of Rome (Ab urbe condita). It is not, however, a traditional commentary, merely consisting of interpretative glosses on a text. Instead, Machiavelli distinguishes a range of topics discussed by Livy, compares the history of Rome with that of other peoples and cities, both in ­antiquity and in later periods, identifies general tendencies in the historical process, and draws practical and normative conclusions. His orientation is clearly republican: according to Machiavelli, free republics are the most successful and desirable political communities. He explicitly describes Roman virtue as exemplary, and often contrasts it with a lack of virtue in later periods. In the history of his own city, Florence, Machiavelli observes a great deal of internal strife—something the Romans generally managed to avoid.34 In several passages in the Discorsi Machiavelli explicitly discusses the value of the study of ancient history. In the preface to the first book, he states that his contemporaries have a great respect for antiquity and try to imitate it in many fields. The political realm is the exception to this rule: “the most worthy activities which histories show us, which have been carried on in ancient kingdoms and republics […] are sooner admired than imitated.”35 ­Apparently, the D ­ iscorsi 32 33

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Maurizio Viroli, Machiavelli (Oxford, 1998), 97–107. Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (New York, 1984 [1965]), 233–236. See also Jacques Bos, “Renaissance Historiography: Framing a New Mode of Historical Experience,” in The Making of the Humanities I: The Humanities in Early Modern Europe, ed. Rens Bod, Jaap Maat and Thijs Weststeijn (­Amsterdam, 2010), 351–365, 360. For an overview of the debates about the Discorsi, see J. Patrick Coby, Machiavelli’s ­Romans: Liberty and Greatness in the Discourses on Livy (Lanham, Md., 1999). Niccolò Machiavelli, “Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius,” in The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert (Durham, n.c., 1989 [1958]), 1:175–529, 190.

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are intended to redress this situation, by providing examples from Roman history than can be applied in the present. In the preface to the second book Machiavelli continues his reflections on the relation between past and present. Here, he admits that the present may sometimes be better than the past; it may occur that people praising ancient times deceive themselves. ­Nevertheless, Machiavelli states that he intends to uphold the thesis that a­ ncient Rome is to be preferred to his own time: “if the excellence that then prevailed and the corruption that now prevails were not clearer than the sun, I would keep my speech more cautious, fearing to bring upon myself the ­deception of which I accuse others.”36 Despite the fact that Machiavelli o­ bserves a significant decline in virtue when he compares the Romans with his contemporaries, he also states that the world as a whole remains in some way always the same: When I meditate on how these things move, I judge that the world has always gone on in the same way and that there has been as much good as bad, but that this bad and this good have varied from land to land as anyone understands who knows about those ancient kingdoms which differed from one another because of the difference in their customs, but the world remained the same.37 At the end of the third book of the Discorsi Machiavelli reiterates his claim about the essential constancy of human affairs: Prudent men are in the habit of saying—and not by chance or without basis—that he who wishes to see what is to come should observe what has already happened, because all the affairs of the world, in every age, have their individual counterparts in ancient times. The reason for this is that since they are carried on by men, who have and always have had the same passions, of necessity the same results appear.38 When we read passages like these, it is hard to maintain that Machiavelli’s has a historicist view on the past. Instead, he emphatically denies the central ­ontological belief of historicism—the idea that past and present are fundamentally distinct. In order to use the Romans as an example Machiavelli has to assume that their world is sufficiently similar to the present. On the other

36 37 38

Ibidem, 324. Ibidem, 322. Ibidem, 521.

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hand, ­Machiavelli does allow for historical change, but this seems secondary to the underlying constancy of the world.39 Machiavelli is regularly compared with his slightly younger friend Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540). As one modern scholar puts it: this comparison seems “almost obligatory in any discussion of the Italian Renaissance.”40 Just as Machiavelli, Guicciardini wrote about politics and history, although he is usually regarded as primarily a historian, whereas Machiavelli is most often considered to be primarily a political theorist. It should be noted, however, that he distinction between these two fields is rather fluid in the Renaissance. Guicciardini’s main work is his Storia d’Italia, which deals with the disastrous political events in Italy between 1490 and 1534. Guicciardini does not start his historical narrative in Roman times. The direct temporal connection between Rome and the present that was so important to Bruni and continued to preoccupy Machiavelli, is absent in the ­Storia d’Italia. Guicciardini’s account of the recent history of Italy is essentially tragic: it starts with a sketch of a flourishing world of Italian city-states, and then shows how this world was destroyed beyond repair. The key events in the rapid decline of Italy are the invasion of the French in 1494 and the Sack of Rome in 1527. Guicciardini does not explain these events as the results of purely ­external devastating forces. In the end, the calamities that befell Italy were first and foremost caused by the greed, ambition and shortsightedness of Italian princes and politicians. In the prologue to the Storia d’Italia, Guicciardini writes that he wants to convey two major lessons: From a knowledge of such occurrences, so varied and so grave, everyone may derive many precedents salutary both for himself and for the public weal. Thus numerous examples will make it plainly evident how mutable are human affairs, not unlike a sea whipped by winds; and how pernicious, almost always to themselves but always to the people, are those 39

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Janet Coleman regards this somewhat paradoxical position as very similar to the philosophy of the via moderna in the Middle Ages, which regarded the world as fundamentally constant, but allowed for differences in human experience and its linguistic expression. Janet Coleman, “Machiavelli’s Via Moderna: Medieval and Renaissance Attitudes to ­History,” in Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. Martin Coyle (Manchester, 1995), 40–64. Peter E. Bondanella, Francesco Guicciardini (Boston, 1976), 61. For extensive comparisons of the two authors, see Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini and Pocock, Machiavellian Moment.

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ill-advised measures of rulers who act solely in terms of what is in front of their eyes: either foolish errors or shortsighted greed.41 Guicciardini’s emphasis on change and mutability suggests that he might hold a different view on the historical process and the relation between past and present than Machiavelli. Of course, Machiavelli would not deny that human affairs are changeable, but, as we have seen above, he also assumes that through all periods in history the essence of the world remains the same. Whereas ­Machiavelli is mainly interested in recurring processes, “Guicciardini’s bias is toward the uniqueness of each historical act and of each historical judgement.”42 As Gilbert puts it, Guicciardini is fascinated by the idiosyncrasies of historical events and historical actors, and regards self-interest—“the satisfaction of the particulare”—as the only constant factor in the historical process, amidst all mutability. This makes it difficult to draw positive lessons from regularities or similarities in history, but it does not mean that history cannot have a didactic aim. By focusing on change, corruption, and the negative effects of the human pursuit of self-interest Guicciardini explores “the great themes of the fight of man against fate and of the misery of the human condition.”43 Guicciardini’s emphasis on the particular instead of the general aspects of history is mirrored in his methodical and comprehensive examination of his sources. He systematically and critically compares reports of historical events by earlier historians, and he uses documentary evidence to a much larger extent than his contemporaries, all in order to establish a factually ­accurate account of the particularities of the past.44 The difference of orientation between Machiavelli and Guicciardini is clearly visible in Guicciardini’s Considerazioni intorno ai Discorsi di Niccolò Machiavelli, a short, unfinished and unpublished critique of Machiavelli. ­Guicciardini repeatedly reproaches his friend that he is too casual in his dealing with historical material, and bends the facts to his theoretical observations. Commenting on Machiavelli’s reflections on the relation between past and present discussed above, Guicciardini consents to the view “that ancient times are often praised more than is due,” but he strongly disagrees with Machiavelli’s idea that the world remains essentially the same in the course of history. He observes that 41

Francesco Guicciardini, The History of Italy, ed. and trans. Sidney Alexander (Princeton, 1969), 3. 42 Mark Phillips, Francesco Guicciardini: The Historian’s Craft (Toronto, 1977), 87. 43 Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, 292, 300. 44 Ibidem, 296–297; Volker Reinhardt, Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540): Die Entdeckung des Widerspruchs (Göttingen, 2004), 158–164.

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there are significant differences in artistic achievement and in moral and political virtue, and not just superficially, as Machiavelli seems to claim. In Guicciardini’s view of the historical process, cultural diversity is quite essential: “it is no wonder that men’s customs, too, have varied.”45 This makes it problematic to praise the ancients in an unqualified way, or to directly apply ancient models to the present. As Guicciardini writes in his Ricordi politici e civili: How wrong it is to cite the Romans at every turn. For any comparison to be valid, it would be necessary to have a city with conditions like theirs, and then to govern it according to their example. In the case of a city with different qualities, the comparison is as much out of order as it would be to expect a jackass to race like a horse.46 Conclusion Guicciardini’s remark about constantly referring to the Romans could be read as a Renaissance defence of historicism: he claims that the past is different from the present, which makes the use of Roman examples quite problematic. It could be argued that the ontological core of historicism becomes visible in Guicciardini’s work, while we cannot meaningfully say of Bruni and Machiavelli that their outlook is historicist. Furthermore, Guicciardini’s methodical approach to historical research could be seen as an indication that he embraces the epistemological core of historicism as well. Of course, this does not mean that he holds typically nineteenth-century ideas about the organic development of historical entities or the importance of interpretation—these views are not necessarily implied in the ontological and epistemological core of historicism. And it also does not mean that we do not see any traces at all of the traditional humanist approach to history in his work. In the end, Guicciardini would rather subscribe to the classical maxim historia magistra vitae than claim that the historian’s only task is to describe the past wie es eigentlich gewesen. Yet, the appearance of certain central historicist beliefs in his work seems to suggest that he should be regarded as a crucial figure in the development of a new approach to the past, much more than Bruni or Machiavelli. 45

Francesco Guicciardini, “Considerations of the Discourses of Niccolò Machiavelli,” in The Sweetness of Power: Machiavelli’s Discourses & Guicciardini’s Considerations, ed. and trans. James B. Atkinson and David Sices (DeKalb, Ill., 2002), 381–438, 425. 46 Francesco Guicciardini, Maxims and Reflections (Ricordi), trans. Mario Domandi (­Philadelphia, 1965), 69.

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­ uicciardini’s importance in the history of historical writing has been widely G recognised: Gilbert, for instance, characterises Guicciardini’s Storia d’Italia as both “the last great work of history in the classical pattern” and “the first great work of modern historiography.”47 In Gilbert’s analysis, the modernity of Guicciardini’s work is primarily connected with his search for rational explanations and his methodical research. This echoes the nineteenth- and ­twentieth-century drive to turn history into a scientific discipline. I would, however, regard the emergence of an ontological commitment to the distinctness of the past and the historicity of the world as more fundamental. Possibly, the disastrous course of events that occurred in Italy in the first decades of the sixteenth century brought about a fundamental dissociation between past and present, in which the past came to be regarded—at least by Guicciardini—as a different world that was irretrievably lost.48 In any case, it is hard to say unequivocally that there did or did not exist a form of historicism in the Renaissance. In this respect, the view defended in this chapter is more nuanced than existing interpretations of Renaissance historicism, which tend to regard the historical thought of the Renaissance as a unified body of work, without significant differentiations. When we consider the trajectory from Bruni and Machiavelli to Guicciardini, it seems clear that a historicist perspective on the past was not a viable point of view to Bruni in the early fifteenth century, but had become part of the field of intellectual possibilities a century later, although not as an uncontested presupposition. Machiavelli seems to acknowledge that the past may be regarded as fundamentally distinct from the present, but he categorically rejects this possibility, because it does not fit the objectives of his way of dealing with the past. Guicciardini, however, holds a different view on the distinctness of the past.49 This divergence between the two great historians of early-sixteenth century Florence would resurface throughout the early modern period and materialise in the many diverse uses of historical examples in republican political thought.

47 Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini, 301. 48 F.R. Ankersmit, Sublime Historical Experience (Stanford, 2005), 355–363. For an elaboration of this point, see Bos, “Renaissance Historiography,” 355–357, 360. 49 Cf. Mark Salber Phillips, On Historical Distance (New Haven, 2013), 58. Phillips somewhat unsatisfactorily explains the differences between Machiavelli and Guicciardini as a ­matter of diverging temperaments.

chapter 2

The Roman Republic as a Constitutional Order in the Italian Renaissance Benjamin Straumann* The dominant interpretations of classical republicanism primarily emphasise the significance of Ancient Rome as the source of early modern discourses of virtue and liberty. Nonetheless, the Roman Republic importantly also set the frame of later discussions of republican politics by being interpreted as a constitutional order. As this second chapter shows, this constitutional understanding of Rome largely derived from Marcus Tullius Cicero, who formulated a specifically constitutional solution to what he perceived to be the constitutional crises that had caused the decline of the Roman Republic. The absence of constitutional safeguards and the usurpation of despotic powers were still taken as destructive of the Republican social order by the classical Roman jurist Pomponius, writing under the Empire. For Pomponius, it was still axiomatic that the people had sovereignty, and that popular sovereignty, and the right of appeal, had higher normative value than mere legislation. These considerations had a large impact on various interpretations of Roman ­history in the Italian Renaissance. In the early fourteenth century, Ptolemy of Lucca (c.1236–c.1327), an admirer of the Roman Republic, happily sided with the Roman concept of constitutional rule and the civilizing influence on the world of the Roman law and justice, as these ideas emerged in Cicero’s reading of the so-called Carneadean debate. Ptolemy had an implicit understanding of the higher-order norms that set limits on the magisterial arm of government. It was these constitutional norms that set the Republic apart, not the Augustinian virtues of a ­desire for glory and honour. Two centuries later, in early ­sixteenth-century Rome, Mario Salamonio (c.1450–c.1533) also advanced a constitutionally oriented theory. Following Pomponius, he pondered the transference of ­sovereignty from people to emperor as implied in the lex regia, and took apart Cicero’s definition of res publica, insisting on the constitutional * I would like to thank Arthur Weststeijn for inviting me to contribute to the present ­volume and for his advice. Material that appears in this chapter also appears in my Crisis and ­Constitutionalism: Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution (Oxford, 2016), reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_004

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constraint of ius, and underlining, as did Cicero, the contractual nature of the relationship between legislator and subjects. This intellectual trajectory from Cicero and Pomponius to Ptolemy and Salamonio suggests that the Roman Republic served as a model of a constitutional republicanism distinct from virtue-oriented “civic” or even “neo-Roman” republicanisms.

A Screen and a Sham: Tacitean Views and Cicero’s Constitutional Theory

The idea that the Roman Republic constituted a constitutional order has e­ ncountered opposition for a very long time. The opposing view—that republican Rome did not have anything resembling a constitutional order with discernible, effective constitutional norms—is expressed with the utmost clarity by the ancient historian Ronald Syme: “The Roman constitution was a screen and a sham.” Real causal importance could, on Syme’s view, be ascribed only to the “forces that lay behind or beyond it,”1 which leads effortlessly to a conception of Roman politics as representing mere “struggles for power within the ruling élite.”2 This view can be traced back at least to Tacitus. In the Annals, Tacitus seems to be denying not only the possibility of an enduring mixed constitution but, even more radically, the very possibility of any constitutional order with real normative pull. The model of a commonwealth joining together by selection the elements of popular rule, the rule of a nobility, or of one man is easier praised than achieved, according to Tacitus, and even if achieved cannot be lasting.3 Tacitus does not deem a system of normative constitutional rules viable; what he thus has in mind instead is a description of actually ­pertaining power relations. Nonetheless, an earlier passage in the third book of the Annals also leaves room for the view that a proper constitutional order can exist for a certain time, and subsequently undergo corruption. In his brief outline of the history of the Republic rendering the period from the expulsion of the kings to the Republic’s downfall in the last century bc, Tacitus assigns to the legislative activities of the people directed by the tribunes of the plebs an important role 1 Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution. 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1952), 15. 2 These words are P.A. Brunt’s, who identifies as the mistaken basis of this conception the modern tendency to give too much importance to clientship and patronage; “The Fall of the Roman Republic,” in Brunt, The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (Oxford, 1988), 1–92, 32. 3 Tacitus, Annales 4.33.

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in the fall of the Republic. While explicitly stating merely a strong correlation between the enactment of laws and the corruption of the Republic, Tacitus in fact invites the much stronger conclusion that legislation was the single most important cause of the Republic’s fall.4 Far from simply representing the history of the Republic as a series of power struggles within the elite, Tacitus here gives an account of the Republic that is very much an account of functioning constitutional “arrangements” established to protect liberty (libertas) and stability; the gradual demise of this functioning constitutional order is on this view brought about much later, through bad, namely unconstitutional legislation. The crises brought about by legislative overreach are presented as constitutional crises: the legislation in question is not simply presented as morally bad, or as a mere instrument in a struggle for power within the elite à la Syme, but it is described as violating the constitutional arrangements established in the early Republic in several respects. The most prominent example of such a constitutional understanding of Rome is the theory of Cicero, as developed especially in his Republic and the Laws. In the Republic, written between 56 and 51 bc and made public when Cicero departed for his governorship in Cilicia in the spring of 51, Cicero advanced a constitutional theory that was clearly intended to be understood as an answer to the deterioration of public institutions of the late 50s. The dialogue is set in early 129 bc and is meant to represent a moment in Roman history when the decline of the Republic could still have been halted. Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, the main character of the conversation and a leading anti-Gracchan politician who was to die shortly after the date of Cicero’s fictitious dialogue, puts forward a constitutional theory of the just commonwealth that must be interpreted as Cicero’s solution to the problems engulfing the Republic. Cicero’s dialogue is modelled in certain regards on Plato’s Republic, and is also followed by a sequel called the Laws; unlike Plato’s Laws, however, Cicero’s sequel supplies the ideal constitutional order as elaborated in the Republic with a theory of constitutionalism and with a substantive set of constitutional norms. In the Republic, Scipio puts forward a definition of the commonwealth which is at first mostly aiming pragmatically at stability, but then comes to be re-defined in light of a Stoic theory of natural law put forward by another participant in the dialogue, Gaius Laelius. Scipio’s re-definition makes it clear that a commonwealth or res publica that lacks an entrenched constitution cannot properly be called a commonwealth or republic at all. It is this re-defined constitutional republic that provides the model for which Cicero’s Laws then 4 Ibidem 3.27.

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formulated a set of constitutional norms.5 In the third book of the Republic, Cicero, after discussing constitutional theory merely in terms of prudential criteria such as stability, effective rule and longevity, moves towards a moral consideration of the Roman Republic. This is framed as an exchange of arguments modelled on a pair of famous speeches given by the Academic skeptic Carneades in Rome in 155 bc, speeches in which Carneades had argued, first for and then, in the second speech, against the indispensability of justice in a ­polity. Cicero in the Republic turned the sequence of the speeches on its head, thus beginning with the skeptical challenge to justice and assigning the defence of justice the last word. When adapting what he knew about Carneades’ arguments, Cicero applied the controversial discussion of the importance of justice for politics to the international realm, thus extending political theory beyond the polis and rendering Rome’s acquisition of empire a subject fit for normative, moral consideration.6 Cicero’s Republic had thus brought moral philosophy in the form of natural law to bear on Rome’s rule, beyond the borders of any given polity. Most importantly, the norms applicable in this realm could not possibly be the particular norms of just any state—they had to answer either to the criteria of utility and self-interest, as Philus (alias Carneades) is made to argue in the Republic, or to the criteria of justice, largely conceived in Stoic natural law terms, as Philus’ adversary Laelius, delivering the ­pro-justice speech in the Republic, maintains. Natural law in Cicero provides the yardstick for gauging the justice both of constitutional orders and imperial rule, and its provisions are of a moral kind, not, as Carneades would have it, merely prescribing self-preservation.

Pomponius and the lex regia

Cicero tried to formulate a specifically constitutional solution to what he ­ erceived to be the constitutional crises that had caused Rome’s republican p 5 Cicero, De re publica 3.43–45. A polity that lacks consensus iuris or unum vinculum iuris, the bond of ius or agreement about a body of constitutional rules, is no polity at all. Only agreement about these norms, that is to say about ius as we encounter it copiously in the context of late republican constitutional argument in the sources, where it meant a body of (often non-statutory) law more firmly entrenched and of a higher order than mere legislation, only agreement about that body of law would transform a multitude into a people and the ­commonwealth into a constitutional order properly speaking. 6 For the relation between Cicero and the original Carneadean debate, see J.E.G. Zetzel, “­Natural Law and Poetic Justice: A Carneadean Debate in Cicero and Virgil,” Classical Philology 91, 1 (1996): 297–319.

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decline, while Tacitus continued to draw attention to the constitutional aspect of the crises of the late Roman Republic. This line of thought was developed further by the jurist Pomponius, writing in the second century ad. In his handbook, the Enchiridion, Pomponius pointed to the crucial tension that existed in the history of the Republic between constitutional safeguards for individual rights on the one hand and the necessity imposed by emergencies on the other. Pomponius’ focus is on provocatio ad populum, the specifically Roman institutional safeguard of the right of appeal. When describing the Ten Men (decemviri) and their authority to give laws to the Roman Republic after the fall of the Kings, this authority is described as sovereign—that is to say, without the possibility of appeal against it: [I]t was decided that there be appointed, on the authority of the people [publica auctoritate], a commission of ten men by whom were to be studied the laws of the Greek city states and by whom their own city was to be endowed with laws. They wrote out the laws in full on ivory tablets and put the tablets together in front of the rostra, to make the laws all the more open to inspection. They were given during that year sovereign right in the civitas [ius in civitate summum], to enable them to correct the laws, if there should be a need for that, and to interpret them without liability to any appeal [provocatio] such as lay from the rest of the magistracy.7 Pomponius’ account of the commission of the Ten Men goes on to show how, in the period of classical jurisprudence during the Principate, the lack of constitutional safeguards and the assumption of tyrannical, extra-constitutional powers were still taken to be causal forces in the conflicts undermining the Republican order.8 The question at the heart of Pomponius’ account is the question of sovereignty. “Sovereign right” (summum ius), uncurbed by any right of appeal or, we might say in this context, veto power, is given to the College of Ten “on the authority of the people.” Sovereignty here seems almost defined 7 Pomp. Dig. 1.2.2.4: “placuit publica auctoritate decem constitui viros, per quos peterentur leges a Graecis civitatibus et civitas fundaretur legibus: quas in tabulas eboreas perscriptas pro rostris composuerunt, ut possint leges apertius percipi: datumque est eis ius eo anno in civitate summum, uti leges et corrigerent, si opus esset, et interpretarentur neque provocatio ab eis sicut a reliquis magistratibus fieret.” Trans. A. Watson. 8 For the role of popular sovereignty in Pomponius’ text, see Fergus Millar’s interesting discussion in The Roman Republic in Political Thought (Hanover and London, 2002), 52f. Millar’s discussion does not pay sufficient attention however to the constitutionalism inherent in Pomponius’ account.

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by the absence of appeal (provocatio), it is however granted by the people on certain conditions—namely only for the duration of one year—and thus not absolute. We may take away the impression that Pomponius, albeit writing under the absolute monarchy of the Principate, has an understanding of the pivotal place that was accorded to the right of appeal under the constitution of the Republic, and that he is describing the relationship between sovereignty and provocatio as inversely proportional. The lawgiving commission of the Ten Men (decemviri) is on the one hand described as a constituent power, unfettered by the right of appeal; on the other hand, the Ten are still subject to a term limit, presumably on account of a limitation of their time in office. What was the source of this constitutional limitation? Pomponius says that the Ten had been appointed “on the authority of the people” (publica auctoritate), for once not referring to obscure statute.9 When discussing the dictatorship and the way it was established, there is no mention of statute either.10 Other constitutional institutions however are based on and, presumably, justified by, statute in the Enchiridion. It seems fair to say that the constitutional rule consistently evoked here, albeit implicitly, is again that of popular sovereignty and of the potential applicability of provocatio to any magistracy. Both popular sovereignty and the right of appeal predate in Pomponius’ account the Twelve Tables, and are thus felt to be of higher, namely constitutional status compared to mere legislation. Not unlike the protagonists of the constitutional crises of the late Republic, and a fortiori like the protagonists of Cicero’s dialogues, then, Pomponius shows a however dim awareness of a hierarchy between sources of constitutional and statutory legal norms, a hierarchy he never makes explicit though. The philosophical natural law basis for such a hierarchy, it is true, is missing entirely from Pomponius’ legal historical handbook. But the crucial importance of the right of appeal is reflected in the important role of provocatio even for the period of the Decemvirate, and the awareness that in the context of emergencies this right could stand in tension with an emergency power such 9 Pomp. Dig. 1.2.2.4: “placuit publica auctoritate decem constitui viros, per quos peterentur leges a Graecis civitatibus et civitas fundaretur legibus: quas in tabulas eboreas perscriptas pro rostris composuerunt, ut possint leges apertius percipi: datumque est eis ius eo anno in civitate summum, uti leges et corrigerent, si opus esset, et interpretarentur neque provocatio ab eis sicut a reliquis magistratibus fieret.” Trans. A. Watson. 10 Ibidem 1.2.2.18: “Populo deinde aucto cum crebra orerentur bella et quaedam acriora a finitimis inferrentur, interdum re exigente placuit maioris potestatis magistratum constitui: itaque dictatores proditi sunt, a quibus nec provocandi ius fuit et quibus etiam capitis animadversio data est. Hunc magistratum, quoniam summam potestatem habebat, non erat fas ultra sextum mensem retineri.” Trans. Watson.

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as the dictatorship is prominent in the Enchiridion. Emergency powers here appear as constitutionally hedged, and in the case of overreaching—when the Ten overstep the constitutional term limit—the response is swift and drastic. Ultimately, however, Pomponius needed to explain the transition from Republic to the imperial Monarchy, and this he accomplishes by giving the following deflating, rather laconic pragmatic report. After decisions by the plebs had been given the force of statute by the lex Hortensia (287 bc), and laws and plebiscites had thus equal legal force, it grew hard for the plebs to assemble, and to be sure much harder for the entire citizenry to assemble, being now such a vast crowd of men […]. And thus did the senate come to exercise authority, and whatever it resolved was respected, and such a law was called a senatus consultum. […] Most recently, just as there was seen to have been a transition toward fewer ways of establishing law, a transition effected by stages under dictation of circumstances [rebus dictantibus], it has come about that affairs of state have had to be entrusted to one man (for the senate had been unable latterly to govern all the provinces honestly). An emperor, therefore, having been established [constituto principe], to him was given the right [ius datum est] that what he had decided be deemed law [ut quod constituisset, ratum esset].11 Put briefly, in Pomponius’ view the Principate had come about mainly due to the pragmatic difficulty of the growing Roman people to assemble!12 The 11

12

Ibidem 1.2.2.9–11: “Deinde quia difficile plebs convenire coepit, populus certe multo difficilius in tanta turba hominum, necessitas ipsa curam rei publicae ad senatum deduxit: ita coepit senatus se interponere et quidquid constituisset observabatur, idque ius ­appellabatur senatus consultum. […] Novissime sicut ad pauciores iuris constituendi vias transisse ipsis rebus dictantibus videbatur per partes, evenit, ut necesse esset rei publicae per unum consuli (nam senatus non perinde omnes provincias probe gerere poterant): igitur constituto principe datum est ei ius, ut quod constituisset, ratum esset.” Trans. A. Watson, with slight modifications. This is reminiscent, ironically, of the scholarly debate concerning the democratic nature (or lack thereof) of the Roman Republic—while proponents of the view that the Republic had democratic characteristics, such as most prominently Fergus Millar, have argued from a constitutional point of view that sovereignty lay with the Roman people (“Democracy […] is first of all a strictly constitutional concept.”), critics such as Ramsay MacMullen have replied—not really on the same plane—that the various localities where the people’s assemblies gathered could not have possibly contained a sufficient amount of people for the Republic to qualify as democratic (even for the Comitia Centuriata he

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o­ rigin of the right of the Emperor to legislate seems to lie in a delegation of that right—via the Senate—to the Emperor, who is of course not constrained by either the right of appeal or any set term limit. But the constitutional flavour of Pomponius’ account is clear. The Emperor is granted a “right” to legislate, absent this grant his authority would not be legitimate; and his position had been established, presumably lawfully. Most importantly, it seems that for Pomponius the Senate and ultimately the Emperor came to have a representative function in view of the fact that the people, had it not been for the fact that the Assemblies had become impossible for practical reasons, would still be legislating. Also, the Emperor’s sovereignty is not God-given or theocratic on this account, unlike elsewhere in the Corpus iuris.13 Is this an absolute conception of the sovereignty of the Emperor, or does it base the Emperor’s authority in the last resort on the sovereignty of the people? It is clear that, genealogically, the Emperor’s sovereignty is derived from that of the people; but do the people retain some of their authority? And if not, is the Emperor bound by previous and by his own legislation? There is a distinct ambiguity in the Corpus iuris, the Roman law codification within which Pomponius’ handbook appeared, with regard to these questions. The classic statements in the Digest which have been taken to underwrite an absolute conception of the Emperor’s sovereignty (that “what has pleased the Emperor has the force of law” and that he is “not bound by the laws [legibus solutus]”14) are counterbalanced by what follows immediately after the former statement: “This is because the people commits to him and into him its own entire authority and power, doing this by the royal law [lex regia] which is passed anent his authority.”15 The Emperor’s sovereignty may thus not be bound by any statute,

calculates a proportion of 2 percent or less of eligible voters). Cf. Millar, “The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200–151 b.c.,” jrs 74 (1984): 18; MacMullen, “How Many Romans Voted,” Athenaeum 58 (1980): 454–457. 13 See, e.g., Justinian’s way of characterizing his imperium in his constitution Deo auctore, which is put at the beginning of his codification of Roman law, the Digest: “Deo auctore nostrum gubernantes imperium, quod nobis a caelesti maiestate traditum est.” This ­theocratic coloring is perspicuous throughout the Corpus iuris. 14 Ulp. Dig. 1.3.31: “Princeps legibus solutus est.” 15 Ibidem 1.4.1.pr.: “Quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem: utpote cum lege regia, quae de imperio eius lata est, populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat.” See also Inst. 1.2.6. But cf. also Const. 1.14.2: “Digna vox maiestate regnantis legibus alligatum se principem profiteri: adeo de auctoritate iuris nostra pendet auctoritas. Et re vera maius imperio est submittere legibus principatum. Et oraculo praesentis edicti quod nobis licere non patimur indicamus.”

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but his authority is seen ultimately to rest on the people’s authority (which on this view must have also been freed from the laws, legibus solutus). The republican potential inherent in the idea of a transfer of sovereignty from the Roman people to the Emperors by way of a lex regia had also, on some interpretations, a constitutional dimension.16 If the transfer had been revocable, or if it had been tied to certain conditions, this was apt to shed some doubt on the claim of the Emperor’s absolute sovereignty. The problem with the idea of a transfer by lex regia was that no such statute is independently attested.17 In 1344 however, a great bronze tablet was found on which something very much resembling a lex regia was inscribed: the so-called lex de imperio Vespasiani, a law detailing the powers conferred on Emperor Vespasian by s­ tatute in 69 ad.18 This inscription was discovered and then put on display in the Church of St. John Lateran in Rome by Cola di Rienzo, a champion of republican government, who subsequently used and interpreted it to reintroduce a republican constitution at Rome in 1347. Whether or not the law on the bronze tablet was actually a lex regia as described in the Digest, it certainly seemed to lend support to the idea that in the last resort the Emperor’s authority was derived from, and depended on, the Roman people and was thus not absolute.

An Early Exclusive Republican: Ptolemy of Lucca and His Portion of the De regimine principum

Cola di Rienzo was not the first of course to take a friendlier attitude toward the Roman Republic as opposed to the Principate or Empire; Charles Till Davis has shown, against Hans Baron’s thesis of a decisive republican break occurring at the beginning of the quattrocento, that such a republican orientation could be traced back at least to the early fourteenth century with the spread of Aristotelianism and the works of Brunetto Latini, Marsilius of Padua, Dante, the commentator Bartolus of Sassoferrato and the Dominicans Remigius of 16

17 18

For an excellent brief account of the implications of the lex regia for the Middle Ages and for medieval ideas on the source of imperial authority, see J. Canning, A History of ­Medieval Political Thought, 300–1450 (London/New York, 1996), 7–9. For the history of ideas of absolute sovereignty in the late Middle Ages, see K. Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 1200–1600 (Berkeley, 1993). On the lex regia, see Theodor Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, vol. 2, 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1887–88), 876ff. See on this the classic article by P.A. Brunt, “Lex de Imperio Vespasiani,” The Journal of Roman Studies 67 (1977): 95–116.

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Florence and Ptolemy of Lucca.19 Especially Ptolemy showed a very sustained interest in the history of the Republic and expressed an unmitigated preference for it as against the Empire in his De regimine principum. This work, long attributed to Thomas Aquinas (who probably wrote the first part of it), exhibits in the second part a very pointed “republican exclusivism.”20 Far from endorsing monarchy as the best form of government, as previous medieval thought routinely did, Ptolemy shows hostility to monarchy to the point of equating ­regal rule with despotism. He puts forward an equally stark preference for what the author takes to be the balanced constitution of the Roman Republic, which he describes in almost Polybian terms (without of course knowing Polybius’ Histories) as an Aristotelian polity, a tempered government of the many and the few.21 Ptolemy has a certain amount of knowledge about the institutions of the Roman Republic from the fourth century historian Flavius Eutropius. His ­predilection for republican government to the exclusion of any other form comes to the fore when he reasons that [w]hen it comes to the parts of a polity having to do with government, I must especially use the Romans as exemplars, because the Roman ­Republic was very distinguished in its order, and because historians have described the hierarchy of officials after the expulsion of Tarquin from the kingdom.22 19

Charles Till Davis, “Ptolemy of Lucca and the Roman Republic,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 118 (1974): 30–50; see also Nicolai Rubinstein, “Political Theories in the Renaissance,” in The Renaissance: Essays in Interpretation, ed. A. Chastel (London, 1982), 153–200. 20 The term is Eric Nelson’s. What he asserts concerning seventeenth century political thinkers—that they made the “new and revolutionary argument” that “monarchy per se is an illicit constitutional form and that all legitimate constitutions are republican”—holds already of Ptolemy of Lucca. See Nelson, The Hebrew Republic Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Cambridge, ma, 2010), 3. See also James Hankins, “Exclusivist Republicanism and the Non-Monarchical Republic,” Political Theory 38, 4 (2010): 452–482, for an argument that Ptolemy’s exclusivism was (p. 473) “limited to the city-states of Northern Italy.” 21 See J.M. Blythe, “Introduction,” in Ptolemy of Lucca, On the Government of Rulers: De R ­ egimine Principum (Philadelphia, 1997), 33–39. See also Millar, Roman Republic, 59–61, who is however too focused on spotting democratic elements and does not pay much attention to the constitutionalism of Ptolemy. 22 Ptolemy, On the Government of Rulers 4.26.1. For Ptolemy’s view of the development of the constitution of the Republic, and its gradually more “democratic” character, see also 4.19.5 and Millar, Roman Republic, 60.

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Ptolemy is impressed with the fact that after the expulsion of the kings, the Romans had two consuls,23 equal in power, and with a limited term in office. They were called consuls, he maintains based on Isidore of Seville’s etymology of the word, either from “their ‘consulting the interests of’ (consulere) the citizens, or from their governing everything by consultation.”24 The term limit the Romans instituted, according to Ptolemy, “so that no one could remain insolent for long.”25 He is also aware of the fact, based on Isidore and Eutropius, that the Romans in a time of military threat established the office of the dictator, “to greatly strengthen the nation, and it had a more extensive power and command than the consulate.”26 However, Ptolemy mistakenly believes with Isidore (who is by far the most important source for him on the subject of Roman republican magistracies)27 that the dictator’s term of office was longer than the consuls’, “expiring after five years, whereas the consulate lasted only for one year.”28 He does correctly point out that Caesar had held the office.29 Interestingly, he does not follow Eutropius in the mistaken belief that Emperor Augustus too had held the dictatorship, thus correctly confining the office to the domain of the republican constitution.30 Finally, he relates how, “because the consuls excessively oppressed the plebs, tribunes were instituted by the people.” The tribunes were called such “because they handed down rights to the people.”31 In all of this there is an obvious sense that, without making it 23

Not the contradictory information on there being but one consul gleaned from the Bible (1 Maccabees 8.16) which Ptolemy also repeatedly relates, without noting the contradiction: see e.g. Ptolemy, On the Government of Rulers 2.8.1. 24 Isid. Etym. 9.3.6: “Hinc igitur consules appellati, vel a consulendo civibus, vel a regendo cuncta consilio.” Trans. S.A. Barney/W.J. Lewis/J.A. Beach/ O. Berghof. 25 Ptolemy, On the Government of Rulers 4.26.1. This is a very close rendering of Isidore’s description of the office, from where he also takes the odd distinction of a “military” and a “civil” consul. 26 Ibidem 4.26.2. 27 Blythe’s notes in general do not pay sufficient attention to Isidore as a source of Ptolemy. 28 Ibidem 4.26.2. Cf. Isid. Etym. 9.3.11. 29 Ptolemy, On the Government of Rulers 4.26.2, where he also points out—something he might have gleaned from Cic. Leg. 3.9—that hi dictatores magistri a populo vocabantur. 30 Eutropius thinks that both Caesar and Augustus had been dictators, adding that the ­dictatorship was the power closest in character to the imperial office of Emperor Valens (to whom the Breviarium ab urbe condita is dedicated), thus creating an interesting genealogy and continuing the illusion of the Principate as a continuation of the constitutional government of the Republic; see Eutr. 1.12. 31 Ptolemy, On the Government of Rulers 4.26.3, quoting Isid. Etym. 9.3.29; 9.4.18 (where it is said that the tribunes were created six years after the expulsion of the kings); cf. Ptolemy, On the Government of Rulers, 279, n. 315.

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explicit, Ptolemy has an implicit understanding of the higher-order norms that limit, e.g., the consuls’ term in office and of the fact that these norms are of a constitutional character. It is this that distinguishes the Republic, not a zeal for grandeur and glory, as Augustine had maintained. Claiming the church father’s support, Ptolemy turns Augustine’s ambiguity about Roman civic virtue into plain affirmation of their virtues, which he chiefly finds represented in the Romans’ “love of their fatherland,” their “zeal for justice” and their “virtue of benevolence.” To illustrate the first of these virtues, Ptolemy cites Sallust, who recalls nostalgically what had made the ­Republic great—“industry at home, just command abroad, a free spirit in counseling.” Ptolemy also cites Sallust’s rendering of a speech of Marcus Porcius Cato on the reasons for the decline of republican government at Rome: “But instead of these things we now have luxury and avarice, poverty in public but opulence in private; we praise wealth, we seek idleness, we make no distinction between the good and the evil, and ambition reaps all the rewards of virtue.”32 Another crucial Roman virtue, according to Ptolemy and his tendentious version of ­Augustine, is “their zeal for justice [zelus iustitiae],” which constitutes “another reason why the Romans were worthy of lordship”—and by “the Romans,” the Roman Republic is meant. This zeal for justice made the Romans acquire their rule “by natural right [iure naturae], from which all just lordship [iustum dominium] originates.” Because of “their exceptionally just laws [iustissimae leges], others spontaneously subjected themselves to their lordship.”33 Ptolemy then goes on to cite from the Acts of the Apostles: When Festus [the Roman procurator of Judea] was in Jerusalem, the ruling priests visited him and demanded that Paul be condemned to death. Festus answered that according to the way that individuals are subject to the Romans’ laws, “it is not the custom of the Romans to condemn them,” or to pardon them, “unless their accusers are present and they have the chance to defend themselves and clear themselves of the accusation.” For this reason Augustine says: “It pleased God that the Romans should conquer the world, so that it might be pacified by being brought far and wide into the single society of the Republic and its laws [in unam societatem reipublicae legumque].”34

32 33 34

Ibidem 3.4, 155, citing Sall. Cat. 52.21. Ptolemy very likely quoted Sallust from August. De civ. D. 5.12. Ibidem 3.5, 157. Ibidem 3.5, 157f., citing Acts 25.16 and August. De civ. D. 18.22.

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From the last remark it becomes clear that, notwithstanding the episode from the Acts of the Apostles, it is the Roman Republic, not the Principate, which displays the legalistic and constitutional traits Ptolemy values. His whole discussion of the justification of Roman rule is dense with quotations, above all, of Augustine’s City of God, which, in turn, relies heavily on Cicero’s Republic in its argument about the justice of the Roman empire and Roman virtues. The debate about imperial justice in book three of the Republic—i.e., the so-called Carneadean debate—looms thus large, albeit by way of Augustine, in the background of Ptolemy’s evaluation of the Roman Republic and its constitution. The Carneadean debate shines through in Ptolemy’s account, and has arguably a bigger impact on Ptolemy than on Augustine. Unlike Augustine, who is of course highly ambiguous about the secular virtue of the Romans and what he takes in the last analysis to be their vain emphasis of glory and honor,35 Ptolemy adopts a view perfectly akin to Cicero’s (or Laelius’) natural-law defense of the Republic and its imperialism. He then co-opts Augustine effectively into this view of the Republic having inherited imperial rule from Alexander the Great because of their “exercising lordship justly and exercising governance ­legitimately.” Ptolemy here seems to imply that part of the problem with ­Alexander had been that he was a monarch, and thus not capable of the kind of rule by “most holy laws” and of directing “the people under the laws,” thus preserving “the multitude of persons in civil society” for the “purpose of preserving the peace and justice.” The monarch Alexander is not capable of that kind of constitutional justice, which Ptolemy calls “legal justice [legalis iustitia]” and which in his view is in the last resort based on natural law. This defense of the Roman Republic’s imperial rule by reference to the Republic’s constitutional rule and the civilizing influence of the Roman law and the Romans’ legalis iustitia was to become a topos in European political thought after the discovery of the Americas.36 What is most interesting about its use in 35

36

On Ptolemy’s transformation of Augustine’s ambiguity about the Romans into straightforward praise, see Charles Till Davis, “Ptolemy of Lucca and the Roman Republic”; on his use (and abuse) of Augustine and his efforts to reconcile him with Aristotle, see also Blythe, “Introduction,” 24–30; and Blythe’s note on the text, 153, n. 38. The most prominent use of the arguments of the Carneadean debate applied to Roman imperialism (also with a favorable view of the Republic as opposed to the Empire) can be found in Gentili’s The Wars of the Romans (De armis Romanis). See on this and on the influence of the Carneadean debate B. Kingsbury and B. Straumann, “Introduction,” in Alberico Gentili, The Wars of the Romans. A Critical Edition and Translation of De armis Romanis, ed. Kingsbury and Straumann, trans. D. Lupher (Oxford, 2011), x-xxv; L. Benton and B. Straumann, “Acquiring Empire by Law. From Roman Doctrine to Early Modern European Practice,” Law and History Review 28, 1 (2010): 1–38; D. Lupher, “The De armis

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Ptolemy’s work is not only its revolutionary, unabashed p ­ ro-republican (and ­effectively “exclusivist” republican) stance—which is interesting and revolutionary enough.37 But there is an additional aspect, which is to do with the precise reasons for Ptolemy’s interest in the Republic. Notwithstanding Ptolemy’s frequent mentioning of Augustine and his attempts to masquerade his own views as those of the church father, his take on the Republic really is congenial to that of Cicero as presented in the Republic (which he knows through ­Augustine), the Laws and On Duties (both of which he knows ­directly). It entirely lacks any susceptibility to Augustine’s differentiation between vera iustitia and mere earthly justice; and although there is at times a broadly ­Aristotelian terminology at work in De regimine principum,38 the outlook really is that of the constitutional tradition of the Roman Republic. The constitutional rule spread by Roman republican imperialism simply is vera iustitia for Ptolemy, and the chief justification of their empire. The whole world should, by natural right, be governed by the Republic and pacified by being brought under the “single society of the Republic and its laws.” Ptolemy brings out very clearly the constitutional dimension of the Roman Republic and its mode of government in the following passage, where he contrasts the republican constitutional government (“political rule”) with rule by one. He routinely conflates the Aristotelian distinction between regal and despotic rule, so that monarchy assumes an overall despotic character. Now the most interesting aspect of “political rule” is that, although Ptolemy is heavily inclined to praise it, and initially points out its stability, he also diagnoses a certain inferiority to monarchy, the government by one, or regal rule, by virtue of the fact that the “political” ruler is bound by law and thus not free to react

37

38

Romanis and the Exemplum of Roman Imperialism,” in The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations: Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire, ed. Kingsbury and Straumann (­Oxford, 2010), 85–100. See also, for an example of the use of Augustine by an ­anti-imperialist humanist jurist, Vázquez de Menchaca’s Controversiae illustres (1564). Vázquez explained Augustine’s account by saying that the Romans were granted their empire by God not on grounds of their showing virtue in conquering it, but rather because, quite apart from their warfare, the Romans were excelling other peoples in terms of other virtues. See F. Vázquez de Menchaca, Controversiarum illustrium aliarumque usu frequentium libri tres, ed. F. Rodriguez Alcalde, 2 vols. (Valladolid, 1931), 2.20: 31. See on this Ronald Witt, “The Rebirth of the Concept of Republican Liberty in Italy,” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Hans Baron, ed. A. Mohlo and J.A. Tedeschi (Dekalb, 1971), 173–199. See e.g. Ptolemy, On the Government of Rulers 3.5.3, 158, alluding to Arist. Pol. 1.2, 1253a2–3: The “multitude of persons in civil society” is, “according to Aristotle,” “a necessity for them as naturally social animals.”

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as he wishes, e.g. in emergencies. “Political government,” as exercised in the Roman Republic, is of necessity of a pleasant and mild character, and it is also a sure mode of governing because it is according to the form of the laws [secundum formam legum] of the commune or the municipality, to which the rector is bound. But for this reason the ruler’s prudence is not free, and, therefore it is more remote from the divine and imitates it less. Although laws originate in natural law [ius naturae], as Cicero proves in his treatise On Laws, and natural law derives from divine law […]; nevertheless they fail in particular acts [in particularibus actibus], for which legislators cannot provide, since they are ignorant of future events. Thus, political government results in a certain weakness, since political rectors judge the people by the laws alone. This weakness is eliminated in regal lordship since the rulers, not being obligated by the laws, may judge by what is in their hearts, and they therefore more closely follow divine providence […].39 Ptolemy shows awareness, in a text very much given to his preference for republican government “according to the form of the laws,” of the problem that this kind of government might actually end up being weaker than monarchy, or regal rule, where rulers are not bound by law and can thus answer particular contingencies not provided for in legal form according to their discretion. Whether this amounts to an awareness of what Carl Friedrich has called “constitutional reason of state,” that is to say reason of state in its application to a constitutional order,40 is less clear. The legal limits and constraints to the capacity to act which plague the republican order are not here looked at from a moral point of view. However, given that Ptolemy is prone to thinking of all monarchy or regal rule as despotic, he does seem here to point to a tension between despotic government, lacking in justice but with a discretionary capacity to act in emergencies on the one hand, and republican constitutional government on the other. Yet interestingly, this perceived weakness of Republics does not lead Ptolemy to give up on republican rule in favour of monarchy. Ptolemy’s originality consists in this straightforward preference for the ­Roman Republic and his general preference for republican government. He exhibits many of the traits characteristic of the Roman constitutional tradition portrayed here. The expansion of the Republic is justified, according to him, 39 Ptolemy, On the Government of Rulers 2.8.6. Cf. also 4.16.3. 40 C.J. Friedrich, Constitutional Reason of State: The Survival of the Constitutional Order (Providence, 1957).

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not because striving for glory is a value, but rather due to the constitutional nature of Roman republican rule. This is an early example of what was to become a prominent strand in early modern natural law theories:41 spreading the content of the natural law underlying their “most just laws,” the Romans have acquired their empire due to their “zeal for justice.” Ptolemy does not put his faith in the virtuous disposition of the ruler. For better or worse, he prefers a system where the ruler is constrained by law and puts the emphasis on legal constraints, not on virtue. He does not seem to think that these constraining lower-order laws could be violated, or set aside, by reference to the higherorder natural law and in order to save the republican constitution; indeed, he does not seem to have given much thought to such an idea. To sum up, Ptolemy has a normative preference for republican rule due to their natural justice and legal constraints, and he is thus not a Machiavellian republican in the sense of giving ultimate value to the virtues of grandezza and glory.42 The liberty which is encouraged under republican rule recommends it as pleasant, or mild: because they exercise rule themselves when it is their turn, subjects (subditi, a strange term given the context) are “bold in pursuing liberty, so as not to be forced to submit and bow down to kings.”43 It is a liberty very much of the kind Benjamin Constant had in mind when describing “ancient liberty” and its distinguishing features, namely political participation and political rights.44 This Aristotelian flavor can be detected throughout the work, and it is at odds with the kind of Ciceronian property-centered political and constitutional theory based on a state of nature,45 as is his Sallustian romantic glorification of public opulence and private poverty.46 It is equally at odds, however, with Augustine’s view of the Roman Republic as exhibiting but second-rate, pagan qualities (which are really vices). As opposed to Augustine 41

See, for the most elaborate take on this, Alberico Gentili, The Wars of the Romans, and the “Introduction” thereto. For Gentili, spreading Roman law, which for him consists for the most part of natural law, adds an additional justification to Roman imperialism. 42 Machiavelli, with his dichotomy between pagan and Christian virtue, if not with his preference for the former, follows Augustine, while Ptolemy does not. 43 Ptolemy, On the Government of Rulers 2.8.5: “confidentia subditorum, sive de exoneratione dominii regentium sive dominandi in suo tempore congruo, reddit ipsos ad libertatem audaces, ne colla submittant regentibus: unde oportet politicum regimen esse suave.” 44 Benjamin Constant, “The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns,” in Constant Political Writings, ed. B. Fontana (Cambridge, 1988), 308–328. 45 Ptolemy, On the Government of Rulers 2.9.4. Ptolemy here makes the argument that republican government could already be found in the state of innocence, as opposed to monarchy; to render the state of innocence as “state of nature” as Blythe does is misleading. 46 Ibidem 3.4.3.

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Ptolemy thinks the justice demonstrated and spread by the Republic and its empire is the real (and only) thing, and thus accords with Cicero (or Laelius) in the Republic. In this last regard, then, his views are indeed Ciceronian, as are his invocations of natural justice as contained in the Carneadean debate.

Mario Salamonio’s Roman Constitutionalism

Ptolemy of Lucca with his predilection for the Roman Republic as opposed to the Empire did not pay attention to the problem of how the legal authority of the Emperor could be justified. In his view, the Republic ruled “through consuls, dictators, and tribunes” from Tarquin the Proud until it degenerated with the civil wars and ended with Julius Caesar’s rule.47 He did thus not pay attention to the lex regia or to Pomponius’ account of how sovereignty had been transferred from the people to the Emperors. One of the earliest and in their relevance to the constitutional tradition most salient and sustained discussions of the lex regia and Pomponius’ text can be found in the work of the humanist Roman lawyer Mario Salamonio. Salamonio, born of a Roman patrician family at Rome in the mid-fifteenth century, wrote his main work Patritii Romani de principatu libri vi (1544) between 1512 and 1514 in the context of the conflict between the papal curia and the Commune of the city of Rome. The book takes the form of a dialogue between a philosopher, a lawyer, a theologian and a historian. The question at issue is whether or not the Roman Emperor can be said to be legibus solutus, that is to say whether he can be said to rule absolutely. The lawyer’s rather knee-jerk claim is that there really isn’t a question; the Emperor as a matter of course is absolute. The philosopher contests this claim and adduces Aristotle, arguing that the lawyer’s stance would make it difficult to differentiate between tyrannical and imperial rule.48 The lawyer responds by laying out a positivist theory of law, and by arguing that given that law (lex) is essentially a command, a prohibition, or a punishment, something in short which has force exclusively vis-à-vis subjects, not equals. The emperor can thus not command or prescribe anything to himself.49 47 48

49

Ibidem 2.9.6. Mario Salamonio, Patritii Romani de principatu libri vi (Paris, 1578), 3: “phi. Audi ergo ­Aristotelem 4. Politices pro omnibus loquentem; Necesse est, inquit, Tyrannidem esse illam, quae nullis legibus subiacet, & dominatur ad propriam utilitatem.” The Paris 1578 edition, which is a republication of the editio princeps published at Rome in 1544, must have been published in the context of monarchomachic thought. Ibidem, 5: “ivr. Ratio ea in primis proditur; quòd nemo sibimet praesribere legem potest: similiter nec precipere.ridiculosa enim res esset lex:veluti stipulatio, quando vim

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This stance arouses the philosopher’s decided resistance, and as the dialogue unfolds the philosopher manages to convince the lawyer that far from being freed or absolute from his own legislation, the Emperor is bound by it as the Roman people were bound by their own lawmaking before delegating this authority to the Emperor by means of the lex regia. The common assumption of all the participants in the dialogue is that natural (and divine) law constrain the legislative power of whoever holds that power; and it is conceded by the lawyer to the philosopher that the lex regia itself is outside the scope of the Emperor’s lawmaking authority and thus immune to his sovereignty. Since the lawyer concedes that he is not sure as to the content of the historical lex regia, the debate proceeds, interestingly, by way of a priori argument, leading the philosopher to conclude that the people could not possibly have contracted into delegating permanently and irrevocably its authority. The way power was delegated—a revocable delegation, as the philosopher insists—to the Emperor is taken from Pomponius’ Enchiridion in the Digest, which is cited word by word. The lex de imperio Vespasiani, too, is cited by way of support, and the historian betrays a quite detailed knowledge of the working of the Roman Assemblies and their role in legislation as well as elections. Interestingly, when discussing the constraints upon the Emperor’s legislative powers, contract law is—as is the lex regia—taken to lie outside the scope of the sovereign’s authority; the rules of contracts cannot be changed and are thus a constraint on the Emperor’s lawmaking, a further (and as it turns out, crucial) element in the philosopher’s argument that the princeps and his imperium are by no means legibus solutus. The philosopher’s motive in arguing for contract law enjoying this status is that he explicitly models the delegation of power from the people to the Emperor on the Roman legal institution of mandate (mandatum),50 which is part of the Roman law of contract and was conceptualised in the ­Roman legal sources as a consensual contract, requiring for its conclusion but the tacit or explicit consent of the parties.51 The mandator, in Salamonio’s case the people, would mandate the mandatary, here the Emperor, with discharging of legislation on his behalf. This kind of contract was entirely gratuitous and could be revoked at any time by the parties. This contractual bent in Salamonio’s thought is further supported by his use of Cicero’s Republic and the widely known (via Augustine) definition of

­ ecessitatis non affert. Nihil tam proprium legis est, quam imperare, vetare, & punier: n quae non nisi in subditos vim habent.” 50 Gai. Inst. 3.162. 51 See, for the Roman law of mandate, A. Watson, Contract of Mandate in Roman Law (­Oxford, 1961).

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res publica stated therein.52 Excluding societies that are formed with a view towards committing injustice, the philosopher uses Cicero’s definition of the required kind of populus and renders it as the correct definition of a “civil people” (civilis populus). Cicero had said it well in the Republic, the philosopher says, when defining it as a “collection of men which forms a society by virtue of agreement with respect to justice and sharing in advantage.”53 Seizing on the term sociatus, Salamonio goes on—in keeping with the essentially Roman and Ciceronian spirit—to ask the lawyer: “If the state [Civitas] is nothing but a sort of civil partnership [civilis quaedam societas], can such a partnership be established without any contract [sine pactionibus]?”54 He brings the lawyer to concede that the contracts of such a partnership are correctly called “laws.” On this account the whole people acts as the legislator, in a fashion very much akin to Marsilius of Padua, with the Emperor only being one partner (socius) among many acting on behalf of the people. As before with the Roman law of mandate, this builds on the Roman contract of partnership (societas), which, based on faith (fides), was not limited to Roman citizens, a characteristic useful for Salamonio’s purpose of having a societas agreed upon in an essentially pre-political condition.55 The partners (socii) in the partnership all had to consent to the partnership and the consent had to be ongoing—one partner’s lack of consent would effectively abolish the societas as a whole. Again, given the framing of the argument in terms of Roman contract law, and given that the philosopher had already established the essentially constitutional status of the rules of contract law and its immunity to the sovereignty of the legislator, this amounts to an implicit formulation of a set of immutable, entrenched higher-order rules, rules that turn out to be the rules of Roman contract law on the one hand and natural law norms on the other. As in Cicero’s own political thought, there are certain substantive constraints on what can be agreed upon by means of contract; if it was not for the constitutional constraint of justice (ius), brigands too could qualify as a constitutional societas.

52 Cic. Rep. 1.39. Cf. August. De civ. D. 2.21. 53 Salamonio, De principatu, 38: “phi. Praedonum multitudo, ista ratione sociata, civilem populum constitueret. melius ergo Cicero in Rep. definivit, Coetum hominum, iuris consensu & utilitatis communione sociatum. Iuris consensu ait, ad excudendos praedones & reliquos, qui ad aliorum iniuriam sociantur.” 54 Ibidem: “phi. Si nihil aliud est Civitas, quam civilis quaedam societas, contrahiturne ­societas ulla sine pactionibus? ivr. Non utique, nisi tacitis aut expressis. phi. Pactiones huiusmodi nonne rectae societatis leges dicuntur? ivr. Non dubium.” 55 See M. Kaser, Das römische Privatrecht, 2. Abschnitt, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1971/75), § 43.

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Conclusion: Constitutional Republicanism and the Limits of Virtue

Neither Salamonio’s stated preference for republican government nor his ideas of popular sovereignty are new. Legal and political thinkers of an Aristotelian bent such as Bartolus of Sassoferrato, Baldus de Ubaldis and Marsilius of Padua had already put forward arguments favoring popular sovereignty, and of these scholastic writers at least Ptolemy of Lucca had expressed views strongly favoring the Roman Republic over the rule of the Emperors, a judgment of the relative value of these periods of Roman history followed of course most prominently by the Florentine humanist Leonardo Bruni.56 Quentin Skinner and before him Paul Oskar Kristeller have already shown that Hans Baron’s view of a decisive change in outlook early in the quattrocento, the so-called “Baron thesis,” according to which a civic minded republican form of humanism first developed in the context of the conflict between republican Florence and autocratic Milan, could not be upheld given that such views could be shown to have already developed much earlier, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.57 What distinguishes Salamonio is that, unlike Bartolus or Baldus, he uses the lex regia extensively in his argument about popular sovereignty and imperium, and unlike the scholastics, he imports into his eclectic mixture of elements of Aristotelian philosophy and legal humanism an important dose of Ciceronian thinking about the pre-political realm. His main concern is constitutionalist, the idea that not only did the lex regia as a matter of historical fact not irrevocably bestow absolute sovereignty on the Emperor, as Bartolus and Baldus had maintained,58 but, crucially, that no such bestowal could ever possibly convey sovereignty that is legibus solutus and that the sovereignty of any princeps is always bound by the lex regia under which it was originally bestowed. There is thus a constraint on any sovereign, universally, to remain under the dictates of natural law. In case of conflict with natural law or with popular sovereignty,

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See, e.g. Bruni’s Laudatio Florentinae urbis of 1403/4, and his History of the Florentine P­ eople, ed. and trans. James Hankins, 3 vols. (Cambridge, ma, 2001–2007), 1.38, 48–50: “Declinationem autem romani imperii ab eo fere tempore ponendam reor quo, amissa libertate, imperatoribus servire Roma incepit. […] negare non poterit tunc romanum imperium ruere coepisse, cum primo caesareum nomen, tamquam clades aliqua civitati incubuit. Cessit enim libertas imperatorio nomini, et post libertatem virtus abivit.” See Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1978), ­101–109; see also J. Hankins, “The ‘Baron Thesis’ after Forty Years and Some Recent Studies of Leonardo Bruni,” Journal of the History of Ideas 56, 2 (1995): 309–338. See on this Canning, History of Medieval Political Thought, 170; on Baldus, see Canning, The Political Thought of Baldus de Ubaldis (Cambridge, 2003), 61–64.

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legislation by the sovereign can even be abrogated. This has led several historians of political thought to add Salamonio prominently to the tradition of the social contract thinkers,59 a characterization that is certainly not implausible in light of the passages quoted above.60 More importantly, however, Salamonio recognises, with Cicero, certain ­substantive constraints on what can be contracted into, and it is this view of a constitutionally relevant natural law which makes him a Ciceronian. The description of Salamonio as a social contract theorist thus seems to almost miss the most important point which lies in Salamonio’s use of a Ciceronian concept of natural law and in the way this concept serves to constrain even certain contractual options. For Salamonio, then, no less than for Pomponius and Ptolemy, the Roman Republic served as a model of a constitutional republicanism, the distinct features of which lie, not in civic virtue, but rather in higher-order rules which constrain ordinary legislation and politics. This suggests that there is no one “classical republicanism” that was essentially concerned with inculcating virtue to prevent the polity from corruption and to allow for a citizenry ready to participate in the communal decisions and warfare without giving priority to their narrowly conceived self-interest.61 While this Pocockian account always was, even as an interpretation of Aristotle, rather tendentious and seems to have it backward—instrumentalising virtue, all the while Aristotle made virtue of the select few the main normative goal of the polis—it most certainly fails to do justice to the emphasis on constitutional solutions and the corresponding neglect of virtue we have encountered in the writers discussed above. Indeed, the constitutional republicanism this chapter has been concerned with can be demonstrated to have remained highly virulent long after Salamonio. Not only Bodin, Gentili, Grotius and Locke, but even supposedly “classical republicans” in England such as Marchamont Nedham, James Harrington as well as John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon drew extensively on

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See Mario d’Addio, L’idea del contratto sociale dai sofisti alla Riforma (Milan, 1954), 111ff., 119ff.; J.W. Gough, The Social Contract: A Critical Study of its Development, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1957), 45–47. See however Skinner, Foundations, 132, esp. n. 1, whose argument is that far from being a theorist of social contract, Salamonio simply argues “that all Imperium should have ‘a basis in covenants.’” It is not clear how this ventures against the assumption of Salamonio as a theorist of social contract. For the most influential rendering of this view, see, of course, J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975).

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what could be called Ciceronian constitutionalism.62 It is a strand of thought putting less trust and interest in civic virtue, more in constitutional safeguards, and in the eighteenth century this strand keeps running by way of Montesquieu up to the American founding and Federalist political thought. The w ­ riters that have been discussed in this chapter, then, seem to have provided the foundation for the Federalist constitutionalists who acknowledged the limits of virtue and put their trust, instead, in the kind of constitutional framework espoused by Cicero, Pomponius, Ptolemy and Salamonio. 62

See Benjamin Straumann, Crisis and Constitutionalism. Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution (Oxford, 2016), esp. 303–319. For a good ­corrective of the republican-liberal distinction, see Vickie Sullivan, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and the Formation of a Liberal Republicanism in England (Cambridge, 2004), where the ancient-modern distinction is however reinforced uncritically.

chapter 3

Commonwealths for Preservation and Increase: Ancient Rome in Venice and the Dutch Republic Arthur Weststeijn James Harrington, ranking high among the usual suspects of “classical republicanism”, made adamantly clear what an ideal polity should be like. In the ­introduction to his The Commonwealth of Oceana from 1656, he argued that commonwealths come in two sorts: either they are only “for preservation”, or they are also “for increase.” A year later, in The Prerogative of Popular Government, he specified his stance by heading Sparta, Carthage and Venice under the former category; the latter, “a government of citizens, where the commonwealth is both for increase and preservation”, included just one shining ­example: Rome.1 Harrington thus famously argued for an expansionist republic modelled on ancient Rome, a position that reveals the intimate connections between ­republicanism, as an ideology of active civic participation in politics, and imperialism, as an ideology of expansionist rule. Republican empires, or imperial republics for that matter, might seem to be almost oxymoronic, as becomes clear from the common usage to subdivide the history of ancient Rome into two distinct parts: the history of the Roman Republic, and the subsequent history of the Roman Empire. Clearly, the Romans themselves are the ones to blame for this confusing terminology. In Latin, both res publica (“commonwealth”, or simply, in modern terms, “state”) and imperium (originally the “right of command” or “authority” of individuals or states over others) are highly generic terms, which were used in ancient Rome and have been used ever since for a wide range of political entities.2 In early-modern Europe, the term “­republic” generally referred to any kind of legitimate government, following the use of the term in Cicero, though at the same time, following Machiavelli, “republic” increasingly denoted a free state without a single ruler.3 “Empire”, 1 James Harrington, Political Works, ed. John Pocock (Cambridge, 1977), 159–160, 446. 2 Cf. J.S. Richardson, “Imperium Romanum: Empire and the Language of Power,” The Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991): 1–9. 3 See James Hankins, “Exclusivist Republicanism and the Non-Monarchical Republic,” Political Theory 38 (2010): 452–482.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_005

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meanwhile, generally stood for effective sovereignty, and only in the case of the Holy ­Roman Empire it was used to represent a concrete form of government.4 It might therefore be difficult to speak in any meaningful sense about early-modern “republican empires”, yet if we stick to the nowadays common ­terminology of non-monarchical states seeking to acquire large territories, one conclusion must be drawn: many republics in history were clearly imperialist, from ancient Rome to Harrington’s England under Cromwell, and from the French Revolutionary Republic to the contemporary Unites States of America. Modern scholarship on the history of political thought has accordingly paid the phenomenon of republican imperialism its due share. Following the trajectory set out by John Pocock, most of the attention in this context as well has gone to Renaissance Florence and seventeenth-century England, with Machiavelli and Harrington being the prototypical protagonists.5 It is striking, however, that very little attention has been drawn thus far to the two cases of early-modern commonwealths that actually proved to be (pace Harrington) both for preservation and for increase: Venice and the Dutch Republic. Indeed, whilst Machiavelli’s Florence and Harrington’s England soon failed in their republican and/or imperialist experiments, Venice and the Dutch Republic can serve as perhaps the best examples of the intricate relationship between nonmonarchical and expansionist rule. Both republics originated as small territorial entities that for centuries maintained their independence amidst princely and monarchical competitors, and both acquired extensive colonial empires that resulted in prolonged periods of mercantile primacy.6 Yet until now we know very little about the ways in which early-modern Venetian and Dutch 4 James Muldoon, Empire and Order. The Concept of Empire, 800–1800 (Basingstoke, 1999). 5 See esp. David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge, 2000); ­Armitage, “Empire and Liberty: A Republican Dilemma,” in Republicanism: a Shared European Heritage, ed. Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2002), 2:29–46; J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion. Vol. 3: The First Decline and Fall (Cambridge, 2003); and Mikael Hörnqvist, Machiavelli and Empire (Cambridge, 2004). Cf. also Edward G.  Andrew, Imperial Republics. Revolution, War, and Territorial Expansion from the English Civil War to the French Revolution (Toronto, 2011), which does not live up to its title since it mainly focuses on monarchies. On imperial tendencies in early-modern political thought in general, see Anthony Pagden, Lords of All the World. Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain and France, c.1500–c.1800 (New Haven and London, 1995), and Sankar Muthu, ed., Empire and Modern Political Thought (Cambridge, 2012). 6 On the connected histories of Venice and the Dutch Republic, see the classic studies of Peter Burke, Venice and Amsterdam: a Study of Seventeenth-Century Élites (London, 1974), and Eco Haitsma Mulier, The Myth of Venice and Dutch Republican Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Assen, 1980).

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authors thought about this seemingly happy marriage between republicanism and imperialism. The aim of this chapter is therefore to uncover and explore discussions in Venice and the Dutch Republic on what it means to be non-monarchical and expansionist at the same time, and I will do so by taking the perspective of Rome, the timeless repository of republican and imperial practices and ideas. How did authors in Venice and the Dutch Republic characterise ancient Rome? Did they use it, like Harrington, as a model for their own commonwealths? If so, how, and if not, why? Zooming in on a pivotal moment in the connected histories of Venice and the Dutch Republic, the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when Venetian primacy in the Mediterranean ended and Dutch ascendancy on a global scale began, the chapter shows that the legacy of ancient Rome was highly inspiring but troublesome for a generation of authors that sought to come to terms with the politics of their day. They include Venice’s official historiographer Paola Paruta (1540–1598), the chameleonic humanist scholar Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), and the sarcastic satirist Trajano Boccalini (1556–1613), with the main protagonist being the young Hugo Grotius (1583–1645). All were part of a debate that transcended the borders of their own polities and that centred on the meanings and possible uses of ancient Rome in a modern world. In the course of that debate, the example of Rome was discarded as a republican paragon, not only because it was imperial, but especially because it had failed to combine its republican nature with its ­imperial pursuits, its liberty with its expansion. Rome, in the eyes of its ­Venetian and Dutch critics, might have been a commonwealth for increase; it failed to be also a commonwealth for preservation.

Robbers of the World: Liberty and Empire from Sallust to Machiavelli

Roman imperialism had always had its critics. In Sallust’s Histories, Mithridates vi of Pontus powerfully blamed the Romans for their “inveterate motive for making war upon all nations, peoples and kings; namely, a deep-seated desire for empire [imperium] and riches.” “Do you not know”, he asked his addressee, the Parthian king Phraates iii, “[t]hat they have possessed nothing since the beginning of their existence except what they have stolen: their home, their wives, their lands, their empire?”7 Criticizing Rome through such an outsider’s 7 Sallust, Epistula Mithridates 5, 17, in Sallust, trans. J.C. Rolfe (Cambridge, ma, 1935), 435, 439 (translation slightly modified). For analysis, see Eric Adler, “Who’s Anti-Roman? Sallust and Pompeius Trogus on Mithridates,” The Classical Journal 101.4 (2006): 383–407.

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verdict was a preferred strategy of other Roman historians as well. In a famous passage in his Agricola, Tacitus staged a speech of the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus, who condemned Rome’s expansion in terms that would echo ever since: Robbers of the world, now that the earth fails their all-devastating hands, they probe even the sea: if their enemy have wealth, they have greed; if he be poor, they are ambitious; East nor west has glutted them; alone of mankind they covet with the same passion want as much as wealth. To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace.8 This rejection of Roman expansion was integrated within the wide-ranging Christian critique of pagan Rome in Augustine’s The City of God. For Augustine, Rome’s empire could only be attained through “the disasters of war and the shedding of blood”; the feeble joy it provoked “may be compared to the fragile splendour of glass.”9 Empire, in other words, is the opposite of civil happiness; true blessedness does not follow from the desire of worldly freedom and lust for glory. Significantly, Augustine based this renunciation of Roman expansion on his reading of Sallust, who had argued that Rome’s republican liberty had been the catalyst of its imperial successes, but those successes, engendering luxury and idleness, eventually paved the way for the demise of that same ­liberty. Sallust’s view on Rome was one of a tragic cycle: liberty leads to empire, which then leads to decadence; the Roman Republic became an empire because it nourished republican virtues and competition, but those virtues could not subsist once the empire was in full sway. Augustine adapted this Sallustian theme into a full-blown attack on Rome’s pagan pursuits. The false spectre of liberty and glory, he argued, made the Romans gain their independence, but then it necessarily turned into an insatiable desire for worldwide dominion through war and bloodshed. The rise of Rome thus contained the seeds of its eventual decline and fall.10 The Sallustian-Augustinian interpretation of liberty and empire profoundly shaped humanist accounts of Rome and its expansion.11 An important (yet

8 Tacitus, Agricola 30, trans. M. Hutton, rev. R.M. Ogilvie (Cambridge, ma, 1970), 81. 9 Augustine, The City of God against the Pagans, ed. R.W. Dyson (Cambridge, 1998) iv.3, 146. 10 Ibidem v.12. For analysis, see Pocock, First Decline and Fall, 90–95. 11 On the readings of Sallust and Augustine in humanist Europe, see Patricia J. Osmond, “‘Princeps Historiae Romanae’: Sallust in Renaissance Political Thought,” Memoirs of the  American Academy in Rome 40 (1995): 101–143, and Arnoud S.Q. Visser, Reading

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c­ritical) adherent who made a large impact throughout sixteenth-century ­Europe was Erasmus. In his 1514 letter to abbot Antoon van Bergen, subsequently extended into the famous adage Dulce bellum inexpertis, Erasmus echoed Augustine in his complaint: “What expenditure of blood it cost to build the Roman empire, and how soon its collapse began!”12 This criticism of Rome was further developed in a next letter to dukes Frederik and Georg of Saxony (included as introduction to Suetonius in the 1518 edition of the Scriptores Historiae Augustae). Here, Erasmus targeted the establishment of the ­Roman Principate, a history of “impiety, murder, parricide, incest and tyranny.” “A glorious monarchy indeed, such as all men might covet!”, Erasmus remarked sarcastically, debunking recent attempts to recreate the Roman Empire—a barely disguised denunciation of Habsburg geopolitics.13 In a following letter from 1523 addressed to Francis i, Erasmus continued in this vein and strongly disavowed the new-born ambition to extend plus ultra. What counts is not territorial expansion, he tried to convince his addressee, but rather strengthening the evangelical empire of Christianity against internal discord and the external menace of the Ottomans.14 In the same years that Erasmus voiced his Augustinian criticism of Rome and the desire for worldwide dominion, another exceptionally influential ­humanist, Machiavelli, highlighted the other side of the Sallustian coin of Roman liberty breeding empire. Ancient Rome, for Machiavelli, served as a model for his native Florence precisely as a paragon of territorial expansion. Republics, he argued, must expand by necessity, for even if a republic “does not m ­ olest others, others will molest her, and from being thus molested will spring the desire and necessity of expansion, and even if she has no external

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­Augustine in the Reformation: The Flexibility of Intellectual Authority in Europe, 1500–1620 (Oxford, 2011). Erasmus, “Letter 288, to Antoon van Bergen” (1514), in The Correspondence of Erasmus:  ­Letters 142 to 297, 1501 to 1514 [Collected Works of Erasmus vol. 2], trans. R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson (Toronto, 1975): 281. On Erasmus’ critical reading and influential ­edition of Augustine, see Visser, Reading Augustine, esp. 29–46. Cf. also Charles Béné, Érasme et Saint Augustin ou influence de Saint Augustin sur l’humanisme d’Érasme (­Geneva, 1969). Erasmus, “Letter 586, to Dukes Frederick and George of Saxony” (1517), in The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 446 to 593, 1516 to 1517 [Collected Works of Erasmus vol. 4], trans. R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson (Toronto, 1977): 378–379. Erasmus, “Letter 1400, to Francis i” (1523), in The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 1356 to 1534, 1523 to 1524 [Collected Works of Erasmus vol. 10], trans. R.A.B. Mynors and Alexander Dalzell (Toronto, 1992): 113–126.

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enemies, she will find enemies at home.”15 Expansion is therefore unavoidable, and the Roman Republic practiced the only feasible strategy to expand successfully: arming its citizens, Rome channelled human ambition outward and overruled its competitors throughout Italy and the Mediterranean by a fatal combination of deceiving treaties, open citizenship, and sheer destruction. Modern r­epublics, Machiavelli insisted, should follow this example— the only alternative was decay. And one illustrious republic was likely to be struck by that fate, he claimed: Venice. He depicted Venice as a frail, decadent ­republic that did not arm its citizens and, being thus dependent on mercenaries for its defence, was bound to linger in inglorious insignificance. In Machiavelli’s ­political ­framework, ­lethargic Venice counted as the direct opposite of ­dynamic Rome.16

Rome Renounced: Happiness and Empire in Sixteenth-Century Venice

Unsurprisingly, Venetian authors were quick to take up the challenge and r­efute Machiavelli’s accusation of their most serene republic. Their critical adaptation of Machiavelli developed into a vision of Venetian republicanism as being wholly different from Rome, thus turning upside down the Renaissance tradition of situating contemporary republics, such as Siena and Florence, in a historical trajectory that originated with ancient Rome. Venice, by contrast, was now increasingly presented as Rome’s fundamental other.17 The first traces of this stance can be found in the 1520s in the work of Gasparo 15

Niccolò Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, ed. Corrado Vivanti (Turin, 2000) ii.19, 186: “se lei non molesterà altrui, sarà molestata ella, e dallo essere molestata le nascerà la voglia e la necessità dello acquistare, e quando non avessi il nimico fuora, lo troverebbe in casa.” For analysis, cf. Hörnqvist, Machiavelli and Empire, 131–147; and John Pocock, “Machiavelli and Rome: The Republic as Ideal and as History,” in The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli, ed. John M. Najemy (Cambridge, 2010), 144–156. 16 Machiavelli, Discorsi i.6, iii.31. 17 On Venetian self-presentation and historical consciousness in the Renaissance, see ­Patricia Fortini Brown, Venice and Antiquity. The Venetian Sense of the Past (New Haven, 1996). The most complete account of sixteenth-century Venetian republicanism remains William J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty. Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968). See also Barbara Marx, “Venezia—altera Roma? Ipotesi sull’Umanesimo veneziano,” Centro tedesco di studi veneziani, Quaderni 10 (Venice, 1978), and Giovanni Silvano, La “Republica de’ Viniziani.” Ricerche sul repubblicanesimo veneziano in età moderna (Florence, 1993).

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Contarini, and especially in Donato Giannotti’s Libro della republica de’ Viniziani.18 Clearly taking issue with Machiavelli’s depiction of Rome and Venice, Giannotti staged a dialogue in the villa of Pietro Bembo in which one of the speakers, the ­humanist Trifone Gabriello, changed Machiavelli’s equation and exalted Venice over Rome in a distinctive Augustinian idiom: It is known to everyone how much more empire the Romans possessed, but I do not judge our Republic to be less blessed and happy. For the happiness of a republic does not consist of the greatness of its empire, but rather of living in tranquillity and universal peace; so if I would say that our Republic was superior to Rome, I surely belief that nobody could rightly reproach me.19 This opposition between empire and happiness would take centre stage towards the end of the century in the work of the most significant critic of ­Machiavelli and ancient Rome in this context, the venezianissmo scholar and politician Paolo Paruta.20 Having been appointed the Republic’s official historiographer in 1579, Paruta made a successful career with a series of public offices and the publication of numerous treatises, most significantly the Discorsi politici from 1598. The main objective of this work was clear from its opening lines, in which Paruta scorned all who uncritically acclaimed the greatness of the Roman Republic. They had no clue of what political “perfection” entails, he declared: perfection does not simply mean “the greatness of empire”, but rather “the right form of government, by which the citizens, living in peace

18 Bouwsma, Venice, 151–152, 157; Silvano, Republica, 30–32, 45–48. 19 Donato Giannotti, Libro della republica de’ Viniziani, in Opere politiche, ed. F. Diaz, 2 vols.  (Milan, 1974), 1:36: “Quantunque i Romani possedesseno tanto maggiore imperio quanto è noto a ciascuno, non però giudico la Repubblica nostra meno beata e felice. Perciocché la felicità d’una repubblica non consiste nella grandezza dello imperio, ma sí bene nel vivere con tranquillità e pace universale: nella qual cosa se io dicessi che la nostra Repubblica fusse alla romana superiore, credo certo che niuno mi potrebbe giustamente riprendere.” 20 Giuseppe Toffanin, Machiavelli e il tacitismo. La politica storica al tempo della controriforma (Padua, 1921), 12. On Paruta, see Bouwsma, Venice, 199–291; Angelo Baiocchi, “Paolo Paruta: ideologia e politica nel cinquecento veneziano,” Studi veneziani 17–18 (1975–76): 157–233; and Silvano, Republica, 138–163. Cf. as well Dorit Raines, “La storiografia pubblica allo specchio. La ‘ragion di stato’ della Repubblica da Paolo Paruta ad Andrea Morosini,” in Celebrazione e autocritica. La Serenissima e la ricerca dell’identità veneziana nel tardo Cinquecento, ed. Benjamin Paul (Rome, 2014), 157–176.

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and union, can behave virtuously and obtain civil happiness.”21 Rome, Paruta continued, did not come close to this ideal. Against Polybius, he argued that Rome’s supposedly mixed nature was badly ordained, for it did not possess the “equality and order” a mixed republic needs “for making it excellent and long-lived.”22 Instead, Rome was characterised by social discord and division, with the nobles being too imperious and the people having “that much authority” that they became overly “insolent.” The result, for Paruta, was “a government full of confusion and disorder.” He admitted that military virtues were ­successfully promoted in Rome, but no measures were taken to encourage “­justice, temperance and other civil virtues, by which the City could have lived in peace, concord and tranquillity.”23 Rome, only aiming for conquests, thus forsook the true goal of politics. ­Indeed, it sowed the seeds of its own downfall, for “such governments that aim at empire are usually short-lived.” Territorial expansion, Paruta explained, necessitates stretching the borders both geographically and psychologically, “nourishing in the citizens ambitious thoughts and desires for domination, so that they easily rebel at the prejudice of the republic itself.”24 Rome could not preserve its republican government because its insatiable imperial pursuits necessarily turned inwards, provoking civil wars and the eventual establishment of the Principate. The continuous focus on war “fomented ambition in the souls of the citizens”, it increased their power and “brought the city through discord to its ultimate ruin.” Empires follow a natural cycle of rise, decline and fall; when Rome was a republic, its empire grew and reached the outer confines of the world, “but finally, when they almost did not know where else to make war on foreigners, the citizens took up their victorious weapons against

21

Paolo Paruta, Discorsi politici, in Opere politiche, ed. C. Monzani, 2 vols. (Florence, 1852), 2:1: “la perfezione degli stati […] non è questa semplicemente la grandezza dell’imperio […] ma ben la dritta forma del governo, per cui vivendo i cittadini in pace ed unione, ponno virtuosamente operare, e conseguire la civile felicità.” 22 Ibidem, 9: “nè ugualità nè ordine tale, quale in una repubblica mista si desidera per farla riuscir eccellente e di lunga vita.” Cf. Polybius, Histories vi.5. 23 Paruta, Discorsi, 13, 17, 21: “il popolo avendo in ogni cosa tanta autorità […] era talmente insolente”; “un governo pieno di confusione e di disordine”; “alla giustizia, alla temperanza ed ad altre virtù civili, per le quali potesse la Città nella pace vivere in concordia e tranquillità.” 24 Ibidem, 22: “Sogliono ancora tali governi indirizzati all’imperio riuscire di breve vita […] perchè ad allargare molto i confini è necessario nodrire ne’ cittadini pensieri ambiziosi e troppo desiderosi di dominare, i quali facilmente si rivoltano in danno della propria repubblica.”

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each other in a long and mortal struggle.”25 For Paruta, the rise and fall of the Roman Republic showed the fatal consequences of prioritizing conquest over concord, of empire over happiness. Paruta’s verdict on Rome, clearly following the Sallustian-Augustinian theme, meant not only to disclaim Polybius’ praise of Rome as a model of a mixed regime; it especially meant to disclaim Machiavelli’s criticism of Venice. Paruta even preferred not to mention Machiavelli openly: he rather referred to him as “some other modern writer”, whose Discorsi were by now “buried in perpetual oblivion.”26 This downplaying of Machiavelli’s significance served the obvious rhetorical purpose of rebutting his unsettling assertion that Rome had become great because of its internal discord, and that Venice would never achieve such greatness because of a fundamental lack of virtue. Facing this argument, Paruta reasoned that Venetian virtue was not less than Rome’s, but different; the origins, geography and political circumstances of Venice could hardly be compared to the rise of Rome, which had enjoyed much better occasions for attaining an empire. Venice, he argued, had originally been reluctant to acquire lands in the Terraferma and only focused on obtaining a “dominion of the sea”—the terminology is telling for he reserved the term “empire” (imperio) for Rome. Significantly, Paruta thus showed not to be against ­expansionist rule per se, but rather against the Roman style of territorial expansion at the ­expense of internal concord. Venetian expansion, he claimed, was of a different, non-territorial kind: not being ordained “for the acquirement of a large ­empire”, its military organization aimed at “the affairs of the sea, not with the aim of subjecting other cities and nations, but rather […] to accommodate traffic and commerce, for which it turned out to be very expedient to conserve peace and maintain open and free trade with all.”27 With this claim Paruta opened the way for a novel form of expansionist ideology, consciously ­anti-Roman and allegedly non-imperial, based on maritime control and the 25

Ibidem, 88, 134: “Questa cosa fomentò l’ambizione nell’animo de’ cittadini […] la ridusse con la discordia all’ultima ruina”; “finalmente, non sapendo quasi ove più guerreggiare contra gli esterni, tra sè stessi con lunga e mortale contesa si posero i suoi cittadini ad adoperare l’armi vincitrici.” 26 Ibidem, 209: “alcun altro scrittore moderno […] i suoi Discorsi ora sepolti in perpetua oblivione.” In a later passage (Ibidem, 246), Machiavelli is mentioned by name. On ­Paruta’s rebuttal of Machiavelli, cf. Bouwsma, Venice, 273–276; and Silvano, Republica, 157–163. 27 Paruta, Discorsi, 215, 228: “dominio del mare”; “per l’acquisto di un grande imperio […] alle cose di mare, non a fine soggiogarsi altre città e nazioni, ma più tosto, come portava la condizione di quelle cose e di quei tempi, per occasione e commodità di traffichi e di utili mercantili, a’ quali tornava molto comodo il conservare la pace, e tenere il commercio aperto e libero con tutti.”

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expansion of trade. Such a commercial empire did not need to conquer extensive territories through the continuous exercise of arms and martial ambition; hence it could maintain social concord and preserve republican order and liberty over time. This was, for Paruta, the essential difference between Rome and Venice: Rome was mistress of the world, but not for a long time, nor with the quiet of its citizens, could it enjoy its greatness and prosperity. But Venice, albeit with a much smaller state, has uniquely preserved itself for so many ages in its liberty, secure of any domestic problems and with the marvellous union and concord of its citizens.28

Rome Revived: Lipsius on Ancients and Moderns

In 1598, the same year of Paruta’s Discorsi, Justus Lipsius published his Admiranda sive de magnitudine romana: a work that offered an extensive survey of all laudable facets of ancient Rome, conspicuously praising the Roman Empire as a model of a universal monarchy that brought the world peace and prosperity. Like Paruta, Lipsius believed the goal of politics to be tranquillity, happiness, and unhindered commercial exchange; yet whilst Paruta saw those ideals embodied by his native Venice, Lipsius presented ancient Rome, Paruta’s anti-model, as the timeless paragon of modern politics. Until the early 1590s, Lipsius had been one of the first professors at the newly established University of Leiden, and as such he counted as a leading intellectual light in the nascent Dutch Republic. His career made a radical turnaround, however, when Lipsius openly reconciled with Catholicism and opted for a new professorship at the University of Louvain.29 In this bulwark of the Northern Counterreformation, he continued his influential studies on and editions of ancient literature, now turning his attention to Polybius. Polybius’ favourable interpretation of ancient Rome was being rediscovered throughout 28

29

Ibidem, 232: “Roma fu signora del mondo; ma nè per molto lungo tempo, nè con quiete de’ suoi cittadini potè ben godere di questa sua tanta grandezza e prosperità. Ma Venezia, benchè con stato assai minore, si è però per tante età e con unico esempio conservata nella sua libertà, sicura da ogni travaglio domestico, e con meravigliosa unione e concordia de’ suoi cittadini.” For recent commentary, see Jan Machielsen, “Friendship and Religion in the Republic of Letters: The Return of Justus Lipsius to Catholicism (1591),” Renaissance Studies 27.2 (2013): 161–182.

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late sixteenth-century Europe, especially as regards his detailed exposition of Rome’s constitutional framework and military prowess.30 Lipsius joined the debate, which firstly resulted in his De militia romana from 1595, a learned commentary on Polybius’ Histories vi.31 Discussing all the different aspects of ancient warfare, Lipsius praised the Romans particularly for their military ­virtues and discipline—a quality that, if combined with modern arms, offered the key to imperial success. “He that will attain to glory or empire, let him turn to the ancient discipline”, Lipsius exclaimed.32 This assertion clearly attested to the widely felt obsession of comparing ancient and modern military techniques and accomplishments—an obsession also present in Paruta. For some, the lessons of antiquity were to no avail in an age defined by gunpowder, but Lipsius staunchly disagreed: They say that those times are gone; that this age requires other manners. O good and sweet conceits. As though men were other now, then they were wont, or another reason governed, and that which is just not just in all ages, and so that which is unjust.33 Times might have changed, Lipsius argued, but men and morals had remained the same. The Roman example of military discipline therefore continued to serve as a model for modern armies. This stance favouring the ancients over the moderns strongly resurfaced in Lipsius’ next work on Rome, the Admiranda, another exercise in antiquarian knowledge in the service of late sixteenth-century politics.34 The Admiranda, as its subtitle suggests, surveys the “greatness of Rome” in all its facets, from 30

Arnaldo Momigliano, “Polybius’ Reappearance in Western Europe,” in Idem, Sesto contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, 2 vols. (Rome, 1980), 1: 125–141. 31 For a short analysis, see Jeanine de Landtsheer, “Justus Lipsius’s De militia romana; Polybius Revived or How an Ancient Historian was Turned into a Manual of Early Modern Warfare,” in Recreating Ancient History. Episodes from the Greek and Roman Past in the Arts and Literature of the Early Modern Period, ed. Karl Enenkel et al. (Leiden, 2001), 101–122. 32 Justus Lipsius, De militia romana (Antwerp, 1630), 361. The translation follows “A Comparison of the Romane Manner of Warre, with this of Our Time”, an unpaged addition to The Historie of Xenophon, trans. Joh. Bingham (London, 1623). 33 Lipsius, Militia, 363–364; Idem, “Comparison.” 34 See Marc Laureys, “‘The Grandeur That Was Rome’: Scholarly Analysis and Pious Awe in Lipsius’s Admiranda,” in Recreating Ancient History, ed. Enenkel et al., 123–146; and Karl Enenkel, “Ein Plädoyer für den Imperialismus: Justus Lipsius’ kulturhistorische Monographie Admiranda sive de magnitudine Romana (1598),” Daphnis. Zeitschrift für mittlere deutsche Literatur 22 (2004): 583–621. Cf. also Pocock, First Decline and Fall, 279–295.

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the city’s building practices to its expansionist strategies. Staging a dialogue between himself and one of his disciples, Lipsius concluded the work with a powerful defence of the benefices of a universal monarchy in Roman vein. His interlocutor was sceptical, but Lipsius remained resolute, stressing “the peace and quiet that peoples everywhere enjoyed under such a large empire.” In ancient Rome, he claimed, people lived happily and industriously, reaping the seeds of their labour and forming fertile families; “all was secure and no rumour of war wounded their ears.” And if there was talk of a war, it was of one that happened far away, “just like a trifle or a fable.”35 Lipsius’ disciple was not easily convinced. Roman imperialism had been characterised by insatiable ambition and avarice, he argued, referring to Sallust and Tacitus and the critical testimonies of Mithridates and Calgacus. “Do you hear these outstanding statements, Lipsius?”, he asked his master. Suaviter rideo, Lipsius replied, “I laugh cheerfully.” For these were the voices of Rome’s enemies, he said, so they should not be taken seriously as unbiased verdicts. Only after the civil wars at the start of the first century bc, he continued, the “pure and just” mores of the Romans were corrupted by greed and ambition.36 Also for Lipsius, then, the Sallustian-Augustinian spectre of degenerating virtue and ultimate decline remained an essential element of the paragon of Rome. Nonetheless, the universal monarchy of Rome meant the apex of human development. For with imperial peace, it brought another benefice to the world: “the mutual communication of men and goods”, enabled by unhindered commerce and travel over long distances. People could travel safely to places far away for learning or pleasure, merchants navigated seas and lands, and the only “predators and pirates” they had to fear were “taxmen.” Exotic produce was imported, the arts, culture and literature expanded overseas, and “through this communion the whole world turned into almost a single civilization.”37 Here, Lipsius revealed his adherence to the stoic ideal of a cosmopolitan s­ociety, facilitated by the cultural and political imperialism of Rome.38 Yet that ideal 35

36 37

38

Justus Lipsius, Admiranda, sive de magnitudine romana (Antwerp, 1598), 251: “sub magno tali imperio pacem ac quietem gentium ubique fuisse? […] omnia secure, et nec auribus quidem laesis rumore belli […] velut ludicrum aut fabellam.” Ibidem, 208, 210: “Audis, Lipsi, praeclara haec elogia? […] Suaviter rideo […] pura et iusta.” Ibidem, 252–253: “Communicatio inter se hominum et rerum, viis undique liberis commerciisque […] unicos praedones aut piratas placantes, sive metuentes, Publicanos […] et totus orbis ea communione, quasi una civitas, fiebat.” Cf. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations iv.4. Cf. Jan Papy, “Lipsius’ (Neo-)Stoicism: Constancy Between Christian Faith and Stoic ­Virtue,” Grotiana (New Series) 22/23 (2001–2002): 47–72; and Christopher Brooke,

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lay hidden in the depths of ancient history: the reality of the late sixteenthcentury was unforgivingly different. “Our poor Europe, for how many centuries has it been deprived of all this?”, Lipsius lamented by way of conclusion to his treatise. Political fragmentation, mutual fear and the lust for vengeance now reigned supreme. It was necessary to establish a “powerful and strong single head” to restore religious unity, to foster general welfare, and to protect Europe against the Ottomans.39 With his portrayal of ancient Rome as a model of virtue and empire, and his parallel plea for securing Christianity from internal discord and external threat, Lipsius arguably tried to bridge the legacies of Erasmus and Machiavelli.40 Like Machiavelli, he heralded Roman military virtue to be a model for modern times; like Erasmus, his aim was to reach peace and unity. In a Europe in turmoil, he was confronted with the same intellectual challenge that Paruta was facing in that very same year 1598: how to make sense of the lessons of ancient Rome in a fragmented and highly unstable geopolitical constellation. For Paruta, the Roman Empire served as an anti-model, eclipsed by the stability, prosperity and independence of republican Venice. Lipsius defended the other extreme, pleading to revive the supranational order embodied by Rome. They found each other in their comparable emphasis on the benefices of trade, a significant departure from Erasmus and Machiavelli that reveals the increasing importance of commercial reasoning in late sixteenth-century political thought. Whilst Paruta saw maritime control and free trade as the essence of Venetian superiority, Lipsius, writing as a subject of the Habsburgs (one of Venice’s main antagonists), clearly set his hopes on a Habsburg universal monarchy that would secure peaceful commercial exchange worldwide. Perhaps it is the irony of history that his military recommendations, based on his reading of Polybius, were especially adopted in the polity that did most to undermine Habsburg domination, with a self-image directly opposed to ancient Rome and with an extraordinary expansion of overseas trade, the polity that Lipsius had just left a few years before: the Dutch Republic.41

P­ hilosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau (Princeton, 2012), 12–36. 39 Lipsius, Admiranda, 254–255: “At nostra Europa misera, quam iam a multis saeculis expers eorum est? […] potens et validum caput unum.” 40 On Lipsius’ Machiavellianism, see Justus Lipsius, Politica, ed. Jan Waszink (Assen, 2004), 98–102. 41 De Landtsheer, “Justus Lipsius’s De Militia Romana,” 116–119.

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Rome Surpassed: Grotius on Batavian Freedom, Concord and Audacity

In the years following Lipsius’ departure, a new generation of students was trained at Leiden under the guidance of the versatile scholar Joseph Scaliger to rise to dominance in Dutch intellectual life. The most important of this generation was doubtless Hugo Grotius. At the start of the seventeenth century, when still in his teens, Grotius wrote his first political treatise, an exercise in comparison between the ancients and the moderns with a clear ideological agenda. The work, titled Parallelon rerumpublicarum, was never published during Grotius’ lifetime; only a part of it is still extant, rediscovered two centuries later. Yet though incomplete and apparently not meant for the press, Grotius’ treatise is a significant example of how the model of ancient Rome was appropriated— and discredited—in the late humanism of the nascent Dutch Republic.42 The Parallelon rerumpublicarum basically entails a juxtaposition of the republics of Athens, Rome, and the Batavians, the Germanic tribe known from Tacitus that was considered to be the ancient ancestor to the Dutch people. From the late fifteenth century onwards, a “Batavian myth” had been ­constructed that characterised the Dutch as the direct descendants of this tribe, cherishing a long tradition of independence, valour and simplicity. Grotius adopted this myth and developed it into the foundational narrative of the Dutch Republic, first in the Parallelon and then in his subsequent De antiquitate Reipublicae Batavicae.43 Whilst the latter treatise focused on political organization, the surviving part of the Parallelon discussed the virtues and mores of the Batavians in comparison to Rome and Athens. Grotius’ overall message was clear: the Batavians not only rivalled but truly outshone the Romans and the Athenians in all thinkable fields, from science and literature to language, religion, habits and practices. Throughout, the work breathes the playful hubris of a young, somewhat overconfident mind, as in the passage that claims 42

43

In the vast scholarly literature on Grotius, the Parallelon remains remarkably understudied. For two exceptions, see Arthur Eyffinger, “Hugo Grotius’ Parallelon rerumpublicarum,” in De Hollandse jaren van Hugo de Groot (1583–1621), ed. H.J.M. Nellen and J. Trapman (Hilversum, 1996), 87–95; and Marijke Meijer Drees, Andere landen, andere mensen. De beeldvorming van Holland versus Spanje en Engeland omstreeks 1650 (The Hague, 1997), 25–56. On the rediscovery and use of Grotius’ manuscript by Johan Meerman in 1800, see Chapter 8 in this volume by Wyger Velema. See Hugo Grotius, The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic, ed. and trans. Jan Waszink (­Assen, 2000), and the general discussion in Ivo Schöffer, “The Batavian Myth During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Geschiedschrijving in Nederland, ed. P.A.M. Geurts and A.E.M. Janssen, 2 vols. (The Hague, 1981), 2: 84–109.

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the Batavians to be superior because of their competence in ice-skating (an art the ancients strangely never mastered in the Mediterranean: “who marvels sufficiently at our cleverness?” Grotius asked his perplexed readers).44 Yet despite (or perhaps also because) such anecdotic trifles, the Parallelon aptly reveals the self-image of a newly founded state with a booming economy and an embryonic colonial empire. Forwarding the claim that the Dutch, as the descendants of the Batavians, neatly surpassed Athens and Rome, Grotius clearly deviated from the vision on ancients and moderns dominant in Lipsius. He also took a very different stance in praising Rome not for its empire, peace and tranquillity, but for its original liberty. Liberty, for Grotius (as for Machiavelli), was the single most important asset of the Romans—even though it did not prove to be durable. Adopting the common Sallustian-Augustinian theme, Grotius described Roman liberty as the laudable yet ultimately fatal catalyst of empire.45 The quest of liberty, he argued, elicited republican independence, but then it turned into “too much desire of domination”, which engendered luxury and avarice, civil wars and populist demagogy, and the ultimate establishment of caesarean tyranny. The cyclical idea of liberty digging its own grave thus reappeared strongly in Grotius: the desire to be free made the Romans desirous of domination; their fight for independence evolved into external expansion and internal discord that made them dependent on a single ruler. “This was the start of Roman liberty, this its pursuit, this its end”, Grotius concluded.46 The ancient Batavians, he continued, were saved from the contagious disease of Roman expansion. Living at the edges of the Roman Empire, their territory was not “a Roman province or subjected to alien laws, as almost the entire world by then, but it was an independent Republic [sui juris Respublica].”47 This special status involved, according to Grotius, that the relationship between Rome and the Batavians was not based on hierarchy and domination, but on reciprocity and equal treaties. In this relationship, the Batavians in fact remained morally superior, for they had kept the natural freedom that 44

45 46 47

Hugo Grotius, Parallelon rerumpublicarum. Liber tertius: de moribus ingenioque populorum Atheniensium, Romanorum, Batavorum, ed. Johan Meerman, 4 vols. (Haarlem, ­1801–1803), 3:18: “Quis satis miretur sollertiam?” Throughout the Parallelon, Grotius frequently referred to Sallust and Augustine, e.g. 1:104–105. Ibidem, 1:27: “dominandi cupido nimia […] Haec Libertatis Romanae initia, hoc studium, hic finis fuit.” Ibidem, 1:27–28: “Non fuit itaque Batavia haec nostra Romanorum Provincia, aut externis, ut totus tunc Orbos fere, subjecta Legibus: sed sui juris Respublica.”

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the ­Romans had lost over time. Whilst Roman liberty eventually decayed into slavery, for the Batavians liberty and slavery had always remained opposites, as shown by their “bold confidence in speaking, which the Greeks call parrhesia.” This practice of free speech, “equally contrary to adulation as liberty is contrary to slavery”, proved the lasting independent nature of the Batavians.48 They had always staunchly defended their freedom without falling prey to “the lust for domination that was connected with the pursuit of liberty” in the case of Rome.49 Batavian freedom thus remained pure and unspoilt, since it did not lead to imperial pursuits. For Grotius, the Batavians were therefore essentially different from Rome: the parallel with Paruta’s similar judgement on Venice is clear.50 Grotius went on with mobilizing the authority of the ancients to criticise Roman imperialism. He used Polybius, the main source of Lipsius’ praise of Rome, to testify the “savageness and ferocity of soul” as well as the barbarity, perfidy, avarice and luxury that entered Rome after the Second Punic War.51 Further references to Sallust and Cicero served him to argue that ambition and avarice, together with “the lust for empires, honours and glories”, are to be considered the archenemies of justice. In Rome, this opposition between ambition and justice materialised in the gradual manipulation of laws on behalf of imperious magistrates who aspired external as well as internal domination. “It is utterly necessary”, Grotius commented, “that the lust for honours began at the same time as the lust for wars: for it is in the same spirit to desire to rule over citizens as over peoples.” Territorial expansion therefore leads necessarily to the creation of imperial offices—and hence, to the demise of justice and freedom. In the case of Rome, this imperial ambition had even worse effects for being accompanied by “haughtiness and contempt” of inferiors. “How far are we Batavians removed from this!”, Grotius exclaimed self-assuredly. “If there is

48

Ibidem, 1:37–38: “Affinis Libertatis est audax dicendi fiducia, quam Graeci Parrhesiam vocant; utque illa servituti, sic haec adulationi est contraria.” On the cult of parrhesia in the Dutch Republic, see Arthur Weststeijn, “The Power of ‘Plaint Stuff.’ Fables and Frankness in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republicanism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 72, 1 (2011): 1–27. 49 Grotius, Parallelon, 1:31: “conjunctam fuisse cum Libertatis studio imperitandi cupidinem.” 50 It is unclear whether Grotius ever read Paruta: no direct mention of his work is made in Grotius’ treatises and extensive correspondence. 51 Grotius, Parallelon, 1:65: “Nam saevitiae Romanorum plerunque perfidia se miscuit; et duo ista vitia, cum avaritia simil et luxu, statim post Punicum bellum secundum in Urbem pedes intulere. Violentiam ferociamque animi idem ille, quem modo laudabam, Polybius satis indicat.”

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one people on the whole world that is not captured by this idle titillation of glory, I affirm it is us.”52 In a following move, Grotius aimed his criticism not only at Rome, but also, albeit indirectly, at Lipsius. In a clear yet implicit reference to Lipsius’ Admiranda, he repeated the very same passages from Sallust and Tacitus that had been raised by Lipsius’ disciple and interlocutor, voicing the accusations of Rome by Mithridates and Calgacus. Whilst Lipsius had responded with a cheerful laugh, claiming their opinion was not trustworthy since they were enemies of Rome, Grotius argued that although being “hostile”, this did not mean they were “false.” Indeed, for Grotius, Rome’s degeneration after the campaigns in Asia and the ensuing rise in ambition and greed showed that Lipsius was wrong in his verdict on the benefices of Roman imperialism. The universal monarchy of Rome was no token of peaceful commercial exchange, but rather of an insatiable lust for money, which hastened Rome’s eventual decline and fall. “Nothing is surely more pernicious to a republic, nothing more destructive, than an immoderate lust for money. This brought the Spartans down”, Grotius stated, “this brought down Rome.”53 This denunciation of luxury and greed was an ancient topos leading back to Sallust, and Lipsius strongly agreed with Grotius on the corrupting effects of the lust for money. Grotius parted ways with Lipsius, however, in his reverse appraisal of the exemplarity of ancient Rome versus modern times. Indeed, Grotius presented his generation of Dutchmen, being the successors to the Batavians, as a shining example of how honourable lust for money could have very positive effects for the welfare and integrity of society. He ­realised there was no way denying that the Dutch were “attentive and dedicated to profit”: the raison d’être of the Dutch Republic was its booming economy based on international commerce. Aware of this indubitable reality, Grotius invoked Aristotle and the example of ancient Athens to claim that commerce should not be impeded. Yet unlike the Athenians, he continued, the Dutch did not consider all sorts of profit to be honourable: they disregarded usury and focused all their diligence instead on risky trade. “The most honourable 52

53

Ibidem, 2:1–3: “Plerosque vero Justitiae oblivionem capere, cum in imperiorum, honorum, gloriaeve cupiditatem inciderint. […] Omnino necesse est, coepisse aequaliter Honorum bellorumque cupidinem: cum ejusdem sit ingenii, civibus velle imperare et gentibus […]. Accedebat Ambitioni Romanae adversus minores fastus et fastidium. […] Quam procul hinc absumus Batavi! Si qua gens in omni Terrarum Orbe, quae inani ista gloriae titillatione non capitur, affirmo esse hanc nostram.” Ibidem, 2:7: “Hostiliter Mithridates, nec tamen falso. […] Nihil certe perniciosus Reipublicae, nihil exitiosus, quam pecuniae immoderata cupiditas. Haec Lacedaemonios, haec Romam perdidit.”

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profit”, Grotius argued, “is the one that goes together with labour, care and also risk.” The uncertainty intrinsic to commercial exchange made all Dutchmen work industriously for their self-interest without forsaking the interest of the ­community at large. Their “pursuit of profit” was never to the detriment of others, with the effect that “society remains pure” and “justice uncorrupted.”54 Grotius thus tried to solve the paradox he had created by reproaching the lust for money in ancient Rome while praising the commercial activities of the Dutch. His underlying assumption postulated that human ambition, which in Rome provoked the desire for domination, was channelled in the Dutch ­Republic towards risky business overseas. Risky, but trustworthy, Grotius insisted: everywhere the Dutch were famed for their “faithfulness in commerce”, he claimed. “Whilst the common good is elsewhere corrupted by private interest, here concord is maintained by perpetual faithfulness.”55 Throughout the treatise, Grotius thus employed classical terminology and themes in line with the Sallustian-Augustinian tradition, yet he tentatively entered a new direction by advocating a different, commercial form of ambition as a modern antidote against ancient decline. The main significance of the ­Parallelon is that its stands at this crossroads between ancient and modern, being the fruit of a youthful spirit that, thoroughly schooled in the classics, tried to break new ground. The vestiges of the ancients are still dominant, as becomes clear from Grotius’ obsession with the maintenance of concord— again, a Sallustian motive that also haunted Paruta and Lipsius.56 Ever since the onset of the Revolt against Spain, Dutch society had to preserve a precarious balance between various conflicting interests, and Grotius learned from the history of Rome that such a balance of concord could easily be shattered by excessive ambition and the luxury that followed from expansion overseas. At the same time, however, he professed his confidence that the Dutch would be able to avoid Rome’s fate. When he was writing his treatise, Dutch colonial expansion was burgeoning, and an ever-increasing number of Dutch ships were 54

55 56

Ibidem, 2:9–10: “Batavos attentos esse et quaestui deditos, ne ipsi quidem negaverint […] Hinc honestissimus quaestus est, cui, praeter laborem et curam, plerunque adest periculum. […] Ita nobis, apud quos certe tantum est pecuniae studium, quantum esse potest sine alterius injuria, manet tamen sancta societas, testamenta libera, honores gratuiti, judicia incorrupta.” For the reference to Aristotle, see 1:62. Ibidem, 1:101: “Jam vero de commerciorum Fide quid attinet dicere? […] quippe alibi commune corrumpi privatis commodis; hic perpetua fide contineri concordiam.” The centrality of this theme in early-modern Dutch political thought is analyzed in Martin van Gelderen, “The Low Countries,” in European Political Thought, 1450–1700: Religion, Law and Philosophy, ed. Howell Lloyd, Glen Burgess and Simon Hodson (New Haven, 2007), 376–415.

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r­ eturning from Southeast Asia laden with precious spices. Grotius realised the risk: such exotic imports might very well debauch the sober Batavian temper (as happened in fact with the import of wine, “the greatest benefit of nature”, but also the source of “insults, brawls and injuries”). Yet the course of history gave reason for optimism, for unlike the ancient Athenians, who were “persistent in their vices”, and the Romans, “not firm enough in maintaining their virtues”, the Batavians had always been “very steadfast in good deeds.”57 This recurrent interplay between classically inspired anxiety and confidence in the future defined Grotius’ intellectual attempt to come to terms with the political realities of his day. There was the risk of decline and fall, for like Rome, the Dutch Republic was expanding its power worldwide, even beyond the confines known in antiquity and “beyond the course of the sun itself”—a poetical reference to the recent Dutch voyage into the frozen seas around Nova Zembla. Driven by their “audacity”, the Dutch went everywhere, Grotius boasted; to list all the peoples and regions with which they traded required a “description of the entire world.” The drive behind such global expansion, however, was unlike Rome’s: it was “not out of the lust for gain, but so that it would not remain untried.”58 The virtues of curiosity and audacity, not the vice of imperial ambition, were the vehicles of Dutch expansion overseas. This was the essence of Dutch superiority over Rome, this the essence of their republican success and survival: an achievement not due to a single ruler, but to “the works and riches of private persons […]. Luxury does not claim any part of that miracle, but labour for the common good increases the Fatherland and its progress.”59 The Dutch Republic thus surpassed Rome in the global extent and audacity of its undertakings and in the concord and virtue with which its citizens expanded the common good. There was no reason to feel any nostalgia for antiquity, as Lipsius did: without lack of poise, Grotius concluded that “a careful comparison of many ages” had shown that “the Athenians and Romans, even when their Republic flourished most, did not have more ingenuity or more

57 Grotius, Parallelon, 2:36, 65: “maximum Naturae beneficium […] Hinc convicia, hinc rixae et vulnera”; “Atheniensis in vitia fuisse pertinaces; Romanos in retinendis virtutibus non satis firmos; Batavos vero, quod sine invidia dictum volo, rerum bonarum tenacissimos.” 58 Ibidem, 2:87, 93, 97: “Batavicorum vero itinerum stant monimenta, non modo extra aliarum gentium notitiam, sed extra solis ipsius vias; et quo non pervenit magnus ignis ille Naturae, huc nostra pervenit audacia”; “Si quis hic postulate numerari Regiones et Gentes, quibuscum nobis intercedunt commercia, is rem iniquam desiderat, describi hoc Libro Terrarum Orbem”; “nec lucri cupiditate, sed ne quid intentatum esset.” 59 Ibidem, 3:7: “privatorum opibus operaque res tanta persicitur, nullamque miraculi partem luxus sibi vindicat: sed labor in commune utilis Patriam auget Patriaeque proventus.”

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virtues than the Batavians.”60 Indeed, the Dutch Republic proved the perfect anti-model to the universal monarchy that was embodied by Rome and cherished by Lipsius, the worldwide territorial empire that the Habsburgs sought to restore. The King of Spain, Grotius insisted, had no right to claim possession of all the world, and he “should not believe that any part of the world is entirely his as long as the sea is ours.”61 This theme would be further developed in Grotius’ next work, De jure praedae, in which he famously legitimised Dutch commercial and colonial expansion vis-à-vis Habsburg competition on the basis of the intrinsic freedom of the high seas.62 The Dutch, for Grotius, were establishing an empire different from that of Rome or Spain, an empire that was not territorial in nature but essentially commercial. In perhaps the most telling side note in the Parallelon, he employed a curious but typical linguistic argument to substantiate this kind of commercial empire: the Dutch term for imperium, “rijk”, he stated, is the same as the Dutch word for riches.63

Rome Ridiculed: Boccalini on Rome, Venice and the Dutch Republic

The opposition sketched by Paruta and Grotius between the imperial decline of Rome and the seaborne survival of Venice and the Dutch Republic was elaborated further in the satirical work of Trajano Boccalini. After having worked in Rome in the service of the Papal States, Boccalini spent the last years of his life in Venice, where he published in 1612–13 the two volumes of his Ragguagli di Parnasso. Arguably, this series of highly sardonic stories from Mount Parnassus entailed the most penetrant criticism of ancient Rome thus far, enticing many readers throughout Europe—not least in the Dutch Republic.64 Boccalini was 60

Ibidem, 3:97: “Ostensumque diligenti plurimarum aetatum collatione, Athenienses et ­Romanos ne tum quidem, cum maxie floruit Respublica, aut majus ingenium Batavis, aut plures habuisse virtutes.” 61 Ibidem 2 :91: “ne quam Terrarum partem satis suam credat Hispanus, quam diu Mare est nostrum.” Cf. also 1, 114. On Spanish claims for worldwide dominion, see Pagden, Lords of All the World, and Geoffrey Parker, The World is Not Enough: The Imperial Vision of Philip ii of Spain [The Twenty-Second Charles Edmondson Historical Lectures] (Waco, 2001). 62 See Martine van Ittersum, Profit and Principle: Hugo Grotius, Natural Rights Theories and the Rise of Dutch Power in the East Indies (1595–1615) (Leiden and Boston, 2006). 63 Grotius, Parallelon, 3:59. 64 On the European reception of Boccalini, see Harald Hendrix, Traiano Boccalini fra erudizione e polemica. Ricerche sulla fortuna e bibliografia critica (Florence, 1995). On Boccalini more generally, cf. Maurizio Viroli, From Politics to Reason of State. The Acquisition and Transformation of the Language of Politics 1250–1600 (Cambridge, 1992), 257–266.

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himself an enthusiastic reader of Paruta (who is the protagonist in one of his short stories, teaching “the ordinary morning classes in politics in the public schools on Parnassus”);65 he was also, like Grotius in this context, a staunch critic of Lipsius. Indeed, Lipsius appears in another of Boccalini’s stories, yet in a role that is rather unflattering. The story tells how Lipsius (who had died a few years earlier in 1606) entered the Parnassus, where he, to the surprise of all those present, promptly entered into debate with Tacitus, accusing his ancient mentor of impiety. Tacitus responded sharply: Do you not think it to be very true, Lipsius, that the Roman people, which never knew how to put an end to its insatiable ambition to dominate the universe, did so provoke the anger of the omnipotent God for having desolated an infinite number of very noble monarchies and very prestigious republics, robbing the world and filling it with fire and blood to satiate its unquenchable thirst for gold, that God, after having the Roman people delivered as prey to the most cruel tyrants […] finally permitted that it was trampled upon with exemplary disgrace by the most barbarous nations of Europe? Certainly a most unhappy end, but much deserved by the Roman ambition, cruelty and avarice, precipices into which His D ­ ivine Majesty lets those empires fall that do not know how to put an end to their insatiable avidity for ruling. Echoing Calgacus’ speech in Tacitus’ Agricola, Boccalini thus expressively voiced the by then commonplace characterization of ancient Rome as a republic so much driven by imperial ambition and greed that it eventually fell into tyranny and decline. Lipsius was wrong in his praise for Rome, and at the end of Boccalini’s story, he admitted he should not even have joined the debate, ­being just “a simple grammarian” who could not understand Tacitus’ writings.66 65

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Traiano Boccalini, Ragguagli di Parnasso e scritti minori, ed. Luigi Firpo, 3 vols. (Bari, 1948), 1.lxvii: “che di presente nelle pubbliche scuole di Parnaso legge l’ordinario politico della mattina.” Ibidem, 1.xxiii: “E non pare a te, Lipsio, verissimo che il popolo romano, che giammai seppe por fine all’ambizione che insaziabilissima ebbe di dominar l’universo, per aver desolato numero infinito di nobilissime monarchie e prestantissime republiche, rubato il mondo, e per saziar l’inestinguibil sete ch’egli ebbe dell’oro, empiutolo di fuoco e di sangue, talmente si concitasse contro l’ira dell’onnipotente Dio, che dopo, avendolo dato in preda di crudelissimi tiranni, da’ quali provò tutte le più deplorande miserie, permise alla fine che con esemplar vilipendio fosse calpestato dalle più barbare nazioni dell’Europa? Fine per certo infelicissimo, ma però molto degno dell’ambizione, della crudeltà e dell’avarizia

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The negative portrayal of Rome is mirrored in another of Boccalini’s stories, which stages a vivid discussion between the personifications of Roman and Venetian liberty. Roman liberty praises her Venetian counterpart for her good laws, but she expresses her surprise that the “public and private riches” of Venice never materialised in territorial expansion—whilst Rome “acquired the universe in a few years” because of its “military valour, that excellent civic virtue.” This verdict clearly represented the Machiavellian perspective, but Venice (i.e. Boccalini) reacted promptly, saying that the decline and fall of Rome had shown that “disproportionately large acquisitions that republics made of states disconcerted all the political laws of any well-regulated liberty.” Rome had chosen expansion above liberty, but Venice was satisfied with “so much empire as would secure Venetian liberty from the arms of foreign enemies; she did not love the greatness of state for the ambition to command, but for the glory not to serve.” Rome was enslaved by the imperial ambition of its own rulers who put “the unhappy and shameful chain of servitude”; Venice gloriously retained its independence and happiness.67 Boccalini thus adopted the theme of empire vs. happiness developed by ­Paruta, which in a subsequent story is connected with the example of the Dutch Republic. This story tells how all the world’s monarchies meet on Parnassus to discuss the rising threat of their republican competitors. For a long time, the fate of Rome had showed that republics necessarily turn into monarchies, but now, in the north of Europe, a for the monarchies rather disturbing alternative had suddenly entered the scene: peaceful, democratic republics that proved able to resist internal turmoil and external aggression. The Roman Republic “proposed with unmatched ambition as its ultimate goal the absolute dominion of the universe”, and thus fell. But this could not be expected to happen to “the Hollanders and Zealanders”, for whom the ambition to rule had given in to “a glorious resolution and a firm purpose of not obeying to anyone.” They successfully combined internal concord with external peace, “which renders

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romana: precipizi ne’quali Sua divina Maestà fa capitar quell’imperi che non sanno por fine all’insaziabil ingordigia di regnare. […] da semplice gramatico come son io.” Ibidem, 1.lxxix: “ricchezze pubbliche e private […] in pochi anni fatto acquisto dell’universo […] quel valor militare, quella eccellente virtù civile. […] gli acquisti sproporzionatamente grandi che le republiche facevano degli stati, sconcertavano le leggi tutte politiche di qualsivoglia ben regolata libertà […] E che a lei solo bastava di posseder tanto imperio, che dalle armi degl’inimici stranieri assicurasse la libertà veneziana, e che ella non amava la grandezza dello stato per ambizion di comandare, ma per gloria di non servire. […] quell’ambizion di regnare, che vi pose l’infelice e vergognosa catena della servitù che ora portate al piede.”

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their liberty formidable abroad and secure at home.” Their attitude to their neighbours was not based on the maxims of conquest and subjection, but on confederal agreement between equals. This is how the Dutch had gained their independence from Spain, and for Boccalini, their example, discrediting the monarchical cause, heralded a new republican era. Rome was no longer to be a model in this changing context; the new model was the confederal Dutch Republic.68 Conclusion Boccalini’s satirical verdict on ancient Rome, merging the tendencies in Paruta and Grotius and discrediting the reputation of Lipsius, struck a chord with its republican readers north and south. In Venice, criticism of Rome was well received in the aftermath of the confrontation with the papacy during the interdict of 1606–1607; in the Dutch Republic, Boccalini’s readers easily connected his anti-Roman rhetoric with his condemnation of Habsburg Spain, the Republic’s archenemy.69 Debunking Rome remained a common theme in Dutch republican thought throughout the seventeenth century, which, as Eco Haitsma Mulier has shown, was heavily influenced by the Venetian example.70 The trope of using Rome as an anti-model culminated in the 1660s in the work of the brothers Johan and Pieter de la Court, avid readers of Paruta, Lipsius, Grotius and Boccalini, who embraced the commercial example of Athens and described Rome with noticeable gusto as “this murderers’ den, this wolf’s nest, this most detestable and horrible Republic that has ever been on this earth.”71 Venetian and Dutch thinking about what it means to be a successful republic thus formed a tradition that, in its critical reuse of the legacy of ancient Rome, might be characterised as the opposite of the republican tradition sketched by Pocock and his followers, leading from Machiavelli to Harrington. 68

Ibidem, 2.vi: “con una ambizione senza esempio, per suo ultimo fine si propose l’assoluto dominio dell’universo […] solo si vede regnar in esse una gloriosa deliberazione, un fermo proposito di non ubbidir ad alcuno […] che formidabile rende la Libertà loro fuori, sicura nella casa.” 69 Bouwsma, Venice, 293; Hendrix, Boccalini, 57. 70 Haitsma Mulier, Myth of Venice. 71 [Johan and Pieter de la Court], Consideratien van Staat, ofte Politike Weeg-schaal, 4th rev. ed. (Amsterdam, 1662), 513: “deeze moort-kuil, dit Wolve-nest, deeze verfoeyelikste en grouwelikste Republik, die ooit op den aardbodem is geweest.” For analysis, see Arthur ­Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age: The Political Thought of Johan and Pieter de la Court (Leiden and Boston, 2012), 214–219.

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“Classical republicanism” as a political language in Renaissance Florence and seventeenth-century England was counterbalanced by the self-legitimizing narratives of the only two European republics that experienced prolonged liberty and expansion throughout the early-modern era, using Rome as an anti-model. Pocock has remarked in this context that “major interpretations of Roman history founded on the Dutch experience […] are not to be found.”72 The material discussed in this chapter suggests by contrast that the Dutch uses of Rome and their Venetian parallels entailed a vision of republican politics where military virtue was subordinated to social concord and territorial expansion to commercial and maritime power. This vision was certainly not revolutionary, and to a large extent it was based on the authoritative interpretations of ancient authors like Sallust and Tacitus. Nonetheless, it paved the way for a new, anti-Roman emphasis on overseas commerce as the vehicle of empire in a modern world. In this development, the trajectories of Venetian and Dutch thinking would diverge significantly: in the Dutch Republic, colonial expansion was justified following Grotius’ account of the intrinsic freedom of the high seas, whilst in Venice, authors like Paolo Sarpi and Giulio Pace defended Venetian commercial and maritime supremacy against the idea of Mare liberum by claiming the republic’s age-old dominion of the Adriatic.73 The intellectual roads of Venice and the Dutch Republic, then, deviated in the course of the seventeenth century, but their starting point was one and the same: the acknowledgment that a commonwealth for preservation and increase should discard the example of ancient Rome.

72 Pocock, First Decline and Fall, 282. 73 See Guido Acquavica and Tullio Scovazzi, eds., Il dominio di Venezia sul Mare Adriatico nelle opere di Paolo Sarpi e Giulio Pace (Milan, 2007). Cf. also Filippo de Vivo, “Historical Justifications of Venetian Power in the Adriatic,” Journal of the History of Ideas 64, 2 (2003): 159–176.

chapter 4

Early Modern Greek Histories and Republican Political Thought William Stenhouse Conventional accounts of the birth of modern Greek history-writing see it as the offspring of the Enlightenment. It was in the late eighteenth century that historians in France, England, and Scotland wrote extensive narrative histories of ancient Greece, trumpeting both their novelty and the political utility of their undertaking. As William Mitford claimed in the preface to his 1784 History of Greece, “The assertion is little hazardous that a History of Greece remains yet among the desiderata of literature,” and in volume three of his work, reflecting on the French revolution, he argued that “a Grecian history perfectly written, should be a political institute for all nations.”1 Following Mitford’s lead, some eighteenth-century writers drew republican messages from Greek historical texts, praising Sparta’s virtue, for example, as rooted in its republicanism, a message especially relevant to the American and French revolutions.2 British liberal and utilitarian thinkers rehabilitated Athenian democracy in the early nineteenth century, culminating with George Grote’s History of Ancient Greece, which appeared from 1846.3 These histories were by no means all written from an anti-monarchical point of view: John Gillies, for example, argued in the dedication, to King George iii, of his 1786 History of Ancient Greece that “By describing the incurable evils inherent in every form of Republican policy, [the History of Greece] evinces the inestimable benefits, resulting to Liberty itself, from the lawful dominion of hereditary Kings, and the steady operation 1 William Mitford, The History of Greece, 8 vols. (London, 1835), 1:[v] and 3:464. 2 James Moore and Ian Macgregor Morris, “History in Revolution? Approaches to the Ancient World in the Long Eighteenth Century,” in Reinventing History: The Enlightenment Origins of Ancient History, ed. James Moore, Ian Macgregor Morris, and Andrew J. Bayliss (London, 2008), 3–29. See further Chapter 7 in this volume by Wessel Krul. 3 Kyriacos N. Demetriou, George Grote on Plato and Athenian Democracy (Frankfurt am Main, 1999), 33–59; Oswyn Murray, “Introduction,” in Edward Bulwer Lytton, Athens: Its Rise and Fall: With views of the literature, philosophy, and social life of the Athenian people, ed. Oswyn Murray (London, 2004), 1–34; Peter Liddel (ed), Bishop Thirlwall’s History of Greece: A selection (Exeter, 2007).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_006

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of well-regulated Monarchy.”4 But while the messages that readers were supposed to draw from these works varied, all made clear the value of the study of Greek history, and of the writing of Greek histories, for contemporary political developments. This picture of the eighteenth-century emergence of classical Greek historiography has been shaped by two papers of Arnaldo Momigliano. He delivered one, explicitly focusing on Greek history and the contribution of George Grote, as his inaugural lecture at University College, London, where Grote had taught. Momigliano told his post-war British audience that “We continentals never knew of such a thing as Greek History with capital letters until the end of the eighteenth century or the beginning of the nineteenth century,” and he reminded them that “it is uncertain whether Greek history was invented in England or in Scotland.” He canvassed two possible inventors, Mitford and Gillies.5 Greek history was therefore a creation of the late Enlightenment British Isles, where “what was really new was […] political discussion embodied in a Greek history.”6 While subsequent scholars have found earlier pioneers in a rather reductive search for the first modern Greek historian, his general picture continues to win acceptance.7 4 John Gillies, The History of Ancient Greece, 2 vols. (Dublin, 1786), 1:iii; Greek histories could also provide guidance for British imperialism, for example: see C. Akça Ataç, “Imperial ­Lessons from Athens and Sparta: Eighteenth-Century British Histories of Ancient Greece,” History of Political Thought 27 (2006): 642–660. 5 Arnaldo Momigliano, Studies on Modern Scholarship, ed. G.W. Bowersock and T.J. Cornell (Berkeley, 1994), 16, from “George Grote and the Study of Greek History,” a lecture delivered in 1950 and published in 1952. See the important analysis in Giovanna Ceserani, “Modern histories of Ancient Greece: genealogies, contexts and eighteenth-century narrative historiography,” in The Western Time of Ancient History: Historiographical Encounters with the Greek and Roman Pasts, ed. Alexandra Lianeri (Cambridge, 2011), 138–155. 6 Momigliano, Studies on Modern Scholarship, 16. 7 See Ceserani, “Modern histories of Ancient Greece” on Temple Stanyan and Charles Rollin; Ian Macgregor Morris, “Navigating the Grotesque,” in Reinventing History, ed. James Moore et al., 247–290 on Jacques de Tourreil’s translation of Demosthenes; and various important studies by Kostas Vlassopoulos, including, Unthinking the Greek Polis: Ancient Greek History beyond Eurocentrism (Cambridge, 2007), 15–16, “The Construction of Antiquity and Modernity in the Eighteenth Century: Alterity, Proximity, Distantiation, Immanency,” in Intentional History: Spinning Time in Ancient Greece, ed. Lin Foxhall, Hans-Joachim Gehrke, and Nino Luraghi (Stuttgart, 2010), 343–360, and “Acquiring (a) Historicity: Greek History, Temporalities and Eurocentrism in the Sattelzeit (1750–1850),” in The Western Time of Ancient History, ed. Lianeri, 156–178. An important exception to this focus on the eighteenth century is Carmine Ampolo, who in his survey of Greek historiography takes seriously the contribution of early modern writers: Storie greche: La formazione della moderna storiografia sugli antichi Greci

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This might come as something of a surprise to historians of Renaissance political thought, in which Greek historical examples are not uncommon. Machiavelli confidently refers to Greek figures, such as Solon; Jean Bodin engaged with questions of the role of the archons at Athens, for example, or of the development of laws.8 Machiavelli and Bodin went straight to Plutarch, Xenophon, or Aristotle for their information, of course; but it would be reasonable to assume that they, or their followers, would have welcomed historical works that could put the anecdotes and comments of Plutarch and others in some sort of context. Such works did, in fact, begin to appear in the second half of the sixteenth century, often highlighting the political implications of the material they contained. By the end of the seventeenth century, Jacobus Gronovius could fill thirteen large folio volumes with them, in his Thesaurus Graecarum antiquitatum. But they have been mostly ignored, and seen as antiquarian curios, rather than historically perceptive or politically engaged works of scholarship. One central reason for their neglect is Momigliano’s famous “Ancient History and the Antiquarian,” published in the same year as he delivered the lecture on Grote.9 In that essay, Momigliano pointed to the eighteenth century as the point where erudite traditions of historical scholarship were married to narrative historiography, with the work of Gibbon in particular. Before Gibbon, he argued, early modern historians were satisfied with the achievements of ancient narrative historians, and had no wish to duplicate their work. His characterisations of the erudite antiquarian tradition, whose practitioners gathered facts without necessarily having an obvious purpose, and presented synchronic rather than diachronic accounts of institutions and practices, (Turin, 1997), 13–37; and Giuseppe Cambiano, Polis: Un modello per la cultura europea (Rome, 2000), 22–259. 8 E.g., Nicolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, i.2 on Solon; Jean Bodin, Six livres de la république, ii.5 (Solon), vi.4 (Xenophon and democracy); James Hankins, “Europe’s First Democrat? Cyriac of Ancona and Book 6 of Polybius,” in For the Sake of Learning: Essays in Honor of Anthony Grafton, ed. Ann Blair and Anja-Silvia Goeing, 2 vols. (Leiden, 2016), 2:692–710. On Machiavelli’s example in the Discourses, see, e.g., Harvey Mansfield, Machiavelli’s New Modes and Orders: A Study of the Discourses of Livy (Chicago, 1979), 39–40. On Bodin’s attitude to Greek historians, see Federicomaria Muccioli, ”Il canone degli storici greci nella Methodus di Jean Bodin,” in Storici antici e storici moderni nella Methodus di Jean Bodin, ed. Giuseppe Zecchini and Alessandro Galimberti (Milan, 2012), 27–48, with bibliography, and in particular Saffo Testoni Binetti, “Immagini di Sparta nel dibattito politico francese durante le guerre di religione,” in Ideologie della città europea dall’umanesimo al romanticismo, ed. Vittorio Conti (Florence, 1993), 105–124, 114–122. Clearly Bodin and Machiavelli were not the only political thinkers working with Greek models. 9 Arnaldo Momigliano, “Ancient History and the Antiquarian,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 13 (1950): 285–315.

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a­ llowed him to present that tradition as something less than proper history: the antiquary was, in Momigliano’s terms, “not quite a historian.”10 Although Momigliano was fascinated by it as a phenomenon, his picture of antiquarianism contributed to its marginalization, and it is only in the last twenty years or so that scholars have argued for its intellectual vitality, and for its important political role in early modern Europe.11 Given Momigliano’s arguments in “Ancient Historian and the Antiquarian,” it is not surprising that he would find the first Greek historians working after Gibbon. And while modern historians of Greek historiography have found pioneers writing earlier than Momigliano’s, they have mostly shared Momigliano’s preference for a strong narrative as a central requirement for their candidates. In this chapter I want to examine this overlooked sixteenth- and early ­seventeenth-century Greek historical scholarship, with particular attention to the political motivations of the writers, and to the political lessons that they presented to their readers. In particular, I will ask how far these works should be considered as republican. Several authors presented their work as a contribution to anti-monarchical thought and practice, with ancient Greek states as their models. Carmine Ampolo, who has written the only modern survey of this work, has argued that “republicanism is the key to understanding” the way in which Greek history-writing emerged in this period.12 We should beware of presenting a single explanation for the phenomenon, however; we can see the history of Greece written from a variety of perspectives and used for a variety of ends. In what follows, I will add nuance to our picture of early modern scholars’ motivations for writing about ancient Greece, and of the conclusions that they thought it offered.

Greek Histories

In the second half of the sixteenth century, there are clear signs of a widespread interest in the classical Greek past. In the first place, scholars produced a series of new editions and translations of historical texts. For example, Henri 10 11

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Ibidem, 286. Peter N. Miller, ed., Momigliano and Antiquarianism: Foundations of the Modern Cultural Sciences (Toronto, 2007), especially the contributions of Anthony Grafton, “Momigliano’s Method and the Warburg Institute: Studies in his Middle Period,” 97–126 and Ingo Herklotz, “Arnaldo Momigliano’s ‘Ancient History and the Antiquarian’: A Critical Review,” 127–153. Carmine Ampolo, “Modern States and Ancient Greek History,” in Nations and Nationalities, ed. Guðmundur Hálfdanarson and Ann-Katherine Isaacs (Pisa, 2001), 101–117, 105.

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Estienne printed Xenophon, Thucydides, and Herodotus in the 1560s, the last of these accompanied by his famous Apologie pour Hérodote, which was condemned and its author burned in effigy; in the 1560s and 1570s Wilhelm Xylander translated into Latin Plutarch, Strabo, and Pausanias; Isaac Casaubon edited and commented on Strabo, and printed it with Xylander’s translation, in 1589.13 We also see various translations into the vernacular: in England, for example, Thomas Nichols’ translation of Thucydides was published in 1550 (albeit translated from Seyssel’s French translation, and not the Greek), William Barker’s Xenophon in 1567, and Barnabe Rich’s Herodotus of 1584;14 in Italy, translations of these three authors were printed in the 1540s, and subsequently reprinted before the end of the century.15 The numbers of editions of Greek works did not rival those of the Latin historians, but they filled a definite niche, and appealed to a learned public across Europe. They also allowed political thinkers easy access to useful sources; as Kinch Hoekstra has argued, as a result we can identify early modern Thucydideans alongside the more familiar Taciteans, who used Thucydides to think about empire and found that he provided “a clear-eyed view of the underlying realities of power.”16

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The bibliography on the reception of Greek historical texts in the sixteenth century is increasingly large. For editions of Xenophon, see David Marsh, “Xenophon,” Catalogus translationum et commentariorum 7 (1992), 75–196, and of Thucydides, see Marianne Pade, “Thucydides,” Catalogus translationum et commentariorum 8 (2003), 103–181. On Pausanias, see George Tolias, “The Resonance of the Periegesis during the 16th and 17th Centuries,” in Following Pausanias: The Quest for Greek Antiquity, ed. Maria Georgopoulou et al. (New Castle, 2007), 96–104. See also, e.g., Noreen Humble, “The Renaissance Reception of Xenophon’s Spartan Constitution: Preliminary Observations,” in Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry, ed. Christopher Tuplin and Fiona Hobden (Leiden, 2012), 63–88, Susanna Gambino Longo, ed., Hérodote à la Renaissance. Latinitates (latin), 7. (Turnhout, 2012), and Anthony Grafton, What was History? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2007), 240–245, discussing Casaubon’s lectures on Herodotus. Polybius was probably the most influential historian writing in Greek, but because his subject was the Roman empire, I have omitted him here. For the wider philological context, see Jean Christophe Saladin, La bataille du grec à la Renaissance (Paris, 2000), with the review by Anna Pontani, Aevum 76 (2002): 852–867. For Seyssel, see A.C. Dionisotti, “Claude de Seyssel,” in Ancient History and the Antiquarian: Essays in Memory of Arnaldo Momigliano, Warburg Institute Colloquia 2, ed. M.H. Crawford and C.R. Ligota (London, 1995), 73–104. All three were published by the Giolito company in Venice: see Angela Nuovo and Christian Coppens, I Giolito e la stampa nell’Italia del xvi secolo (Geneva, 2005), 487. Kinch Hoekstra, “Thucydides and the Bellicose Beginnings of Modern Political Theory,” in Thucydides and the Modern World, ed. Katherine Harloe and Neville Morley (Cambridge,

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This range of editions is not surprising; but scholars also began to produce material to help readers understand them. With great industry, they gathered and processed historical evidence, from ancient narrative historians and more recondite sources. They compiled information about Greek institutions and cultural practices—about Athenian and Spartan institutions, initially, but by the early seventeenth century also about religious festivals or cultural phenomena like the variety of Greek dances—publishing what they found. In some cases, the books they wrote were little more than lists, with sources, and this is especially true of the collections of Johannes Meursius, in the early seventeenth century; in others, there was more analysis. They also produced maps of the ancient Greek world to allow readers to identify places they read about. These maps forced their users to consider the extent of the Greek world. In 1540 Nicolaus Sophianos, an exile from Corfu, first published a map of Greece that included parts of Asia Minor as well as the Balkans and the tip of southern Italy.17 When Nicolaus Gerbel wrote about this extensive map, in his gazetteer of 1545, he noted that according to the ancient geographers, Greece was not static.18 As he then went on to consider patterns of Greek colonization, his picture was complicated further: the Greeks settled in Africa, Asia, and Europe, so that the “nation of the Greeks spread across the whole world, and built various cities which it educated first in letters and learning, and then in law and justice.”19 Greekness was to be discussed, therefore; it was determined by historical, cultural and political, as well as geographical criteria. George Tolias has gone so far as to call this period a “critical and decisive phase in Greek studies” on the basis of interest in Pausanias and Greek geography, and in the resulting crystallization of ideas about how far ancient Greece extended.20

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19 20

2012), 25–54, esp. 29; see also Anthony Grafton, What was History?, 77 and 105–106, on David Chytraeus’ lectures on Thucydides in 1562. George Tolias, “Nikolaos Sophianos’s Totius Graeciae Descriptio: The Resources, Diffusion and Function of a Sixteenth-Century Antiquarian Map of Greece,” Imago Mundi 58 (2006): 150–182; for attempts to define the Greek world see also Francesco Tateo, “La Magna Grecia nell’antiquaria del Rinascimento,” in Eredità della Magna Grecia: Atti del Trentacinquesimo Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia (Taranto, 1996), 149–163. Nicolaus Gerbel, Pro declaratione picturae sive descriptionis Graeciae Sophiani, libri septem (Basle [1549]), 24: “Confer haec cum pictura, & intelliges quantum adhuc Graeciae, praeter ea quae diximus, Strabo adjecerit.” (Compare Strabo’s image with the picture of Ptolemy, and you will understand how much more Strabo added to Greece.) Ibidem, 26: “Longe igitur lateque per totum orbem Graecorum natio dispersa, varias urbes aedificavit, quas primum optimis literis, & disciplinis, tum legibus, & justitia erudivit.” George Tolias, “Introduction,” in Following Pausanias, ed. Georgopoulou et al., 57–73, 61.

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Scholars also pondered the chronological extent of Greek history; at what point did the classical world come to an end?21 Was it with the conquest by the Macedonians, or the Romans, or some time later? From the 1550s on, Johann Jakob Fugger’s protegées in Augsburg were responsible for a series of editions of Byzantine writers, and their work contributed to the development of Byzantine studies as a discrete field.22 In 1557 Hieronymus Wolf edited a Corpus universae historiae Byzantinae, published by Johannes Oporinus, who was probably the inventor of the term Byzantine.23 The designation, though, did not win widespread acceptance immediately: other labels, including the empire of Constantinople, the empire of the east, or the Greek empire, remained, particularly in vernacular writings.24 From a different perspective, Asaph BenTov has convincingly argued that for Lutherans (and especially the pupils of 21

22

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24

Compare Momigliano’s important observation in “The Rediscovery of Greek History in the Eighteenth Century: the Case of Sicily,” in Momigliano, Settimo contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico (Rome, 1984), 133–153, 133–134: “There is a very ­elementary difference between Roman and Greek history to which perhaps not enough attention has been paid. Roman history, to the ordinary educated man, has definite limits in space and time: it has a beginning, it has an end; and it is obvious, if you speak of ­Roman history, that you mean the history of a well-defined territory […] With the Greeks it was the opposite. There were no obvious limits of time and space, no proper beginning, no agreed end, and no geographical boundaries.” Hans-Georg Beck, “Die byzantinischen Studien in Deutschland vor Karl Krumbacher” in Xαλικες: Festgabe für die Teilnehmer am xi. internationalen Byzantinistenkongreß, München 15.–20. September 1958 (Freising, 1958), 66–119, 66–72; Diether Reinsch, “Editionen und Rezeption byzantinischer Historiker durch deutsche Humanisten” in Graeca recentiora in Germania: Deutsch-griechische Kulturbeziehungen vom 15. bis 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Hans Eideneier (Wiesbaden, 1994), 47–63; Markus Völkel, “Von Augsburg nach Paris, von Oporin zu Cramoisy: Die reichsstädtische Byzantinistik und die europäische Respublica litteraria in der Frühen Neuzeit,” in Humanismus und Renaissance in Augsburg. Kulturgeschichte einer Stadt Zwischen Spätmittelalter und Dreissigjährigem Krieg, ed. Gernot Michael Müller (Berlin, 2010), 293–308. For earlier developments on which these German scholars built, see Han Lamers, Greece Reinvented: Transformations of Byzantine Hellenism in Renaissance Italy (Leiden, 2015). On the implications of the choice of a Roman title, see Claudia Rapp, “Hellenic Identity, Romanitas and Christianity in Byzantium,” in Hellenisms: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity, ed. Katerina Zacharia (Burlington, 2008), 127–148, 129. Asaph Ben-Tov, Lutheran Humanists and Greek Antiquity: Melanchthonian Scholarship between Universal History and Pedagogy (Leiden, 2009), 106–109: the term is usually attributed to Wolf, but Ben-Tov argues Oporinus was responsible. On French developments on Byzantine scholarship, which used different terms, see Jean-Michel Spieser, “Du Cange and Byzantium,” in Byzantium through British Eyes, ed. Robin Cormack and Elizabeth Jeffreys (Burlington, 2000), 199–210.

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­ elanchthon) interested in the Greek church by 1600, “the Ottoman conquest M of Constantinople [was understood to be] the closing of Greek antiquity.”25 This is certainly one impression the reader gets from Martin Crusius’ Turcograecia, his 1584 collection of sources for Byzantine and ecclesiastical history. Collectively, therefore, we can see that the sources for Greek historical writing were being published, and that questions about the nature of Greek history were in the air. Greek historical accounts had been included in early sixteenthcentury universal histories, but in the second half of the sixteenth century, some scholars then attempted to write separate chronological accounts of individual states, or of the Greek world as a whole.26 For example, in 1558 the Viennese physician Wolfgang Lazius published Commentariorum rerum Graecarum libri ii, which, as its subtitle announced, dealt with mainland northern Greece, and the Peloponnese. It presented a fairly long city by city and province by province account of Greek settlements; for each place, Lazius offered a systematic outline of important information. He included geographical features; historical events, including the loss of independence to Macedonians and Romans, and often subjection to the Turks; then other things of note, including famous inhabitants, and colonies. In the 1570s, Hubertus Goltzius planned a four-book survey of Greek territories, to include Sicily and Greek cities on the Italian peninsula; mainland Greece; the islands; and Greek cities in Asia Minor, the Levant, and Africa.27 Only the work on Sicily and Italy was printed in Goltzius’ lifetime, in 1576, although a manuscript of the remaining text survives in the Plantin Museum, in Antwerp. Goltzius built on the work of Lazius, and adopted his basic format of a city by city, or territory by territory account of the Greek world, including geographical and historical information. Then in 1626, the Elzevier company in Leiden published Ubbo Emmius’ Vetus Graecia, illustrata, a wide-ranging three volume study of Greek history, divided into a geographical description of Greece, a compendium of Greek history, taken from ancient narratives, and an institutional overview of Greek states. Scholars also wrote studies of particular states, and particularly their p ­ olitical histories, 25

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27

Asaph Ben-Tov, “Turco-Graecia: German Humanists and the End of Greek Antiquity— Cultural Exchange and Misunderstanding,” in The Renaissance and the Ottoman World, ed. Anna Contadini and Claire Norton (Burlington, 2013), 181–196, 193. For Greek histories in the universal history tradition, see Asaph Ben-Tov, “Eine späthumanistische Konfessionalisierung der Antike. Die Griechen in der protestantischen historia universalis,” in Antikes erzählen: Narrative Transformationen von Antike in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, ed. Anna Heinze, Albert Schirrmeister, and Julia Weitbrecht (Berlin, 2013), 117–142. Maria Luisa Napolitano, Hubertus Goltzius e la magna Graecia: Dalle Fiandre all’Italia del Cinquecento (Naples, 2011), 227–259.

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including Guillaume Postel’s 1541 De magistratibus Atheniensium, Carlo Sigonio’s work on Athens, the 1564 De republica Atheniensium—which he followed with a chronological table of events in Athens and Sparta—Nicolaus Cragius’ study of Sparta, De republica Lacedaemoniorum, and attempts to classify the structures of states of Athens, by Theodore Zwinger in his Methodus Apodemica (1577), and of Athens and Sparta by Clemens Colmerus and Nicolaus Sienicius (the 1609 Politiae speciales duae augustissimae, nempe Atheniensis et Spartana). What inspired the writers of these works to turn to Greece?

Greek Histories and Contemporary Politics

In most cases, these collections and accounts of Greek history were written primarily to elucidate and explicate classical Greek texts. Lazius’ and Goltzius’ were designed to allow coin collectors to identify and explain the coins from various Greek states.28 As a result, it would be easy to assume that the concerns of their writers were removed from contemporary politics and religion. In fact, though, it is clear that several wrote with at least half on eye on the present. Lazius, for example, who was physician to Ferdinand i, responded strongly to the Habsburg context in which he was working.29 He pronounced in the preface that he had surveyed “an ancient, flourishing Greece, not the desolate and barbaric Greece of today.”30 He was unremittingly hostile to the Turks who now held the territories that he was discussing, and, as he wrote to Maximilian, Ferdinand’s son, he looked forward to a time when Greece would be freed from the yoke of savage tyranny, and be joined to the glory of Austria.31 Although for the most part, his accounts of individual cities do not include explicit links to  the present (Lazius usually concluded his entries with the Roman conquest), his discussion of contemporary cities’ coats of arms, combined with his inclusion of detailed maps, meant that the work certainly could have provided 28

29

30 31

Jonathan Kagan, “Notes on the Study of Greek Coins in the Renaissance,” in Translatio nummorum: Römische Kaiser in der Renaissance. Akten des internationalen Symposiums Berlin 16.–18. November 2011, ed. Ulrike Peter and Bernhard Weisser (Wiesbaden, 2013), 57–70. John Cunnally, “The Portable Pantheon: Ancient Coins as Sources of Mythological Imagery in the Renaissance,” in Wege zum Mythos, ed. Luba Freedman (Berlin, 2001), 123–140; Nancy Siraisi, History, Medicine, and the Traditions of Renaissance Learning (Ann Arbor, 2007), 214. Wolfgang Lazius, Commen. Rerum Graecarum libri ii (Vienna, 1558), sig. [A2]v: “Graeciam non quidam illam desolatam ac barbaram, sed antiquam ac florentissimam perlustravi.” Ibidem, sig. [L5]v.

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background strategic information. German Protestants, on the other hand, were drawn to Greece and Greek history under the influence of Melanchthon’s commitment to the Greek language, but also from a belief that Christians of the Greek rite preserved a form of early Christianity that was like their own.32 More commonly, though, authors explicitly compared ancient institutions with current ones. Two centuries before Mitford, politically-oriented scholars found Greece useful to think with. Most of the authors of these books worked in early modern republics: Postel and Sigonio in Venice, Emmius and Meursius in the Dutch republic. Hence Ampolo’s argument that republicanism presented a central motivation for this work.33 To his list we can add Zwinger in the Swiss Federation, and Colmerus and Sienicius in the relatively independent city of Gdansk in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. Venice and Leiden, though, were important centres for classical scholarship tout court, so we should beware making too direct a causal connection. As we shall see, many of these historians were indeed strongly interested in republicanism, but their circumstances, religious orientations and responses varied. A good example of the complexity of the question is the work of Guillaume Postel (1510–1581). Postel had visited Venice in 1537 in the service of the French king, and was a great admirer of the city and its constitution. But Postel’s 1541 work, initially entitled simply De magistratibus Atheniensium, was published first in Paris, where Postel had been appointed lecteur royal at the Collége de France by François i on his return in 1538. It was popular: it was subsequently printed in Venice and Basel in 1543 (now with the subtitle “most useful for understanding not only the Greek, but also the Roman state, and for all ancient history”), again in Basel in 1551, then in Strasbourg and Leiden in the early seventeenth century, and in Leipzig in 1691.34 In his work on ancient Athens he reflected explicitly on Venice. When discussing how Athenians chose their magistrates, for example, Postel approvingly linked the Athenian use of the lot and the way in which the doge and other magistrates were chosen at Venice. He said the Athenian nomophylakoi (the guardians of the law, whom he admired) were not dissimilar to the Venetian members of the council of forty. In his section on Athenian trierarchs, though, he went further: in this case, he argued, “the Athenians are easily trumped by the Venetians,” who had a range of

32 Ben-Tov, Lutheran Humanists and Greek Antiquity. 33 See n.12 above. 34 Guillaume Postel, De magistratibus Atheniensium liber, ad intelligendam non solum Graecorum, sed et Romanorum politiam, ac omnem veterum historiam, lectu utilissimus (Basel, 1551).

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specialised naval officers and bureaucrats.35 How far Postel promoted republicanism, though, is less straightforward a question—hardly surprising, given his connections to the French king. The Venetians were not his only point of comparison: he made parallels between Athenians and Turks, Swiss, and especially his native French. He dedicated the work to his main patron, the chancellor of France, Guillaume Poyet (Poyet’s downfall in 1542 meant that Postel lost his position, too), and interrupted his discussion of the Athenian cleruchs to praise François’ cultural patronage.36 In the introduction, he conceded that a direct comparison between Athenian democracy and the French monarchy was impossible, but he did tell Poyet that he hoped that the knowledge of the Athenian republic might help with future problems in France; in particular, he argued that the Romans (a safer target for imitation) had adapted Athenian laws and learnt from Athens’ social structure and magistrates.37 The case of Carlo Sigonio (c. 1524–1584) presents slightly different problems. He too was a non-Venetian who admired the city; he taught in Venice, then Padua, between 1552 and 1563 before moving to Bologna.38 Guido Bartolucci has argued convincingly that Sigonio’s historical output—the Greek works are a small fragment of large corpus covering Roman and medieval Italian history, and ancient Hebrew institutions—demonstrates a clear interest in the emergence of republican liberties and institutions.39 His treatise on Athens was no exception (begun in 1559, first published in 1564, then reprinted in 1565, 1576, and 1593): it offered a quick historical survey of the emergence of councils, ­legal institutions, magistrates, before discussing each at greater length.40 35 36 37

38 39

40

Guillaume Postel, De magistratibus Atheniensium liber (Paris, 1541), 15r (nomophylakoi); 26r: “Facile vincuntur Athenienses a Venetis.” Ibidem, 56r-v. Ibidem, sig. Bv-Biir: “Ut igitur illa imitatione etiam ego aliqua in re prodesse rei pub. coner, volui e priscorum monumentis erutam praestantissimam rerumpublicarum imaginem Atheniensium politiam in manus hominum dare cuius & si exacta comparatio cum nostra propter diversam monarchiae & democratiae administrationem fieri non poterit, spero tamen futurum ut hinc aliquod remedium ad eius emendationem desumere possit. Atque non tantum leges Atheniensium a Romanis expetitas fuisse me ostensurum spero, sed & divisionis populi, & magistratuum exempla inde sumpta clarissimis argumentis me demonstraturum confido.” William McCuaig, Carlo Sigonio: The Changing World of the Late Renaissance (Princeton, 1989), 12–56. Guido Bartolucci, “Historian Engagé: Republicanism and Oligarchy in Carlo Sigonio’s ­Political Histories,” Storicamente 8 (2012), art. 22 (http://www.storicamente.org/01_fonti/ bartolucci_sigonio.htm, consulted 7 September 2016), and his contribution to this volume. Giovanni Salmeri, “La Costituzione degli Ateniesi aristotelica, l’Atene di età imperiale e l’Italia di Sigonio,” in L’Athenaion Politeia di Aristotele 1891–1991: Per un bilancio di cento anni di studi (Perugia, 1994), 39–61, 56–61.

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­ nlike Postel, though, Sigonio shied from analogies with contemporary states. U He did not use his discussions to praise republican government, or the government of Venice, directly, even as he surveyed the emergence of Athenian institutions.41 We know from his commentaries on Aristotle of his admiration for a mixed constitution, which he identified in Venice; but although he conceived his work on Athens there, it was published first in Bologna, and he dedicated it to Pier Donato Cesi, the governor of Bologna for the pope. Not coincidentally, he had just moved from Padua to teach in that city. In his historical survey of the city, he was happy to follow Aristotle in arguing that the heroic kings should be given the credit for Athens’ early preeminence among Greek cities, for guiding the populace to virtue, justice, and moderation. He also attributes to the kings the origins of various institutions, magistracies, and religious associations.42 On the other hand, he agrees that Athens’ great period of success occurred under a non-monarchical government: he argues clearly of the era of democracy that “no other history is more magnificent in its dignity, fruitful in its utility, or pleasurable through its reading.”43 He divided the period into two stages, before and after Cleisthenes; not surprisingly, he preferred the former, whose successes he associates particularly with Solon. He admired Solon for introducing a senate to Athens and for stabilising the state through good laws.44 As in the case of the Spartan Lycurgus, praising an effective law-giver was common in these histories; but the law-giver could inspire monarchs or republican magistrates, or emissaries such as Sigonio’s dedicatee Cesi. The work of Johannes Meursius (1579–1639) poses different problems again.45 Meursius was a prodigious worker, and certainly the most prolific writer on Greek antiquity in this period: indeed, he lost his post at Leiden University in 1625 for having written too much, at the expense of his teaching (and because of his sympathy towards the moderate Remonstrants, his p ­ osition had 41

42 43

44 45

This is not so say, however, that other contemporary theorists in Venice did not engage with ancient Greece: see, for example, Marco Giani, “Athenian Ostracism in Venetian Disguise: An Historical Diatribe in Late Renaissance Italy,” in Athenian Legacies: European Debates on Citizenship, ed. Paschalis M. Kitromilides (Florence, 2014), 179–193, on Paolo Paruta. Carlo Sigonio, De Rep. Atheniensium libri iii (Bologna, 1564), 5–10. Ibidem, 27, on the “democraitae [sic] tempora,” announced in the margin: “Qua historia nihil esse iudico aut ad dignitatem magnificentius, aut ad utilitatem fructuosius, aut ad lectionis voluptatem certe iucundius.” Ibidem, 31–36. See Cambiano, Polis, 141–142. Christopher L. Heesakkers, “Te weinig koren of alleen te veel kaf? Leidens eerste Noordnederlandse filoloog Joannes Meursius (1579–1639),” in Miro Fervore. Een bundel lezingen & artikelen over de beoefening van de klassieke wetenschappen in de zeventiende & achttiende eeuw, ed. R.J. Langelaan and M.F. Fresco (Leiden, 1994), 13–26.

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become increasingly difficult after the synod of Dort).46 As a teenager he had proved his philological ability by working on the texts of Lycophron and Theocritus; then, in the early seventeenth century, he wrote a glossary of Byzantine Greek terms, which was first published in 1610, and won him the chair at Leiden, and then the post of Historiographer to the States General the following year.47 Meursius presented the glossary not simply as a lexicon, but as an aid to historical understanding: as he wrote in the preface, “we have nothing left of the eastern empire but the memory of it which histories maintain. But histories represent to us nothing but the external appearance of the empire, and an account of things done at various times; I sought, indeed, to inquire more deeply, and to look into its interior workings.” According to John Considine, Meursius here asserts “that a dictionary actually preserves more of a vanishing culture than a historical narrative can do, and comes closer to its heart.”48 Meursius’ belief that a philologically-inspired antiquarianism could offer a more penetrating historical account than classical and late antique narrative histories then inspired his shift back in time to examine the institutions of classical Athens. From 1616 he published a series of accounts of Athenian phenomena, including, but not limited to, tribes, dances, festivals, authors, the Panathenaia, the Areopagus, and the Eleusinian Mysteries. He also went on to write biographies of Peisistratus and Solon. These works are effectively compilations of material, drawn from a wide range of sources including Byzantine reference works; Meursius resists any temptation to subject what he found to extended analysis. As a result, to a modern eye, they appear rather dull.49 Meursius’ contemporaries, however, were more impressed. Hugo Grotius, for example, wanted him to collect together records of Athenian laws from the orators and their commentators, for the benefit of students of law and ­history. The great Scaliger, he wrote, had begun a work of this sort, but to the best of his knowledge had not completed it.50 And Meursius also attracted the attention of contemporary political theorists. In 1621, in the aftermath of the Synod of Dort, he was removed from his position as Historiographer to the ­States-General 46 47 48 49

50

Anthony Grafton, Bring Out Your Dead: The Past as Revelation (Cambridge, ma, 2001), 127 and 322. John Considine, Dictionaries in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2008), 251. Meursius published an expanded and revised edition in 1614. Ibidem, 255–256 (from whom the translation of Meursius’s preface to his 1610 Glossarium is taken). According to Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (History of Classical Scholarship, tr. Alan Harris [London, 1982], 74), “His quotations are countless and the literature well-thumbed, but there is scarcely an idea to be found anywhere.” Johannes Meursius, Opera omnia, 12 vols. (Florence, 1741–1763), 9:260.

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(a  prelude to his dismissal at Leiden): he proposed to shut himself away to work on Athenian history, but he also began to look for a new job. In 1622 he sent a copy of his On the Fortune of Athens to Domenico Molino, the Venetian senator, cultural patron, and broker of contacts between Venice and the Netherlands (as Eco Haitsma Mulier showed, Molino also corresponded with Heinsius, Grotius, and Huygens).51 Meursius then dedicated his monograph on the Acropolis to Molino. Molino responded by urging Meursius to work on an edition of Thucydides: If you worked so much and so admirably on the inanimate rock of Athens why would you show yourself less ready or generous in reanimating and giving a new spirit to so worthy a citizen of that great mother of civil liberty? […] Why should you not show that you are grateful to Thucydides, an author to whom all of us who enjoy a free country owe so much? And if the others have in such grand style adorned the teachers of tyranny [i.e. Tacitus], why should a free man show himself to be stinting toward the teacher of the most sweet and cherished liberty?52 Later, Molino wrote again that so noble an undertaking would represent the fulfilment of his talents, and benefit literature, his own patria, Athens, and finally all free states, and he arranged for the translation of his work on the Areopagus into Italian.53 Meursius also corresponded with Paolo Sarpi in 1622. Gaetano Cozzi, who found the letter to Sarpi, understandably pointed to Molino’s language of liberty and free states, and argued for Meursius’ republican commitment. Other scholars have followed his lead. But it seems that Molino wrote to the wrong man. There is no doubt that Meursius had the linguistic and historical knowledge to produce an edition of Thucydides to rival Lipsius’ Tacitus. In addition, he clearly saw the possible connections between the Dutch republic and ancient Athens. His most famous work, his history of Leiden University, was entitled Athenae Batavae. But his collections of information on Athenian institutions hardly evinced a strong republicanism, and he was estranged from the political leadership of the Dutch Republic. At the  same  time as he was sounding out the possibility of working in ­Venice, 51

Eco Haitsma Mulier, The Myth of Venice and Dutch Republican Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Assen, 1980), esp. 89–93. 52 Hoekstra, “Thucydides and the Bellicose Beginnings,” 32, translating from Gaetano Cozzi, “Paolo Sarpi e Jan van Meurs,” Bollettino dell’Istituto di Storia della Società e dello Stato Veneziano, 1 (1959): 4. 53 Meursius, Opera omnia 9:372.

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he was also exploring possibilities in the kingdoms of Norway and Denmark, and  it was to the latter that he went, to work as historiographer for King ­Christian iv.54 Therefore Postel, Sigonio, and Meursius all wrote historical accounts of classical Athens with a strong awareness of the potential similarities between the ancient state and Venice or the Dutch Republic. Their works were popular, and could provide political theorists with plenty of information on republican institutions and practices. For various reasons, though, none pursued the links between ancient and modern republics too far, or drew explicit conclusions for the present. Other contemporaries, however, were more forceful.

Greek Histories, Freedom and Equality

One unexpected example is the account of the Spartan republic by Nicolaus Cragius (Niels Krag, 1550–1602), published in 1593.55 Cragius’ account of the Spartan republic seems to have been designed to complement Sigonio’s: his title, De republica Lacedaemoniorum, echoes the earlier book’s, although his treatment of the state is slightly fuller than Sigonio’s. Cragius was Royal Historian at the Danish court (Meursius may have been attracted to Christian’s Lutheran court because of Cragius’ success there and interests in Greek history). He wrote his study of Sparta when Christian iv was still in his minority: Christian succeeded to the throne in 1588, at age 11, but had regents until 1596, among whose number was the chancellor of Denmark, Niels Kaas, to whom Cragius dedicated the work. We can see it as a contribution to the shaping of the young king. Cragius discusses the importance of using laws to make subjects good, rather than to threaten them with punishments; in general, he stresses the educational value of history.56 Like the historians in republican

54

55 56

For the context, see Karen Skovgaard-Petersen, Historiography at the Court of Christian iv (1588–1648): Studies in the Latin histories of Denmark by Johannes Pontanus and Johannes Meursius (Copenhagen, 2002). Elizabeth Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford, 1991), mentions this work only in a footnote (167 n.22). E.g. in the dedication to Kaas, focusing on Lycurgus: Nicolaus Cragius, De republica Lacedaemoniorum libri iiii ([Heidelberg], 1593), sig. ¶3v-¶4r. Humble, “The Renaissance ­Reception,” 81–82, suggests that Calvinists would be particularly attracted by the Spartan way of life because of its stress on obedience; it is interesting to see Cragius focusing on different areas for the young king. For Krag at court, see Skovgaard-Petersen, Historiography at the Court of Christian iv, 110–112.

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settings, he addressed the emergence of civic institutions.57 He was interested in ideas about freedom, in this case Spartan notions of citizens’ freedom, which he interpreted in Stoic terms. He claimed that Spartan citizens were the freest of the Greeks, based on their constancy of mind, contempt of death, and abstinence from disgraceful behavior. More concretely, he noted that they could not lose their status by being sold or condemned into slavery, unlike inhabitants of other states, and he argued that the Spartans fought on occasion to make other Greeks free.58 But given the context in which he is writing, more striking are his comments on the Spartan kings as two among several magistrates (these include the prodicus, or tutor to the king, a figure Cragius is eager to point out was held in great regard).59 He praises the Spartan two-king system, as a moderating influence, and particularly the kings’ acceptance of the law. “Would that the kings of all states would imitate these men,” he argued, “because then their states would be better run. But now we’ve got to the stage of madness where men who are not stupid or politically naïve argue that royal power lies in absolute and untrammeled freedom in all matters, and that the kings control the laws, rather than the laws kings.”60 (One role of the prodicus was to educate the kings in following the law.)61 His approval of Sparta was not limited to royal moderation; he also admired, for example, the practice of burying those condemned to death, rather than hanging them up publicly to ridicule, which he says he wishes all Christian states would abolish. For Cragius, therefore, in a royal court, part of the attraction and exemplary value of 57 See Ibidem, especially book 2, on magistrates, 46–95. 58 Ibidem, 39: “Id vero hic addendum, adeo stabilem fuisse Lacedaemoniis hanc suam libertatem, ut nec esset quomodo excidere hoc suo iure potuerint. Non enim invenio ullam damnationem ad servitutem, nec ex Lacedaemoniis aliquos poenae servos factos legimus, quamvis aliae poenae satis graves delictis eorum severissimo magistratuum iudicio infligerentur.” Though cf. Paolo Paruta’s suggestion that Sparta’s constitution was admirable because the people were given a small role: see Kostas Vlassopoulos, “Sparta and Rome in Early Modern Thought: A Comparative Approach,” in Sparta in Modern Thought: Politics, History and Culture, ed. Stephen Hodkinson and Ian Macgregor Morris (Swansea, 2012), 50. For Spartans giving others freedom, see Cragius, De republica Lacedaemoniorum, 231. 59 Cragius, De republica Lacedaemoniorum, 89. 60 Ibidem, 57: “utinam omnium gentium Reges sibi imitandum proponerent, tum vero felicius cum Repub. ageretur. Sed iam eo ventum est dementiae, ut etiam docti & rerum politicarum non imperiti disputent, Regiam potentiam in absoluta & liberrima rerum omnium licentia positam esse, magisque ut Reges dominentur legibus, quam leges ipsis.” 61 Ibidem, 89: “Quod exemplis superioribus apparet, in quo hoc vel maxime est admirandum, quod quum Prodicus omnia in potestate haberet, nullus fere tamen eo munere fungens inventus, qui pupillo suo insidias struxerit, vel ius suum ei intervertere conatus sit.”

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Sparta lay in the people’s freedom and monarchical restraint: his presentation was not republican per se, but could easily be interpreted in republican terms. Aristotelian political thinkers also tried to contextualise what they had learned about ancient political structures in classical narratives. In his Methodos apodemica, Theodore Zwinger (1533–1588) attempted to understand history and politics through a scientific observation and analysis of the city on Ramist lines.62 His examples were contemporary Basel, Paris, and Padua, and ancient Athens. Lucia Felici argues that the book has a firmly didactic aim: Zwinger had personal experience of the three modern cities, and claimed to have learnt his sense of public duty from the Athenians Plato and Aristotle, and from his book readers would learn to join “literary and scientific knowledge […] with civic virtue and political and intellectual engagement.”63 In the section on Athens, Zwinger presented plenty of useful historical information drawn from ancient authors, and from Sigonio, and focused on Athens’ political structure. His chosen format prevented him from really demonstrating change in the Athenian constitution over time, however, or from deliberately indicating to his readers how to learn from the Athenian model. The Politiae speciales, the study of Athens and Sparta by Clemens Colmerus (Klemens Koelmer, 1587–1665) and Nicolaus Sienicius (Mikołaj Sienicki, 1608– 1645) built on Zwinger’s example, demonstrating how the states developed, and highlighting exemplary aspects for their reader. They used the work of Sigonio and Cragius, alongside earlier political theorists like Machiavelli and Bodin, to present historical and institutional details to a different audience. Colmerus, who examined Athens, and Sienicius, who wrote about Sparta, seem to have been pupils of the Ramist Bartolomaeus Keckermann (c. 1572–1608) at the gymnasium in Gdansk, in Royal Prussia, part of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.64 They applied Keckermann’s methods of categorization to the two states, dividing their material into geographical and historical information; details of political structures and institutions; and wars, along with other reasons for those structures to change. The book can be seen as a sort of undergraduate textbook. It was printed in Gdansk in 1609, and presumably 62

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Lucia Felici, “Theodor Zwinger’s Methodus Apodemica: An Observatory of the City as Political Space in the late sixteenth century,” Cromohs 14 (2009): 1–18 (http://www.fupress .net/index.php/cromohs/article/view/15474/14388, consulted 7 September 2016). Ibidem, 11. On Keckermann at Gdansk, see Karin Friedrich, The Other Prussia. Poland, Prussia and Liberty, 1569–1772 (Cambridge, 2000), esp. 77–78 and Howard Hotson, Commonplace Learning: Ramism and its German Ramifications, Oxford-Warburg Studies (Oxford, 2007), 136–165.

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used at the Gymnasium there, though it does not seem to have been noticed much or reprinted elsewhere, and as a consequence is now rare in modern libraries.65 Keckermann himself wrote the preface, stressing the importance of education, and the exemplary value of studying Athens and Sparta. His view of Athens is revealing of his instincts. He reassured his readers that Athens’ democracy was not so much democracy as aristocracy, for, he claimed, there are two types of political equality, “one that rewards everyone equally, the other which either rewards or punishes each by his merits.”66 The Athenians enjoyed the latter once they had cast aside the lot and wisely chose from the citizen body the best and those most suited to public office. So Athens presented some examples to follow, and some to avoid. Sparta had its downsides—Keckermann disliked the fact that the state was oriented primarily for war—but overall he saw it as a better exemplum to the freer contemporary states; the kingdom of Poland in particular, he wrote, had not a few similarities with the ancient state. In their presentations of the political structures and histories of Athens and Sparta, Keckermann’s followers made clear that they shared his point of view. In his survey of Athens, Colmerus approved of Solon’s laws, which he liked because they encouraged, rather than obstructed the people; he advocated equality before the law for all citizens.67 He also admired the representative system that he thought that Solon had created, and followed Sigonio in claiming that Solon had resisted Pisistratus’ tyranny and advocated freedom for the people. He found Solon’s representative system similar to the Venetian version, where the senate and magistrates had considerable latitude, and the people were rarely asked directly about war or the creation of laws. He then cited Giovanni Botero warmly when arguing that in the fifth century “the power of the people was led not by sense and reason, but by force and mindless haste.”68 In his 65

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An online edition is now available from the Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Jena: http://archive.thulb.uni-jena.de/hisbest/receive/HisBest_cbu_00025749 ­(consulted 7 September 2016). Clemens Colmerus and Nicolaus Sienicius, Politiae speciales duae augustissimae, nempe Atheniensis et Spartana (Gdansk, 1609), sig.):(2v: “Cum enim duo sint Politicae aequalitatis genera: unum quod omnes promiscue, qualescunque tandem sint, omnibus exaequat; alterum quod pro suo quemque merito aut honoribus praemiis ornat, aut poenis mulctat.” Ibidem, 34 and 156–157. Ibidem, 35: “populi vis nunquam consilio & ratione, sed impetu semper & dementissima temeritate duceretur.” See also 88, where Colmerus follows Keckermann’s division of democracy into an eminentior form, where divisions within the people persist, and a humilior version in which all people have some share in power.

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section on reasons for the change in the Athenian state, he was unambiguous: “When Pericles tried to win the favour of the people, he took away authority from the Areopagus, and handed over to the people those things which had been dealt with before in the Areopagus, and not long after, the state began to be rocked by foreign and civil wars.”69 Athens was here a model to modern republics to restrict popular power. For Sparta, Sienicius leaned heavily on Cragius’ account, but the explicit conclusions that he drew differed in their emphasis, drawing attention to the nature of the citizen body more than the kings. He admired the aristocratic senate of Sparta, which he compared with the Venetian example, and which, he said, had more power than its Polish equivalent.70 He also admired the equality among Spartan citizens: he praised Spartan attempts to limit the private wealth of their leaders and people, for example, seeing the causes for Athenian decay in the excessive wealth of particular individuals. Sparta’s eventual decline was due to the failure of the magistrates to uphold the law, rather than the restriction of private enterprise. As he wrote, “nothing benefited the state more than this equality, for when possessions are equal, the power of all is equal; and if the power of all citizens is made equal, no oppression can be feared, and each individual is aware of his own power so that he does not try anything against his fellow citizens or the state.”71 This equality, combined with the injunction to live publicly and not privately, promoted a strong sense of patriotism.72 He was doubtful whether such a regime could now be imitated, though, and noted that attempts to restrict wealth failed in Rome.73 Unsurprisingly, this commitment to civic equality sat alongside a strong distinction between citizen and non-citizen; only certain types of people were fit to be the former. He generally approved of the Spartan treatment of helots. “In no republic, either ancient or modern,” he argued, “can we see any regime of peasants

69 70 71

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Ibidem, 209. Ibidem, 303–304. Ibidem, 409: “nil tam maxime profuit Reipub. huic, quam aequalitas ipsa. Nam aequatis possessionibus, potentia omnium aequata est: aequata autem omnium civium potentia, oppressio nulla timeri potuit, dum quilibet suae potentiae conscius, nil conari, vel moliri, tum adversus concives, tum statum Reipub. praesumpserit. Atque sic quieta Repub. & libertate securi perfruebantur.” Ibidem, 413: “Privatim enim vivere Spartae civem, contra leges erat Lycurgi: Omnes publice convivebant: Ex quo convictu amor patriae insignis: ut & regionem suam tutam conservarent & libertatem tuerentur.” Ibidem, 410.

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which has not affected the state with some calamity or other.”74 He recalled the sixteenth-century peasants’ revolt in Germany. “Some say that this conflict was about the freedom of a Christian,” he argued, “but it was otherwise. If we look more carefully and closely, we will see that it was the petulance of the peasants; they were treated quite laxly across Germany, and were not entirely without freedom.”75 He went on to point to the rural life as a den of vices, to be controlled with a firm hand by the domini; he took the firmly Aristotelian view that freedom for those of a servile nature harms rather than helps the state, and recommended this for Poland.76 And like Aristotle, he disapproved of Spartan gender equality among citizens, which he thought was against the law of god and nature.77 In general, though, Sienicius’ plea for equality among those with the privilege of citizenship must have struck a strong chord with the urban offspring of the citizens of Gdansk and sons of nearby landholders, eager to maintain their political independence and privileges within the Commonwealth.78 The most sustained treatment of themes of freedom and the emergence of political institutions was Ubbo Emmius’ three-volume Vetus Graecia. Emmius (1547–1625) was an older contemporary of Meursius, who became Rector and Professor of History and Greek in the newly-formed university of Groningen in 1614. Whereas Meursius’ output can be seen as a development of his early philological genius, Emmius’ histories are inspired by his Calvinism and political commitment to the young Dutch Republic. His most famous work, the Rerum Frisicarum historia, completed by 1616, stressed a tradition in the Netherlands of government by consent and reminded his readers of the Frisians’ ancient liberties. Emmius drew a similar message from his study of Greek history. As his son noted in his introduction to the work (Emmius had died in 1625, shortly before the book’s publication), wherever they were, and whatever system of government they used, the Greeks were a free people, and usefully comparable

74

Ibidem, 430–431: “In nulla Repub. tam antiqua, quam recentiori observatum est regimen rusticorum, quod non aliqua calamitate aliquam affecerit Remp.” 75 Ibidem, 431: “Causam nonnulli, inquiunt, praebuisse, concionem de libertate Christiana. Est aliquid. Sed si profundius, altiusque rem scrutemur, petulantia rusticorum in causa fuit. Indulgentius enim passim in Germania tractantur & non omnis, omnino libertatis expertes sunt.” 76 Compare the contribution of Tomasz Gromelski in this volume. 77 Colmerus and Sienicius, Politiae speciales, 407. 78 Friedrich, The Other Prussia, 57–69.

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to modern Belgi.79 As Vittorio Conti has shown, Emmius senior made this case particularly strongly in the third volume, devoted to the structures of Greek states (while the first two parts were little read, the third was published in Elzevier’s series devoted to republics, in 1632, and again in 1644).80 His account of the development of Athens’ institutions is not very different in content from Sigonio’s, though he basically ignores the Peistratid tyrants, implying that their rule is irrelevant to Athens’ long-term political development. But unlike Sigonio he stressed from the start the people’s desire for freedom, which even King Theseus inspired.81 This innate desire for freedom propelled them to reject the kings and create the nine archons, and then the balanced constitution that left most power with a council and effectively involved the use of lots.82 Freedom was maintained so long as the senate balanced the power of the people; when Pericles changed that balance, “in order to increase freedom and power, and restrain the position of the optimates,” he laid the foundations for the untrammeled power of the people, whom Emmius likens to an unbroken horse.83 (He made the same point in an appendix subtitled “the faults of Athenian democracy, as noted by Xenophon”).84 But even after the Roman conquest, Athenians adored freedom: they put up statues of Brutus and Cassius next to those of Harmodius and Aristogeiton.85 Emmius also saw the history of Sparta in terms of the development of libertas, but identified Sparta’s decline with its abandonment of the laws of Lycurgus and consequent greed and inequality.86 He devoted less space to what he could find about other Greek states, but in general he showed that they too developed political systems to preserve freedom; 79

Ubbo Emmius, Vetus Graeca illustrata, 3 vols. (Leiden, 1626), 1:sig.**v: “Quibus hoc quoque accredit, quod gens Graeca, licet diversi in ea populi diversis reip. administrandae formis atque institutis uterentur, vere tamen libera, suique plane juris fuerit… Nam cum eas olim fuisse res veteris Graeciae non nesciret, ut iis si non simillimas, non multum t­ amen dissimiles esse hodie res, instituta ac fortunam huiusce Belgii nostri; haud parum e republica, nostra praesertim, futurum existimavit, si in ea plurimi, & ante omnes, qui ad clavum reip. sedent, antiquitates Graecorum probe cognitas haberent.” 80 Vittorio Conti, Consociatio civitatum: le repubbliche nei testi elzeviriani, 1625–1649 (­Florence, 1997), 86–104 and Vittorio Conti, “Systema libertatis: le Graecorum Respublicae di Ubbo Emmius,” in Dalle repubbliche elzeviriane alle ideologie del ‘900, ed. Vittor Comparato and Eluggero Pii (Florence, 1997), 1–16. 81 Emmius, Vetus Graeca illustrata, 3:5: “Theseus […] libertatem omnibus bonis caeteris ­anteponendam esse pollicitus.” 82 Ibidem, 9–10. 83 Ibidem, 23. 84 Ibidem, 364. 85 Ibidem, 429. 86 Ibidem, 72 and 438–439.

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he was particularly taken with the Achaean League, whose alliance allowed the maintenance of liberty.87 Large parts of Emmius’ work are little more than summaries of ancient sources, but the anti-monarchical lessons he drew from them were clear. Conclusion Therefore we can identify a relatively vigorous tradition of historical scholarship on ancient Greece in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. From a historiographical point of view, it is striking that these early modern historians mostly underlined the similarities between Athens and Sparta as republics, rather than their differences;88 unsurprisingly democracy in Athens was seen as an unfortunate consequence of political struggle rather than a signal achievement, and scholars preferred to highlight Solon and Lycurgus as wise law-givers, the importance of citizens’ equality, and the roles of councils in determining policy.89 In addition, it is clear that these scholars, like Postel, often saw Greek developments in Roman terms: Sigonio’s Athens is populated by praetors and quaestors, and Emmius’ description of the well-born citizens who opposed Pericles as optimates, for example, is characteristic of a viewpoint which implicitly compared Athenian political developments with the struggle of the orders between patricians and plebeians in archaic Rome.90 On these lines, it is notable that scholars of this era do not use the term polis to describe the Greek polities, but the Latin status or res publica.91 In terms of the development of political thought, these scholars pointed to the political i­mplications of what they found. They did not produce the sweeping, critical narratives of

87 E.g. Ibidem, 198 and 200 (Thebes), 213 (Corinth). For the Achaean League, 275–276; see Conti, “Systema libertatis,” 11, and the next chapter in this volume by Jaap Nieuwstraten. 88 Conti, “Systema libertatis,” 12–13. 89 Carmine Ampolo, “Democrazia greca e pensiero storico moderno,” in Alle radici della democrazia: Dalla polis al dibattito costituzionale contemporaneo, ed. Antonio D’Atena and Eugenio Lanzillotta (Rome, 1998), 69–81, 72–74. 90 Sigonio similarly sees sixth- and fifth-century Athenian history in these terms, in which Solon takes the side of the rich, and Cleisthenes and Aristides the plebeian poor. See also Colmerus and Sienicius, Politiae speciales, 225 and 228. 91 I owe this point to Christine Zabel. In Polisbild und Demokratieverständnis in Jacob Burckhardts Griechischer Kulturgeschichte (Basel, 2001), Stefan Bauer has shown that one of the great achievements of Jacob Burckhardt’s study of Greek civilization was to make the polis central in his political and historical analysis.

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their Enlightenment successors, but they laid much of the groundwork for the later scholars’ achievements. And while it would be too sweeping simply to identify these historical works republican, they did highlight elements of ­ancient constitutions and historical developments that republican political theorists could take up.

chapter 5

A Classical Confederacy: The Example of the Achaean League in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic Jaap Nieuwstraten* Over the course of the seventeenth century, the Dutch Republic developed into one the most powerful and fearsome states in Europe. In the famous words of Sir William Temple, “the State of the United Provinces” had in recent times “arrived […] to such a height […] as made them the Envy of some, the Fear of others, and the Wonder of all their Neighbours.”1 But did these provinces truly form a “state,” a singular political entity that wielded supreme sovereign power within its territory? Temple, who had spent several years in the Dutch Republic as an ambassador of the British King Charles ii, denied this to be the case. ­Instead, he defined the Dutch state as a “Confederacy” or union of i­ ndependent states, each of them subdivided into even smaller, s­ emi-independent states, the towns.2 Temple was not alone in this view. Several of his Dutch contemporaries agreed with him. The Leiden cloth merchant Pieter de la Court (1618–1685), for one, openly confessed that Holland consisted of “many different republics,” which, thanks to their “variety of rulers, subjects, lands and location,” had a “variety of interests.” Thus, Holland was “not one country” and hence could not have “one interest.”3 For the Dutch Republic as a whole, De la Court seemed to have nothing but contempt. In his work Aanwysing (1669), he actually laid out a plan for a defensive network of moats and fortifications that would effectively separate Holland and great parts of the province of Utrecht—“two free republics”—from the other five constituent parts of the United ­Provinces.4 While De la Court’s position was an extreme one, his work and that of Temple * I want to thank Maggie Snow, the editors and all the participants of the conference in Rome for their help and useful comments. 1 Sir William Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands (Cambridge, 2011), xi. 2 Ibidem, 56. 3 V.D.H. [Pieter de la Court], Interest van Holland, ofte gronden van Hollands-Welvaren (Amsterdam, 1662), i: 1–2. 4 V.D.H. [Pieter de la Court], Aanwysing der heilsame politike Gronden en Maximen van de ­Republike van Holland en West-Vriesland (Leiden and Rotterdam, 1669), ii.14: 360–367. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_007

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nicely demonstrate that many foreign observers and native thinkers did not view the Dutch Republic as a unified state, ruled by a single sovereign authority. Indeed, it was not a unified state and that simple observation had some serious consequences for the applicability of ancient political models to the Dutch situation. Take for example Johan de la Court (1622–1660), Pieter’s younger brother, who based his democratic ideals on the model provided by ancient Athens. However, as Johan realised, this model could only be applied to a single Dutch town, e.g. Leiden, but never to a whole province—let alone the entire Dutch Republic –, for a provincial government would always consist of delegates, hence making it an aristocracy.5 Here we encounter a core problem with regard to the Dutch use of ancient political models in the early modern period. In early modern Europe, the bestknown models from antiquity—Rome, Sparta, Athens—were all city-states. Some of them, like Athens or Carthage, but especially Rome, had also acquired large empires. Within these empires, ultimate power rested with the Athenians or the Romans, who exercised it from their respective cities over patch works of conquered lands, other subdued city-states and semi-independent client kings, often through sheer military force.6 The political models these ancient, centrally governed city-states-turned-into-empires had to offer seventeenthcentury Dutch observers contrasted sharply with the decentralised p ­ olitical structure of the Dutch Republic, in which political authority was divided among many different players, among many different levels. As a consequence, if the Dutch wanted to use ancient political models to clarify, defend or improve their own political constellation, ancient Rome, Athens or Sparta had only limited value. Of course, this historical and political discrepancy did not stop Dutch intellectuals from turning to antiquity and pillaging its rich treasure chest at random. After all, as good humanists, they were trained in defending both sides of an ­argument and to employ a wide range of rhetorical tactics, including a rather free use of all kinds of historical exempla.7 Nonetheless, 5 V.H. [Johan and Pieter de la Court], Consideratien en Exempelen van Staat, omtrent de Fundamenten van allerley Regeringe (Amsterdam, 1660), ix.5: 278–279. 6 It is true that Rome had also made use of alliances, but these alliances had either a forced nature (with the Italian allies) or a hesitant one (with the Greek allies), and ended with the submission of the allies to Roman rule or their incorporation into Roman citizenship. For an early-modern confederative view of Rome, see Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Anne M. Cohler et al. (Cambridge, 2011), i.9.1: 131. I want to thank Thomas Maissen for pointing this passage out to me. 7 For this typical aspect of humanism, see James Hankins, “Humanism and the Origins of ­Modern Political Thought,” in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism, ed. Jill Kraye (Cambridge, 2011), 118–141.

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it still r­ emained the case that in search for an appropriate model that more ­closely  resembled the Dutch Republic as a whole, Dutch political analysts had to look further than the Capitoline hill or the Acropolis. They found what they were looking for on the plains and slopes of the Peloponnese, in the form of the Achaean League, a confederacy of Greek city-states, which had blossomed in the third and second century bc.8 This chapter discusses the use of the Achaean ­example in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, f­ ocusing in ­particular on two Dutch scholars, Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn (1612–1653), professor of e­ loquence at Leiden University, and Martin Schoock (1614–1669), ­professor of physics and logic at the University of Groningen. Their use of the  Achaean  model was greatly influenced by local circumstances and ­authorial intent.9

The Achaean League in the Early Seventeenth Century

As a point of reference, the Achaean League made its first appearance in seventeenth-century Dutch political thought in the De antiquitate reipublicae

8 At first a unified kingdom, the twelve cities which formed the core of the Achaean League developed into a republican federal state in the course of the sixth and fifth century bc. After a short, twenty year period of dissolution, the League was refounded in 281/80 bc. Some 25 years later, the Achaeans made some important changes, transferring overall command, which had been in the hands of one secretary and two generals, to one general only (the office of secretary remained in place, but its importance seems to have declined greatly after these administrative changes). The League grew in prominence, siding with the Romans against Macedon in the Third Macedonian War (171–167 bc), but not wholeheartedly, placing Achaean interests above loyalty to Rome. The secession of Sparta from the Achaean League inaugurated its demise. Determined to bring Sparta back to the fold, the Achaeans scorned Roman warnings not to take up arms. The Romans intervened and decisively defeated the Achaean forces, after which they sacked Corinth (146 bc). The League would never regain its former greatness, ending up as a local organizational unit of the Roman Empire. See J.A.O. Larsen, Greek Federal States: Their Institutions and History (Oxford, 1968), esp. 80–89, 215–240, 447–504, and Erich S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, 2 vols. (Berkeley/ Los Angeles/London, 1984), 2:507–511, 514–527. 9 During the seventeenth century, several foreign observers, including the Italian satirist Traiano Boccalini, the English scholar Henry Stubbe and the German philosopher Samuel Pufendorf also drew comparisons between the Dutch Republic and the Achaean League. See John Robertson, “Empire and Union: Two Concepts of the Early Modern European Political Order,” in A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the British Union of 1707, ed. John Robertson (Cambridge, 1995), 25–29 and footnotes there. These foreign observations, however, are beyond the scope of this chapter.

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Batavicae (1610) of Hugo Grotius. In this work, Grotius drew a specific parallel between the Dutch Republic and the Achaean League: In so far as our state is administered by representatives of towns, it most resembles the states of Achaia, Aetolia and Lycia, who governed states in the same way consisting of several towns, by means of an assembly and representatives of the towns. Of these states, Achaia is put before us by Polybius, Strabo and Plutarch as an excellent example of a state ­harmoniously cooperating. On the other hand, we share the situation that a princely authority, circumscribed by laws, is added to a government of the best, with the ancient Hebrew state in the period of the Judges, with Sparta, with Achaia again, with Venice, the German empire, the northern states mentioned above and many others.10 Grotius’s example was soon followed by Paul Buis (c.1570–1617), professor of law at the University of Franeker. In the early 1610s, Buis made one of his students defend the thesis that “it shall be permitted to, in one way or another, compare our Swiss with the ancient Aetolians and the Dutch with the ancient Achaeans.” The defense of this thesis rested on two grounds: first, on “the similarity of their forms of government, partly popular, partly noble,” and second, on “the fitting similarity of their universal alliances, which all these states or commonwealths maintain or have maintained, among themselves.”11 Both Grotius and Buis, then, lay particular emphasis on the constitutional parallels between the Dutch Republic and the Achaean League, with Grotius showing most interest in features such as representation and princely authority, while Buis pointed out the federative nature of the two political entities.12

10 11

12

Hugo Grotius, The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic, trans. Jan Waszink et al. (Assen, 2000), vii.18: 112–113. See also Ibidem i.3: 52–53. Paul Buis, Illustrium disquisitionum politicarum liber (Franeker, 1613), xvii.31, xi: “Helvetios nostros Aetolis antiquis, Belgas Achaeis, utcunque comparare licebit. Idque non tantum ob statuum, partim popularium, partim optimatum similitudinem, verùm etiam ob ­foederum universalium, quae civitates seu respublicae omnes eae inter se vel fovent, vel foverunt similitudinem convenientem.” This emphasis on the constitutional parallels between the Dutch Republic and the Achaean League returns in the work of Ulrik Huber (1636–1694), professor of law at the University of Franeker, who qualified both states as a foedus aequale—a union between political entities which held on to their sovereignty (summa potestas), i.e. a confederacy. Ulrik Huber, De iure civitatis libri tres (Franeker, 1694), iii, Sect. iii, 3.8–15, 66–67. See also Robertson, “Empire and Union,” 28–29.

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But the most interesting use of the Achaean example in the Dutch R ­ epublic prior to Boxhorn and Schoock was made by Petrus Cunaeus (1586–1638), ­professor of politics, history, and law at Leiden University. Contrary to Grotius and Buis, Cunaeus applied the model of the Achaean League not to the Dutch Republic, but to the province of Holland. Nor did Cunaeus primarily focus on apparent constitutional similarities. Rather, he emphasised the political equality and internal unity which Holland had in common with the ancient Greek league: At one time, everyone feared the Achaeans because the states of the ­Peloponnese had entered their League, which was based on inviolable laws, the principles of justice, and equality of rights among the member states. And their state was really quite similar to your own, illustrious Members of States [i.e. the States of Holland-jn], in that it was by far the best: it was rock solid and undisturbed because it trusted in its unity and was supported by its own strength. But Cunaeus did not stop there. Interestingly, he also added a short analysis of the downfall of the Achaean League: How many times did the Roman People (who were the masters of the world) try to break up that unity with skill and deceit, because they knew that Greece would be impregnable as long as the Achaean League was left standing? This was the task they gave to the proconsul Gallus; and when it did not succeed, they used a cunning plan. They had the Spartans join the League, but on unequal terms, so that they would always be a source of conflict and argument with the other members. Certainly this was the very thing that brought about the destruction of the Achaeans many years later.13 Cunaeus wrote these words in the preface to his De republica Hebraeorum, which was published in 1617, amid the so-called Truce controversies. These controversies had split the Dutch political nation into two factions: the Arminians or Remonstrants, on the one hand, and the Gomarists or ­Counter-Remonstrants, and the other. Fueled by different views on predestination, church-state relationship and foreign policy, the two parties brought the Dutch Republic to the brink of civil war. Finally, in 1618, Prince Maurits of Orange, the stadholder 13

Petrus Cunaeus, The Hebrew Republic, trans. Peter Wyetzner (Jerusalem and New York, 2006), 5.

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of Holland who had sided with the Counter-Remonstrants, intervened with force and defeated the Remonstrant faction. Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, ­advocate of the States of Holland and a firm supporter of the Remonstrant cause, was ­arrested and executed. Grotius, who had also backed the Remonstrants, was sentenced to a lifelong imprisonment at Castle Loevenstein, but in 1621 he managed to escape and fled to Paris.14 Of course, back in 1617, Cunaeus did not know how matters would turn out. But his specific use of the Achaean example can be interpreted as a warning from Cunaeus to his fellow countrymen that internal discord could lead to their demise, just as it had done in the case of the ancient Achaeans. As we shall see, uttering a stern warning was certainly one of the objectives Schoock had in mind when he reached for the model of the Achaean League. But first we shall turn to Boxhorn.

Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, the Dutch Revolt and the Peace of Münster

Born in 1612 in Bergen op Zoom, at the southern frontier of the Dutch Republic, Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn moved to Leiden to study philology, philosophy and theology at the town’s renowned university. Something of a boy genius, he acquired the patronage of eminent scholars like Daniel Heinsius, professor of history at Leiden, and Petrus Scriverius, a famous Dutch antiquarian, and he also studied with the polyhistor Gerard Vossius and the neo-Aristotelian philosopher Franco Burgersdijk.15 After his studies, Boxhorn decided to stay at Leiden and to pursue an academic career at his alma mater. An extraordinary professorship of eloquence in 1633 was followed by an ordinary professorship seven years later.16 In 1648, Heinsius retired from his teaching duties and

14 15

16

For further details, see Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford, 1998), 421–477. Jacobus Baselius, “Historia vitae & obitus viri celeberrimi Marci Zuerii Boxhornii …,” in Marci Zuerii Boxhornii Epistolae et poemata, ed. Jacobus Baselius (Frankfurt/Leipzig, 1679), i-v. Lambertus Barlaeus, “Oratio funebris in excessum clarissimi viri, Marci Zuerii Boxhornii …,” in Memoriae philosophorum, oratorum, poetarum, historicorum, et philologorum nostri seculi clarissimorum renovatae, decas sexta, ed. Henning Witte (Frankfurt am Main, 1679), 152. Sandra Langereis, Geschiedenis als ambacht: oudheidkunde in de Gouden Eeuw: Arnoldus Buchelius en Petrus Scriverius (Hilversum, 2001), 143, 185–187. P.C. Molhuysen, Bronnen tot de geschiedenis der Leidsche Universiteit, 7 vols. (The Hague, 1916), 2:183–184, 247.

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­Boxhorn stepped in to take over from his former master.17 He died in 1653, only 41 years of age, and in his brief career he had shown his versatility as a scholar. Boxhorn published editions of classical authors, delved in linguistic investigations, and studied Dutch history,18 while he also presided over many disputations, which often had a historical and political character.19 One of these disputations concerned the Achaean League. It was held on 26 June 1647 by Rutgersius à Breda, a law student from Kampen.20 In his dedication to the regenten of his native town, Rutgersius drew an explicit comparison between the Achaean League and the Dutch Republic, claiming that “the essence or soul of that ancient Achaean commonwealth was once nothing else than that essence or soul of the Dutch state.”21 Unfortunately, Rutgersius did not further elaborate what this “essence” or “soul” precisely entailed, but the very fact that he compared the Dutch Republic to the Achaean League is in itself informative: as Rutgersius made clear, politics provides human society with matters it cannot do without by means of precepts or examples.22 Thus, in a typical humanist fashion, Rutgersius—or should we say Boxhorn—presented 17

For Boxhorn, see Ibidem, 3:20. For Heinsius, see P.R. Sellin, Daniel Heinsius and Stuart England (London, 1968), 64–65. 18 For a short discussion of Boxhorn’s life and works, see Robert von Friedeburg, “Boxhorn, Marcus Zuerius (1612–53),” in The Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers, ed. Wiep van Bunge et al., 2 vols. (Bristol, 2003), 1:146–151. 19 Some of these disputations were collected and printed together. See Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Emblemata politica: accedunt dissertationes politicae de Romanorum Imperio et quaedamaliae (Amsterdam, 1651), and Idem, Varii Tractatus Politici (Amsterdam, 1663). 20 Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Disputatio politica, De Veteri Achaeorum Republica, & diversa ejus mutatione ac forma. Qvam, Favente Deo Opt. Max. Praeside Clarissimo, Amplissimoque Viro, Marco Zuerio Boxhornio, Eloquentia in Academ. Lugdunensi. Batav. Professore Ordinario, exercitii gratia Discutiendam proponit Rvtgersivs à Breda, Camp. Transis. Ad diem 26. Iunii, loco horisque solitis (Leiden, 1647). It was republished with other Boxhorniana in Boxhorn, Varii Tractatus Politici, 569–577. For Rutgersius, see Album studiosorum ­Academiae Lugduno Batavae mdlxxv–mdccclxxv (The Hague, 1875), 362. 21 Boxhorn, Disputatio politica, De Veteri Achaeorum Republica, A2i-ii: “De veteri Achaeorum Republica, ejusque varia mutatione ac forma omnis nostra haec disputatio instituitur. Neque alia, ut probarem adolescentem me vobis, institui debebat. Neque enim veteris illius Achaeorum Reipub. vis alia aut anima olim fuit, quam ea Foederatorum Belgarum Imperii, cujus vos quoque egregia pars estis […] Id autem maxime mihi in votis est, ut, cum illae Achaeorum & Belgarum Foederatorum Respublicae in plerisque conveniant, in hoc solo dissimiles inveniantur, quod cum illa brevi exstincta sit, haec aeternum duret.” 22 Ibidem, A2i: “Vt summa quaedam hominum in hac vita felicitas est, à nullis, quae nessaria sunt, destitui, ita non alibi id quam in societate hominum facile consequaris. Hanc autem civilis, quam Politicam vocant, disciplina, optimis sive praeceptis, sive exemplis absolvit.”

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in this disputation the Achaean League as an historical example from which his Dutch contemporaries could learn a thing or two.23 This insight, combined with the fact that the disputation was held some six months before the Dutch officially signed the Peace of Münster, provide us with enough information to allow for a further examination of what Boxhorn tried to tell his audience in this particular piece of work. Following common practice, Boxhorn’s disputation on the Achaean League is built up of a number of theses—in this particular case 18. Together these 18 theses tell the story of the Achaean League from the time of its first legendary king Tisamenus until the fall of the League in the second century bc.24 Completely in line with humanist pedagogical principles, this story is stuffed with political maxims, covered in a sauce of quotes taken from ancient authors. Within this dish, at least five themes can be discerned. The first is the overthrow by the Achaeans of their kings, followed by the transformation of the Achaean commonwealth from a monarchy into a democracy. This theme allowed Boxhorn to justify the principle of resistance against princes-turnedinto-tyrants. Every prince who transgresses either divine law, the laws of ­nature or the laws of nations can legitimately “be deprived of his power.”25 Coming from the mouth of a refugee from the Southern Netherlands—Boxhorn had been forced to leave Breda after the Spanish had captured the town in 1625— such a stand should not surprise us. 23

The content of student disputations published under the name of the professor who presided over them can be attributed to the respective professor. Willem Otterspeer, Groepsportret met dame, 4 vols. (Amsterdam, 2000–2015), 1:236. 24 According to Polybius, the first King of the Achaean League was Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, who, in turn, was the son of Agamemnon. Polybius, The Histories, ii.41. 25 Boxhorn, Disputatio politica, De Veteri Achaeorum Republica iii, A3i–A3ii: “Duravit ­institutum ab iis regnum, teste Polybio, continua stirpis Tysameni, primi hujus Reip. principis, serie propagatum, ad Gygem usque. Cujus postea filios aversati, cum insolentius se gererent, & legitimum regnum in herilem dominatum convertissent, priorem Reipublicae formam in popularem statum convertere. Et recte. Cum enim imperantium scelera tanta sunt, ut, nisi in tempore obviam eatur, in exitium totius Reipub. haud dubie sint exitura, licere populo, vel proceribus populum referentibus, eos imperio exuere judicamus. Utut enim Princeps absolutissimam in Republica obtineat potestatem, tamen se naturalibus, Gentium ac Divinis legibus, obnoxium fateri debet: quas si contemnat, nil video obstare, quo minus imperio privetur.” Boxhorn follows here in the footsteps of Grotius. Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, 3 vols. (Indianapolis, in, 2005), 3.3.16, 300: “I do not speak here of the Observations of the natural, and divine Law, or even of the Law of Nations, to which all Kings stand obliged, tho’ they have promised nothing.” See also Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae (Leiden, 1668), i.4: 38, ii.4.49–54: 305–306.

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The second theme concerns the Sallustian thesis of luxury as a source of discord, and hence of decline.26 Boxhorn interpreted the fate of the Achaean League through his reading of Sallust and other Roman authors. After the death of Alexander the Great, the Achaean League had dissolved into opposing factions thanks to the cunning of the Macedonians kings.27 However, according to Boxhorn, the Achaeans themselves were also to blame, because they had “paved the way for luxury,” from which “soon arises want, and hence ravenous money-lending, interest greedy for its appointed time, and credit shaken and war advantageous to many.”28 Should we read in these lines—taken from the Roman poet Lucan—a hidden critique of the Dutch Republic’s wealth, an “embarrassment of riches”?29 Or should we perhaps see them as an analysis of the Truce controversies, which many Dutchmen, including Boxhorn, believed to have been the work of the trickery of the King of Spain?30 26 Boxhorn, Disputatio politica, De Veteri Achaeorum Republica v–vi, A3ii. The Roman historian Sallust believed that the fall of the Roman Republic was due to the moral decline that occurred after the destruction of Carthage in 146 bc, when Rome, left without any serious enemy, was overcome by leisure and the new won riches from the East. See Sallust, Catiline’s War, vi–xiii, and The Jugurthine War, xxxxi–xxxxii. 27 Ibidem v, A3ii: “Post mortem enim Alexandri Magni, astu Regum Macedoniae, concordia inter eos fracta, urbium societas soluta, & in contraria studia scissa est; atque ita civilibus factionibus agitati, vicinorum imperio subjecti sunt. Domesticae enim illae dissensiones omnia oportuna insidiantibus faciunt & aperta.” 28 Ibidem vi, A3ii: “Quod autem in hac Republ. dissensiones civiles locum facile invenerint, id mirum nobis minime videri debet. Cum enim Achaei se omnia jam evasisse pericula arbitrarentur, & à consueto imperii conservandi studio desisterent, luxui viam apertuere. Et sane plerumque ita fit, ut nimia felicitas civilium turbarum causa sit. Et luxu enim mox est egestas, & hinc Vsura vorax, avidumque in tempore foenus, Et concussa fides, & multis utile bellum.” The last lines are from Lucan, De bello civile sive Pharsalia, i.181–182. English translation taken from Lucan, Civil War, trans. Susan H. Braund (Oxford, 1999), 7. The phrase “nimia felicitas” comes from Florus, Epitome of Roman History, ii.13. Boxhorn had already before identified luxury as a cause of demise. Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, “Oratio de Eversionibus Rerumpub. et Earum caussis. Habita cum Troades Senecae interpretaretur,” in Poetae satyrici minores, De Corrupto Reipublicae statv, ed. Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn (Leiden, 1633), 9. “Saepe luxuriae, et amori magna imperia succubuere.” 29 For this interpretation of Dutch anxiety about wealth, see Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (London, 2004). 30 See Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Oratie van de vrede tusschen de Hooghmachtighe Philippe de iv, Coninck van Hispanien, ende de Staeten der Vrye Vereenichde Nederlanden, besloten in den jaere 1648 (Leiden, 1648), 12, and Idem, Institutiones politicae, i.4: 35–36, and i.13: 214–215.

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Unsurprisingly, following this analysis of the relationship between luxury, discord and decline, a third theme addressed by Boxhorn is the need for concord. In this context he quoted, with many superlatives, the adage of Sallust that “in harmony, small things grow; in disharmony, the greatest are dissipated,” which was also the official motto of the Dutch Republic. Boxhorn used the adage in reference to the Achaean League, which from a situation of crisis and discord had reached new heights after twelve of its members had “entered into a certain new alliance.”31 In Boxhorn’s view, this proved that concord is so important that it “must be preserved” by all means possible, including “crimes against private citizens, their property and their activities.” The common good, the purpose behind alliances or confederacies, triumphs over all other considerations.32 Against the background of the peace negotiations taking place in Münster, these statements can be interpreted as a call to all the Dutch parties involved in the peace process to lay aside their internal differences and act together in the interest of the Dutch Republic.33 31

De Veteri Achaeorum Republica vii, A4i: “Dein vero, cum animadverterent, hac ratione in occasum ire Rempubl. & ad meliorem tandem mentem redirent, privatis postpositis inimicitiis, quaedam ex duodecim illis Civitatibus novam quandam societatem iniere; in quam non tantum Achaicae regionis urbes, sed & aliae Graeciae ditiones, convenere: adeo ut ex rebus mediocribus ad insignem & formidatam aliis potentiam res Achaica sic brevi eluctata sit. Ut enim per discordiam maximae etiam res decrescunt, ita per concordiam minimae quoque maxima faciunt incrementa.” Cf. Sallust, Ivgvrtha, x.6: “Nam concordia paruae res crescunt, discordia maxumae dilabuntur.” English translation quoted from Sallust, Catiline’s War, The Jugurthine War, Histories, trans. A.J. Woodman (London, 2007), 57. 32 Boxhorn, Disputatio politica vii, A4i:: “Atque rectissime Livius, per aequa, inquit, ac iniqua retinenda est concordia […] Damna enim in singulos, ut loquitur Tacitus, utilitate publica hic pensantur. […] Finis quoque ipse, qui homines ad ineundas has societates impellit, non nisi bonum publicum & fuit & jam est. Quod bonum tanti est, tantumque videri debet, ut ejus gratia, si quidem aliter fieri non possit, singuli quidem privatarum rerum jacturam facere haud iniquum, neque iniquos Magistratus, si facere jubeantur, debeant existimare.” References to Livy, The History of Rome, ii.32.7, and Tacitus, The Annals, xiv.44.3. 33 While a majority in the States of Holland and the States General were in favour of a peace with Spain, there was also opposition. The province of Zeeland, for example, vigorously opposed a peace settlement, because it feared that its trade position would severely deteriorate if the Dutch blockade of the Flemish coast would be lifted, as had happened during the Twelve Years’ Truce. Simon Groenveld, “Unie, religie en militie: binnenlandse verhoudingen in de Nederlandse Republiek voor en na de Munsterse Vrede,” in 1648: de Vrede van Munster, ed. Hugo de Schepper et al. (Hilversum, 1997), 67–87, 71–72, and Maurits Ebben, “Twee wegen naar Munster: de besluitvorming over de Vrede van Munster in de Republiek en Spanje,” in Harmonie in Holland: het poldermodel van 1500 tot nu, ed. Dennis Bos, Maurits Ebben and Henk te Velde (Amsterdam, 2007), 61–69.

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This brings us to the fourth theme, namely the precise political nature of the Achaean League and—ipso facto—of the Dutch Republic. As Boxhorn made clear, the Achaean League should not be considered as “a mixture of different commonwealths,” but as “one commonwealth only.” Here, Boxhorn followed in the footsteps of Jean Bodin, who in Les six livres de la république (1576), described the Achaean League as “one aristocratic commonwealth.” However, ­unlike Bodin, Boxhorn believed that within the Achaean League, sovereignty was divided. Whereas the League possessed the highest sovereignty “to decide and act in those matters, which fall under the laws of the common alliance,” sovereignty over issues that were not covered by these laws remained in the hands of the League’s members.34 This picture of the Achaean League shows some compelling resemblances to the one Boxhorn draws of the Dutch R ­ epublic in the Commentariolus de statu confoederatarum provinciarum Belgii (1649), Boxhorn’s analysis of the nature, structure and workings of the Dutch Republic.35 For example, the Commentariolus states that the States General has the supreme power to command (supremum imperium) in all matters that tend to the Union of Utrecht (1579), the founding document of the Dutch Republic. But all matters that the Union does not stipulate remain under “the supreme right of the States of each united province.”36 Boxhorn, then, through the e­ xample 34 Boxhorn, Disputatio politica, De Veteri Achaeorum Republica xiii, A4iv: “In amplissimo hujus Reipub. concilio coibant omnium foederatarum Civitatum legati, qui universam Achaeorum Remp. repraesentabant: ita tamen, ut singulae Civitates leges & jura sibi propria servarent. Neque idcirco dicendum est, in hac Repub. fuisse mixturam diversarum Rerumpublicarum. Foedus enim ejusmodi coëuntium Rerumpub. unam tantum constituit Rempublicam, cui suprema majestas est in iis decernendis agendisque, quae ­communis foederis legibus sunt comprehensa: sua interim majestate unicuique Reip. domi manente in iis omnibus, de quibus communis foederis legibus nihil est definitum.” Cf. Jean Bodin, De republica libri sex (Paris, 1586), i.7c, 74: “Quòd si foederatae ciuitates in vnius principis aut plurium optimatum fidem veniant, vna & eadem respublica censetur: quod non facilè iudicari potest. Nam Achaeorum societas tribus initio ciuitatibus constabat, quae aequo foedere iungebantur, & cùm eosdem hostes, eosdem etiam amicos haberent, salua tamen erat initio ciuitas cuiusque maiestas: cùm autem assiduis bellis infestarentur, ac saepissimè conuentus habere cogerentur, legatorum conuentus tandem perfecit vt in vnam optimatum Rempublicam coïrent.” 35 Although the Commentariolus first appeared in 1649, its intellectual conception can be traced back to the early 1640s. See Jaap Nieuwstraten, “Historical and Political Thought in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic: The Case of Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn (1612– 1653)” (Ph.D. diss., Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2012), 133–135. 36 Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Commentariolus de statu confoederatarum provinciarum Belgii (The Hague, 1649), ii.9–15, 26–33, with quote on 29. See also Idem, Institutiones politicae i.11, 174–175.

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of the Achaean League, presented the Dutch Republic as a unified political entity possessing sovereignty—a respublica.37 As we have already noted at the beginning, not everybody shared this view. It is, however, the fifth and final theme that, in the context of the approaching Peace of Münster, is the most interesting. It concerns the nature of alliances. In Boxhorn’s analysis, the Achaean League came to an end because of the League’s alliance with Rome against the King of Macedon in the second century bc. Duped by their cunning and ambitious general Callicrates, the Achaeans saw their alliance with Rome transformed from one between equals, to one between unequals, in which the Romans held the upper hand.38 The danger of such an imbalance became apparent when the Romans, after the King of Macedon had been defeated, turned their swords against their own allies and subjected the Achaeans to Roman rule. From this sorry fate, Boxhorn learned the lesson that when it comes to waging war against neighbouring countries, alliances with states that are equal in strength or weaker than yourself, “are far safer” for one’s own country than alliances with states that are stronger.39 If we connect this lesson to the Dutch situation in 1647, the following hypothesis can be made. Since 1635 the Dutch had been allied to the King of France against Spain. After the battle of Rocroi (1643), in which the French won a resounding victory over the Spanish army in the Netherlands, “the balance of power in Europe began to tip from Habsburg to Bourbon.”40 The Dutch sensed this shift and began to fear the presence of a powerful French army at their borders if Spain would lose all its possessions in the Southern Netherlands. Partly prompted by this fear, the Dutch strived towards a peace with the King of Spain. The French objected to this course of action, referring to the alliance of 1635, according to which neither France nor the Dutch Republic could 37

In Boxhorn’s view, the distinctive mark of a commonwealth, and what sets it apart from other large associations, is majestas or sovereignty. Boxhorn describes majestas as the commonwealth’s “soul,” without which a commonwealth cannot exist. Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae i.2, 11: “Corpus enim Respublica est, hujus anima […] est Majestas. Ut ergò corpus sine anima subsistere non potest, ita & Respublica sine Majestate.” 38 Boxhorn, Disputatio politica, De Veteri Achaeorum Republica xvii, A4v: “Interim Romani Callicratem, ut patriae vere amantem, & prudentia signem, Achaico populo imprimis commendarunt: & ut ejus consilia sequerentur, si bene rebus Achaicis vellent, monuerunt. Quapropter ad suos reversus Praetura statim ornatus est. Qua dignitate dum fungitur, tam scite suam hanc fabulam egit, ut quod par foedus inter Romanos & Achaeos fuerat, brevi tempore in foedus impar sit conversum. Eo quippe res devenit, ut, enatis controversiis, quod aequum sibi videri Romani dicerent, defugere Achaei non auderent.” 39 Ibidem xv–xviii, A4iv–A4vi. 40 Geoffrey Parker, Europe in Crisis, 1598–1648 (Oxford, 2001), 192.

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sign a separate peace with Spain without the permission of the other party. The Dutch replied by pointing out that the French were deliberately obstructing the peace negotiations and were unwilling to come to terms with Spain. Under such circumstances, the Dutch argued, they were not obligated to await France’s approval.41 Boxhorn’s analysis of alliances in his disputation on the Achaean League can be read as a comment on the Franco-Dutch alliance of 1635 and its implications for the Dutch Republic. The French being stronger than the Dutch, Boxhorn seems to have warned his fellow countrymen that this alliance may turn out badly for them in the end. In his reading of the history of the Achaean League, Boxhorn was basically giving expression to the maxim that would guide Dutch foreign policy from 1648 onwards: gallia amica, non vicina (“France as friend, not as neighbour”).

The Crisis of 1650 and Martinus Schoock’s Reaction to the Act of Exclusion

As it would turn out, the Dutch did not buckle under French pressure and signed their peace with the King of Spain. Naturally, such a momentous occasion called for celebration. Boxhorn joined the chorus of jubilee with an oration in which he extolled peace as “the greatest happiness in human affairs.”42 At the same time, in a true Sallustian fashion, he used his oration to warn against the threat of discord that loomed, now that the fear of an external ­enemy had ceased to exist.43

41 42

43

Simon Groenveld and Huib L. Ph. Leeuwenberg, De bruid in de schuit: de consolidatie van de Republiek, 1609–1650 (Zutphen, 1985), 120–124. Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, “Oratio panegyrica de Belgarum pace,” in Orationes, Varii Argumenti. Series singularum & argumentum statim in ipso aditu leguntur, ed. Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn (Amsterdam, 1651) v, 104–133, 105: “Nunc potissimum magnis laetisque animis nos esse necesse est, & expressa tandem potentissimo hosti, qua nulla major est gentium gloria, libertatis nostrae confessione, &, quae in hominum rebus felicitas summa est, pace simul data.” Ibidem, 124: “Ut, cum plerumque amoto externo bello, aut externi metu, (tamquam vitia facilius aut scelera pax ferat, quam bellum, cum tamen minus ferat) mala omnis libido, avaritia, ambitio, potentiorum de imperio certamina, arbitrium potius hominum & homines quam leges, imperent (felicium fere mala, quae turbant inprimis domi pacem ac convellunt) quovis bello nocentiorem, & quam ista post se vitia trahunt, civium discordiam arceat.” See Sallust, The Jugurthine War, xli.1–5. For the influence of the principle

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Soon events in the Dutch Republic would prove that Boxhorn’s warning was right on the mark. Conflicts between the States of Holland and their stadholder, Prince William ii, about the reduction of the States army led to an attempt by William to gain by force what he could not obtain by mediation. However, his attempt to occupy Amsterdam—William’s most stubborn o­ pponent— failed, and soon afterwards William died. Suddenly freed from their former foe, the States of Holland moved quickly to settle matters their way. On November 12, only six days after William’s unexpected death, they summoned the other provinces to participate in a “Great Assembly” of the States ­General. With Holland in ascendancy and internally cohesive, and many of the other provinces plagued by internal dissensions, the outcome of the assembly generally complied with the wishes of the States of Holland. The provinces of Holland, Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel decided that, for the time being, they would refrain from electing a new stadholder, while the command of the army was divided between the seven provinces.44 But the regenten of Holland could not enjoy their victory for long.45 In July 1652, long-existing tensions between the Dutch Republic and England erupted into open war. Losses at sea and economic disruption led to riots in Holland, Zeeland and States Brabant. Finally, with both parties exhausted, peace negotiations began. In 1654, the English and the Dutch agreed to the Treaty of Westminster. Connected to this treaty was a secret clause, the so-called Act of Exclusion, in which the States of Holland promised that they would no longer appoint any Prince of Orange as stadholder of their province. When this clause became publicly known, it greatly upset the other provinces, which had been left in the dark about this particular agreement. Especially Friesland, which had retained its own lineage of stadholders in the person of Willem Frederik, opposed to the Act of Exclusion, holding that it violated the Union of Utrecht.46

44 45 46

of metus hostilis in early-modern Europe, see Ioannis D. Evrigenes, Fear of Enemies and Collective Action (Cambridge, 2009), esp. 48–130. See for these events Israel, The Dutch Republic, 700–713, and Willem Frijhoff and Marijke Spies, eds., 1650: Hard-Won Unity (Basingstoke, 2004), 75–80. For what follows, see Israel, The Dutch Republic, 713–726, and Prak, The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century, 47–48. According to article nine of the Union, “no armistice or peace treaty shall be concluded nor any war started nor any duties or contributions pertaining to the generality of the united provinces demanded but by the unanimous advice and consent of the aforesaid provinces.” In addition, article ten stipulated that “none of these provinces or their towns or members shall conclude any confederation or alliance with any neighbouring lord or country without the consent of these united provinces and allies.” E.H. Kossmann

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In response to the protests of the other provinces, Johan de Witt, the Grand Pensionary of Holland, excused Holland’s late actions in a document known as the Deductie (1654). De Witt forcefully stressed the principle of provincial sovereignty, which in his view included the power to appoint a stadholder—or not.47 At the same time, he attacked the custom of hereditary offices. According to De Witt, “all Republics” in which the highest offices of State had been handed down from father to son, had always “been reduced to a monarchical state.”48 Thus, by adopting the Act of Exclusion, Holland had actually saved “the freedom of the Netherlands.”49 Although partly headless, the other provinces should not fear the dissolution of the Union. Self-interest and the fear of enemies would keep the provinces together, so De Witt argued.50 The outbreak of the First Anglo-Dutch war led to a boom in political pamphleteering, but the Deductie hardly stirred the printing presses.51 However, one person who did react was Martinus Schoock, professor of physics and logic at the University of Groningen, and he did so with a disputation on the Achaean League. Martinus Schoock, born in 1614, studied mathematics, philosophy and theology in Franeker and Leiden, among others with Burgersdijk. In 1635, he moved to Utrecht to teach rhetoric at the town’s Illustrious School. There he became a pupil of Gisbert Voetius, the Dutch champion of orthodox Calvinism. Three years later, Schoock left Utrecht for a chair in history at the Illustrious School of Deventer. He did not stay long. In 1640, Schoock packed his things and travelled north, to the University of Groningen, where he had been appointed professor

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and A.F. Mellink, eds., Texts Concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands (Cambridge, 1974), 168–169. Johan de Witt, Deductie, ofte Declaratie Van de Staten van Hollandt ende West-Vrieslandt (The Hague, 1654), i.2.1–2: 13–14. Ibidem ii.1.9–10: “dat alle de Republijcquen vande gantsche Werelt, egeene uytgesondert, die oyt tot soodanige maximes, ofte gewoonten zijn vervallen […] daer door onder subjectie gebracht, ende tot een Monarchicquen staet gereduceert zijn.” Ibidem ii.2.14, 58: “Voorwaer als haer Ed: Groot Mo: alle dese saecken considereren, soo houden sy haer niet genoech verwonderen dat de selve Provintien […] derven beschuldigen die Provincie, die altijdts, ende specialijck mede door de jegenwoordige actie […] de vryheyt vande Nederlanden notoirlijck heeft geconserveert.” Ibidem ii.3.15–16, 64: “Hebben niet de jegenwoordighe seven Vereenichde Provintien een ende het selve interest en haere eygen conservatie? een ende de selve vreese voor alle Uytheemsche Machten? […] Dese sijn, naer ’t oordeel van hare Ed: Groot Mo: de rechte banden, die de seven Pylen t’ samen knoopen, ende klauwe van een ende deselve Leeuw moeten vast houden.” Guido de Bruin, “Political Pamphleteering and Public Opinion in the Age of De Witt (1653–1672),” in Pamphlets and Politics in the Dutch Republic, ed. Femke Deen, David ­Onnekink and Michel Reinders (Leiden and Boston, 2011), 63–95.

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of physics and logic. He would remain in Groningen for more than 25 years, occupying himself not only with philosophical questions, but also with historical and political issues, although strictly speaking these subjects were outside his fields. Schoock found his final resting-place in Frankfurt-on-Oder as professor of history at the local university, an office he combined with his duties as historiographer of the Elector of Brandenburg.52 Schoock taught and published on a wide range of subjects, including rather mundane topics such as herring, cheese and cut peat.53 Today, he is mostly known for his criticism of Descartes, whose method of doubt he dismissed as dangerous because it would lead to scepticism and atheism.54 Schoock, however, also showed a particular interest in the politics of the Dutch Republic. In 1652, he published Belgium Federatum, which, much in the style of Boxhorn’s Commentariolus, contains an analysis of the nature, structure and workings of the Dutch Republic, although in a much more elaborated way than Boxhorn had ever done.55 For our present purpose, two themes in this book merit special attention. First, in a typical Grotian style, Schoock held that the Dutch Republic was ruled by a “government of the best,” which had, until the death of William ii, “a shade of monarchy.”56 Closely following Grotius, Schoock compared this 52

P.C. Molhuysen et al. ed., Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, 10 vols. (The Hague, 1911–1937), 10:889–891; H.A. Krop, “‘Meer dan van Plato en Aristoteles een vriend van de waarheid’: Martinus Schook (1640–1666): een Groningse wijsgeer op het kruispunt van tradities,” in Onderwijs en onderzoek: studie en wetenschap aan de academie van Groningen in de 17e en 18e eeuw, ed. A.H. Huussen jr. (Hilversum, 2003), 127–159; Idem, “Schoock, Martinus (1614–69),” in The Dictionary of Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Dutch P­ hilosophers, 2:890–895. 53 For an overview of the different areas covered by Schoock and a list of his publications, see Krop, “‘Meer dan van Plato en Aristoteles een vriend van de waarheid,’” 131–133, and Idem, “Schoock, Martinus (1614–69),” 891, 893–894. 54 Theo Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch: Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy, 1637–1650 (Carbondale/Edwardsville, Il, 1992), 17–29, and Wiep van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza: An Essay on Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic (Leiden and Boston, 2001), 34–40. 55 Martinus Schoock, Belgium Federatum, Sive Distincta descriptio Reip. Federati Belgii (­Amsterdam, 1652). In 1654, Adriaen Vlacq, a printer from The Hague, published a version of Boxhorn’s Commentariolus, which is basically a mixture of chapters drawn from the Commentariolus and Schoock’s Belgium Federatum. This version finally ended up as a supplement to a French edition of Petrus Scriverius’s Principes Hollandiae (1650): H ­ istoire des contes d’Hollande et Estat et gouvernement des provinces unies Du Pays Bays (The Hague, 1664). 56 Schoock, Belgium Federatum i.3, 10: “Et primo quidem optimatum regimen, à quo tanquam potiori parte jure denominari potest, multis guadet praerogativis […] S­ ecundo,

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aristocratic Dutch Republic to the Achaean League, revealing how the League was already on Schoock’s radar some three years before his reply to De Witt’s Deductie.57 Second, in a clear reaction to the post-1650 stadholderless situation in Holland, Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel, Schoock refuted the opinion that the Dutch provinces could not do without a stadholder. As the bearers of sovereignty, the provincial States could carry out any task they previously entrusted to a stadholder. At the same time, however, Schoock defended the right of each province to appoint a stadholder “if the circumstances of time seem to demand it.”58 Thus, in Belgium Federatum, Schoock seemed to agree with the principle of provincial sovereignty, which De Witt so emphatically defended in the Deductie. Why, then, did he react to it, and how? Somewhere between December 1654 and June 1655, Schoock had one of his students hold a disputation on the Achaean League. The disputation is quite large, numbering 31 theses and extending over more than a hundred pages.59 Like Boxhorn, Schoock gave a prominent role to ancient sources, but unlike his Leiden colleague, he also made use of more modern authors such as Philippe de Commines. True to his humanist education, Schoock contended that “history is the repository of all civil and military prudence.” The Achaean League could therefore serve as an example in which “the rulers of the Dutch Republic—when they will decide to examine the Dutch Republic, when their quandiu aliquis ex illustrissima domo Auraica agnitus fuit cum supremus belli terra marique ­ Imperator, tum etiam plerarumque provinciarum gubernator, exhibuit ­Monarchiae umbram, qua haud aliter Status hujus solem obvelavit, atque apud Venetos dux liberis ­suffragiis lectus Aristocratiae integritatem temperat.” Cf. Grotius, Antiquity, i.4, ii.14, vii.7: 54–55, 64–67, 106–107. 57 Cf. Schoock, Belgium Federatum i.3, 10–11, with Grotius, Antiquity, vii.17–19: 112–113. 58 Schoock, Belgium Federatum ii.9, 67–69: “enimvero illi, penes quos est Superioritas, per se ipsi exercere possunt ea, quorum exercitium ex libera delegatione antehac ipsi Gubernatori commiserunt […] Interim cuique provinciae jus suum sartum tectumque est, &, si circumstantia temporis exigere videatur, Gubernatorem sibi constituere potest citra aliarum quoque provinciarum praejudicium.” Here, Schoock is probably alluding to the province of Groningen, which, shortly after the death of William ii in 1650, had appointed Willem Frederik of Nassau-Dietz as its stadholder. See also Israel, The Dutch Republic, 705. 59 Martinus Schoock, “Disputatio historica Exhibens incrementum ac decrementum status Achaeorum,” in Respublica Achaeorum & vejentium Duabus dissertationibus exhibita In Academia Groningae & Ommelandiae, ed. Martinus Schoock (Groningen, 1655), 1–112. The student in question was Balthasar Sigismondus à Stosch, a Silesian noble who matriculated at the University of Groningen on 28 December 1654, when Martin Schoock was rector: Album studiosorum academiae Groninganae (Groningen, 1915), 72. Schoock dedicated the book to his cousin Arnold Schoock, an alderman of Zaltbommel, who in 1655 acted as deputy to the States General on behalf of the province of Gelderland.

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conscience will listen to judgement—will encounter many matters, which can immediately either help their policies or check them.”60 The main lessons Schoock drew from the League’s history are connected to the causes of the fall of the League. One cause he discerned was the ambition that drove men like Callicrates to undermine the virtuous leadership of Lycortas, a prominent Greek politician who stood up for the sanctity of the Achaean laws, thereby disturbing the League’s internal peace. According to Schoock, this episode illustrated the danger that discord poses to a commonwealth made up of several peoples, as well as the need for a strong leader to deal with troublemakers and avert the negative effects of such discord.61 Applied to the Dutch situation of 1654/55, this call for a leader figure can be interpreted in at least two different ways. First, as a plea for the elevation of William iii, the young Prince of Orange, to stadholder of Holland and ­captain-general of the Dutch army. Second, as an attempt to enhance the position of the Groninger stadholder Willem Frederik, in Schoock’s opinion “a hero of proven bravery, trust and prudence,” who could act as regent and commander of the army until William iii would come of age. Perhaps Schoock thought that such an enhancement would give Willem Frederik more authority and scope to deal with the internal disturbances that plagued several Dutch provinces, in particular Overijssel and Groningen.62 This danger of discord, 60 Schoock, Respublica Achaeorum & vejentium, iii-v: “Atque, ne per exempla longius oberret oratio, omnis togatae atque sagatae prudentiae promptuarium est historia, qua duce non minus feliciter imperant, quibus alias fato Metellorum honores deferri videntur; quam boni civis numeros explent, qui, aut destinato animi proposito, silentio aetatem transigunt, ne propius intueantur reip. vulnera, quae medicinam amplius non patiuntur, aut, injuria temporum rep. arcentur, per eos, quibus aliena virtus formidilosa esse solet […] Hosce, citra populi suffragium censores, si respicerem, subitaneas hasce chartae ad Oblivionis insulas ablegarem: at, cum non invideam ijs regnum, quod ex Adversariis, Indicibus, & Glossariis tam ambitiose sperant & jactant, ut Croesos & Darios, sceptro insignes, prae se & suo obelo nullos putent: hoc perpetuo ago, ut saltem in ea digitum intendam, quae si diligentius meditati fuerint illi, quibus nares magis sunt emunctae, sive Ecclesiae sive Reip. opem & splendorem faenerari queant. Eum in finem aliquanto diligentius laboravi excutere Achaeorum & Vejentum remp. ad quam si instituerint meam Belgicam examinare ejusdem rectores, conscientia subserviente judicio, plura offendent, quae subinde consilia sua aut juvent, aut sufflaminent.” 61 Schoock, “Disputatio historica Exhibens incrementum ac decrementum status Achaeorum,” v: 9–10. Schoock backs this claim up with quotes from Tacitus, The Annals, i.9.4, and The Histories, i.1, among others. 62 Schoock, Belgium Federatum ii.7, 62–64: “Dum vero aliae provinciae electionem Gubernatoris differunt, Groninga & Ommelandia, exemplu mox sequente Drentia, pro Gubernatore suo elegerunt probatae virtutis, fidei, & prudentia heroa Guilielmum Fredericum

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“that fatal plague of commonwealths,” looms large in Schoock’s disputation on the Achaean League.63 Factions can have disastrous effects, as shown by the ­controversies that shook the Dutch nation during the Twelve Years’ Truce.64 ­Indeed, peace as such can be a dangerous thing. While leisure may be pleasing—“especially for trade”—it also undermines a nation’s strength. Referring to Sallust and Thucydides, Schoock called for action, although he did not explain what this action should entail.65 Schoock’s treatise Imperium maritimum, largely written in the summer of 1653 and published in the next year, provides some clues about his intentions. In this work Schoock explained the importance of trade for the well-being of the Dutch Republic from a historical and geographical perspective. Since in the Dutch case trade was especially a maritime affair, Schoock understood that naval power (maritima potentia) was essential if the Dutch wanted to continue to prosper. The Dutch should therefore pursue an aggressive maritime policy, aimed at preventing direct contact between the eastern and northern hemispheres, on the one hand, and the western hemisphere, on the other, in order Nassovium, Frisiae vicinae illud re ipsa praestando, quod promiserant anno 1632.” See further Israel, The Dutch Republic, 705, 718, 728–735. 63 Schoock, “Disputatio historica Exhibens incrementum ac decrementum status ­Achaeorum,” xxxi, 109: “Quoniam vero primo Discordia, illa fatalis rerumpublicarum pestis, Achaeos perdidit, temperare mihi non possim (quod meos Belgas in Achaeis mihi repraesentem) quin iterum monstro illi occurram.” 64 Ibidem xvii, 63: “Quae civitatibus Rebus publicis, & totis provincijs quantae sint pernicie imo exitio, aurea extat Livij sententia li. 3. Hist. quam & veram, pro dolor, hoc saeculum experitur. Fuere eruntque, factiones plurib. populis magis exitio, quam bella externa, quam fames, morbive, quaeque alia in Deum iras veluti ultima publicorum malorum vertunt. Testantur & Marij & Syllae, Caesaris & Pompeij bella civilia ab ipso etiam Horatio deplorata. Utinam Belgium federatum securum esse posset! Clementissimus Deus, antehac Licestrensi factione cum Ordinibus, Mauritiana cum Hollandica commissa, bono publico ­servire compulit caussam, quae religioni & libertati videbatur addictior: At quis sperare ausit, toties irritatum Deum, è tenebis lucem producturum esse, in gratiam eorum, à quibus publice ludibrio habetur?” Reference to Livy, The History of Rome, iv.9. Notice the rhetorical question at the end and its threatening implication. 65 Ibidem xxxi, 112: “Do lubens, otium gratum, maxime mercantibus esse. Sede vere Sall. in Catil. Otium, divitiae, optanda, alijs oneri miseriaeque fuere. atque iterum in Iugurth. Quod in adversis rebus optaverant otium, postquam adepti sunt, asperius acerbiusque fuit. Sed abrumpendum est. finio ergo cum Thucyd. lib. dicto: Existimate Remp. si ocio indulgeat, ipsam suis opibus attritum iri, ut quaelibet alia, & futurum, ut omnis disciplina consenescat: ac per certamina quotidie in experientia profecturam, & usum, quo non verbis, sed factis potius, hostes propulsare possit, adepturam.” References to Sallust, Catiline’s War, x.2, The Jugurthine War, xli.4, and Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, vi.18.

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to protect the middleman position the Dutch occupied in the world trade ­system.66 Peace, then, was not only beneficial to trade, it could also be damaging, as the deplorable state of the West India Company after the Peace of Westphalia had demonstrated, a situation Schoock lamented and thought could have been prevented if war had been waged against the Portuguese.67 In Schoock’s analysis of the fall of the Achaean League, we can also find some implicit criticism of the way the province of Holland treated its Dutch allies. ­According to Schoock, “the principal spring-water of the disasters that befell the commonwealth of the Achaeans,” should be sought in the fact that the Achaeans had done nothing to prevent the destruction of their allies and had not punished those among themselves who had violated the laws of the Achaean alliance.68 Schoock paid particular attention to the laws of the Achaean League that explicitly forbade individual members to negotiate independently with a foreign power. Unfortunately for the Achaeans, some of them did, and, what was worse, they got away with it unpunished. In Schoock’s narrative, this course of events “paved the way for the destruction of the Achaean cause.”69 The fate of the Achaean League thus served as a warning. Like the ancient Achaeans, Schoock believed that the Dutch had violated the law that forbade allies to

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Martinus Schoock, Imperium maritimum, Ita explicatum Ut non solum ejus ostendantur  praerogativae, Verum Etiam cuique Genti, Maxime Belgis foederatis Suus vindicetur ­honos (Amsterdam, 1654), 64–168, esp. 153–160. For the date of compilation, see Ibidem, 169. Ibidem, 153–154: “Ne gens nautica diffluat, & aliis, sociis licet, inconsultis supremis potestatibus, operam suam locet. De hoc jam provisum ab Ordinibus Generalibus speciali edicto d. 4. Maji anno 1632. Semel enim si alio migrare coeperit hic populus, ibi pedem figet, posterosque suos relinquet. Ne vero alio abeat, quum reditus annuos de suo non habeat, nec possit manus pedesque suos comedere, perpetuo exercitium aliquod ei superesse debet, quod si domi non inveniat, foris quaerit. Atque utinam mox à pace serium nobis fuisset aut restituere collapsas res societatis Indiae Occidentalis, aut bellum in Lusitaniam transferre, flos sociorum nauticorum non fuisset dilapsus.” Schoock, “Disputatio historica Exhibens incrementum ac decrementum status Achaeorum,” xxxi, 111–112: “Sed postremo, quum prima scaturigo calamitatum reip. Archaicae merito censeatur, quod compressis sedendo manibus, & somniculosis inertibusque oculis connivendo, violata insuper (ut vidimus) federum religione, alienam calamitatem, nec non vicinorum sociorumque suorum interitum, secura & quasi defaecata mente speculari potuerit. viderint cognatae respubl. ne hac in parte pariter delinquant non exaudiendo aut preces, imo saepe obtestationes sociorum, aut falso sibi persuadendo, illos dominationi suae terminos ad fines stertentium definituros esse, qui desertos vicinos undiquaque impune depopulantur.” Ibidem viii, 15–16.

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treat with foreign powers independently.70 This, of course, entailed a direct allusion to Johan de Witt’s secret dealings with Oliver Cromwell behind the back of the other Dutch provinces. Clearly, such devious political tactics could not count on Schoock’s approval. On the contrary, he believed them to be both unethical and self-destructive. All in all, then, it is clear that Schoock’s analysis of the Achaean League can be interpreted as a critique of De Witt’s Deductie. Schoock not only criticised the dubious ways by which Holland had adapted the Act of Exclusion, but he was also in favour of a strong leader—a scion from the House of OrangeNassau—to restore peace and order in the Dutch Republic. These arguments were directly opposed to the intentions of De Witt for writing the Deductie, which were to legitimise Holland’s private dealings with Cromwell and to defend the choice of De Witt cum suis to exclude a Prince of Orange from the stadholderate. Conclusion Despite Schoock’s disapproval—and that of many others –, De Witt stuck to his guns and did his best to prevent the ascendancy of William iii to the offices his forefathers once held. In the debates between the defenders of this policy and its opponents, the focus shifted towards Dutch history, supported by references to famous classical examples such as Rome and Sparta.71 Indeed, Schoock’s disputation on the Achaean League, as Boxhorn’s from 1647, did not trigger any public reaction. Perhaps their indirect manner of speaking through the mouth of one of their students and the form in which they cast their arguments—i.e. a disputation in formal scholarly Latin, consisting of a number of theses—only attracted a very small audience within the academic ivory tower. Nonetheless, Boxhorn’s and Schoock’s choice to convey their messages by means of the Achaean League, a classical model located rather on the fringes of early-modern historical consciousness, remains significant. It shows how in particular cases, oft-used classical references such as Athens and Rome 70

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Ibidem viii, 16: “Aliqui, rep. nondum firmata, & parum quin nutante, si simile quid impune tulerint, in consequentiam neutiquam trahi debet ab ijs, qui religiose jurarunt in leges servientes stabilitae reip. Quae distinctio si attendatur, submovere licebit quasdam difficultates, occurentes non minus in Historia Achaeorum, quam faederatorum Belgarum, qui utinam ratione hujus legis, à se temeratae, non experiantur fatum Achaeorum!” See Pieter Geyl, “Het stadhouderschap in de partij-literatuur onder De Witt,” Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandsche Akademie van Wetenschappen 10 (1947): 17–84.

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could be substituted by a less renowned example to make a specific political argument. Boxhorn wanted to warn his audience of the future threat a strong French neighbour posed to the safety of the Dutch Republic. Ancient Rome or Athens could not be of much help here, for both were neither perceived as a confederate state, nor was their decay attributed to a powerful neighbour.72 Schoock campaigned against the unilateral and anti-stadholder policy of ­Johan de Witt, fearing that it would lead to a piecemeal demise of the Dutch Republic. As in the case of Boxhorn, neither Rome nor Athens could serve Schoock as an example because of their state structure and the nature of the causes of their fall. Nor could Schoock and Boxhorn turn to the Hebrew Republic, the most famous classical example of a state with a known confederative character, since seventeenth-century Dutch scholars viewed its collapse as a consequence of the transgressions of the ancient Jews and as a part of God’s divine plan.73 As a result, the ancient model most appropriate to the designs of both Boxhorn and Schoock turned out to be the Achaean League. Boxhorn’s and Schoock’s cases illustrate that—humanist eclecticism not withstanding—the employment of classical examples in early-modern Europe was not mere rhetorical exercise, conducted in a rather haphazard way. Local circumstances, authorial intent and targeted audiences also played a crucial role and effected which model was chosen, when, and how it was subsequently put to use. This explains why in early-modern Europe’s most powerful republic, the most famous republics from antiquity did not always find themselves in the spotlight.

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Seventeenth-century Dutch scholars did not consider ancient Rome as a confederate state. Most of them followed the Sallustian thesis that the Roman Republic had succumbed to luxury, ambition and finally internal discord among its own citizens. See, e.g., Daniel Heinsius, “De secunda & postrema Romanorum aetate,” in Orationum editio nova, Prioribus auctior, ed. Daniel Heinsius (Amsterdam, 1657), xv:166–178. 73 Cunaeus, The Hebrew Republic i.16–18: 65–75, and Boxhorn, Institutiones politicae ii.1: 262.

chapter 6

From Failed Republic to Polite Polis: Ancient Athens in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century England Christine Zabel In 1691, the bookseller and publisher John Dunton (1659–1732) came up with an innovative idea that would prove to be the biggest success of his life. He created a previously unknown type of periodical in which the readers could actively participate. They could send in questions relating to all kinds of practical and theoretical matters such as, for example, cooking, sexuality, morals, religion and physics. Dunton’s declared aim for this new periodical was that it would enable men and women, regardless of their social status and background, to acquire a better education. In order to be able to answer the ­readers’ questions, Dunton brought together a group of specialists—a philosopher, a theologian, a mathematician and a writer—which regularly met in Smith’s Coffeehouse to answer the incoming queries from readers. With this innovative approach, Dunton hoped to be able to answer “all the most Nice and Curious Questions proposed by the Ingenious of Either Sex” and thereby to enlighten his contemporaries.1 For his enterprise he chose the name Athenian Gazette or Athenian Mercury, as the periodical was later called, and the group of self-declared experts referred to itself as the “Athenian Society.”2 Dunton’s periodical was very successful and appeared twice a week for almost

1 Helen Berry, Gender, Society and Print Culture in Late-Stuart England (Aldershot, etc., 2003), 6. The members of this distinguished circle meeting in Smith’s Coffeehouse consisted of Dunton’s brother in law, the poet and churchman Samuel Wesley (bap. 1662–1735), father of John and Charles Wesley, the founding figures of the Methodist Church; another brother in law, the mathematician and writer Richard Saul (d. 1702) and the theologian, philosopher and writer John Norris (1657–1711). But Dunton liked to let his readers believe that the “Athenian Society” was larger and that it had a specialist for every imaginable topic: Ibidem, 20. 2 The name Athenian Gazette [full title: Athenian Gazette, or Casuistical Mercury, Resolving all the most Nice and Curious Questions proposed by the Ingenious of Either Sex] was soon replaced by Athenian Mercury, because the London Gazette complained that the name was too similar to its own and could therefore confuse certain readers: Berry, Gender, Society and Print Culture, 21.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_008

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seven years, from March 1691 to June 1697.3 In 1697 when Dunton, devastated by the death of his wife, could no longer continue his project, Andrew Bell republished the Athenian Mercury in four volumes as the Athenian Oracle.4 When Dunton took up his enterprise again in 1704, he created several spin-offs which all kept the name “Athenian” in their titles. He founded the Athenae Redivivae: or the A ­ thenian Oracle as well as the Athenian Sport: or, Two Thousand Paradoxes Merrily Argued.5 In the years to come, he would also create the Athenian Spy, a question-and-answer publication that focused on female readers.6 ­Furthermore, in 1692 Dunton engaged Charles Gildon (1665–1724) to write the History of the Athenian Society.7 Dunton not only deliberately opted for the adjective “Athenian” and did so repeatedly, he also came up, inspired from the biblical description of the curious Athenians in Acts 17, 21, with the concept of “Athenianism” which is laid out further in his book with the same title: But, Gentlemen, as I publish every distinct Treatise for Real Athenianism, and give it the Name of a NEW PROJECT, ‘tis necessary I here tell you 3 Ibidem, 2 and Helen Berry, “Politeness in Eighteenth-Century England: Moll King’s Coffee House and the Significance of the ‘Flash Talk.’ The Alexander Prize Lecture, read April 7th 2000,” Transactions of the Royal Society 6/11 (2001): 65–81, 66ff. 4 Member of the Athenian Society, The Athenian Oracle, being an entire collection of all the valuable questions and answers in the old Athenian mercuries (London, 1703). 5 John Dunton, Athenæ redivivæ: Or the new Athenian Oracle, Under Three General Heads, etc. (London, 1704). With this project, Dunton responded to Daniel Defoe’s attempt to copy his concept of a question-and-answer newspaper, which apparently had made Dunton very angry; see also Berry, Gender, Society and Print Culture, 25. John Dunton, Athenian sport: or, two thousand paradoxes merrily argued, to amuse and divert the age: as a Paradox in praise of a Paradox, etc. (London, 1707). 6 John Dunton, The Athenian spy: discovering the secret letters which were sent to the Athenian society by the most ingenious ladies of the three kingdoms, etc. (London, 1704). Dunton was the first bookseller who showed an awareness of the market potential of female readers and who provided a periodical that was explicitly meant for both sexes. In 1694 he even published a dictionary for ladies: Nathanael Carpenter and John Dunton, The Ladies Dictionary, being a general entertainment of the fair-sex a work never attempted before in English (London, 1694). Dunton also published female authors, for example Elizabeth Singer Rowe, Poems on Several Occasions written by Philomela (London, 1696). The Athenian Gazette/Athenian Mercury was the first seventeenth century periodical that addressed both sexes. See also Berry, Gender, Society and Print Culture, 7f. 7 Charles Gildon, The History of the Athenian Society, for the resolving all nice and curious questions. By a gentleman who got secret intelligence of their whole proceedings. To which are prefix’d several poems, written by Mr. Tate, Mr. Motteux, Mr. Richardson, and others (London, 1692). See also Helen Berry, “Dunton, John (1659–1732),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).

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what I wou’d have understood by those Words, Athenianism—and New Project. All Ages (as if Athens had been the Original) have been curious in their Enquiries, (that is, Lovers of Novelty) […]; We all are seiz’d with th’ Athenian Itch, News and new Thing do the whole World bewitch.8 Despite its titles, the topics Dunton’s periodicals addressed had little to do with the history of ancient Athens. The question therefore arises why he chose the Athenians as a model for the most important project in his life and how he expected this to resonate with the contemporary readership: Were they “seiz’d with th’ Athenian Itch”? Although influential scholars such as Hans Baron, Zera Fink, John Pocock, and Quentin Skinner have paid considerable attention to classical examples and to what they style an “ancient republican,” “civic humanist,” or “neo-­Roman” tradition, the bulk of their work has focused to a larger degree on Roman (as opposed to Greek) examples.9 This chapter, however, follows Eric Nelson’s example in drawing attention to the enduring importance of Greek models in European thought,10 however without limiting its study on republican sources alone. It analyses the different uses of ancient Athens in mid-­seventeenth- to mid-eighteenth-century political discourses, unraveling Athens’s gradual transformation from an example of a failed republic to a socio-cultural model of politeness. The references to this newly emerging ideal could be called an “ancient polisism.”

Political Beginnings: Athens as a Failed Republic

Dunton’s strong preference for Athens might come as a surprise, given the English tradition of the reception of ancient Athens during the civil war and its aftermath. For Thomas Hobbes, Athens and its political thinkers were ­responsible for a harmful and wrongheaded Western tradition that defined 8 9

10

John Dunton, Athenianism: or, the new project of Mr. John Dunton, etc. (London, 1704), Dedication, v. See Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance. Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny (Princeton, 1955); Zera Fink, The Classical Republicans: An Essay in the Recovery of a Patter of Thought in Seventeenth Century England (Evanston, 1945); John G. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975); Quentin Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge, 2004). Eric Nelson, The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought (Cambridge, 2005) and idem, “Republican Visions,” in Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, ed. John S. Dryseck (Oxford, 2006), 193–210.

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­liberty as ­anti-monarchical and therefore interpreted every monarchical regime as a tyranny. Hobbes by contrast largely followed Jean Bodin and defined a political regime’s sovereignty as absolute, regardless of its specific form. Consequently, a regime’s liberty did not depend on a particular form of government. Hobbes now used the example of the Athenian ostracism to show that the power of the Athenian commonwealth was absolute and that individual liberty was in no way connected to a state’s liberty.11 Hobbes founded his assertions on a theory of contract, which stipulated that everyone gave up their ­sovereignty in a first contract and then instituted a sovereign in a second contract. In contrast to his own logical considerations, he claimed, the Athenians had not derived their political notions from logic but from empirical observations, and therefore had only their own commonwealth in mind when they spoke of liberty and tyranny. For Hobbes, this was a fatal mistake, which, further transmitted by Roman political thinkers, had brought war and bloodshed to the entire Western World. Since the English avidly read these ancient authors, Hobbes concluded that the example of the Athenian commonwealth could even be held responsible for the civil strife of his own time and even to the legitimization of regicide.12 How did, in the meantime, pro-parliamentarian and republican authors think about the ancient commonwealth of Athens? Were they inspired by Athenian political notions? The Archeologiae Atticae libri tres by Francis Rous the younger (1615–1643), published in 1637, was the first work that explicitly dealt with ancient Athens.13 In this antiquarian study, republished several times during the civil war, Rous provided detailed knowledge about ancient Athens and its religious, cultural and political life. Rous, son of an ­Parliamentarian, compared the functions of the Athenian Senate and Areopagus with those of the English parliament.14 According to Rous, issuing laws was 11

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge, 1996), 148–149; cf. Jean Bodin, Les Six Livres de la République, 6 vols., ed. Christine Frémont (Paris, 1986). 12 Hobbes, Leviathan, 225–226; Idem, Behemoth or the Long Parliament, ed. Paul Seaward (Oxford, 2010), 108–110. See for a further analysis of Hobbes’s interpretation of the Athenians’ impact on developments of his own time: Christine Zabel, Polis und Politesse. Der Diskurs über das antike Athen in England und Frankreich, 1630–1760 (Berlin/Boston, 2016), 84–97. 13 Francis Rous, Archaelogiae Atticae libri tres. Three books of the Attick antiquities Containing the description of the citties glory, government, division of the people, and townes within the Athenian territories, their religion, superstition, sacrifices, account of their yeare, as also a full relation of their iudicatories (Oxford, 1637). 14 The core competences of the Athenian Senate as described by Rous show a strong similarity with the claims of the English Parliamentarians during their conflict with the English

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the first and most important prerogative of this institution. He also attempted to demonstrate that the political liberty of Athens had been the foundation for its cultural efflorescence.15 Influenced by the publications of the Dutch house Elzevier and the Dutch reading of Athens as a culturally, commercially and politically successful commonwealth, Rous was the first author in England to relate Athens’ cultural achievements to the nature of its civil government. He claimed that Athens had achieved its cultural and scientific golden age only as a free state, and had culturally declined from the moment it relinquished its political liberty.16 In the following years, the connection between cultural accomplishments and political liberty proved to be crucial to the English reception of ancient Athens. During the period of the English Republic, the Athenian example was used to demonstrate the relationship between the nature of civil government on the one hand, and achievements in philosophy, politics, science, art and architecture on the other. This was apparent in, for instance, Marchamont Nedham’s The Excellencie of a Free-State, first published in 1656. In contrast to Rous, however, Nedham mainly discussed this theme to illustrate, by means of the Athenian example, what the consequences of the abandonment of political liberty were. The Athenian case demonstrated what inevitably happened if too much power became concentrated in the hands of one person or one crown: decision over taxes, religion and foreign politics. Rous explicitly compared the Athenian Senate to the English Parliament, Archaelogiae Atticae, 107: “Resembling our Court of Parliament in England, by whose consent all Lawes are abrogated, new made, right and possessions of private men changed, formes of religions established, Subsides, Tailes, Taxes, and impositions appointed, waights and measures altered, & c. […] The whole manner of the Common wealths government belongeth to the Senate. That which the Senate determineth is held for ratified and inviolable. By their authoritie and rule is peace confirmed & war denounced. The whole rents and receipts of the Commonwealth at their appointment collected and gathered in, and likewise laid out againe and defrayed, & c. […] that Court is most ample, and iustly and equally decided all sorts of controversies whatsoever.” 15 Rous, Archaelogiae Atticae, 5. For the connection between Athens’ civil government and its cultural blossoming see Christine Zabel, “The Polis in 17th century political discourse: Athens mirrored by Francis Rous, Marchamont Nedham, George Guillet de Saint-Georges and Jonathan Swift,” in The Liberal-Republican Quandery in Israel, Europe and the United States: Early Modern Thoughts Meets Current Affairs, ed. Thomas Maissen and Fania OzSalzberger (Brighton, Mass., 2012), 49–65. 16 Rous, Archaelogiae Atticae, 29; Zabel, “The Polis in 17th century political discourse,” 61. See for further reading on the Dutch interpretation of ancient Athens: Arthur Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age: The Political Thought of Johan & Pieter de la Court (Leiden, 2012), especially 214–218; Zabel, Polis und Politesse, 47–64.

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group of people.17 James Harrington also used the Athenian example in his Oceana of the same year in order to show that Cromwell should, as Solon had done, introduce a wise constitution, but then relinquish authority to the English people in the form of a popular assembly, with the power of proposal and debate reserved for a natural aristocracy. According to Harrington, Athens had been founded with all the right intentions, but had failed to survive because the unequal distribution of property undermined the authority of a natural aristocracy. Since the dispossessed estate, which constituted the majority of the Athenian population, was excluded from political participation, the Athenian aristocracy had not been selected on the basis of merit, but on the basis of property. The discursive function of the Athenian senate had moreover been insufficiently secured, with the rise of overly powerful individuals as a result.18 For English republican writers, in short, ancient Athens was a negative example. It was a well-intended, but failed republic. If he did not want England to end like Athens, Cromwell should allow a natural aristocracy to govern the commonwealth. In contrast to the Dutch republican reception of ancient Athens, in which the ancient commonwealth was commonly viewed as a glorious centre of trade, liberty and scientific achievement, English republican writers concentrated—in a more Machiavellian vein—on the degeneration and decline of the Athenian republic.19 They regarded ancient Athens as a free state that had—because of its free constitution—known a period of philosophical, cultural, artistic, architectural and military glory; but—and this objection was important—they mainly concentrated, clearly out of dissatisfaction and frustration with Cromwell’s regime, on Athens’ constitutional defects. For none of these writers Athens’ downfall had been caused by military defeat. They attributed it to the fact that the Athenians had abandoned true political liberty and had allowed individuals to gain too much power. Athens was increasingly discussed during the period of the English republic, but in contrast to Rome or Sparta, which were considered as models for sustainable regimes, Athens was

17

18 19

Marchamont Nedham, The Excellencie of a Free-State: or, The Right Constitution of a ­ ommon-wealth wherein All Objections are answered, and the best way to secure the Peoples C Liberties, discovered: with Some Errors of Government, and Rules of Policie (London, 1656), 73, 89, 152 f, 221ff. James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana and A System of Politics, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Cambridge, 1992), 37 ff, 146f. Cf. e.g. Johannes Meursius, Athenae Batavae (Leiden, 1625). For the Machiavellian tradition see J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975).

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viewed as a failed republic that could serve as a warning to England.20 Until roughly 1660, the institutions of the Athenian republic were predominantly analysed and surveyed by means of a political and institutional discourse.

The Cultural Turn: The Rise of Polite Athens

From the middle of the seventeenth century, however, this image of ancient Athens underwent a fundamental change, first in France and subsequently in England. In the France of Louis xiv, the almost exclusive focus on the political institutions of Athens was replaced by greater attention for its cultural life and significance. As early as 1635 Cardinal Richelieu had embraced the project of an Académie française, intended to improve and professionalise the French language. In order to achieve this goal, the Academics started looking for exemplary models of language, which they rather unsurprisingly found in Greek and Roman antiquity. Gens lettrés mainly concerned themselves with the ancient Greeks, whom they considered original, whereas the Romans were merely viewed as their heirs.21 This intensive examination of antiquity was then given a great impulse by the Querelle des anciens et des modernes, in which modern cultural achievements, such as poetry, arts, music and theatre, were compared to their ancient counterparts. The Querelle thereby contributed to an analysis of antiquity of great refinement. For the anciens, antiquity was culturally superior to modern times and Greece was the most distinguished nation within antiquity.22 Since Athens was the centre of ancient Greece, Athens was the most refined and polished place one could find. Even those who defended the

20

21

22

See for example Fergus Millar, The Roman Republic in Political Thought (Hanover and London, 2002) and Patricia Springborg, Western Republicanism and the Oriental Prince (Cambridge, 1992). For the Académie française see Marc Fumaroli, “Le cardinal de Richelieu fondateur de l’Académie française,” in: Richelieu et le monde de l’esprit, ed. Chancellerie des universities de Paris et Académie Française (Paris, 1985), 217–236. Hilaire Bernard de Requeleyne, Baron de Longepierre (1659–1721) observed in his “Discours sur les Anciens”: “Par quelle autre voie s’adoucit la virtue brute et sauvage des premiers Romains? Ne fut-ce par le commerce qu’ils eurent avec la Grèce? La politesse commença dès lors à succèder parmi eux à la férocité, et les beaux-arts se perfectionnaient dans Rome à mesure que les ouvrages des Grecs y devenaient communs. Les plus éclairés d’entre ses citoyens ne faisaient-ils pas gloire de s’instruire sous de tells maîtres?” See H ­ ilaire Bernard de Requeleyne, Baron de Longepierre, Discours sur les Anciens (­Paris, 1687), 12f.

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merits of the moderns conceded that the ancient Greeks had been superior in poetry and rhetoric.23 The Querelle did not remain a French phenomenon, but also had repercussions in the British Isles, where it became more centred around science. In both France and England, however, the Querelle contributed to an intensified preoccupation with ancient Greece and especially with Athens. As a result, travellers from both countries decided to set out and see the ancient Greek places. In 1675 the Frenchman Jacob Spon (1647–1685) and the Englishman George Wheler (1650–1723) were the first to travel to Athens with the explicit aim to explore the ancient sites of this great commonwealth.24 They returned to their home countries with a positive image of ancient Athens. Wheler told his fellow countrymen and women: ATHENS is the chief City of the Province of Greece, which was called, in times past, Attica; a City now reduced to near the lowest Ebb of ­Fortune: But of Fame so great, that few Cities in the World can dispute Precedence with her, or few pretend to have been her Equals. For, whether you consider her Antiquity, Valour, Power, Learning, or any other Quality, that may make a Place illustrious, and renowned in the World, she still seems triumphant. […] Her people owned no Original, but the Earth they inhabited; and scarce allowed the Sun to be elder than they: Nor would they acknowledge to have received their Name from any, but their chief Goddes Minerva, whom they knew by the name AΘTHNA.25 These new forms of engagement with ancient Greece resulted in a changed image of Athens that no longer presented the ancient city state primarily in political and institutional terms, but as a cultural ideal worthy of imitation. In this context, Athens was not discussed as a republic and its form of government was considered of negligible significance. From a negative political and institutional example, the Athenian polis had become a socio-cultural model and an ideal of cultural, literary and architectural efflorescence. The story of the reception of ancient Athens took yet a further new turn in 1686, when the moralist Jean de la Bruyère (1645–1696) published his Discours sur Théophraste in which he used ancient Athens as model for a publicly lived politesse (politeness).26 According to La Bruyère, the ancient Athenians 23 Zabel, Polis und Politesse, 117–159. 24 David Constantine, Early Greek Travelers and the Hellenic Ideal (Cambridge, etc., 1984), 7. 25 George Wheler, A Journey into Greece by George Wheler, Esq., in company of Dr. Spon of Lyons. In Six Books (London, 1682), 337. 26 Jean de la Bruyère, “Discours sur Théophraste. Les Caractères de Théophrastes traduits du Grec,” in: Œuvres complètes, ed. Julien Benda (Paris, 1978), 61–478.

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g­ athered in public spaces, where they discussed philosophical and political matters as equals. Because Athenian society was not organised around a court, the art of conversation was refined in the agora, and consequently the city of Athens became the centre of politesse, of simplicity and of wisdom. La Bruyère, himself of bourgeois origin, but ennobled in 1673, extolled these latter virtues and contrasted them with the superfluous vice of courtoisie. It was the new noblesse de robe that he saw as the contemporary supporter and medium of this virtue of politesse. Just as Athens had once been the centre of politesse, Paris—and not the court of Versailles—should now become the centre of politesse in the modern world.27 At the end of the seventeenth century, the reception of ancient Athens did not only fundamentally change in France, but also in England. As early as 1691, Dunton, who was Whig-sympathizer, turned, as we have already seen, to ancient Athens to name his new undertaking in publishing.28 The project of the Athenian Mercury, and indeed the whole concept of “Athenianism,” was intended to imitate what Dunton thought had been the regular practice of daily life in ­ancient Athens. Scholars shared their knowledge and wisdom with their disciples, the citizens of the polis, who in turn were allowed and encouraged to ask questions and to satisfy their curiosity. According to Helen Berry, this model for the Athenian Mercury should be viewed as one of the most innovative journalistic inventions of the seventeenth century and “offered those who were anxious or inquisitive a means of articulating their problems and queries in confidence.”29 Dunton’s “Athenianism” did not aim to provide the readership with new knowledge about ancient Athens, nor even to discuss the historical Athens at all. It sought, by means of a question-and-answer method, to disseminate existing knowledge about all possible subjects to a broad audience that was wider than the traditional English elite. The bookseller explicitly enumerated the wide range of topics that went into his concept of “Athenianism”: under the General Title of Athenianism there is included HISTORY, both Civil and Ecclesiastical, PHILOSOPHY in all its Parts, PHYSICK with its Train of wonderful Cures, and Philology with all its known Criticisms, and in a word all Dunton’s Athenenian, Serious, Historical, Amusing, Comical, Letter, and Poetical Projects.30 27 Zabel, Polis und Politesse, 202–218. 28 For Dunton’s Whiggism see See John Dunton, The Compleate Statesman. Demonstrated in the Life, Actions, and Politicks Of that great Minister of State, Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury (London, 1683). 29 Berry, Gender, Society and Print Culture, 19. 30 Dunton, Athenianism, Dedication, ix.

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Dunton’s “Athenianism” used the cultural life of ancient Athens as an educational model worthy of imitation by English citizens. Since his project was a huge success in late seventeenth- century England, one suspects that his image of ancient Athens as a cultural and educational model, was already familiar to seventeenth-century English readers, and that with his “Athenianism” the entrepreneur Dunton hoped to profit from the already existing positive cultural reputation of ancient Athens. Yet Dunton’s “Athenianism” also further shaped the English image and perception of ancient Athens and for that reason merits our close attention. In the dedication of his Athenianism Dunton explained: My chief Design in writing and publishing these […] Projects,31 is to furnish the VIRTUOSI with Matters fit four pious and ingenious ­Conversations […]. I speak every where my Mind with a Philosophical Freedom, […] for to polish my own Notions, I consulted not only your learned selves, but the best Authors I cou’d find on the Subjects I was treating of, and made the best Improvement I cou’d of ‘em.32 Dunton, it is clear, wanted to provide his readers with topics for Christian and witty conversations. He identified the candidness with which the “Athenian Society” discussed every possible subject as philosophical freedom. In doing so, Dunton took up an approach already familiar from the late seventeenthcentury French reception of ancient Athens. It is impossible to say with any certainty precisely how well informed Dunton was about the French interpretation of ancient Athens that surfaced in Richelieu’s cultural politics, in the Querelle des anciens et des modernes, and in Jean de la Bruyère’s Discours sur Théophraste. It is clear, however, that he adopted its keywords such as “conversation,” “polished notions,” and “philosophical freedom.”33 Like La Bruyère, Dunton used ancient Athens as a means to demonstrate that education and merit were not limited, and should not be limited, to the traditional elite only, but should and could be opened up to all strata of society: “for my Part, I prefer Piety before Birth, and Learning before Dignity, and consequently chose rather to address these Six Hundred Projects to the Athenian Society, than to any other Person whatsoever.”34 With the Athenian Mercury Dunton sought 31

Although Dunton claimed that he had published more than 600 titles, only 200 can be confirmed. His publications included sermons, political works, practical guides and miscellanies. See Berry, “Dunton, John (1659–1732).” 32 Dunton, Athenianism, Dedication, iv. 33 Zabel, Polis und Politesse, 202–218. 34 Dunton, Athenianism, Dedication, iv.

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to contribute to the refinement of the literary and rhetorical tastes of all of its readers, regardless of their social, economic or political background. It became, as Brean Hammond has observed, a “vital organ of the polite movement” and significantly contributed to the increasing association of ancient Athens with notions of public life, education and politeness.35 In line with this trend, Charles Gildon, the author of the History of the Athenian Society, pointed out that the society had been founded for the promotion of Learning, and removing that Epidemic Ignorance; which exercises so incredible a Tyranny over the more numerous part of Mankind: From such a Pen the World might expect Satisfaction, and the Athenian Society Justice; the Charms of his Stile would engage all to read, and his Wit and variety of Learning give them proportionable Ideas of those Excellencies, he would commend them. […] Their [the Athenian Society’s] whole design is not only to improve KNOWLEDGE in DIVINITY, and PHILOSOPHY in all their parts, as well as Philology in all its Latitude, but also to commend this Improvement to the Publick, in the best method, that can be found for our Instruction;36 With this project, the “Athenian Society” accepted the cultural inheritance of ancient Athens. The author of the History furthermore explained that “politeness and learning” had originally been brought from Greece to Rome, from whence they had subsequently spread across the entire Western world:37 All that know any thing of History, or have read any of the old Authors, must be sensible, that Athens was in that veneration with Antiquity, that it was the only place of Study in those days, and from thence was all Europe civiliz’d, and taught Arts, and Sciences.38 Gildon observed that hitherto the English had mainly praised Rome for these cultural achievements, but that it was in fact Greece that had been the ­cradle 35

Brean Hammond, Professional Imaginative Writing in England, 1670–1740: “Hackney for Bread” (Oxford, 1997), 155–160. See also Berry, Gender, Society and Print Culture, 27 and Berry, “Politeness in Eighteenth-Century England,” 66ff. Berry opposes Hammond’s view and claims that the Athenian Mercury did not make polite, but impolite questions and answers possible. 36 Gildon, History of the Athenian Society, i, 1. 37 Ibidem, 2. 38 Ibidem, 9.

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of politeness, philosophy and art. Even the Romans had realized as much, and had therefore traveled to Greece to obtain the best possible education. In the course of time, the author continued, the knowledge and wisdom of the Greeks and Romans had been largely lost—a development that had brought nothing but darkness to the Western world.39 Fortunately, however, help was now at hand, since the “Athenian Society” was ready to accept the inheritance of ancient Athens by bringing knowledge and wisdom to everyone who so desired. According to Gildon, the educational method of questions and answers was entirely new and could not have been devised by any other nation, and was a testimony to the present grandeur of the English mind.40 Yet the cultural achievement of ancient Athens remained of such fundamental importance that it was fitting that Athens served as a model and point of reference for the enlightening projects of the “Athenian Society.” Gildon explained: I shall conclude this First part of my History with the Reasons, why they assumed the Title Athenian […]. If they had taken the Name of Lacedemonian, indeed it would have looked something odd, and as if it were done in spite of Learning, to borrow a Titel from that place, which scarce ever afforded a Philosopher, or any Man of Learning; but the Athenians were the most curious, and inquisitive People of Antiquity, as that Verse I have before quoted out of the Acts, demonstrates […].41 As Athens had once done, London should now bring light to the world and civilise Europe again. The Society insisted that London was the new Athens. It was not only Gildon who maintained this, but similar claims could be found in various poems that stressed the analogy between ancient Athens and modern London. Pierre-Antoine le Motteux (1663–1718), an English citizen of French origin, elaborated on the theme in a poem printed in Gildon’s History: Sons of the Muses, at whose welcome Birth Auspicious Phœbius cheer’d the Trooping Earth, By whom once more old Learned Athens lives, 39 40

41

Ibidem, 2. Ibidem: “England has the Glory of giving Rise to two of the noblest Designs, that the Wit of Man is capable of inventing, and they are, the Royal Society, for the experimental improvement of Natural Knowledge, and the Athenian Society for communicating not only that, but all other Sciences to all men, as well as to both Sexes; and the last will, I question not, be imitated, as well as the first, by other nations.” Ibidem, 9.

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Our great Metropolis new Fame receives, And a more gentle Air our Northern Climes revives, […] Through Learning’s boundless Sea your course pursue, Vast undiscover’d Regions wait for you. The mighty Work much Art, much Toyl demands, And even Apollo wants assisting Hands. In dismal shades the ancient World did stray, Till Athens Wisdom did its Light display; Athens once more must change our Darkness into Day.42 Gildon’s History of the Athenian Society signaled a transformation of the function of ancient Athens in English public discourse. The city was now not only regarded as the cradle of learning and wisdom, but also became the ideal example and model for politeness—a virtue that subsumed the art of conversation, philosophical freedom, Christian manners and learning, wisdom, and education for all citizens, not only for an aristocratic elite. The History’s analogy between Athens and London would moreover prove to be singularly fruitful and would be further developed by Gildon’s successors. Gildon was confident that the English project would be followed and emulated all over the world, since it had the potential to improve education everywhere, also and particularly for those who possessed the requisite mental and intellectual disposition, but lacked financial means. Such people could now learn from the ancient masters through the mediation of the “Athenian Society.” The necessity of this project was all the more evident to Gildon since the French already had taken similar initiatives and had moreover solved the problem of the inaccessibility of the classical texts by translating them. The French, it seemed to him, excelled in these matters because they had the financial support of the crown. In England, however, everything depended on booksellers, in other words on John Dunton, who worked without any support. Since the English crown apparently hardly cared for the education of the citizen, the “Athenian Society” had taken on this role and had now made already existing knowledge accessible for all. Because England did not have figures such as Richelieu, it was all the more necessary to embrace the Society’s work: “that you who had no Richelieu to cherish your Essays, or guard your Rising Merit, were ablest to Patronize that, which chiefly aim’d at giving the World a Draught, in little, of what it ow’d to you Incomparable Performances.” Gildon was certain that making the works of the most illustrious men available and 42

Ibidem, Epistle Dedicatory.

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accessible to all Englishmen and -women would have an extraordinarily beneficial effect on the well-being of the country in general, and on the fine arts and the sciences in particular.43 Gildon kept returning to his conviction that the best example to follow was ancient Athens. Even in the context of discussing French achievements, he listed all the famous and illustrious men that Athens had brought forth and explained how ancient Athens had flourished and had civilised the world: ‘T would be endless to mention but the Names of all those that have flourished in every Science, and Art in this famous City. From what I have here produc’d, will sufficiently appear, that since all the Arts, and Learning of the old World owed their Beginning (nay, and perhaps perfection too, thought afterward lost in the Inundation of Barbarity which from the North over-run all Europe) to Athens, with just Reason did this Learned Society make choice of that Appellation, whose Aim it is to advance all Knowledge, and diffuse a general Learning through the many, and by that civilize more now, in a few years, that Athens it self did of old during the Ages it flourished.44 That the cultural flourishing of England could only be realised through emulation of the model of ancient Athens and through the creation of a modern “Athenianism” was a message also evident in the emblem of the “Athenian Society,” which served as the frontispiece of the History (see figure 6.1). The engraving by the Dutchman Frederick Hendrik van Hove shows a panorama arranged in five rows. The lowest row displays the university cities of Oxford and Cambridge, with people leaving on horses and in coaches. The second row presents a scene in which those leaving the cities are attacked, perhaps even thrown out of these famous institutions of learning, and then turn to the Athenians for help (“help help help noble Athenians”). In the centre of the engraving one sees the (modern) Athenians, sitting at a table like Christ’s disciples in Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper. Those driven from Oxford and Cambridge are standing before them and are handing them sheets with questions. In the left and right upper corners, Athens and Rome are depicted as the places that have brought light and education to the world. Athens is seen as the origin of education and politeness, Rome as its heir, and the “Athenian Society” as the modern guardian of this precious cultural inheritance. The emblem makes it clear that, as Gildon also maintained, it was only through the 43 44

Ibidem. Ibidem, 9.

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Figure 6.1

Frontispiece to Charles Gildon, The History of the Athenian Society (London, 1692).

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Society that the battle against the “tyranny of ignorance” could be successfully waged, and that the universities of Cambridge and Oxford had singularly failed to perform this crucial task.

Shaftesbury’s Athenian Politeness

That Athenian politeness was a theme predominantly of interest to Whig theorists was, among other things, apparent from the fact that a group of Real or Old Whigs, or so-called Commonwealthmen (including Joseph Addison, ­Walter Moyle, John Trenchard, and Henry Neville), met in London’s Grecian Coffeehouse during the 1690s to discuss matters of philosophy and ancient history.45 In The Tatler, Richard Steele described what went on there (“Grecian Coffeehouse, April 22”): “While other parts of the town are amused with the present actions, we generally spend the evening at this table in inquiries into antiquity, and think any thing new which gives us knowledge.”46 In January 1710, Steele further explained: The Athenians, at a Time, when they were the most polite, as well as the most powerful Government in the World, made the Care of Stage one of the chief Parts of the Administration: And I must confess, I am astonished at the Spirit of Virtue which appeared in that People upon some Expressions in Scene of a famous Tragedy.47 Previously, Steele had already observed: “The Athenians were at that Time the Learned of the World.”48 It was, however, the Whig theorist Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, who, as Lawrence Klein has shown, most extensively dwelled on Athenian politeness, particularly in his Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, published in 1711.49 In this work Shaftesbury 45

46 47 48 49

For the notion of Commonwealthmen see, for example, Rachel Hammersley, The English Republican Tradition and Eighteenth-Century France. Between the Ancients and the Moderns (Manchester, 2010); for the Grecian Coffeehouse see Jonathan Harris, “The Grecian Coffee House and Political Debate in London 1688–1714,” The London Journal 25 (2000): 1–13. The Tatler, 6 (London, 21–23 April 1709). See also: Harris, “The Grecian Coffee House,” 4f. The Tatler, 122 (London, 17–19 January 1710). The Tatler, 92 (London, 8–10 November 1709). Anthony Ashly Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge, etc., 1999); Lawrence E. Klein, Shaftesbury  and the Culture of Politeness. Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in early e­ ighteenth-­century England (Cambridge, 1994); Lawrence E. Klein, “The Third Earl of

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praised the ancients for having given philosophy a prominent role in public life and for having allowed it a leading role in structuring conversation and social interaction. He regarded philosophy as deeply embedded in Western culture and history, and was convinced that the imperatives of self-knowledge and of self-improvement were core elements in Western philosophy. As a result of these strongly held convictions, he pleaded for Greek paideia and modern politeness as the road to intellectual, aesthetic and ethic cultivation.50 In comparison to Greek antiquity, Shaftesbury pointed out, his own age attached regrettably little importance to philosophy.51 He proceeded to explain that philosophy, a discursive public life, and politeness were intimately related and that ancient times had been more polite than modern times since they had ascribed a central role to public life. It is for that reason, I verily believe, that the ancients discover so little of this spirit, and that there is hardly such a thing found as mere burlesque in any authors of the politer ages. The manner indeed in which they treated the very gravest subjects was somewhat different for that of our days. […] They chose to give us the representation of real discourse and converse by treating their subjects in the way of dialogue and free debate. The scene was usually laid at table or in public walks or meeting places, and the usual wit and humour of their real discourses appeared in those of their own composing. And this was fair. For without wit and humour, reason can hardly have its proof or be distinguished. The magisterial voice and high strain of the pedagogue commands reverence and awe.52

50

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Shaftesbury and the Progress of Politeness,” Eighteenth Century Studies 18 (1984–1985): 186–214. Lawrence E. Klein, “Introduction,” in: Shaftesbury, Characteristics, ix. For Shaftesbury’s aesthetics and its connection to his moral philosophy see John Andrew Bernstein, “Shaftesbury’s Identification of the Good within the Beautiful,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 10 (1977): 304–325. About the importance of ancient Greece Bernstein observes: “The idea that aesthetic and moral values possess a profound affinity for one another has roots deep in the Greek sources of Western philosophic ethics” (304). For a further reading of Shaftesbury’s aesthetics and of his critique of culture see Dabney Townsend, “Shaftesbury’s Aesthetic Theory,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 41(1982): 205–213 and Preben Mortensen, “Shaftesbury and the Morality of Art Appreciation,” Journal of the History of Ideas 55 (1994): 631–650. Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, “The Moralist, a Philosophical Rhapsody,” in: Shaftesbury, Characteristics, 231–338: 232 f. Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, “Sensus Communis, an Essay on the Freedom of wit and Humour in a Letter to a Friend,” in: Characteristics, 29–69: 35. See also Shaftesbury, “A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm,” in: Ibidem, 14.

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In antiquity—and Shaftesbury repeatedly made it clear that he was primarily concerned with Greek, and particularly of Athenian antiquity—people habitually discussed serious and important political and philosophical topics in dialogues and free debates. With this interpretation of antiquity, Shaftesbury boldly and directly opposed the views of Hobbes, who had held antiquity, and above all Athenian antiquity, responsible for the bloody tumults of his own times.53 For Shaftesbury reading the ancient authors did not lead to civil strife and violence, but contributed to a salutary awareness of the necessity of free discussion, public life, and politeness in both commerce and language. As a result, these ancient texts were capable of generating concord among the citizens of every conceivable commonwealth.54 As a Whig theorist, Shaftesbury regarded liberty as the basis of peace and harmony, yet his definition of it was quite different from that of seventeenthcentury English republicans.55 For Shaftesbury, the concept of liberty referred not merely to the state, but primarily to the freedom of public speech. Liberty was thus an essential part of politeness, which moreover was not to be found in the royal court or among the traditional nobility, but—as in La Bruyère—in the capital of the kingdom. Politeness, of Greek origin, thus entailed a deep commitment to the well-being of a community and a deep sense of the equality and the shared rights of human beings.56 For Shaftesbury, it is clear, politeness was a concept that went far beyond mere rules of good conversation or behavior. Conversation was at the heart of this commitment and thus perhaps the most salient characteristic of politeness. Since conversation depended on the existence of a public arena, where citizens could equally participate in political conversation as well as in the decision-making-process, politeness was directly linked to political liberty, defined as political participation.57 This line of argument allowed Shaftesbury, 53

Shaftesbury regarded Hobbes as a wild character and suggested that he could have profited from the study of both Greek philosophy and the Greek art of life. Shaftesbury, “Sensus Communis,” 42. 54 Zabel, Polis und Politesse, 285–287. 55 Hammersley, The English Republican Tradition and Eighteenth Century France, 14–32. 56 Shaftesbury, “Sensus Communis,” 48: “They make this common sense of the poet, by Greek derivation, to signify sense of public weal and of the common interest, love of the community or society, natural affection, humanity, obligingness, or that sort of civility which rises from a just sense of the common rights of mankind, and the natural equality there is among those of the same species.” 57 Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, “Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author,” in: Characteristics, 70–162: 107; see also Lawrence E. Klein, “Liberty, Manners and Politeness in Early Eighteenth Century England,” Historical Journal 32 (1989): 583–605: 588f.

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as Lawrence Klein has pointed out, to connect the language of the civic tradition with the language of politeness and to redefine traditional republican virtues such as freedom, non-dependence and modesty as sociability, urbanity, decency, rhetorical skill and conversation.58 As La Bruyère had done before him, Shaftesbury turned away from a courtly conception of politeness and firmly located politeness in the city (London, in his case), which he regarded as the proper centre of public life. Shaftesbury’s conception of politeness and his redefinition of liberty in largely cultural terms evidently also had profound implications for the way ancient models could be used. Sparta, for obvious reasons, was of no use to him. Neither was Rome, for although he included it among the politer nations, its politeness had been derived from that of Greece in general and that of Athens in particular. Only ancient Greece could therefore legitimately be regarded as the source and cradle of politeness, and as a suitable model for contemporary England: The Greek nation, as it is the original to us in this respect to these polite arts and sciences, so it was in reality original in itself. For whether the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Thracians or barbarians of any kind may have hit fortunately on this or that particular invention, either in agriculture, building, navigation or letters, whichever may have introduced this rite of worship, this title of deity, this or that instrument of debates among the learned, it is evident, beyond a doubt, that the arts and sciences were formed in Greece itself. It was there that music, poetry and the rest came to receive some kind of shape and be distinguished into their several orders and degrees. Whatever flourished or was raised to a degree of ­correctness or real perfection in the kind was by means of Greece alone,  and in the hands of that sole polite, most civilized and ­accomplished nation.59 Shaftesbury now derived his entire cultural genealogy from ancient Greece. In his Miscellaneous Reflections he made it clear that the ancient Greeks had been the first to polish their language. Since politeness operated through language, it thus entered into all aspects of Greek cultural life. In this way, the r­ efinement of language became paradigmatic for all the expressive arts, including music, poetry, rhetoric, architecture, painting and sculpture.60 ­Because they shared 58 59 60

Ibidem, 584. Anthony Ashley Coopers, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, “Miscellany iii,” in: Characteristics, 395–418: 397. See also Klein, Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness, 202.

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the task of governing their commonwealth, the Greeks—and above all the Athenians—learned to speak in public and to refine their rhetorical skills. Thus the ancient Greek example once again served to demonstrate that political liberty leads to the refinement of language and taste and thereby generates politeness.61 For Shaftesbury, ancient Greece and its history served as the prime example of politeness in language, daily commerce and the fine arts. Far from espousing a vague and general philhellenism, however, he sharply focused on ancient Athens. He insisted that ancient nations and ancient times had been politer than the modern age was; that Greece had been the politest nation in antiquity; and that within Greece Athens had been the unparalleled centre of politeness and cultural excellence: As the intelligence in life and manners grew greater in that experienced people [the Greek nation], so the relish of wit and humour would naturally in proportion be more refined. Thus Greece in general grew more and more polite and, as it advanced in this respect, was more averse to the obscene buffooning manner. The Athenians still went before the rest and led the way in elegance of every kind.62 Ancient Athens was the only relevant historical example, the single available model that successfully combined political liberty, public life, sociability and cultural achievements. It was only through the Athenian example that the case for redefining traditional virtues as polite virtues could be argued. In Shaftesbury’s cultural approach to liberty, the traditional republican models of Rome and Sparta were entirely replaced by Athens. It should be pointed out, however, that Shaftesbury was not original in turning to Athens as the great model for politeness. Even from the title of his Characteristics it is clear that he was deeply influenced by the French moralist La Bruyère, whose observations about ancient Athens had greatly impressed him and whose concept of politesse as an urban form of civility he adopted.63 Inspired by La Bruyère’s views, Shaftesbury described ancient Athens as a community shaped by public and free discussion, a phenomenon that had been at the root of its politeness. Even the simplest Athenians had been educated in 61 62 63

Shaftesbury, “Miscellany iii,” 398f. Shaftesbury, “Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author,” 112. Shaftesbury’s personal notes contain a detailed excerpt of La Bruyère’s description of Athens: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Public Record Office 30/24/27/13: 14–16.

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language and taste to such an extent that they thereafter polished and refined everything they dealt with or produced. Shaftesbury regarded the absence of significant public life and of the fruitful interaction between orators and audience as the main reason for the sorry state of the fine arts in contemporary England. English authors undoubtedly attempted to please their audience, but they failed to awaken its spirit in the manner of the Athenian philosophers, poets and orators.64 Shaftesbury thus highlighted, as La Bruyère had done before him, the importance of public discussion. However, he differed from the French moralist in his emphasis on the relationship between liberty and the flourishing of the fine arts, a theme that had, as we have seen, also been prominent in the seventeenth-century writings of Francis Rous. He also replaced La Bruyère’s preoccupation with equality (between the new and the traditional nobility) in public life with a preoccupation with liberty defined as political participation. Shaftesbury thus adopted La Bruyère’s concept of politesse, but at the same time shifted its meaning from equality to liberty in order to assimilate it to the English civic tradition. When Shaftesbury, a former member of Parliament and the grandson of one of the Whig founding figures, wrote his Characteristics between 1708 and 1711, he had already withdrawn from active political life. Since the early 1690s he had considered himself an Independent Whig, critical of both the court and the governing (and in his eyes corrupt) Junto-Whigs. He had come to regard the city of London as the best shield against undesirable courtly influence and hoped it would become the centre of a public life similar to that of the ancient Athenians. He idealised and propagated a form of urban life in which citizens were free, equal and polite. The virtues of rusticity and rural life, formerly ­espoused by the country interest and exemplified by the model of ancient Sparta, were now increasingly abandoned as ideals for eighteenth-century England, where, in the aftermath of the financial revolution, not only the gentry, but also capital owners living in the city of London had gained considerable political influence. Like La Bruyère, Shaftesbury extolled a polite and urban life above the rustic and rural life of the gentry. For this new England, polite Athens instead of rustic Sparta or catholic Rome served as the ideal example. In espousing an urbanity that was only exemplified by ancient Athens, Shaftesbury was attempting to discredit several of his political adversaries at the same time. First of all, he struck a blow against a court he considered to be corrupt and against the Tories he regarded as its supporters. Secondly, his stance served as a criticism of France, a country he regarded as enslaved to its ­monarchical court and as a present-day version of luxurious and i­mperial 64

See Shaftesbury, “Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author.”

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Rome.65 For the Independent Whig Shaftesbury, the French court was an institution  ­fostering passivity and complacency, diminishing individual liberty. As  La Bruyère had already shown, its politesse was spurious and false. Although  evidently still in need of further refinement, the English genius was  nonetheless far superior to the superficial savoir-vivre that dominated French culture: It is evident our natural genius shines above that airy neighbouring nation, of whom, however, it must be confessed that, with truer pains and industry, they have sought politeness and studied to give the Muses their due body and proportion as well as the natural ornaments of correctness, chastity and grace of style. For Shaftesbury the French, whatever their merits might be, were profoundly shaped by a courtly culture which had succeeded in imposing a dreadful tyranny on them.66 Such criticisms of France were crucial to Whig ideology after 1688. They countered a Tory interpretation of history which asserted that French culture had been brought to England through the mediation of Charles ii and James ii, both of whom had been in French exile, and that all English cultural achievements where thus owed to the Stuart Kings.67 Shaftesbury, by contrast, stressed the similarities between modern tyrannical France and ancient imperial Rome, states which both had lost liberty and true politeness. And which example could better serve to strengthen English pride against French ambitions and pretensions than ancient Athens? It was Shaftesbury’s hope that the example of ancient Athens would inspire the English to reform their manners and to limit the influence of their court. If they succeeded in doing so, they would culturally surpass the French. The Whig ideologist Shaftesbury thus opposed the Tory interpretation of recent English history by exposing the dangers of the corrupt axis of France, Rome, and the Tories, and by once again pointing to the desirability of taking ancient Athens as an example.68 His concept of politeness was anti-Catholic, anti-Stuart, anti-French, anti-Tory and opposed to the corruption of the court that had already enveloped a part the governing 65

For Shaftesbury’s views on contemporary France see Lawrence E. Klein, “The Figure of France: The Politics of Sociability in England, 1660–1715,” Yale French Studies 92 (1997): 30–45. 66 Shaftesbury, “Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author,” 98. 67 Klein, Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness, 177f. 68 Ibidem, 193 and Zabel, Polis und Politesse, 302–304.

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Whig-Junta. His entire political message could be summed up by one historical example: the ancient polis of Athens. That Shaftesbury’s vision was of fundamental importance for the further development of Whig ideology is clear from the fact that several Whiggish periodicals adopted both his (and La Bruyère’s) concept of politeness and its model, ancient Athens. The authors of these periodicals desired, as The Spectator famously observed, to bring “Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-Tables and in Coffeehouses.”69 One can trace the presence of Shaftesbury’s image of the p ­ olite polis of Athens until the 1760s in such publications as The Tatler, The Spectator, The World, and many others. In The Comedian, Or Philosophical Enquirer, which was published by the translator and writer Thomas Cooke (1703–1756) between April 1732 and April 1733, the readers could even find a poem taking up the analogy of Athens and London and adopting Shaftesbury’s concept of Athenian-inspired urbanity: London, an Ode. Let antient Greece, for Arts and Arms renown’d, Her Athens boast, whose Sons, preserv’d by Fame, Still triumph over Time with Glory crown’d; Proud City! Once tremendous in her Name! While mighty Towns of former Days, Now levell’d with the Dust, remain Recorded for their letter’d Praise, Or for the Numbers of their slain, London, of the fairest Isle, The Ornament and Honour stands; Lo! Her Streets with Plenty smile, Diffusing Blessing thro her Lands!70 By the middle of the eighteenth century, also schoolbooks dwelled on the Athenian example and attempted to teach the young how and why the Athenians had become the most eloquent and polite nation in the world.71 Throughout the middle decades of the century, imitation of the model of ancient Athens continued to be viewed as a means to surpass the n ­ eighboring 69 70 71

The Spectator 1/10 (London, 1712 [12 March 1711]): 54. The Comedian, Or Philosophical Enquirer 2 (London, May 1732): 26. E.g. John Lockman, The History of Greece. By way of question and answer. In three parts. For the use of schools (London, 1743).

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French monarchy. This was especially evident in the writings of Thomas Sheridan, a pro-English writer from Ireland. In 1756, he asked the readers of his British Education if the English would not attract more people to their country if they followed the Athenian example in matters of philosophy, arts and architecture: [It] is evident from this circumstance, that the English artisans are universally allowed to exceed them in point of goodness of workmanship; and had they the advantage in other respects also, what infinite sums might be saved to this nation, that are now carried into France to enrich our enemies? and what large treasures might be brought into this island from the other countries of the world, and even from France herself, to purchase such commodities as should be confessedly superior to theirs? Would not this be the true way to bring down the power of France, by cutting off the sources of her wealth? Would not this be the means of lessening the admiration of her neighbours, and of raising the glory of Britain upon her ruins? And would not the weakness of France be the safety of England? Let us therefore suppose that architecture, sculpture, with the several arts dependent on it, painting, poetry, and music, were in as high a degree of perfection here as at Athens, and consequently so far superior with regard to their state in France that there could be no sort of competition; would not England in this case be the country resorted to by the travellers of the whole world? Would not our language be learned, and our noble authors studied by the people of all nations? Would not the perfect knowledge which must then be spread of our noble constitution, of our religion, of the glorious writings of our philosophers and divines, strike them with awe and veneration, and make them acknowledge an undoubted superiority in us over all other countries? Would not London in this case become the capital not of ­England, but of the world; and England be considered as a queen among the nations?72 We can see here that the English reception of Athens was shaped by the French image of Athens not only because English authors very closely read French works on ancient Athens, but also because they thought that the ­imitation 72

Thomas Sheridan, British Education: or, the source of the disorders of Great Britain. Being an essay towards proving, that the immorality, and false Taste, which so generally prevail, are the natural and necessary Consequences of the present defective System of Education (Dublin, 1756), 357f.

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of Athens had brought France to its cultural and military power. English authors writing from a Whig perspective tried to use an adapted version of this French model in order to surpass the French themselves. The imitation of ancient ­Athens was expected to lead to a period of artistic, philosophical and architectural blossoming for England and to bring glory and wealth to the country. Conclusion If we compare the English reception of ancient Athens in the mid-seventeenth century to that same reception in the early and mid-eighteenth century, it is obvious that a crucial change has taken place. In the initial context of classical republicanism, Athens was discussed as a failed republic. It was held to have been culturally successful, but had unfortunately also recklessly abandoned the life of a free state, and had thereby become a negative example for England. After the Revolution Settlement, this predominantly political reception of ancient Athens was gradually replaced by a more cultural one. John Dunton’s “Athenianism” and Shaftesbury’s views on the merits of Athenian culture helped shape a Whig ideology in which Athens became the example of a polite nation, of polite conversation, and of politeness in general. Athens now came to be seen as the perfect model for an urban public life which was far removed from a corrupt court, and which allowed and encouraged citizens to openly discuss political and philosophical matters. It is for this reason that the praises of ancient Athenian politeness were mainly sung in the periodical press, in publications made available in the urban coffeehouses that were rapidly becoming the places “where one went to collect intelligence.”73 No wonder then that the poet Samuel Butler (1612–1680) referred to the coffeehouse as “a kind of Athenian School.”74 As early as the end of the seventeenth century, ancient Athens ceased to be a negative example and became the model for a new urbanity that was seen as a shield against both the corrupt and corrupting court and the undesirable influence of France. Ancient Athens provided the image of a strong city peopled by highly educated and ­aesthetically refined citizens. Its ­exemplary urbanity could serve as an inspiration to the m ­ odern city dwellers that were building a new financial world in London ­after the ­financial 73 74

Steven Pincus, “‘Coffee Politicians Does Create’: Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture,” Journal of Modern History 67(1995): 807–834, 820. Samuel Butler, “A Coffee-Man,” in: Characters, ed. Charles W. Davis (Cleveland, 1970), 256–258: 257; also see Pincus, “‘Coffee Politicians Does Create,’” 820.

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revolution. In the early eighteenth century, Athens therefore replaced the formerly beloved republican models of Sparta and Rome. The ­references to the s­ocio-cultural model of Athens and its implications for urban and polite behaviour, equality and liberty, could be summarised and styled as an “ancient-polisism.”

chapter 7

Painting Plutarch: Images of Sparta in the Dutch Republic and Enlightenment France Wessel Krul In the European intellectual tradition, few authors have had an influence and popularity as long-lasting as Plutarch. His Moralia and his Parallel Lives, written in the first century ad, were endlessly reprinted, translated and re-­translated. Since the Renaissance, Plutarch’s writings were, next to the Bible, the preeminent source of moral examples. They defined what outstanding moral behaviour was and showed how to achieve it. Above all, Plutarch was a school author. He was read at an early age. In his Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau remembered the excitement with which he, as a child, followed the actions of the great men, until he knew long passages by heart.1 Many of Plutarch’s stories became part of the common culture. Every educated person could be expected to know them. Only in the course of the nineteenth century, when classical morality began to play a less important role in public life, and when the centre of interest shifted to historical explanations, his reputation began to decline. It is no coincidence that Friedrich Nietzsche, in his diatribe against the rise of historicism, in 1874 still admonished his readers: “Nurture your souls on Plutarch, and dare to believe in yourself, while you believe in his heroes.”2 Plutarch’s biographies describe kings and generals, aristocrats and democrats, but his writings are more particularly associated with what is now known as classical republicanism. As a Greek author living in the first century of the Roman Empire, he showed a distinct strain of nostalgia for earlier, supposedly more straightforward ages. He praised the exploits of Alexander, but he clearly felt more sympathy and respect for the Roman republic, for Athenian democracy and for Spartan equality.3 His insistence on historia vitae magistra, 1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Confessions,” in: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 1, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond (Paris, 1959), 9. 2 “Sättigt eure Seelen an Plutarch und wagt es, an euch selbst zu glauben, indem ihr an seine Helden glaubt.” Friedrich Nietzsche, “Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das L­ eben,” (1874) in: Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke, vol. 1, ed. Karl Schlechta (München, 1954), 251. 3 This point was not lost on Rousseau: “De ces interessantes lectures […] se forma cet esprit libre et républicain […] qui m’a tourmenté tout le temps de ma vie” (“Out of these interesting

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_009

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on history as the teacher of life, made his work not only influential in education, but also in the theatre and in the visual arts. Every time art theorists and patrons tried to enlarge the scope of history painting, they referred to Plutarch. “Only Plutarch can provide subjects worthy of the brushes of every painter in Europe,” declared La Font de Saint Yenne in 1754, in one of his comments on the present state of the visual arts in France.4 More than half a century later, the best advice Jacques-Louis David could give to a pupil looking for an ­appropriate subject still was: “Leaf through your Plutarch.”5 With David, the republican tendencies in his classicism were obvious. But does this mean that subjects taken from Plutarch always carry republican connotations, and therefore should be seen as signs of opposition towards the ancien régime? Was it possible at all to transfer controversial political ideas into painting? In this chapter, I will take a look at some scenes derived from Plutarch, both in Dutch and in French art. I limit myself to subjects related to Sparta. In early modern times, Plutarch was the almost exclusive source of knowledge about ancient Sparta. Praise for Spartan institutions has always been regarded as belonging to the more radical manifestations of classical republicanism. It played a prominent part in the ideology of the Jacobins during the French Revolution, with whom David was closely associated. It seems an interesting test-case to see in how far these radical aspects were reflected in the visual arts. Is “Sparta” in painting loaded with the same connotations as it is in political thought, or did the arts serve a different function?

Spartan Myths

Plutarch described the organisation of Spartan society in detail in his Lycurgus, on the life of the legendary lawgiver and founder of the classical Spartan state. Some of this material is briefly referred to in his lives of two Spartan military leaders, Lysander and Agesilaus. He discussed Spartan institutions again in his Agis and Cleomenes, the lives of the two Spartan kings who in the third century readings grew the free and republican spirit that has tormented me all my life”). Rousseau, Oeuvres, vol. 1, 9. 4 “Plutarque seul peut fournir des sujets dignes d’occuper les pinceaux de tous les peintres de l’Europe.” La Font de Saint Yenne, Sentiments sur quelques ouvrages du Salon de 1753 (Paris, 1754), quoted in Jean Locquin, La peinture d’histoire en France de 1747 à 1785. Étude sur l’évolution des idées artistiques dans la seconde moitié du xviiie siècle (1912, reprinted Paris, 1978), 164. 5 “Feuilletez votre Plutarque.” Jacques-Louis David, letter to A.-J. Gros, June 22, 1820, quoted in Anita Brookner, Jacques-Louis David (London, 1980), 182.

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bc. tried to revive some of Sparta’s former greatness. More distantly related to Sparta is his Phocion, about the Athenian general who, apparently out of admiration for Spartan military discipline, rejected democracy, concluded a pact with the Macedonians, and was executed in 318 bc. during a short-lived return of democratic rule. Finally, two collections of moral examples and sentences are usually ascribed to Plutarch, The Sayings of Spartans and the Sayings of Spartan Women, in which the proverbial brevity of Spartan or “Laconic” speech is illustrated. Plutarch is vague about the dates of the earliest subjects of his Parallel Lives. He apparently assumed that Lycurgus was active long before 600 bc. As he himself wrote in the first century ad, this leaves a gap of at least 700 years between the author and the facts he related. By that time little was left of traditional Spartan society and the unusual institutions that Lycurgus ­supposedly  ­introduced.  Plutarch’s view of Sparta was not entirely without historical f­oundation, but it was strongly coloured by an already centuriesold ­idealisation of the past.6 The glorification of Sparta was not a modern ­invention, but had its origins in Antiquity itself.7 His Life of Lycurgus therefore  was, as Richard Talbert has cautiously put it, “the latest and fullest account of how Sparta’s admirers believed her to have been in the days of her greatness.”8 From the sixteenth century, translations of Plutarch’s works became widely available, first in Latin, but soon also in the vernacular languages. Deservedly famous was the French translation by Jacques Amyot, published in 1559. It 6 Even among present-day historians it is a matter of controversy to what extent the laws and institutions described in Plutarch’s Lycurgus reflect existing practices in ancient Sparta. Paul Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia. A Regional History 1300–362 bc (Londen, 1979), for instance, is sceptical, as is Karl-Wilhelm Welwei, Sparta. Aufstieg und Niedergang einer antiken Grossmacht (Stuttgart, 2004), whereas Douglas M. Macdowell, Spartan Law (Edinburgh, 1986) and Sarah B. Pomeroy, Spartan Women (Oxford, 2002) tend to accept much of the evidence. M.I. Finley, “Sparta,” in: M.I. Finley, The Use and Abuse of History (London, 1975), 161–177, still is a fundamental discussion. 7 On the growth of the Spartan myth in Antiquity, see François Ollier, Le mirage spartiate. Étude sur l’idéalisation de Sparte dans l’antiquité grècque de l’origine jusqu’aux cyniques (Paris, 1933); François Ollier, Le mirage spartiate. iie Partie. Étude sur l’idéalisation de Sparte dans l’antiquité grecque du début de l’école cynique jusqu’à la fin de la cité (Paris, 1943); E.N. Tigerstedt, The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity, 3 vols. (Stockholm, 1965–1978); the first chapters of Elizabeth Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford, 1969) and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, Athens on Trial. The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton, 1994). 8 Richard Talbert, “Introduction,” in: Plutarch, On Sparta, ed. Richard Talbert (London, 2005), xiii.

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was highly praised and frequently quoted by Montaigne in his Essais, and it was still this version that two centuries later made such an impression on the young Rousseau.9 From Plutarch, readers derived an image of Sparta that was at the same time attractive and highly disturbing. The idea that a well-ordered state could be created almost out of nothing by a wise lawgiver held a strong appeal for all moralists. Many commentators thought Sparta admirable in its discipline, its readiness to defend its freedom, its equality and its balanced constitution. For, although it formally was a kingdom, it usually was seen as a republic, because the kings had to share power with the five ephors, and could in certain cases be deposed. Others were offended by the fundamental brutality of the Spartan system, its cruelty towards children and slaves, its neglect of art and refinement, and—especially shocking to those brought up under strict Christian morality—the freedom of Spartan women and its openly encouraged homosexuality.10 Although Plutarch made a distinction between institutions already existing before Lycurgus, and other ones invented after his time, most writers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw Lycurgus as the exclusive inventor of the Spartan constitution. In the public discourse of the early modern age, Sparta, already idealised in the classical sources, rapidly became subject to a second idealisation or mythification. The Sparta of the humanists, moralists and political theorists, was a semi-abstract concept, a model of a certain type of society, based on a specific combination of ethics and institutions, which one could applaud or deplore according to preference. The main point of discussion was not whether a society like this really had existed at some point in time, but to what extent its principles could be used as an guideline or solution for present-day problems.11 Plutarch, by his accessibility and immense 9 10

11

On Amyot and Montaigne, see A. Billault, “Plutarch’s Lives,” in The Classical Heritage in France, ed. Gerald Sandy (Leiden, 2002), 219–235. J.-L. Quantin, “Traduire Plutarque d’Amyot à Ricard. Contribution à l’étude du mythe de Sparte au xviiie siècle,” Histoire, Économie et Société 7 (1988): 243–259, concludes that the more shocking aspects of Spartan life in Plutarch’s Lycurgus were not minimised or bowdlerised in the various French translations, rather the contrary. On Plutarch and Sparta in early modern thought (and later), see Rawson, The Spartan Tradition; Karl Christ, “Sparta-Forschung und Sparta-Bild,” in Sparta, ed. Karl Christ (Darmstadt, 1986), 1–72; Volker Losemann, “Sparta. Bild und Deutung,” in Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopädie der Antike, vol. 15/3, ed. Manfred Landfester et al. (Stuttgart, 2003), 153–172; Ian Macgregor Morris, “The Paradigm of Democracy: Sparta in Enlightenment Thought,” in Spartan Society, ed. Thomas J. Figueira (Swansea, 2004), 339–362; Maxime Rosso, La renaissance des institutions de Sparte dans la pensée française (xvie–xviiie siècle) (Aix-en-Provence, 2005); Stephen Hodkinson and Ian Macgregor Morris, eds., Sparta in

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­popularity, confirmed the opinion that politics were first and foremost a matter of public morality.

The Dutch Republic

In so far as it has a propagandistic function, painting does rarely contest, but usually confirms certain values. One might therefore expect to find representations of ancient Sparta, generally considered to be a republic, in a republican context, as a support of the official political ideology. This was indeed the case in the Dutch Republic. It has often been assumed that there was no scope for history painting in Holland, for lack of patronage from court and church. Nonetheless a number of painters specialised in subjects from classical history and mythology, or occasionally accepted commissions of this sort.12 One of them was Caesar van Everdingen (1617–1687), who in 1660–61 painted a large mantlepiece for the town hall in Alkmaar, depicting Lycurgus showing the importance of education (Figure 7.1). The scene refers to a story which occurs both in Plutarch’s Moralia and in the Sayings of Spartans: Lycurgus took two puppies from the same nest, kept one of them at home and trained the other for hunting. Next he brought them in the assembly, put down some bones and delicious tidbits, and then released a hare. Each of the two dogs went after what it was used to; when the second of them had caught and killed the

12

Modern Thought. Politics, History and Culture (Swansea, 2012). General studies on the role of antiquity in early modern ideas usually pay attention the subject as well, e.g. Chantal Grell, Le dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquité en France 1680–1789, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1995); Michel Ganzin, ed., L’influence de l’antiquité sur la pensée politique européenne (xvie–xxe siècles) (Marseille, 1998). Although history paintings were only a small percentage of the whole Dutch painterly production in the seventeenth century, enough of them have survived to fill several consecutive exhibitions: Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., Dewey F. Mosby and Pieter J.J. van Thiel, eds., God en de goden. Verhalen uit de Bijbelse en klassiek oudheid door Rembrandt en zijn tijdgenoten (Amsterdam, 1981); Ben Broos, Liefde, list en lijden. Historiestukken in het Mauritshuis (Den Haag, 1993); Albert Blankert et al., Hollands classicisme in de zeventiendeeeuwse schilderkunst (Rotterdam, 1999); Peter Schoon and Sander Paarlberg, eds., Griekse goden en helden in de tijd van Rubens en Rembrandt (Dordrecht, 2001). Apart from the biblical tradition, however, the main source was Ovid. Cf. Eric-Jan Sluijter, De ‘heydensche fabulen’ in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw. Schilderijen met verhalende onderwerpen uit de klassieke mythologie in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, circa 1590–1670 (Leiden, 2000).

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Figure 7.1 Caesar van Everdingen, Lycurgus Showing the Importance of Education (1660–61). Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar.

hare, Lycurgus said: “Citizens, do you see how, although these dogs ­belong to the same family, their upbringing for life has made them turn out very different indeed from each other? Do you see, too, how education is more effective than birth for producing noble behavior?”13 13

Plutarch, “Sayings of Spartans,” in: Plutarch, On Sparta, 172. See also Plutarch, “The education of children,” (Moralia 3ab) in: Plutarch, Moralia, vol. 1, transl. F.C. Babbitt (Cambridge, ma, 1927), 12–13. A selection from the Moralia, including this part, was available in a Dutch translation: R.T., Eenighe Morale of Zedige Wercken van Plutarchus, nieuwelycks vertaelt (Amsterdam, 1634). The Parallel Lives had been translated from Amyot’s French edition, with the strict Calvinist commentary by Simon Goulart the Elder: T’Leven der doorluchtige Griecken ende Romeynen, tegen elck-anderen vergeleken (1603, reprinted 1644). Cf. Olga van Marion, “The reception of Plutarch in the Netherlands: Octavia and Cleopatra in the Heroic Epistles of J.B. Wellekens (1710),” in Recreating Ancient History. Episodes from the Greek and Roman Past in the Arts and Literatures of the Early Modern Period, ed. Karl Enenkel, Jan J.L. de Jong and Janine De Lantsheer (Leiden, 2001), 213–234, esp. 224–226.

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The parable, with its stress on equality and acquiring rank by merit, can easily be adapted to republican or even democratic purposes. It was, as far as is known, the first time the theme was used in a painting, but it had been illustrated before in books on education. Otto Vaenius made an engraving of Lycurgus and the two dogs for his Emblemata Horatiana (Antwerp, 1607). This book, a kind of “Mirror for Princes,” was reprinted in 1646 with a dedication to the French Queen Mother, and a recommendation to use it in the upbringing of the young Louis xiv. In Vaenius’s engraving, the action takes place in a market square, among a crowd of astonished burghers. Lycurgus is presented as a bearded sage, an obvious analogy to that other great lawgiver, Moses. In Van Everdingen’s painting, with its peculiar perspective, the scene is apparently situated in a large room.14 Lycurgus, here shown as a young man, sits on a kind of throne formed by three steps. He is surrounded by a group of serious and thoughtful bystanders, some of them dressed like orators, others armed and crowned with oak and laurel wreaths. Van Everdingen obviously attempted to bring the subject into a more elevated sphere. It has been plausibly suggested that his painting for the Alkmaar town hall referred to the obligations the city had accepted towards the education of the young prince of Orange, the later William iii.15 The fact that Lycurgus is portrayed as a young man fits the chronology of his activities in Sparta. The demonstration with the two dogs must have taken place early in his career, when he still had to convince the Spartans of the value of the institutions he had devised. The scene as a whole also symbolises the young Dutch state, which had struggled for some time to find the right constitution, and which was now, under the supervision of Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, finally organised as a “True Republic.” This is why the representatives of the law and the military look on in grave thought, as if conscious of the historical importance of the moment. The idea of the “True Republic,” that is, of a constitution in which the semimonarchical element represented by the House of Orange was excluded or minimised, bitterly failed in 1672, when Holland was attacked from all sides and executive power was entrusted to the now adult William iii. After his death in 1702, however, the province of Holland again decided to leave the office of 14

15

The figures seem to be seen simultaneously from below and at ground level. Cf. the entry by Albert Blankert in Hollands classicisme in de zeventiende-eeuwse schilderkunst, 208–211 (catalogue nr. 37). J.B. Bedaux, “Discipline for innocence. Metaphors for education in seventeenth-century Dutch painting,” in: J.B. Bedaux, The Reality of Symbols. Studies in the Iconology of Netherlandish Art (Maarssen, 1990), 109–169, esp. 155–160.

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Stadtholder vacant. In the Republic as a whole this situation was not ­considered definitive, and in the next decades a period of indetermination followed, during which various plans for political reform were proposed. In this context, a painter from Amsterdam once more chose a scene from Plutarch’s Lycurgus as a comment on his times. Isaac Walraven (1686–1765), a pupil of Gérard de Lairesse, was one of the few Dutch artists who consequently tried to imitate French classicism in the grand manner of Nicolas Poussin. Walraven was the son of a successful goldsmith, who left him a considerable fortune. As he did not have to sell his paintings, he kept them at home, and for a long time they were only known in the circle of connaisseurs and collectors to which he himself belonged. In 1751, the publication of Johannes van Gool’s biographies of contemporary painters brought his work to a wider attention.16 Walraven’s main claim to fame, according to Van Gool, was his Death of Epaminondas, finished in 1726. The death on the battlefield of the heroic Theban commander in 362 bc was a suitably tragic subject for history painting. Plutarch offered no help here, as his life of Epaminondas has not survived. Van Gool tells us nothing about Walraven’s reading or his intentions, but it is probable that the subject of a great leader, who tried to unite the Greeks in a stable alliance, but perished in the attempt, at least contained an oblique reference to the disagreements dividing the United Republic.17 This seems all the more likely since, as Van Gool tells us, Walraven planned to paint a counterpart to his Epaminondas under the title Lycurgus showing the young Charilaus to the Spartan military leaders. The story is from Plutarch’s Lycurgus, 3.1–4: Lycurgus had just succeeded his deceased brother as king in Sparta, when the news reached him that his brother’s widow was pregnant. In secret she offered to undergo an abortion on the condition that he, who had already been acclaimed as king, would marry her. Lycurgus pretended to agree to the pact, but he also pretended to be concerned about her health, and persuaded her not to have the abortion. As soon as the baby would be born, and if it was a male child, he would find means of doing away with it. At the time when she was in fact going to give birth, he ordered his servants to bring any male child immediately to him. So it happened, but Lycurgus, who was having a meal with the Spartan magistrates, showed the baby to them with the words “Spartiates, a king is born to you.” He laid it on the king’s seat, and called 16 17

Johannes van Gool, De Nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlantsche Kunstschilders en Schilderessen, 2 vols. (The Hague, 1751). On Walraven’s Epaminondas, now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, see Reinier Baarsen, Robert-Jan te Rijdt and Frits Scholten, Nederlandse kunst in het Rijksmuseum 1700–1800 (Amsterdam, 2006), 57.

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it Charilaus, that is “People’s Joy.” Not much later, to prevent suspicion that he wanted to regain power, he went on the travels during which he acquired much of his political wisdom.18 No eighteenth-century reader can have missed the similarities to the New Testament. Considering, however, that Walraven thought of his painting as a companion to his Epaminondas, a more direct political intention may have been present. If Epaminondas showed his frustration about the political discord in the Republic, his choice of Lycurgus and Charilaus may have expressed his hope that someone might be born, or already was born, who would pave the way towards a revision of the Dutch constitution. Sadly, Walraven never completed the painting. Van Gool said that “he had already made the drawing and all the necessary preparations, but the death of his father, which occurred soon afterwards, caused him to abandon his plans, as from this time onwards he had to occupy himself with other matters.”19 Perhaps he now thought, with his recently acquired wealth, that doing manual work was below his status. Or did he feel that the whole project was beyond his capacities? Modern art historians have judged his Epaminondas rather severely.20 In any case, no other Dutch painter attempted to follow in his footsteps.

France: Changing Perspectives

The Parallel Lives remained immensely popular throughout the eighteenth century, perhaps even more than they already were. In France, Amyot’s classic text was supplemented by André and Anne Dacier’s new annotated translation, which began to appear posthumously in 1721. Other translations and reprints followed regularly.21 Whole generations were, like the young Rousseau, inspired by Plutarch with a lasting desire to emulate the greatness of the ­ancients. Madame Roland wept for not being a Greek or Roman, when she first read Plutarch.22 Charlotte Corday is said to have spent the day absorbed in 18

My summary; in Plutarch’s Lycurgus the episode is told in more detail. Cf. Plutarch, On Sparta, 5, and Plutarch’s Lives, vol. 1, transl. B. Perrin (Cambridge ma, 1914), 210–211. 19 Van Gool, De nieuwe Schouburg, vol. 2, 121. 20 Baarsen et al., Nederlandse kunst in het Rijksmuseum 1700–1800, 57. 21 Locquin, La peinture d’histoire en France, 159, n. 1, lists complete or partial French editions of Plutarch in 1723, 1724–1734, 1728, 1753, 1759, 1762, 1763, 1777, 1778, 1784 and 1783–1787. See also Harold Talbot Parker, The Cult of Antiquity and the French Revolutionaries (Chicago, 1937), 28–31 and Quantin, “Traduire Plutarque.” The century closed with a new translation by the abbé Dominique Ricard, published in 1798. 22 Parker, The Cult of Antiquity, 38–39.

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Plutarch, before she murdered Marat.23 “Already at forehand we were full of admiration for the laws of Lycurgus and the tyrannicides,” said the novelist Charles Nodier about his schooldays before the Revolution.24 In the course of the century, two important changes of perspective took place. Traditionally, Plutarch was used as a source of moral examples, which could be applied to actual situations without much concern for their original context. Gradually however, especially in France, the discussion concentrated with growing intensity on the question, not whether a text like Lycurgus offered general moral guidelines, but in how far Spartan society, as Plutarch had depicted it, could be used as a model for the contemporary world. This is to say that, in the first place, the way in which Plutarch was read acquired a more historical dimension. This was not yet a modern conception of history, as an interest in practical morality or virtue held the upper hand; but there was a growing awareness that virtue depended on social circumstances. Individuals could be virtuous, but societies as a whole could be so too, and a virtuous society often was a precondition for personal moral excellence. Montesquieu treated the problem at great length in his Esprit des Lois, and he was imitated by many other political writers. Comparisons between past and present were a standard part of their argumentation. If Spartan institutions had been as excellent as Lycurgus led one to believe, they could provide a solution for the ills and ailments of the present. In this way, secondly, Plutarch, and his Sparta in particular, became a source of oppositional and finally even revolutionary thinking. Alongside the classical authors, historical compendia now also began to determine the public image of antiquity. An enormous success was Charles Rollin’s Histoire ancienne, published between 1730 and 1738, but often reprinted and re-edited in abridged versions. “Rollin” remained the standard history up to the Revolution. It has been remarked that the frequent references to antiquity in revolutionary oratory rarely went beyond the information that Plutarch and Rollin had to offer.25 Rollin had the great advantage of being clear and systematic. In his chapter on Sparta, he contrasted a list of things he thought worthy of praise with a list of things to be blamed. Praiseworthy (louable) were the mixed constitution with its distribution of power among kings, ephors and elders, the education by the state, the abolition of money, the economic 23

The story is already told by Michelet in his history of the Revolution (1847–53). Cf. Jules Michelet, Histoire de la Révolution Française, ed. Gérard Walter, vol. 2 (Paris, 1952), 499. 24 Charles Nodier, Souvenirs, vol. 1 (Paris, 1831), 80–81; quoted in Klaus Herding, Im Zeichen der Aufklärung. Studien zur Moderne (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1989), 21. 25 Parker, The Cult of Antiquity, 33–34; Claude Mossé, L’Antiquité dans la Révolution française (Parijs, 1989), 62–63.

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self-sufficiency, the general discipline, and the readiness to defend the community.26 To be rejected (blâmable) on the other hand, were the shallowness of intellectual life, the indifference to cruelty, the idleness of the warrior class in times of peace, the oppression of the farmers and slaves, and more in particular the Spartans’ lack of shame and decency. Rollin did not explain what he meant by this, and how it corresponded with the virtuousness he at the same time ascribed to them, but as a Christian author he was evidently shocked by Plutarch’s detailed description of Spartan sexual habits.27 Rollin’s typology of a positive and a negative Sparta formed a background to the Enlightenment debate on politics and reform almost up to the Revolution. The contrast became sharper during the 1760s, when the call for political change became more and more urgent, and when authors like Rousseau and the abbé de Mably began to recommend the Spartan model no longer as a remote ideal, but as a serious solution to the problems besetting the absolutist French monarchy and the kind of society it had produced. During these years, more was written about Sparta than ever before, both favourably and unfavourably. As the discussion was seen as immediately relevant for the present, praise of Sparta and its wise lawgiver inevitably implied a critique of contemporary social and political institutions. In the light of the cult of Sparta during the Revolution, especially by the Jacobins, such statements have often been interpreted as proto-revolutionary. But this is misleading. About the same time, during the 1760s, the first paintings with subjects taken from Sparta were shown at the Salon, the great bi-annual art exhibition in Paris. From these paintings it becomes clear that ideas about Sparta could still serve official purposes, even if the same subjects later acquired different connotations.

Cochin and Choisy

In France no iconographical tradition existed in relation to Sparta. The subject of Lycurgus and the two dogs, even though Vaenius’s version was recommended to the young Louis xiv, seems not to have attracted any French painter or 26

On Rollin as a defender of Sparta, especially with regard to public education, see M.  ­Legagneux, “Rollin et le ‘mirage spartiate’ de l’éducation publique,” in Recherches ­nouvelles sur quelques écrivains des Lumières, ed. Jacques Proust (Genève, 1972), 111–162. 27 Rawson, The Spartan Tradition, 224; Macgregor Morris, “The Paradigm of Democracy,” 339–342; Rosso, La renaissance des institutions de Sparte, 237–243; Haydn Mason, “Sparta and the French Enlightenment,” in: Hodkinson and Macgregor Morris, eds., Sparta in modern thought, 71–104, esp. 76–77; Michael Winston, “Spartans and savages: mirage and myth in eighteenth-century France,” in: Ibidem, 105–163, esp. 109–112.

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patron. Plutarch had, of course, provided the subject of Poussin’s two grave and majestic paintings on the death of Phocion, dating from 1648. But the grand manner in history painting had gone out of fashion in France during the predominance of the Rococo. Only after the mid-eighteenth century a demand arose for a more elevated and serious art, fitting the circumstances of the time.28 The desire that the official Salon should show a morally uplifting kind of painting coincided with the growing concern for political reform. Some of the most vocal critics of the ancien régime had pronounced opinions on a renewal of the arts. Denis Diderot saw an immediate connection between types of governments and the visual arts they produced. “Under a monarchy, where one commands and obeys, the character or expression will be one of courtesy, grace, sweetness, honour, and gallantry.” Under a republic, on the other hand, people looked “high, harsh and proud.”29 When he, time and again, declared his preference for “a grand, plain and true manner,” even to the point of repeating that one should “paint like they spoke in Sparta,” it was clear in what direction his political sympathies went.30 Nonetheless, the first works on Spartan themes exhibited at the Salon show how much the official world of the ancien régime and the world of the “philosophes” were still entangled. Since 1751, the function of “directeur général des bâtiments,” in practice a kind of surveyor of the arts, was in the hands of the Marquis de Marigny, brother to Madame de Pompadour. In private, Marigny conformed to the elegant Rococo taste in painting prescribed at court, but in his official position he saw the need for a more didactic art. He was assisted in this project by Charles Cochin (1715–1790), permanent secretary of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, an artist and engraver who through his 28

29 30

Maurice Badolle, L’abbé Jean-Jacques Barthélémy (1716–1795) et l’Hellénisme en France dans la seconde moitié du xviiie siècle (Paris, 1926), 401–403, lists the paintings with ancient Greek subjects at the Salon exhibitions between 1753 and 1789. The titles show a gradual shift from mythological to historical themes. See also Locquin, La peinture d’histoire, ­251–253, and Grell, Le Dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquité en France, 629, 1192–1196. Denis Diderot, Essais sur la peinture; Salons de 1759, 1761, 1763, ed. Gita May (Paris, 1984), 42. Denis Diderot, Salon de 1765, ed. E.M. Bukdahl and A. Lorenceau (Paris, 1984), 30; Denis Diderot, Héros et martyrs. Salons de 1769, 1771, 1775, 1781; Pensées détachées, ed. E.M. Bukdahl, et al. Paris, 1995), 415. “Peindre comme on parlait à Sparte” is a saying attributed to Poussin. It must be added that Diderot’s critiques of the Paris Salon, written for Grimm’s Correspondance Littéraire, had only a limited circulation, and that he was, as has frequently been remarked, far from consistent in his artistic preferences. His insistence on grandeur, severity and public morality was always counterbalanced by his desire for private sensual enjoyment. See for instance Jean Seznec, Essais sur Diderot et l’antiquité (Oxford, 1957), 101–103.

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friendship with Diderot and Marmontel somewhat counted as a “philosophe” himself.31 In 1760 Cochin invented a programme for the decoration of the Château de Choisy, one of the summer mansions of Louis xv. Before the paintings were put in place at Choisy, the designs, by a selected group of artists, were shown at the Paris Salon as a gesture, clearly related to the ongoing war, indicating a new sense of responsibility within the government.32 All subjects had to do with charity, magnanimity, justice and self-sacrifice. Apart from a number of scenes from Roman history there were a Solon having the Athenians swear an oath on his laws, and a large drawing by Cochin himself, Lycurgus showing himself to the people of Sparta after being wounded during a sedition (Figure 7.2).

Figure 7.2 Charles Cochin, Lycurgus Showing Himself to the People of Sparta After Being Wounded in a Sedition (1761). Louvre, Paris, Dept. of Prints and Drawings. 31

The most comprehensive study is Christian Michel, Charles-Nicolas Cochin et l’art des lumières (Rome, 1993). 32 Locquin, La peinture d’histoire, 23–25; Seznec, Essais sur Diderot, 98–99; James A. Leith, The Idea of Art as Propaganda in France, 1750–1799 (Toronto, 1965), 73–76; Hugh Honour, Neoclassicism (Harmondsworth, 1968), 23. See also Michel Hilaire, Sylvie Wuhrmann and

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Cochin took the idea from Plutarch’s Lycurgus, 11.1–2. Lycurgus banned luxury and tried to strengthen social cohesion by introducing a tradition of common meals. Some of the richer inhabitants of Sparta protested and began to pelt him with stones. Lycurgus tried to escape to the Agora, but when he arrived there and turned round, one of his pursuers struck him in the eye with a stick. “However, Lycurgus did not give in because of this blow, but stood to confront the citizens and show them his bloodstained face and ruined eye.”33 After this demonstration of courage, the Spartans felt ashamed and obeyed. Lycurgus spared the life of his attacker, took him as a servant and educated him into a responsible citizen. The story includes a number of standard virtues associated with good government: justice, determination and strength, balanced with unselfishness and forgiveness towards the enemy. In the context of the actual political situation, Cochin may have had a more particular message in mind. Lycurgus had, without regard for his own safety, tried to integrate the well-to-do into the community by taking away some of their privileges. Similar plans, which came down to a form of taxation of the nobility, were prominent in government circles at the time, if only because of the cost of the war. Cochin’s Lycurgus raised much comment when it was exhibited at the Salon in 1761. Diderot admired the way the sudden change in the Spartans from anger to commiseration was depicted. On the whole he thought the drawing “de grand goût,” by which he perhaps also was referring to the austere setting of the scene, with its background of large Doric columns.34 But he found the heroic posture of Lycurgus himself somewhat childish, with his finger pointing to his wounded eye.35 Here he touched upon the major weakness of the design: its emphatic didacticism. The paradox, of course, was that a work like this was intended as a decoration for one of the king’s pleasure haunts, itself one of the symbols of privilege and neglect of public affairs. The king himself was not pleased at all. Of Cochin’s whole scheme, only the subjects referring to kings and emperors were installed at Choisy, and not much later Louis xv decided that even these should be replaced with less demanding works by the official court painter, François Boucher.36 The Choisy programme has been

Olivier Zeder, eds., Le goût de Diderot. Greuze, Chardin, Falconet, David … (Paris, 2013), 268–271. 33 Plutarch, On Sparta, 13. 34 Locquin, La peinture d’histoire, 246–247. 35 Diderot, Essais sur la peinture, 162. 36 The paintings showing Trajan and Marcus Aurelius were shown at the Salon in 1765, but it is incorrect that the programme as a whole dated from the year before: Robert Rosenblum, Transformations in Late Eighteenth Century Art (Princeton, 1969), 56–57.

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i­nterpreted as a sign that in the early 1760s, even after the controversies over the Encyclopédie, there still was a measure of agreement between the government and the “philosophes,” at least in their attitude towards the nobility and the “profiteers.”37 But to introduce such figureheads of classical republicanism as Solon and Lycurgus as models for royal behaviour clearly was a step too far. As an engraving by Demarteau in 1769, however, Cochin’s Lycurgus reached a wide audience. To explain its meaning, it carried a long quotation from Plutarch, which underlined its republican or even revolutionary potential. This was of course far from Cochin’s original aims. The Lycurgue blessé may be seen as a visual equivalent of the political terminology of the 1760s, which was gradually adapted to new circumstances and acquired more radical connotations.38 Under the Directoire, in the year v of the French Revolution (1796), the drawing in red chalk by Cochin was one of the very few examples of eighteenth-century French graphic art to be exhibited in the rapidly expanding collections of the Louvre. By then, it could be seen as an expression of the revolutionary government’s intentions to follow in the footsteps of the great Spartan statesman.39 It survived this transformation as well, and was on show in the museum until well into the nineteenth century.40

Stoicism versus Hedonism

Cochin’s Lycurgus was part of the revival of interest in Sparta as a model for contemporary society that emerged in the early 1760s. In his Quatrième lettre sur le Salon de 1763, Charles Mathon de la Cour described how he was “engrossed in the study of Spartan customs,” and how he enjoyed pondering “the severe laws of Lycurgus.” He eagerly desired “once more to become a Lacedemonian citizen.”41 This renewed interest must be seen, on the one hand, as a 37 Grell, Le dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquité, 550–552. 38 Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution. Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1990), 7–11. 39 After the fall of Robespierre in 1794 the name Sparta became associated with memories of the dictatorship; moreover, many authors began to realise that the historical Sparta had not been an ideal society at all. Nonetheless, Lycurgus’s constitution remained a point of reference during the Directoire. See in particular Andrew J.S. Jainchill, Reimagining Politics after the Terror. The Republican Origins of French Liberalism (Ithaca and London, 2008). 40 Michel, Cochin, 101. 41 Quoted in Locquin, La peinture d’histoire, 159. In 1767, Mathon de la Cour won the first prize in a contest by the Royal Academy of Letters to write an essay on The ­reasons

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sign of frustration with the apparent inability of the absolutist monarchy to implement any effective reform, and on the other hand, as a contribution to the ongoing debate about the origins of political and social virtue or morality. Plutarch and Rollin’s Histoire ancienne still set the terms. The conventional view, as in Rollin, was that Lycurgus had made an admirable attempt at preventing the growth of individual self-interest, but that the price he paid was a neglect of the more refined aspects of life, and a grossly indecent pragmatism in sexual matters. In most discussions of Sparta one of the two contrasting aspects was stressed. Spartan egalitarianism always had its sympathisers. After all, it was not incompatible with Christian principles. Others violently rejected the whole Spartan idea, like Voltaire, to whom Spartan society was nothing but a community of armed monks, “a sublime system of atrocity.”42 From the midcentury onward, however, the clash of arguments became both more intense and more complex. In his De l’esprit, published in 1758, Claude Helvétius (1715–1771) outlined a view of Sparta from the point of hedonism, not of asceticism, an interpretation he further developed in his posthumous De l’homme (1773).43 According to Helvétius, Lycurgus had not tried to curb the passions, but had channeled them into socially useful purposes. This was especially clear in Plutarch’s description of Spartan sexuality. The desire for sexual gratification was taken as an ­incentive, both for men and women, to prove their worth as a member of the community; those who had successfully done so were rewarded with sensual pleasures. The wisdom of Lycurgus, and the reason why he, of all statesmen, had best fathomed the human heart, was that his institutions did not run counter to the basic human impulses, as did Christian morality. Helvétius’s writings encountered much opposition, not only from the church, but also from theorists who found it hard to accept his materialism, and who held an exalted opinion of Spartan sobriety and purity. Rousseau had already praised Sparta in his Discours sur les sciences et les arts (1750) as “a republic of demi-gods, rather than of men.”44 In his Lettre à D’Alembert (1758), his Contrat social (1762), and various other writings, such as his project for a Polish constitution (1772), it once again appeared as an ascetic society, in which virtue was acquired through strict and why  and in what stages the laws of Lycurgus have been changed, until they were lost altogether. 42 Voltaire, letter to Catherine the Great of Russia, 13 September 1774; quoted in Legagneux, “Rollin,” 151. 43 Grell, Le dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquité, 483–486. 44 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 3, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond (Paris, 1964), 12.

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systematic education. He kept silent about the relative freedom that women enjoyed in Sparta according to Plutarch, and, although he did not mention his name, evidently rejected Helvétius’s recommendation of lust as a social instrument.45 The most accessible and widely-read defense of the virtuous Sparta against Helvétius were the Entretiens de Phocion by the abbé de Mably, published in 1763. Mably (1709–1785), perhaps the most consistent “Laconophile” in the eighteenth century, had already set down his ideas in various treatises, but now he decided to popularise them in the form of a dialogue. The subject was of course inspired by Plutarch, whom Mably quoted in Dacier’s translation. Phocion, a successful Athenian general from the fourth century bc, turned against democracy, and concluded a pact with the Macedonians. Plutarch suggested that he, who had always lived a life of the utmost discipline and sobriety, decided to do so in the hope that they would bring back some of the social and military virtues of Sparta in its heyday.46 When the democratic party briefly regained power, he was summarily condemned to death. Not much later, a rehabilitation followed.47 Mably’s Entretiens pretended to be an account by one of Phocion’s friends, taken from a recently discovered manuscript, of conversations between the old Phocion and an enthusiastic young Athenian, who is rapidly converted from a life of luxury to discipline, self-sacrifice and service of the community. The message is simple: a well-ordered state needs good laws and good government, but to endure these must be based on virtue. “Without morals, the laws 45

In his Lettres écrites de la montagne (1764), Rousseau explained that he had not attacked Helvétius openly, because this author was already being persecuted by the church and the authorities: Rousseau, Oeuvres, vol. 3, 693. 46 Plutarch, Phocion, 20.2–3; cf. Plutarch, The Age of Alexander, ed. Ian Scott-Kilvert and Timothy E. Duff (London, 2012), 253. 47 Plutarch is almost the only source about the life and career of Phocion. Whether he really was moved by nostalgia for ancient Sparta is difficult to establish. The most one may say, according to Nick Fisher, is that “it seems likely enough that Phocion […] did not object to an association with some traditional Spartan values.” N.R.E. Fisher, “Sparta Re(de)valued. Some Athenian public attitudes to Sparta between Leuctra and the Lamian war,” in The Shadow of Sparta, ed. Anton Powell and Stephen Hodkinson (London, 1994), 347–400: 361. On the Phocion legend in later times, see Andrew J. Bayliss, After Demosthenes. The Politics of Early Hellenistic Athens (Londen, 2011), 10–48 and Johnson Kent Wright, “Phocion in France: Adventures of a Neo-Classical Hero,” in Héroïsme et Lumières, ed. Sylvain Menant and Robert Morrissey (Paris, 2010), 152–176. Several victims of the French revolutionary Terror in 1793–94 thought of themselves as a new Phocion: Tolbert Roberts, Athens on Trial, 196.

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are useless.”48 A wise lawgiver therefore must educate his people. The ­governing classes must realise that reason, not the passions, should be their guideline. The primacy of reason necessarily leads to social equality, as reason is something everybody holds in common; and from this it follows that most other things should be held in common as well. Mably was not a very profound thinker, but his utopian vision of Sparta has given rise to radically opposed interpretations. Because of his ­egalitarianism, his  rejection of commerce, luxury, and even of private property, he has ­sometimes  been regarded as a revolutionary and a proto-socialist. Others have described him as a nostalgic conservative.49 It is difficult to establish whether he meant his programme as a serious proposal for political reform, or as an ­intellectual protest against the spirit of the age. In the Entretiens, anyhow, his point of view  is consistently aristocratic. The group within which e­ quality  should  reign, does  not include the common people. “The people does  not  think.”50 By abolishing the laws of Solon, Aristides paved the way for democratic rule. This became the downfall of Athens, for “the restlessness and insolence of the  ­people knows no bounds.”51 Those who  ­promoted Mably  as  an  advocate of  radical democracy, as did many Jacobins during the French Revolution, should have been warned by his choice of protagonist. The name “Phocion” above all referred to a disgraceful but heroically endured  death, imposed by a fickle and ungrateful populace. This was the subject  Poussin had chosen for his famous paintings of 1648. There, the message was Stoicism: the wise man has to accept his fate; his virtue will be ­recognised by posterity. With Mably, it was his version of classical ­republicanism, that is, an appeal to the French nobility not to give in to ­commercial values.

48

[G.B. de Mably], Entretiens de Phocion sur le rapport de la morale avec la politique, traduits du Grec de Nicoclès (Amsterdam, 1763), 182. 49 Johnson Kent Wright, A Classical Republican in Eighteenth-Century France. The Political Thought of Mably (Stanford, 1997), 7–15, gives a useful review of earlier interpretations, which range over the whole political spectrum from proto-communism to a Christianinspired conservatism. Wright himself admits to an insoluble “ambiguity” in Mably (Ibidem, 15). Rawson, The Spartan Tradition, 248, nicely expressed the paradox in calling him a “nostalgic communist.” Baker, Inventing the French Revolution, 86–106, takes Mably as prime example of an author whose political vocabulary acquired new connotations in the course of the Revolution. 50 Mably, Entretiens, 96. 51 Ibidem, 211. Tolbert Roberts, Athens on Trial, 162–163, lays particular stress on the antidemocratic aspects of Mably’s writings.

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Spartan Paintings

In spite of their popularity, no painter was inspired by Mably’s Entretiens to depict scenes from the life of Phocion. The standard set by Poussin proved hard to emulate.52 Moreover, Mably himself counted the fine arts among the redundant luxuries. But there was a closely related subject which was represented with increasing frequency at the Salon, beginning in 1761 and culminating in David’s great work of 1787: the death of Socrates. The comparison was already drawn by Plutarch himself. The direct counterpart in the Parallel Lives was Cato of Utica, the stoic defender of the Roman Republic, but the final passages of the life of Phocion are full of references to Socrates. Both were forced to drink hemlock, and both behaved with uncommon dignity during their final hours. The death of an unjustly condemned heroic figure was in itself a suitably tragic subject for history painting. In an actual context, it could be seen as an indictment of any arbitrary measure against a prominent person, one of the “philosophes” as well as a discharged government minister. To paint the last moments of Socrates might be a sign of opposition, but it always also carried a warning against the rule of the majority. This ambivalence was there even with David in 1787.53 The preference for subjects like these reflected the increasing mood of gravity and seriousness that pervaded the French art world in the 1770s and 1780s. From 1774, under the reign of Louis xvi, the government official responsible for the arts was the Comte d’Angiviller (1730–1810), who by various incentives tried to stimulate a national programme of history painting.54 In this he succeeded only to a certain degree. The majority of paintings exhibited at the Salon still consisted of landscapes, portraits, still lives and genre scenes. Nonetheless, 52

Though it is not true that Poussin gave “the sole pictorial representations of Phocion in European art,” as is asserted by Wright, “Phocion in France,” 157. Gioacchino Assereto (1600–1649), a contemporary of Poussin, painted a Phocion Refuses the Gifts of Alexander (Nantes: Musée des Beaux-Arts), and Jean Millet (1642–1679), a follower of Poussin, a Landscape with Conopion Carrying the Ashes of Phocion (Southampton City Art Gallery, uk). The catalogue of the Salon of 1787 mentions a Death of Phocion by Nicolas Monsiau (1754–1837), and in the early nineteenth century the school of J.-L. David produced two versions of the same subject by Joseph-Denis Odevaere (1775–1830) and Charles Brocas (1774–1835), while Charles Meynier (1768–1832) painted a Burial of Phocion. 53 Thomas Crow, Emulation. Making Artists for Revolutionary France (New Haven, 1995), 95–99, looks for a radical tendency in the representation of homo-erotic sentiments in David’s Socrates, not in its overt political message. 54 Leith, Art as Propaganda, 78–81; Thomas Crow, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-­ Century Paris (New Haven, 1985), 192–209.

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in the decades before the Revolution the percentage of history paintings at the Salon, with scenes from antiquity as well as from more recent history, almost doubled.55 Many of these depicted sombre, often tragic moments. In part this had to do with the sources. Historians have always been best at describing human misery, as Cochin already complained to Marigny in 1761.56 But the growing severity in style and subject was also related to an awareness that the existing political system was running into unsurmountable difficulties. As an instrument of winning sympathy for the government, therefore, D’Angiviller’s programme ultimately proved counter-productive. In vain he asked Louis Lagrenée (1724–1805), the director of the French Academy in Rome, to send more uplifting images.57 The increase in history painting does not necessarily implicate an increase in historical erudition among the painters. For antiquity, Plutarch continued to be the most frequently consulted author, supplemented by Rollin; and as many editions of Rollin’s history were illustrated with competent engravings, the visual examples lay close at hand.58 The protracted debate on the merits of the Spartan constitution that followed the publications by Rousseau and Mably hardly left any trace in the visual arts. Between 1771 and 1789, only a handful of paintings at the Paris Salon referred to Sparta.59 Most of these were entirely uncontroversial, such as Noël Hallé’s Agesilas, King of Sparta, is surprised by one of his friends while playing with his children (1779), which was obviously meant to flatter king Louis xvi. In 1787, at the most neoclassicist Salon before the Revolution, Nicolas Monsiau contributed to the mood of heroic despair with a Death of Phocion, alongside a drawing with the Death of Cato the Younger. The only well-known French art work from this period on a Spartan theme, however, is also the earliest: the Spartan Mother admonishing her son by Lagrenée, exhibited at the Salon of 1771 (Figure 7.3). The painting illustrates an example of Laconic speech from Plutarch’s Sayings of Spartan Women. A mother hands her son, who is going to battle, his shield with the words: “Either with this or on this.” That is, you must return either as a victor (with your shield) or as a victim (on your shield), having 55 Locquin, La peinture d’histoire, 251–253; Grell, Le dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquité, 628–629. 56 Quoted in Leith, Art as Propaganda, 76. 57 Rosenblum, Transformations in Late-Eighteenth Century Art, 67, n. 2. 58 Peter S. Walch, “Charles Rollin and Early Neoclassicism,” The Art Bulletin 49/2 (1967): 123–126. 59 From the list of paintings with Greek and Roman subjects at the Salon between 1763 and 1789 in Grell, Le dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquité, 1192–1196, only five seem to be related to Sparta, and of these only three (by Lagrenée, Hallé and Monsiau) can be identified.

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Figure 7.3 Louis Lagrenée, A Spartan Mother Admonishing her Son (1771). Stourhead, Wiltshire (copyright National Trust).

given your life for the fatherland.60 Here, however, sentimentality, the other side of neoclassicism, got the upper hand. In Lagrenée’s profusion of drapery and plumage there was nothing to remind the viewer of the austerity preached in Mably’s Phocion. Instead, we seem to be in the theatre, not in the world 60

Sayings of Spartan Women, 26, in: Plutarch, On Sparta, 186–187.

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of Lycurgus, but in the Sparta from Greek mythology and Roman poetry, the Sparta of Helen and Menelaos, or the Sparta full of amorous intrigues from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux, first performed in 1737, and revived every few years after 1754. Lagrenée, usually called the Elder to distinguish him from his younger brother and pupil Jean-Jacques, was an immensely prolific painter of mythological and historical scenes.61 He was also a more or less official artist. In 1762, he was appointed professor at the Academy in Paris, and from 1781 to 1787 he served as director of the French Academy in Rome. In the course of time his subjects became more serious and “philosophical,” but he never completely abandoned the Rococo elegance and eroticism that originally characterised his work.62 Diderot, who initially appreciated Lagrenée’s work, soon became tired of its easy fluency. The artist painted too much, his work was repetitive, and it lacked the moral vigour he had come to see as indispensable. In 1767 he wrote that Lagrenée had “neither wit, nor imagination,” and in 1771 he remarked about his Spartan mother and her son: “Is this a Spartan? Is this a Lacedemonian woman? Remove the shield, and you will see nothing but a young man declaring his love to a woman who is not of his own age.”63 Diderot knew nothing, or at least said nothing, about the political background of the painting. The Spartan mother and a companion piece, Telemachus meets Thermosiris, a priest of Apollo, who teaches him the art of being happy while being a slave, were commissioned by the Duc de Choiseul, the long-time prime minister under Louis xv, who in 1770 was struggling to maintain his hold on the French state.64 The subject of the second picture was not taken from ancient history, but from François Fénelon’s popular anti-absolutist novel Télémaque (1699). The two paintings, while not revolutionary in spirit at all, can be seen as reminders to be firm and resolute in the face of great danger or subjection, and in the actual context, as an expression of the aristocratic opposition against royal absolutism. Choiseul’s premonitions soon enough turned out to be true. In 1771 he fell in disgrace and was banished from the court. By the time Lagrenée exhibited the two works at the Salon, his former patron was no 61 Marc Sandoz, Les Lagrenée, I. Louis ( Jean, François) Lagrénée, 1725–1805 (Tours, 1983). 62 Locquin, La peinture d’histoire, 204–205; Michael Levey, Painting and sculpture in France, 1700–1789 (New Haven, 1992), 226. 63 Denis Diderot, Ruines et paysages. Salon de 1767, ed. E.M. Bukdahl, M. Delon and A. Lorenceau (Paris, 1995), 126; Diderot, Héros et martyrs, 145. In spite of Diderot’s strictures, Lagrenée’s contribution to the Salon in 1771 was generally admired. Crow, Painters and Public Life, 176. 64 Sandoz, Les Lagrenée, i, 96.

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longer able to pay his debts. The paintings were subsequently bought by Lord Hoare, the English banker, to adorn his country-seat Stourhead in Wiltshire, where they still can be seen today.65 One of the paradoxes of D’Angiviller’s programme of the 1770s and 1780s was that, while history painting became more and more classicising in style and “republican” in its moral intentions, the patrons and buyers of these paintings still almost exclusively belonged to a limited élite of extremely wealthy representatives of the ancien régime, among them D’Angiviller himself. It was all very good and well for the government to set up competitions and to award prizes and scholarships for history painting, but apart from the state, there were only a few collectors who were able to afford and display these often large canvases. As a result, many classical scenes teaching a message of hard work, frugality, unselfishness, and so on, ended up, after being shown at the Salon, on the walls of the grand courtiers and churchmen.66 A case in point is the subject of Caius Furius Cressinus showing his agricultural implements after being accused of sorcery. The story is from Pliny, Natural History, 18.41–43: a farmer whose crops are more abundant than those of his neigbours is accused of witchcraft; brought before the court, he shows his oxen, his plough and other instruments to demonstrate that his success is the natural result of dedicated labour. The subject was painted in 1775 by Nicolas Brenet for a private patron, but D’Angiviller liked it so much that he set it as theme for next year’s competition. A much larger version was shown by Brenet at the Salon of 1777.67 The scene remained popular for a long time, and was depicted by several other painters, perhaps precisely because it was open to various interpretations. It could refer to the rehabilitation of a virtuous and unjustly accused citizen; it could be taken as an endorsement of experimental agricultural policies and of the theories of Physiocracy; but it could also be regarded with pleasure by a banker or landowner, as a reminder of the sources of his wealth. Scenes from Plutarch’s Lycurgus seem to have been much less easily adaptable to such multiple purposes and audiences. The very fact that ancient Sparta was constantly present in public debate, may have prevented it from being present in the Paris Salons. It was left to an outsider, not by coincidence a countryman of Rousseau, to express in 65 66

Ibidem, 210. Colin B. Bailey, Patriotic Taste. Collecting Modern Art in Pre-Revolutionary Paris (New Haven, 2002), 203–205. 67 Leith, Art as Propaganda, 78; Bailey, Patriotic Taste, 85; see also G. Sprigath, Themen aus der Geschichte der römischen Republik in der französischen Malerei des 18. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1968), 101, 105, 181.

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painting all the hopes and radical expectations, doubts and ambiguities, that had by now accumulated around the notion of Sparta.

Spartan Eugenics: Saint-Ours at the Salon of 1791

Jean Pierre Saint-Ours (1752–1809) was a descendant of French Calvinist craftsmen who had fled from persecution to Switzerland.68 After an initial training in Geneva, his birthplace, Saint-Ours went to study at the Académie Royale in Paris with Joseph-Marie Vien. There he met David, whose example he followed in experimenting with a gradually more severe neoclassical style. In 1780 he won the Prix de Rome with a Rape of the Sabines.69 In the end, however, the prize money was withheld on the grounds that he was of Swiss nationality, and therefore a foreigner. Saint-Ours settled in Rome nonetheless, aided by a modest subsidy from home. Lagrenée, then director of the French Academy in Rome, accepted him as an “adopted member.” In Rome, where he again for some time worked alongside David, he made a successful career as a history and portrait painter.70 From the very beginning, Saint-Ours was an enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution. One of the highlights of the first revolutionary Salon in Paris in 1791, the so-called Salon de la Liberté, was his group of three paintings illustrating “the manners of different peoples from Antiquity.” It seems to have been his original aim to complete four large history paintings, depicting scenes from four ancient civilisations, and at the same time symbolising the four ages of man: childhood, youth, manhood and old age.71 Of these only three were 68

There is as yet no monograph on Saint-Ours. But see Anne de Herdt, “Jean Pierre S­ aint-Ours: Geneva 1752–1809,” in 1789: French art during the French Revolution, ed. Alan Wintermute (New York, 1989), 281–288; Anne de Herdt, “Saint-Ours et la Révolution,” Genava N.S. 37 (1989): 131–170, also published as “Ébauche pour le portrait d’un artiste révolutionné: Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours,” in Révolutions génévoises, 1782–1798, ed. Livio Fornara (Genève, 1989), 139–151; Mylène Koller, Zur Genfer Historienmalerei von Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours (1752–1809) (Bern, 1995); Anne de Herdt, Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours. Un peintre genévois dans l’Europe des Lumières (exh. cat. Genève, 2015). 69 The painting remained in possession of the École des Beaux-Arts, but was sent on loan in 1889 to Guadeloupe in the French Antilles. There it was lost in a hurricane in 1928. Koller, Genfer Historienmalerei, 27, note 82. 70 J.W. von Goethe listed Saint-Ours among the painters who “upheld the fame of the French” in Rome. Goethe, Italienische Reise, in Werke, xi (München, 1978), 391. 71 Koller, Genfer Historienmalerei, 113; Anne de Herdt, “Rousseau illustré par Saint-Ours,” Genava N.S. 26 (1978): 229–271, 233.

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shown in Paris: The Selection of Children in Sparta, Marriage Among the Ancient Germans, and The Olympic Games. The painting illustrating “childhood,” The Selection of Children in Sparta, was the earliest in the series (Figure 7.4). SaintOurs started work in 1784, and the final version was first exhibited in Rome in 1786.72 The choice of a Spartan subject was probably inspired by Rousseau, Saint-Ours’s favourite author, no less than by Plutarch. But the painting did not simply endorse Rousseau’s optimistic view of classical Spartan society. At the Salon in Paris in 1791 it impressed the public by its message of stern morality, but it also caused uneasiness and even revulsion. “Such acts of rigor are repugnant to our ways of life,” a critic wrote, and another one even found the painting “horrible.”73 These reactions are in themselves sufficient to disprove the opinion, expressed relatively recently, that “the elimination of the children that were thought too weak is not clearly shown in the painting.”74 The Selection of Children in Sparta does not represent “the place of rejection” on Mount Taygetus where, according to Plutarch, deformed new-born children were left to die. But it illustrates the passage in Plutarch immediately following: “Women would

Figure 7.4 Jean Pierre Saint Ours, The Selection of Children in Sparta (1784–86). Geneva, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire. 72 73 74

Now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Histoire in Geneva. It was preceded by a smaller version, now in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Quoted in De Herdt, “Saint-Ours et la Révolution,” 140. Danièle Buyssens, La question de l’art à Genève: du cosmopolitisme des Lumières au romantisme des nationalités (Genève, 2008), 226.

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test their babies’ constitutions by washing them in wine instead of water. The effect of the unmixed wine on ailing and epileptic children is said to be that they lose their senses, and their limbs go stiff, whereas healthy ones are toughened by it and acquire a hardier constitution.”75 In the upper left-hand corner of the painting we see women busy bathing children in a large basin, presumably filled with wine. The right-hand side is devoted to a happy outcome: a father has just presented his new-born son to the Council of Elders, and has gained their approval to keep and rear him. A group of Spartans of different ages looks on as witnesses to the official judgement. Very prominently on the left-hand side, however, we see a father whose child has been condemned or has not even survived the test. He leaves the hall shattered by grief. Some of the bystanders look at him with compassion. The painting, therefore, is deeply ambivalent about ancient Sparta. It shows two sides of its social system: the care taken by the state to maintain a healthy and vigorous body of citizens, but also its fundamental indifference towards individual emotions. In other words, it shows an awareness that there must have been losers as well as winners in the Spartan model, with its continuous tests and its constant demands to sacrifice private life for the common good.76 Saint-Ours had clearly read his Plutarch with attention. He was not afraid to include other aspects of Spartan life that its admirers usually preferred to ignore, such as its institutionalised homosexuality.77 The two young men standing with their arms around each other on the right of the painting are obviously intended to be seen as lovers. The figure of the grieving father, however, was an afterthought. A preparatory drawing has been preserved in which this dramatic moment is still absent (Figure 7.5). In the course of his work on the painting, Saint-Ours must have changed his mind.78 What was originally meant as a positive, even laudatory image of an important aspect of Spartan life, now came to include a severe 75 Lycurgus, 16,2, in: Plutarch, On Sparta, 20. 76 This was pointed out forcefully by Finley, “Sparta,” 165. 77 Plutarch, Lycurgus, 17–18. In a letter to his elderly patron François Tronchin in Geneva, Saint-Ours wrote that the subject allowed him to depict “the decency and beauty of the young people, which can be pleasantly varied with that of the wet-nurses.” But Tronchin never saw the painting, which was bought by a collector in Paris. Quoted in De Herdt, Saint-Ours. Un peintre genévois, 51. 78 It is unclear whether this change occurred between 1786 and the Paris Salon in 1791, or already before the painting was first shown in Rome. According to Anne de Herdt, Dessins génévois, de Liotard à Hodler (Genève, 1984), 114, there is no doubt that the drawing without the grieving father, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Histoire in Geneva, predates the painting.

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Figure 7.5 Jean Pierre Saint Ours, The Selection of Children in Sparta, preliminary ­drawing. Geneva, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire.

criticism of these institutions. Of course Saint-Ours knew that loud demonstrations of grief were a very un-Spartan reaction. In the light of everything Plutarch tells us, the disappointed father should have accepted the fate of his child with Laconic endurance. Saint-Ours evidently tried to combine two contradictory elements taken from his reading of Rousseau: an idealisation of the ancient republics, and the cultivation of “natural” and spontaneous emotions.79 His painting shows the conflict between the stern morality of classic republicanism and the late eighteenth-century cult of sensitivity and sentimentalism, between the claims of civic virtue and those of brotherhood and social sympathy.80 Saint-Ours’s further career illustrates the same dilemma. He returned to ­Geneva in 1792, and there was commissioned to paint a Caius Furius Cressinus 79

80

De Herdt, Saint-Ours. Un peintre genévois, 52, reads the painting as a protest against the oligarchic government in Geneva: those unfit for their function should be forcibly dismissed. There is no doubt that Saint-Ours supported the political opposition in his home  town,  which in 1782 had been subjected to severe counterrevolutionary measures. But the message of his work, a product of the French Academy in Rome and patronized by French collectors, is clearly situated in a more general political and philosophical context. On the conflict of these two concepts of vertu in the later eighteenth century, see Herding, Im Zeichen der Aufklärung, 14–16, and especially Marisa Linton, The Politics of Virtue in Enlightenment France (Basingstoke, 2001), 128.

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by a landowner who thought himself unjustly accused of corruption.81 Almost immediately, he became involved in revolutionary politics. In the following years he played a very active role in the new democratic government of the city. But the turn taken by the events, including the annexation of Geneva to France in 1798, left him deeply disillusioned. His final comment on the Revolution was a large-scale Earthquake, of which he painted several versions during the late  1790s. It shows, with transparent symbolism, a group of victims helplessly trying to escape an overwhelming natural disaster.82 During the reign  of  Napoleon, Saint-Ours retired into private life, and concentrated on portrait painting. Leonidas Saint-Ours, a painter whose reputation has gone through a long eclipse, even in his home town, was at some point disparagingly called “a diminutive David.”83 But the fact that the careers of both painters during the first years of the Revolution followed a similar pattern, was not a result of imitation. As a political argument, Sparta was constantly brought forward in the struggles between the Jacobins and the Girondins during the first years of the French Republic. One would expect a painter like Jacques-Louis David, an ardent supporter of the Jacobin cause and official propagandist of the Comité du Salut Public, to have chosen a Spartan subject, or to have included references to ancient Sparta, at least once or twice in the radical revolutionary years between 1792 and 1794. But he did not. In 1791, when there was still hope for a renewal of the French monarchy, he made a first sketch in oils for a Lycurgus showing the Spartans their king, that is, the newborn Charilaus, in the scene that early 81 Koller, Genfer Historienmalerei, 53. The painting is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (lacma). 82 On the Earthquake: Anne de Herdt, “Jean Pierre Saint-Ours: Geneva 1752–1809,” 281–288. 83 Henri Focillon, La peinture au xixe siècle. Le retour à l’antique, le romantisme (Paris, 1927), 416. Daniel Baud-Bovy, Peintres Genevois 1702–1817: Liotard, Huber, Saint-Ours, De La Rive (Genève, 1903), 81, 97–98, deplored the fact that Saint-Ours had become “ambitious” and had left his native Geneva. W. Deonna, Les arts à Genève. Des origines à la fin du xviiie siècle (Genève, 1942), 387, summarised the current opinion on Saint-Ours as “a cold and pompous academicism.” See also Koller, Genfer Historienmalerei, 19–20. Political reasons played an important part: many middle-class families in Geneva tried hard to forget their own radical past. After the Paris Commune in 1871, Saint-Ours’s last surviving daughter burnt many documents concerning his revolutionary activities. Cf. De Herdt, “Saint-Ours et la Révolution,” 132–133.

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in the c­ entury had also captured the imagination of the Dutch painter Walraven.84 But he abandoned the project. It seems likely that David’s activities as revolutionary director of the arts left him little time for independent work. Moreover, in view of the rapidly changing political situation, Sparta remained a dangerous subject. Saint-Just, full of memories of Plutarch, liked to pretend that he was a reborn Spartan, even a new Lycurgus, but Robespierre for a long time remained hesitant. His famous pronouncement that “Sparta shines like a flash of lightning amidst immense darknesses” dates from May 7, 1794, shortly before his downfall.85 Among the painters, a new interest in Sparta only arose after the Revolution had run its course. By then, to paint a Death of Phocion was no longer an endorsement of radical republican views, but rather a commemoration of those who had unjustly perished during the Terror.86 A subject such as A Spartan mother handing his shield to her son became part of Napoleon’s war propaganda, but the image was also used in the context of the patriotic movements during the Restoration.87 The most impressive monument to the myth of Sparta, however, was erected by David in his great painting Leonidas at Thermopylae (Figure 7.6). David had started work upon a first version in 1799. At that moment, the scene where the Spartan king and his men are arming themselves for their last stand against the Persians in 480 bc, could hardly be taken as anything other than a sign of regret for the lost cause of the Revolution. Napoleon immediately detected the mood of nostalgia. The story is that he sharply rebuked the painter: “One does not paint moments of defeat.” David waited 84 85 86

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See above. David’s sketch is now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Blois. Maximilien Robespierre, discourse of 18 Floréal ii (May 7, 1794). In this speech, Robespierre was full of praise for J.-J. Rousseau as a precursor of the Revolution. As is the case in the version from 1804 (Paris, Académie des Beaux-Arts) by the Belgian painter Joseph-Denis Odevaere. See Sandra Janssens and Paul Knolle, eds., Brugge, Parijs, Rome. Joseph Benoît Suvée en het neoclassicisme (Ghent, 2007), 118–119. The continuing political debate on the example of Sparta in the decade after 1794 is illustrated in Jainchill, Reimagining Politics after the Terror. The painter and writer Jean-Jacques Le Barbier (1738–1826) returned most often to Spartan themes. His Spartan Mother (1806, Portland Art Museum, Oregon) is only slightly more martial than the one by Lagrenée from 1771. Some of David’s students took his admonition to study their Plutarch to heart. But works such as Three Spartan boys training themselves (1812) by Christopher Wilhelm Eckersberg (Hirschsprungske Samling, Copenhagen) had a purely patriotic intention. The poet Giacomo Leopardi used the image of the Spartan mother in one of his hymns to the fatherland written around 1820: “Nelle nozze della sorella Paolina,” lines 68–75; cf. Leopardi, Canti, transl. Jonathan Galassi (New York, 2010), 46–47.

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Figure 7.6 Jacques-Louis David, Leonidas at Thermopylae, Drawing (1813). Louvre, Paris, Dept. of Prints and Drawings.

more than ten years before he finished and exhibited his work. By then, in 1814, it came to stand for the heroism of the French nation in the face of disaster and foreign invasion. But the eighteenth-century illusion of Sparta as the original homeland of liberty, equality, companionship and sacrifice for the common good was still there, for one last time.88 Conclusion Classical republicanism was based on examples from ancient Athens and Rome, and to a lesser extent from ancient Sparta. Of the three, Sparta was ­considered to be the most radical case. It distinguished itself not only by egalitarianism, but also by sobriety, strict discipline and a jealously guarded independence. The Spartan example was frequently invoked when the unity of the nation and its self-defense were at stake. In France, especially in the second 88

Cf. Martin Kemp, “J.-L. David and the Prelude for a Moral Victory for Sparta,” Art Bulletin 51/2 (1969), 178–183.

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half of the eighteenth century, it found special favour with authors who rejected everything the commercial culture of the French monarchy stood for, such as Mably and Rousseau. The claims of the admirers of Sparta led to a protracted debate about the appropriateness of this particular model for modern society. During the Revolution, “Sparta” became a rallying-cry for its most fanatical adherents. The association of the Spartan idea with the revolutionary Terror had a long-lasting effect. There has been a tendency to see every reference to ancient Sparta in eighteenth-century France as a sign of opposition to the Ancien Régime, and as a prefiguration of revolutionary ideologies. This ignores the many occasions before 1789 when the ancient republics, Sparta included, were cited in an official context. That the Spartan strand in classical republicanism was put to more complex uses than has sometimes been assumed, can easily be discerned when we look at its manifestations in art. History painting—and scenes from ancient Sparta by definition belonged to this exalted genre—always had a propagandistic function, or at least expressed certain political or religious ideas. It therefore seems plausible that the ongoing political discussions about the ancient republics at some point had a visual reflection. Paintings with Spartan subjects are relatively rare. Without exception, they are no more than an incident in the artist’s oeuvre. Nonetheless, even in this small trickle a certain pattern can be distinguished. It is not altogether a surprise to find Lycurgus, the legendary founder of the Spartan state, depicted at moments of crisis in the United Provinces, the most powerful republic in early modern Europe. In eighteenth-century France, the painters who chose Spartan subjects initially did so in response to official demands. This was the case with Cochin, at a point when a reconciliation between the government and the “philosophes” still seemed possible, and again with Lagrenée, who reacted to the official desire to have more patriotic subjects shown at the Salon. Art works such as these carried no revolutionary, but at best a mildly reformistic message. The radical praises of Sparta by Mably and Rousseau at first had no echo in painting at all. This can be partly explained by an inherent paradox: painting formed part of the luxury goods these authors hoped to abolish, and the painters depended for the most part on the opinions of their patrons. In the 1780s, however, when Rousseau’s writings were widely read, and when the call for reform had become almost universal, several painters began expressing a more radical version of classical republicanism. David is of course the best known, but the revolutionary idea of Sparta, reflected through a reading of Rousseau, was most strikingly illustrated by the Genevan artist SaintOurs. ­Curiously, ­David himself avoided Spartan subjects during the reign of

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­ obespierre and his c­ ommittee, when “Laconophilia” was at its height. He R turned to Sparta only after the revolution was over, and made his Leonidas into its epitaph. Political concepts change their meaning over time, depending on context and circumstance. That the favorite topoi of classical republicanism have sometimes carried completely divergent, even opposite messages, is not only evident in the history of politics, but in the visual arts as well.

chapter 8

Against Democracy: Dutch Eighteenth-Century Critics of Ancient and Modern Popular Government Wyger Velema During the past half century, the way historians view the revolutions of the late eighteenth-century has profoundly and dramatically changed. Whereas around 1960, for instance in R.R. Palmer’s magisterial volumes on The Age of the Democratic Revolution, it was still possible and indeed plausible to regard the American revolution, the French revolution and all the other revolts and revolutions of the last quarter of the eighteenth century as unambiguously modern and as primarily inspired by the progressive political thought of the Enlightenment, it has since become clear that these political movements also owed a substantial intellectual debt to much older republican traditions, traditions that were ultimately rooted in classical antiquity.1 It was, of course, in the work of those two giants of the Cambridge School, J.G.A. Pocock and Quentin Skinner, that attention was first drawn to the fact that, ever since the Renaissance, there had remained in existence a strong and classically oriented strand of political thought that was fundamentally opposed to monarchical absolutism.2 Whether the main inspiration for these largely oppositional forms of early modern classicising republican thought came from Greece or from Rome, and whether they should be referred to as civic humanism, classical republicanism or the neo-Roman theory of liberty, remains a bone of contention among historians to this very day. What matters for our purposes, however, is that these classically oriented forms of republicanism survived until the very end of the eighteenth century, as a host of historians have by now demonstrated.3 1 R.R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution. A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1959–1964). 2 J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975); Quentin Skinner, Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1978). Also see J.G.A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1985) and Quentin Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism (Cambridge, 1998). 3 Over the past decades, the study of republicanism has become a veritable academic growthindustry. Listing all or even the most relevant publications is therefore impossible. For some of

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_010

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This should perhaps not particularly surprise us, for the Age of the Enlightenment was at the same time one of the great ages of classicism—and not only in an aesthetic sense. As Gordon Wood has observed: “in the eighteenth century to be enlightened was to be interested in antiquity.”4 This fundamental truth has long been familiar to historians, as may be seen from the fact that in 1966 Peter Gay entitled the first part of his study on the Enlightenment “The Appeal to Antiquity.”5 Yet after Gay’s heroic synthesis, it has until fairly recently been somewhat lost from sight. Fortunately, however, the historiographical tide is now turning, and historians are once again acknowledging the continued importance of the classical past for the enlightened eighteenth century in all fields of thought.6 Far from ending in a resounding and unambiguous triumph for the moderns, the Querelle des anciens et des modernes or the Battle of the Books of the decades around 1700 is nowadays seen as ushering in a prolonged process of reflection on the relationship between the ancients and the moderns of unprecedented comprehensiveness. In political thought, this process was given a tremendous boost by the appearance, in 1748, of Montesquieu’s De l’Esprit des Lois, a European and Atlantic bestseller in which the political ­virtue of the ancient republics was extolled, but at the same time was declared to be a ­phenomenon that probably could no longer be realised in a modern commercial world composed of large territorial states. As so many of his enlightened contemporaries, Montesquieu tried to understand the politics of modernity first and foremost through comparison with antiquity. The same  might be said of the generation that followed the midcentury High Enlightenment. In making the revolutions of the late eighteenth century, these men may be said to have always kept one eye on the classical past. Whether they saw an u ­ nbridgeable distance between the ancients and

the key issues in the debate see James Hankins, ed., Renaissance Civic Humanism. Reappraisals and Reflections (Cambridge, 2000); Robert E. Shalhope, “Republicanism,” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the American Revolution, ed. Jack P. Greene and J.R. Pole (­Cambridge, Mass. and Oxford, 1991), 654–660; Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, eds., Republicanism. A Shared European Heritage, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2002); Dario Castiglione, “Republicanism and its Legacy,” European Journal of Political Theory 4 (2005): 453–465; Manuela Albertone, “Democratic Republicanism. Historical Reflections on the Idea of Republic in the 18th century, ” History of European Ideas 33 (2007): 108–130. 4 Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1992), 100. 5 Peter Gay, The Enlightenment. An Interpretation, 2 vols. (New York 1966–1969), 1: 29–203. 6 Dan Edelstein, “The Classical Turn in Enlightenment Studies,” Modern Intellectual History 9 (2012): 61–71; Wyger R.E. Velema, “Oude waarheden. Over de terugkeer van de klassieke oudheid in de verlichtingshistoriografie,” Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 127 (2014): 229–246.

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the moderns or held the ancient world up for imitation and emulation, it was simply always there.7 These general observations also fully apply to the eighteenth-century Dutch Republic and its political culture. Literate eighteenth-century Dutchmen were raised in a humanist and republican environment that was positively saturated with knowledge of the ancients. The Enlightenment, with its organised sociability and its broadening of the reading public, reinforced rather than diminished this classical presence and made knowledge of the classical world increasingly available to those who did not read either Latin or Greek. Given this pervasive presence of the classics, nobody found it particularly strange or unusual when in 1737 the Zeeland regent Lieven de Beaufort published a massive treatise on political liberty in which hardly any modern authors were cited and examples from the classical world abounded.8 De Beaufort, it is true, was somewhat extreme in his obsessive preoccupation with the politics and political thought of the classics, yet for most literate Dutchmen throughout the century the classical world was and remained a primary point of reference. Those who wrote enlightened histories of the Dutch Republic embedded these in discussions of the rise and fall of the ancient republics. The perceived decline of the Seven United Provinces, moreover, was constantly and almost habitually compared to the decline and fall of ancient Rome. Given this widespread ­intellectual orientation, it comes as no surprise that the so-called Patriot movement for political reform which emerged around 1780, and which would ultimately topple the Dutch ancien régime, also evinced a strongly classical bent.9 Emerging from a background of deep pessimism about the moral state of the Dutch Republic, the Patriot movement first and foremost wanted to restore republican political virtue to the country. The Patriots were convinced that the ever increasing power of the monarchical element in the mixed constitution, that is to say the Stadholderate, had brought the Dutch Republic to the brink of political slavery. Their program, at least in its earliest phase, therefore p ­ rimarily 7 See, e.g., Philip Ayres, Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1997); Chantal Grell, Le Dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquité en France 1680–1789, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1995); Claude Mossé, L’Antiquité dans la Révolution française (Paris, 1989); Carl J. Richard, The Founders and the Classics. Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1994). 8 [L.F. de Beaufort], Verhandeling van de vryheit in den burgerstaet (Leiden and Middelburg, 1737). 9 N.C.F. van Sas, “Voor vaderland en oudheid. Het klassieke paradigma in de laat achttiendeeeuwse Republiek,” in Edele eenvoud. Neo-classicisme in Nederland 1765–1800, ed. Frans ­Grijzenhout and Carel van Tuyll van Serooskerken (Zwolle, 1989), 13–31; Wyger R.E. Velema, Omstreden Oudheid. De Nederlandse achttiende eeuw en de klassieke politiek (Amsterdam, 2010).

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consisted in a call for the strengthening of the democratic part of the constitution and for increased citizen participation in politics. Such, at least, was the view of the most prominent Patriot spokesman, Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol.10 Around the time of Van der Capellen’s early death in 1784, however, the Patriot movement suddenly and rapidly radicalised. Theorists such as Pieter Vreede now came to the conclusion that a return to a properly mixed and balanced republican government was neither possible nor desirable and started to argue that the only truly free state was one in which the people was permanently sovereign. The Patriots, in other words, moved from republican mixed government to republican democracy, indeed redefined a republic as a democracy. They emphatically pointed out that the democracy they wanted was based on the principle of representation and therefore fundamentally different from the direct democracies the ancient world had known. Yet despite the fact that they thus distanced themselves from the turbulent politics of  the classical world, their program retained a substantial number of features that derived from classical republicanism. Thus they remained convinced that each citizen should be a bearer of arms, that political virtue was the necessary basis of any viable republic, that such a republic was by necessity small, and that representation was no more than a necessary evil, a poor substitute for direct citizen participation in politics, and should never be allowed to lead to a separation between the representatives and those they represented. These ­classically inspired convictions remained a powerful presence in Dutch political debate at least until the moment the first modern constitution was adopted in 1798.11 Although more research in this field would be both welcome and useful, it has nonetheless by now been firmly established that the Dutch Patriots and their successors, the Batavian revolutionaries, whatever uses they may also have made of modern theories of natural and inalienable rights, in developing their theories about popular government remained deeply indebted both to the classics themselves and to the early modern classical republican tradition. What we know next to nothing about, however, is whether those who 10

11

For recent interpretations of the political thought of Van der Capellen see Arthur Weststeijn, ed., A Marble Revolutionary. The Dutch Patriot Joan Derk van der Capellen and his Monument (Rome, 2011). The political thought of the Patriots is discussed in S.R.E. Klein, Patriots Republikanisme. Politieke cultuur in Nederland (1766–1787) (Amsterdam, 1995). For the Batavian revolution see Frans Grijzenhout, Niek van Sas and Wyger Velema, eds., Het Bataafse experiment. Politiek en cultuur rond 1800 (Nijmegen, 2013). The best overview of the period in English remains Simon Schama, Patriots and Liberators. Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813 (New York, 1977).

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opposed the Patriot and Batavian revolutionaries also made use of the classical past and if so, in which ways. That, therefore, is the topic I shall address in this chapter. Given the prominent presence of classical themes in the thought of the Dutch reformers and revolutionaries, one potential way to counter them, of course, was altogether to deny the relevance of the classical world to the modern age and to stigmatise those who insisted on deriving their inspiration from the classical republics as dangerous and regressive. Although this tactic was followed by some late eighteenth-century Dutch conservatives, it was by no means the only way in which the revolutionaries could be and were countered. It is easy to understand why this should have been the case. The pervasiveness of the classics in Dutch late eighteenth-century political culture and the great authority references to the classics carried in public discourse meant that it was insufficient simply to declare classical politics irrelevant. In order to counter the political radicals in a convincing way, the opponents of the introduction of democracy needed to show that their interpretation of the meaning of the classical heritage was wrong. The battle between revolutionaries and conservatives therefore did not primarily revolve around the relevance of the classics for the modern world, but around the question of the proper uses to be made of the classical past. That conservative political thinkers could be as much enamored of the classical past as reformers and revolutionaries is clear from the case of Laurens ­Pieter van de Spiegel (1737–1800). Van de Spiegel’s credentials as an ­anti-revolutionary are impeccable: not only was he the last Grand Pensionary of Holland, but in 1795, immediately after the outbreak of the revolution, he was incarcerated as one of the main pillars of the by now widely detested ancien régime. He used this most unwelcome and undignified otium to put his thoughts about the eighteenth century to paper. In November of 1795, still in prison without trial, he completed his Thoughts about the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century, above that of Previous Centuries. Contrary to what his unfortunate circumstances might lead one to expect, Van de Spiegel had many positive things to say about the century in which he lived. True enlightenment, he observed, meant that people became both wiser and better. Looking at history from this point of view, it could not be denied that the eighteenth century had been quite enlightened “in comparison with the centuries of rudeness in which Europe, after the demolition of the western Empire, had sunk because of the invasions of the Barbaric Peoples.” But it was also true, he significantly added, that “in comparison to the Ancients, we are in most fields still merely children and have only begun to spell what they could already read.” This, according to Van de Spiegel, was particularly evident in the field of politics and political thought, the most important branch of philosophy. There

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the ­eighteenth century had shown itself to be unhealthily obsessed with “the art of self-aggrandisement and self-enrichment” and had reduced noble liberty to little more than the notion that everyone should live as he wants and should try to stay out of prison. How different all this had been in classical antiquity, when it had been realised that the most essential part of politics was to be found in the good morals and manners of the people. Laws and institutions had therefore been organised in such a way as to systematically encourage virtue. Positions of honor could only be obtained by those of excellent behavior, meritorious citizens were crowned with laurel wreaths, and heroes got a decent statue. In politics, in short, the ancients were far superior to the eighteenth-century moderns and could still serve as a shining example for the century of Enlightenment.12 Particularly noticeable in Van de Spiegel’s rather abstract praise for the political virtue of the ancients was the complete absence of the core contention of those of his contemporaries who argued for the introduction of popular government: namely that the permanent participation of the sovereign citizens in the political process was the necessary condition for both the existence of liberty and the revival of political virtue. This, of course, was a deliberate omission, which clearly suggested that whatever might be admired in ancient politics, it certainly was not the permanent sovereignty of the people. Whereas Van  de Spiegel made this point in an indirect way, many of his fellow conservatives were rather more explicit. Through examples derived from ancient history, and particularly through discussions of Athenian democracy, they attempted to demonstrate that the introduction of popular government had always been an unmitigated disaster and had brought liberty in any meaningful sense of the word to an end. In what follows, I shall discuss three prominent representatives of this anti-democratic use of ancient, and especially Athenian, history.13 12

13

Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, “Gedagten over de verlichting der achttiende eeuw, boven de voorgaande,” in Mr. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel en zijne tijdgenooten (1737–1800), ed. G.W. Vreede, 4 vols. (Middelburg, 1874–1877), 4: 483–527. The quotations are on 502 and 516. On Van de Spiegel see J.C. Boogman, Raadpensionaris L.P. van de Spiegel: een reformistisch-conservatieve pragmaticus en idealist (Amsterdam, etc., 1980). Jennifer Tolbert Roberts has written an excellent overview of the historical debate on the merits of Athenian democracy, although she entirely neglects the Dutch contribution: Athens on Trial. The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton, 1994). See also Mogens Herman Hanson, “The Tradition of the Athenian Democracy a.d. 1750–1990,” Greece & Rome, Second Series 39 (1992): 14–30 and Wilfried Nippel, Antike oder moderne Freiheit? Die Begründung der Demokratie in Athen und in der Neuzeit (Frankfurt am Main, 2008).

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A Classical Republican Out of His Depth: Johan Luzac

The first protagonist is Johan Luzac (1746–1807), a descendant from a distinguished Huguenot family that arrived in the Dutch Republic in the late seventeenth century, who was famous throughout the Atlantic world through his editorship of the Gazette de Leyde, generally considered to be one of the most important newspapers of the later eighteenth century.14 It is not in his role as newspaper editor that he interests us here, however, but in his capacity as political theorist inspired by the classics. In 1785, Johan Luzac was appointed professor of Greek language and Dutch history at the University of Leiden. From the very start of his professorship, he made it abundantly clear that he regarded the study of ancient history and culture as one of the most important ways to come to grips with the present, and particularly with present politics. In his inaugural lecture, held at the time the Patriot revolt was reaching a climax and devoted to the relationship between learning and civic virtue in free states, Luzac told his audience that there were few things it could better devote its energies to than the study of Greek and Roman poets, orators, philosophers and above all historians.15 From poets such as Homer one could learn about the grave dangers posed to the state by “faction and self-interest.” It was ­impossible to read Demosthenes and the other sublime classical orators “­without feeling one’s bosom glow with a blazing love of liberty, or a noble detestation for tyrants and evil citizens.” The classical philosophers could be usefully perused for timeless advice on such topics as justice and virtue. The works of the ancient historians, finally, were of such vital importance that those ignorant of their content would never succeed in becoming good citizens.16 The best of these classical authors, Luzac stressed, had put their thoughts to paper in free states. From them, it was possible to learn, in the first place, what had caused the rise and decline of the ancient free republics, but also—and this was of at least equal importance—how to keep modern liberty alive. What exactly were the political lessons to be derived from these authors? They had made it abundantly clear, to start with, that monarchy was to be ­regarded as a form of government in which liberty could not possibly flourish. 14

Jeremy D. Popkin, News and Politics in the Age of Revolution. Jean Luzac’s Gazette de Leyde (Ithaca and London, 1989). 15 Joannis Luzac, Oratio de eruditione, altrice virtutis civilis praesertim in civitate libera (Leiden, 1785); in 1786 a Dutch translation by Jan de Kruyff was published, also in Leiden: Johan Luzac, Redevoering ten betooge dat de geleerdheid de voedster is der burger-deugd, vooral in een vry gemeenebest. 16 Luzac, Redevoering, 26–39.

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Should anyone doubt this, he could do no better than to study the dreadful tale of the gradual erosion of the Roman republic and the subsequent rise of the ruthless rule of the emperors.17 The ancient writers had moreover also demonstrated that “the unbridled lust for power of the great” was equally pernicious. This was a lesson perhaps best illustrated by the gruesome and abominable record of the thirty tyrants in Athens.18 Yet, dreadful as they may have thought both the unlimited rule of the one and that of the few, the classical writers had reserved their greatest scorn for popular government, “that wild rule of the multitude, under which true virtue has never lacked in powerful enemies and varnished vice has never lacked in unearned rewards.” Here again, of course, it was Athens that proved the point. Even the briefest glance at the history of Athenian popular government made it immediately clear that this had been a system in which men of true merit had fallen prey to popular jealousy and in which political dominance had been sought and gained by “seditious, delirious, scheming, slanderous, rebellious” demagogues. Indeed, it was impossible to say anything positive about democratic Athens, for it had time and again sacrificed its most eminent men to the jealousy of the people, had put its fate in the hands of sly and corrupt counselors, and had thus entrusted the general good to raving lunatics.19 Fortunately, however, the best classical authors had not limited themselves to exposing the dangers of these various pure forms of government, but had also thoughtfully provided an answer to the question of how their evils might be avoided. This answer was the mixed form of government. Luzac acknowledged that there were many possible variations of this form and that for instance, as Montesquieu had pointed out, a mixed government in a territorially extended state needed a monarchical element. The basic mechanism of mixed government, however, consisted in balancing the power of people and the power of the aristocracy in such a way “that, on the one side, the people will not actually take part in governing or in dispensing justice, and that, on the other side, the appointment of governors will not be made independent of the voice of the people.” It was through such an “aristo-democratic” balance that the drawbacks of the various pure forms of government were best avoided.20 In all of this, of course, Luzac showed himself to be an impeccable early modern classical republican. His emphasis on civic virtue and on the great advantages of mixed government, in which the democratic element and the 17 18 19 20

Ibidem, 42–45. Ibidem, 45–48. Ibidem, 48–53. Ibidem, 53–55.

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independent citizen played an important role, firmly placed him, at least until the mid-1780s, in the Patriot camp and among those who welcomed the American revolution. Indeed, there are striking similarities between Luzac’s political thought and that of the prominent Patriot leader Van der Capellen tot den Pol.21 Yet already in the year 1785, when he held his inaugural lecture, Luzac was vaguely aware that Patriot thought was starting to move beyond the classical republican tradition. When he started to discuss the disadvantages of ancient (and by implication modern) popular government in his inaugural lecture, he remarked that his views would no doubt displease those in the auditorium who were “convinced champions of democracy.”22 At the time, there were still relatively few of these, but their number rapidly grew after the outbreak of the French revolution in 1789. Luzac, however, didn’t give an inch and refused to alter his views on the merits of pure democracy, whether direct or representative. On February 21, 1795, just weeks after the French troops had moved into the Dutch Republic and the Batavian Republic had been proclaimed, he once again warned his compatriots of the dangers of democracy in an academic lecture. This time, he did so through a discussion of the sad fate of Socrates. During the eighteenth century it was, of course, far from unusual to appeal to the figure of Socrates. He appeared in a wide variety of contexts and had, for instance, figured prominently in the lengthy Enlightenment debates on the existence of virtuous pagans, on proto-Christianity, and on religious tolerance.23 Throughout the century, Socrates—and his death in particular— had also played a prominent part in anti-democratic polemics, witness for instance the revealing title of the 1716 play Socrates Triumphant; or, the Dangers of being Wise in a Common-Wealth of Fools.24 Luzac’s choice of subject matter was thus far from original and seamlessly fitted into a long tradition. Yet the moment he chose to present his views on the Athenian philosopher was particularly fraught. In his lecture De Socrate cive, Luzac depicted Socrates, as many authors before him had done, as a dutiful and virtuous man, who lived in great sobriety and had decided not to accept political office because of the depraved manners and morals dominant in Athenian democracy. Yet he had 21 22 23

24

See above, footnote 10. Ibidem, 48–49. Ian Macgregor Morris, “The Refutation of Democracy? Socrates in the Enlightenment,” in Socrates from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, ed. Michael Trapp (Aldershot and Burlington, vt, 2007), 209–227. On the Dutch uses of Socrates in these contexts see Ernestine van der Wall, Socrates in de hemel? Een achttiende-eeuwse polemiek over deugd, verdraagzaamheid en de vaderlandse kerk (Hilversum, 2000). The play has been attributed to John Beval and to John Thornycroft. See Macgregor Morris, “The Refutation of Democracy?,” 214–216.

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not withdrawn into a life of contemplation, but had constantly urged his fellow citizens to better their ways—and this had ultimately been his undoing.25 These were fairly conventional views, but to express them in 1795, at the very moment Dutch revolutionaries were trying to establish a democratic republic,  was  of course a conscious act of political provocation. Luzac’s superiors were quick to act and soon after his performance he lost his job.26 He still, however, saw no reason whatsoever to change his mind. This became abundantly clear in 1796, when a greatly expanded Dutch edition of De Socrate cive appeared.27 In the extremely long notes and appendices attached to the Dutch edition of his lecture, Luzac argued his case against Athenian-style democracy in great detail. He first of all presented his readers with a “Brief sketch of the Athenian government.” Such a sketch was necessary, he insisted, since an overview of the development of Athenian political arrangements did not exist in the Dutch language and was particularly needed in the current political situation, in which everybody incessantly discussed democratic politics without any knowledge of the relevant classical history.28 Luzac started his sketch with high praise for the reforms of Solon: “He founded a democracy, and prevented its dangerous aspects from developing by balancing it with a fair and salutary aristocracy: and experience has taught that the more the Athenians distanced themselves from this prudently balanced arrangement, the more their commonwealth approached its decline and fall.”29 He proceeded to discuss Solon’s institutions in considerable detail, constantly stressing the fact that the wide powers granted to the people had been effectively checked by an admixture of aristocracy.30 Two developments in particular had put an end to this felicitous form of government. The first of these was the fatal decision to start paying people for performing their duties as citizens. This measure, pushed through by unscrupulous demagogues, had resulted in the appearance of “­sentencing day laborers” and in the rise of a deeply misguided sense of equality. Even 25 26

Joannis Luzac, Oratio de Socrate cive, etc. (Leiden, 1796). The conflict between Johan Luzac and Leiden University is analysed at length in I. Schöffer, “Een Leids hoogleraar in politieke moeilijkheden. Het ontslag van Johan Luzac in 1796,” in Geen schepsel wordt vergeten. Liber amicorum voor Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt ter gelegenheid van zijn vijfenzestigste verjaardag, ed. J.F. Heijbroek, A. Lammers and A.P.G. Jos van der Linde (Amsterdam and Zutphen, 1985), 61–80. 27 Johan Luzac, Socrates als burger beschouwd, etc. (Leiden, 1796). An even further expanded second edition of the Dutch translation was published in 1797. 28 Luzac, Socrates als burger beschouwd, 93–94. 29 Ibidem, 99–100. 30 Ibidem, 100–124.

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worse, however, had been the fact that the position of archon had been opened up for everybody. This removal of the “supporting pillar of aristocracy” had led to the complete triumph of the savage will of the people, “or rather of those who, being complete masters of the masses, in the people’s name made the state obey their own wishes.”31 Having analysed the degeneration of Athenian government from Solon’s aristo-democracy to the unbridled rule of the demagogues and the masses, Luzac turned to a discussion of the concept of aristocracy. His “Treatise about the word aristocracy, and about the true meaning and essential nature of that form of government” flatly and directly contradicted the emerging democratic consensus that aristocracy was inherently evil and was to be avoided at all cost.32 To Luzac, for whom aristocracy remained something wholly positive and necessary to the survival of liberty, the revolutionary rejection of all forms of aristocracy was both incomprehensible and dangerous. He acknowledged that an oligarchic form of government, in which a small group of people held all power on arbitrary grounds such as heredity or accumulated wealth, was both despicable and undesirable. But aristocracy was something completely different. It was nothing but “the power of the best,” the predominant position which in a free state “the most eminent, the most honest, the most virtuous, in short the best inhabitants” should have in government. What could possibly be wrong with that? Aristocracy also was, Luzac once more pointed out, the best and only way to keep democracy alive. It worked like a healthy splash of spring water added to an excessively strong and powerful wine, making it a wholesome, fortifying and refreshing drink.33 Had not, he once again desperately asked his democratic contemporaries, the history of Athenian pure democracy unambiguously demonstrated that most people simply did not possess the requisite virtues to make such a form of government work?34 It was a serious question, but not one most his contemporaries were any longer willing to pose or cared to answer. The classical republican Johan Luzac had been overtaken by both a political and a conceptual revolution. The latter had redefined a republic as a democracy and had made Luzac’s brand of republican mixed government obsolete. He consistently failed to acknowledge this and therefore, like his close

31 32

Ibidem, 125–132. On the changing meaning of the concept of aristocracy in the Dutch late eighteenth century see Klein, Patriots Republikanisme, 228–243 and Mart Rutjes, Door gelijkheid gegrepen. Democratie, burgerschap en staat in Nederland 1795–1801 (Nijmegen, 2012). 33 Luzac, Socrates als burger beschouwd, 143–167. 34 Ibidem, 182–183.

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American friend John Adams, ended his career in theoretical irrelevance—­ albeit of a very revealing kind.35

An Enlightened Conservative Confronts the Classics: Elie Luzac

Johan Luzac’s veneration for classical antiquity was far from shared by his equally learned but intellectually more adventurous cousin, Elie Luzac (­1721–1796).36 Elie, who was a distinguished publisher, a prolific publicist and a creative conservative political thinker, was fully prepared to admit that the ancients, and particularly the Greeks, had given the world works of enormous value that could still be read with considerable profit. Yet he consistently opposed the uncritical cult of antiquity to be found among his contemporaries. It was absurd, he argued, to keep regarding the writings of the ancients as canonical and thus to appeal to authority instead of to rational argument. Such use of the ancients did not lead to advances in knowledge, but only to dry, pedantic and superfluous erudition.37 The obsession with classical antiquity was moreover quite harmful in that it distracted eighteenth-century Dutchmen from more important topics. In this indirect way it could, Luzac insisted, be held responsible for the eighteenth-century decline of Dutch commerce and navigation.38 The most deleterious effects of the cult of the classics, however, were to be found in the fields of politics and especially of political thought. In politics, Luzac held the classical heritage to be largely irrelevant, since the world of the classical republics was fundamentally different from the world of modern states. The classical republics had, moreover, been so different from each other that generalisations made little sense. “People keep referring to the classical republics as examples,” he remarked in his commentary on ­Montesquieu’s

35

36

37 38

J.G.A. Pocock, “ ‘The Book Most Misunderstood Since the Bible’: John Adams and the Confusion about Aristocracy,” in Fra Toscana e Stati Uniti. Il discorso politico nell’età della costituzione Americana, ed. Anna Maria Martellone en Elisabetta Vezzosi (Florence, 1989), 181–201; Gordon S. Wood, Revolutionary Characters. What Made the Founders Different (New York, 2006), 173–202. Wyger R.E. Velema, Enlightenment and Conservatism in the Dutch Republic. The Political Thought of Elie Luzac (1721–1796) (Assen and Maastricht, 1993); Rietje van Vliet, Elie Luzac (1721–1796). Boekverkoper van de Verlichting (Nijmegen, 2005). Elie Luzac, Du droit naturel, civil, et politique en forme d’entretiens. Programme (Leiden, 1796), 14–15. Elie Luzac, Hollands Rykdom, behelzende den Oorsprong van de Koophandel, en van de Magt van dezen Staat, etc., 4 vols. (Leiden, 1780–1783), 4:277–278.

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De l’Esprit des Lois, “without realising that they have nothing whatsoever in common, except their name.”39 Even worse, however, was the fact that certain classical delusions in the field of political thought had found a wide modern acceptance. The first of these was the classical conviction that liberty was incompatible with monarchical rule. “This notion, or rather misconception,” Luzac observed, “was imprinted on the popular mind by the Romans, after they had chased away Tarquin, and has since found a considerable following.”40 Yet it was patently untrue, since liberty was best protected in a mixed form of government in which the monarchical element was a crucial presence. So strongly was Luzac convinced of this, that he paradoxically claimed that the recognition of the necessity of a monarchical element in government was the most salient characteristic of true republicanism.41 Perhaps even more harmful than the antagonism towards monarchical rule to be found in the classics was their incomprehensible and arbitrary definition of liberty as the participation of the citizen in politics. Not that Luzac was greatly surprised by such nonsense. “I have read,” he quipped, “that there are people who consider themselves to be free when they are allowed to wear a straight collar, a long scarf, or a hat in the shape of a sugarloaf.”42 On a more serious note, he explained that liberty simply meant independentia ab alterius voluntate, which in practice translated into protection against external conquest and, in domestic politics, the rule of law. In both of these essential meanings of the word liberty, Luzac insisted, had nothing to do with self-government or political participation.43 Despite his severe criticism of the uses the classical heritage was put to, Luzac in the end came to the conclusion that he needed to confront his worst political enemies, those Patriot and Batavian reformers and revolutionaries who wanted to introduce a democratic republican system, on their own ground: that of the interpretation of the history of the classical republics. He characteristically started his ideological counter-offensive with a deadly insult: convinced as they were of their own excellence and originality, contemporary Dutch democratic republicans were in fact, he pointed out, only feebly ­echoing 39 Montesquieu, De L’Esprit des Loix. Nouvelle Edition. Avec des Remarques Philosophiques et Politiques d’un Anonyme [Elie Luzac], etc., 4 vols. (Amsterdam and Leipzig, 1763), 4:187. 40 [Elie Luzac], De Vaderlandsche Staatsbeschouwers, etc., 4 vols. (S.l., s.d. [1784–1788]), 1:125. 41 [Elie Luzac], Lettres sur les dangers de changer la constitution primitive d’un gouvernement public (London, 1792), 360–362. Luzac’s preferences remind one of John Adams’ pleas for a “monarchical republic.” See Wood, Revolutionary Characters, 189 and 191. 42 Luzac, Hollands Rykdom, 3:212. 43 Ibidem, 202; [Luzac], Lettres sur les dangers, 197–198.

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the republican writings of the Dutch late seventeenth century, especially those of the brothers Johan and Pieter de la Court. It was to these writings that he therefore turned. He vigorously contradicted the general claim made by the brothers De la Court that a popular government was the most natural, reasonable, and just form of government that could be imagined.44 He then more specifically turned against their use of the example of the classical republics. Since the De la Courts had, in the words of Arthur Weststeijn, “presented Athens as a paradigmatic popular government, a truly commercial city-state that could serve as a model,” Luzac focused on the Attic city-state.45 He first discussed the history of Athens in some detail during the late 1780s, in a series of pamphlets on “the advantages and disadvantages of popular influence on government.” In doing so he made no claims to original historical scholarship, and based his interpretation on a rather curious and far from up to date mixture of secondary literature, ranging from the early seventeenth-century writings of Ubbo Emmius to the histories of Claude Millot. Luzac’s primary aim in discussing the history of Athens was to demonstrate that it confirmed the general historical truth that “the jura majestatica, the rights of sovereignty, have never and nowhere in their entirety or completely been in the hands of the people.”46 Luzac was, of course, aware of the fact that much of the early history of Athenian political institutions remained shrouded in mystery. For his purposes, however, the only thing that mattered was that Athens had started out as a monarchy and that it had, under that initial form of government, become quite prosperous. From this original blissful state, things had slowly started to deteriorate in a way that for Luzac unambiguously demonstrated that it was always safer and better for a state to hold on to its original political arrangements and never to change them in any fundamental way.47 Ignorant of this essential political truth, the Athenians had started to tamper with the form of their polity. This process had been initiated by Theseus, who introduced a rudimentary form of mixed government, and thereby awakened a desire for change in the Athenians that would never thereafter cease, and would lead to “incessant riots, rebellions, and revolutions.”48 The reforms of Solon, greatly admired by Johan Luzac, for his cousin Elie constituted a significant further step in the 44 Velema, Enlightenment and Conservatism, 173–174. 45 Arthur Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age. The Political Thought of Johan & Pieter de la Court (Leiden and Boston, 2012), 215. 46 [Elie Luzac], De voor- en nadeelen van den invloed des volks op de regeering, 3 vols. (Leiden, 1788–1789), 1: 58. 47 Ibidem, 94. 48 Ibidem, 74–75.

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political decline of Athens. With his complicated measures, Solon had fatally weakened the political structure of Athens in two ways. He had first of all undermined the necessary unity of government by removing all remaining traces of monarchical rule. Even worse, however, was the fact that he had made the people the ultimate and supreme political judge, thereby effectively delivering his fatherland into the hands of fools.49 After Solon, it was only a matter of time before the “government of the many” would completely triumph. Yet this so-called popular government, Luzac kept repeating, was never really what it claimed to be, since “the part played by the people in politics was limited to the popular vote, which was used by a small group of ambitious men as an instrument to dominate the state; […] and, under the pretense of furthering the interest of the people, to arbitrarily rule according to their own whims.”50 Luzac further developed many of the themes he had first discussed in his pamphlets of the late 1780s in a lengthy treatise entitled Lettres sur les dangers de changer la constitution primitive d’un gouvernement public, published in 1792. Once again, he gave pride of place to the history of ancient Athens. As he had done before, he stressed that he was not writing a work of history, but that he was using history—“that faithful mirror, which shows us through the past what the present promises us for the future”—to illustrate certain basic political truths.51 The most important of these, as the title of his treatise already suggested, concerned the imprudence of changing the original institutions of a state.52 It was their refusal to follow this simple and commonsensical political rule that had ultimately brought ruin to the ancient Athenians. By introducing the first changes in the monarchical constitution of the Athenians, Theseus had laid the basis for “that unquiet and turbulent spirit which would characterise the Athenians in later times and would bring them the constant upheavals that ultimately caused their decline and fall.”53 Yet the history of ancient Athens was capable of yielding many further valuable lessons and insights. One of these was that the Athenians had lived a happy and economically prosperous life during their many centuries of monarchical government. It had been in those early days, and not as was so often claimed under the later so-called popular government, that Athens had built up its commerce and prosperity. The era of popular government, by contrast, had been characterised by aggressive imperialism and ceaseless warfare. Luzac was both astonished and a­ ngered 49 Ibidem, 81. 50 Ibidem, 101–102. 51 [Luzac], Lettres sur les dangers, 55–56 and 7. 52 Ibidem, v. 53 Ibidem, 25.

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by the fact that most modern historians of ancient Athens were unable or unwilling to comprehend the importance of this simple observation. They kept discussing the fifth century bc as the golden age of Athens, instead of treating it, as it ought to be, as a period singularly lacking in public happiness. From being a peaceful “trading people,” particularly adept at agriculture and navigation, and a model of temperance, happiness and justice, the Athenians had—­ particularly after the disastrous reforms of Solon—so degenerated that the only virtue left to them by the time of the fifth century was a destructive “military virtue.” It was, Luzac insisted, simply ridiculous to hold up such a bellicose people for modern praise and imitation.54 There was little hope for such insights to gain any ground, however, so long as people continued to believe that the Athenians of the fifth century had been particularly free, because they ruled themselves through a so-called popular form of government. This, in the end, was the fundamental point to which Luzac always felt compelled to return. Taking up a theme he had already discussed in many previous works, he once again explained that it was both deeply misleading and highly dangerous to equate liberty with the selfrule of the people, as so many modern authors did. Under their monarchical rulers, the Athenians had lived contentedly for many centuries, enjoying both protection against foreign intervention and “a reasonable civil liberty, that is to say the capacity to exercise their rights according to the established laws and regulations.” Nobody thought of liberty in terms of popular sovereignty. “It was not until demagogues artfully started to suggest to the people the false idea that civil liberty consists of a political arrangement in which there can be no other sovereign in the state than the people (the idea of representatives of the people seems to be of more recent origin), that the word liberty started to take on this meaning.”55 This was a fateful development. Combined with the abandonment of the original constitution, it caused Athens’s gradual slide into chaos and confusion. Increasingly imbued with false notions of liberty and independence, the Athenian citizens demanded an ever greater say in politics. The results were as sad as they were predictable: since the people could not collectively act in politics or permanently exercise sovereignty, the notion of the popular voice or popular sovereignty in practice meant the arbitrary reign of unscrupulous manipulators. Luzac remained adamant that democracy simply could not exist, because “the people as a whole is unable to act and is therefore obliged to entrust its affairs to one or a few citizens.”56 Since a people 54 55 56

Ibidem, 108–115, 153–154, 159, 178–179, 204–208. Ibidem, 188–189. Ibidem, 149.

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believing itself to be sovereign was nothing but a “blind animal,” unable to act with honor, probity, or good faith, and inclined to sacrifice everything to the “impetuous course of its favorite passions,” the choice of such leaders would be determined by empty rhetoric.57 In a so-called popular government, in short, the people could never be more than “the plaything of the flattery of orators” and liberty could mean no more than “the passive capacity to be able to receive the impulses oratory gives birth to.”58 This, according to Elie Luzac, was the final and most dismal lesson the history of classical Athens had to offer. The Dutch reformers and revolutionaries could hardly have been given a clearer warning to abandon their classically inspired plans for a democratic republic.

Civil versus Political Liberty: Johan Meerman

Such warnings were also emphatically and repeatedly issued by Johan Meerman (1753–1815)—a patrician book collector, tireless traveler, meritorious historian and distinguished civil servant.59 As was the case with Johan Luzac, Meerman’s political views brought him into direct conflict with the Batavian revolutionaries in 1795. Immediately after the fall of the Dutch ancien régime, he was dismissed from all his jobs and had to endure “offensive treatment and outrageous insults” from his political enemies.60 This was less than surprising, since Meerman was perhaps the most ferocious opponent of democracy of all three writers discussed in this chapter. He was certainly the one who went furthest in dismissing as shortsighted and ridiculous the Dutch consensus that republican government was superior to monarchical government. In 1787, in an essay submitted to the academy of Châlons-sur-Marne on the best ways to 57 58

59

60

Ibidem, 167. Ibidem, 220–222. The pernicious role played by the rhetoric of demagogues was also the central theme in most eighteenth-century British condemnations of Athenian democracy. See Karen E. Whedbee, “The Tyranny of Athens: Representations of Rhetorical ­Democracy in Eighteenth-Century Britain,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Second Series 33 (2003): 65–85. There is, unfortunately, no monograph on Meerman. See, however, P.W. Klein, “­Johan Meerman (1753–1815). Conservatief aan de kantlijn,” in Mensen van de Nieuwe Tijd. Een liber amicorum voor A.Th. van Deursen, ed. M. Bruggeman et al. (Amsterdam, 1996), ­399–413 and Jos van Heel, ed., Een wereld van verzamelaars en geleerden. Gerard en Johan Meerman, Willem van Westreenen en Pieter van Damme en hun archieven (Hilversum, 2012). J.W. te Water, “Levensberichten van Frederik Willem Boers en Johan Meerrman,” in Handelingen der jaarlijksche vergadering van de Maatschappij der Nederlandsche Letterkunde te Leiden, gehouden den 3 van Hooimaand 1816 (s.l., s.d.), 19.

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promote patriotism in a monarchy, he emphatically remarked that, although “born as a republican,” he could see no reason whatsoever why it was impossible “to live happily under the scepter of a single ruler.”61 Deeply disturbed by the apparently insurmountable political divisions in his own country, and terrified by the rapid political radicalisation taking place in France, he went on to write some of the most principled rejections of popular government to appear in late eighteenth-century Dutch Republic. Completely reversing the standard classical republican argument that liberty could only be guaranteed and political slavery could only be prevented by the participation of the citizen in politics, Meerman provocatively claimed that, on the contrary, it was precisely popular participation in politics, and particularly full-blown popular government, that lay at the root of political slavery. He developed this thesis at length in a 1793 pamphlet entirely devoted to the sharp contrast between civil and political or popular liberty.62 Civil liberty, Meerman argued, arose when people, in order to protect themselves, decided to transfer part of their natural liberty to a superior authority, on the condition that this authority would shield them from both foreign and domestic harm: “The certainty that this authority […] can, will, and must protect my person and goods; and that the one to whom I—in order to protect myself— have partly subjected myself, will not maltreat me, is called civil liberty.”63 The greater this certainty, and the smaller the area in which the individual was constrained in his behavior by the law, the greater civil liberty would be. Meerman proceeded to demonstrate in great detail that the inhabitants of the Dutch Republic enjoyed civil liberty to an almost unprecedented degree.64 Unfortunately, however, increasing numbers of Dutchmen were now suddenly dismissing this glorious and extensive liberty as altogether inadequate, and were beginning to claim that without political liberty there could be no true republic. This, Meerman insisted, was a most dangerous “chimera,” since the introduction of political liberty, defined as “the right of all or a great number of the inhabitants of a country to participate in government either directly or 61

62

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J. de Meerman, seigneur de Dalem, Discours presenté a L’Academie de Châlons-sur-Marne en 1787. Sur la question qu’elle avoit proposée: Quels sont les meilleurs moyens d’exiter et d’encourager le patriotisme dans une monarchie, sans gêner ou affoiblir en rien l’étendue de pouvoir et d’execution qui est propre à ce genre de gouvernement, etc. (Leiden, 1789), 1–2. Johan Meerman, De burgerlyke vryheid in haare heilzaame, de volks-vryheid in haare schadelyke gevolgen voorgesteld, inzonderheid met betrekking tot dit gemeenebest (Leiden, 1793). Ibidem, 5. Ibidem, 8–26.

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through elected representatives,” necessarily meant the end of civil liberty.65 There was a great variety of reasons that led to this conclusion, but he particularly emphasised two. In the first place, it was quite obvious that most people were unfit to rule themselves or to elect representatives. Sovereignty could simply not be responsibly exercised by those who lacked the requisite knowledge and skills, the proper upbringing, and sufficient time. In consequence of this, unscrupulous rabble-rousers would immediately seize their chance and popular liberty would soon show its true face as “slavery to the most crafty, eloquent and seditious demagogue who would succeed in bringing the people under his influence.”66 Secondly, the introduction of popular liberty meant that the distinction between rulers and ruled would altogether disappear, that there could therefore no longer be any political stability or continuity, and that the protection of life and property thus became highly uncertain. All of this left room for only one conclusion: “Political liberty is, I can hardly find words strong enough to express my conviction, the destructor, the exterminator, the murderer of civil liberty.”67 It was during the first years of the nineteenth century, and after witnessing years of experiments with democratic republicanism in the Netherlands, that Meerman returned to these themes. Whereas in the early 1790s he had discussed the perils of democracy primarily in relation to the Dutch Republic, he now did so in the context of classical, and particularly of Athenian, history. In 1800, Meerman acquired a manuscript by the young Hugo Grotius at a Utrecht auction.68 It was the only surviving part of a larger work comparing the Dutch Republic to ancient Greece and Rome. Meerman decided to publish the manuscript, adding both a Dutch translation and a copious commentary.69 In his notes and additions, substantially longer than Grotius’s text itself, he showed 65 66 67 68 69

Ibidem, 26–27. Ibidem, 27–29. Ibidem, 42. Van Heel, ed., Een wereld van verzamelaars, 92. Johan Meerman, ed., Hugonis Grotii, Batavi, parallelon rerumpublicarum liber tertius: de moribus ingenioque populorum Atheniensium, Romanorum, Batavorum. Vergelijking der gemeenebesten door Hugo de Groot. Derde boek: over de zeden en den inborst der Athenienseren, Romeinen en Hollanderen, 4 vols. (Haarlem, 1801–1803). See Arthur Eyffinger, “Hugo Grotius’ Parallelon rerumpublicarum,” in De Hollandse leerjaren van Hugo de Groot (1583–1621). Lezingen van het colloquium ter gelegenheid van de 350-ste sterfdag van Hugo de Groot (’s-Gravenhage, 31 augustus–1 september 1995), ed. H.J.M. Nellen and J. Trapman (Hilversum, 1996), 87–95 and Arthur Eyffinger, “Een te lang veronachtzaamd juweeltje: het Parallelon rerumpublicarum van Hugo de Groot,” in Limae labor et mora. Opstellen voor Fokke Akkerman ter gelegenheid van zijn zeventigste verjaardag, ed. Zweder von

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himself to be much more thoroughly informed about ancient history than Elie Luzac had been. He used the full range of classical history available at the time, from the latest German scholarship to Adam Ferguson and Edward Gibbon, and from the ubiquitous abbé Barthélémy to Cornelis de Pauw’s Recherches philosophiques sur les Grecques, to clarify every conceivable sort of theme from the Greek and Roman past. Clearly, his education at the prestigious university of Göttingen had not been wasted upon him.70 It was Grotius’s chapter De libertate et servitude that once again brought him to a discussion of the theme of liberty. As he had done in his 1793 treatise, he started with general observations on the nature of liberty, repeating his position that liberty primarily meant the protection of each individual’s life and property under a government that guaranteed the rule of law. Liberty thus defined could only be adequately protected under a stable government, whatever the legitimacy of its origins and whatever its precise composition. Indeed, it might very well be a hereditary monarchy. Wisdom, justice, and power were the essential characteristics of the rulers in such stable governments. Particularly the first of these characteristics made democracy a form of government incompatible with the existence of liberty, since it was composed “for the greatest part of people without an upbringing, without education, used to earning their living with manual labor, and therefore entirely incapable of handling the difficult problems arising in governing a country.”71 Having set out his basic position on liberty once more, Meerman turned to the history of liberty in the ancient world and particularly in Athens. He did so not only because, as we have seen, the ancient republics remained of paramount importance in contemporary political debate, but also because he was convinced that history in its most essential aspects repeated itself.72 He had, moreover, intensively studied ancient history in his Göttingen days and ­considered himself in many respects to be “an admirer of the ancients.”73

70 71 72

73

­ artels, Piet Steenbakkers and Arjo Vanderjagt (Leende, 2000), 127–144. Cf. on Grotius’ M Parallelon Chapter 3 in this volume by Arthur Weststeijn. Te Water, “Levensberichten,” 9. Meerman, ed., Parallelon, 1: 199–212. The quotation is on 208–209. J. de Meerman, Seigneur de Dalem, Discours qui a remporté le prix de l’Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, de Paris sur la question proposée en 1782: Comparer ensemble la Ligue des Achéens 280 ans avant J.C., celle des Suisses en 1307 de l’Ere Chrétienne, & la Ligue des Provinces-Unies en 1579; Dévelloper les causes, l’origine, la nature, & l’objet de ces Associations Politiques (The Hague, 1784), 1–2. Johan Meerman, “Athenen onder Cleo, of eene verhandeling over het toneeldicht van Aristophanes: De Ridders, als bijlage tot het hoofddeel der vrijheid en slaavernij,” in Meerman, ed., Parallelon, 4: 1–154, 6.

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When, later in life, he became the highest Dutch civil servant in charge of educational policy, he staunchly defended a continued and prominent role of the classics in the curriculum.74 In his appreciation of the ancients, Meerman may be said to have occupied a middle ground between the almost boundless admiration displayed by Johan Luzac and the harsh criticisms formulated by Elie Luzac. He berated Grotius, who in his humanist enthusiasm had followed the conventions of the panegyric to such an extent that he had proclaimed the total superiority of the Dutch Republic over ancient Greece and Rome, for insufficiently appreciating the very real achievements of the ancient world. Yet at the same time he found it impossible to deny that almost the entire course of Greek and Roman history had been marred by “the restlessness of liberty, the jealousy of parties, popular tyranny, the most outrageous ingratitude shown to decent citizens.”75 It was particularly in the story of the rise of Athenian democracy that he found ample evidence for this last contention. Unsurprisingly, Meerman’s interpretation of the history of Athenian liberty was closer to that of Elie Luzac, who had extolled the virtues of the early monarchy, than to that of Johan Luzac, who had seen Solon as the founder of an exemplary mixed government. Athens’s initial period of monarchical government, he agreed with Elie Luzac, had shown many signs of true liberty: “a king clearly ruling with the consent of the people; wise laws designed to increase the happiness of all subjects; an excellent judiciary, independent of the whims of the monarch.”76 Fairly soon, however, the growth of commerce and the arts had led to an increase in wealth and ambition, and to the first assaults on this pristine liberty. Nonetheless, it was clear to Meerman that single-headed government had brought the Athenian state its greatest happiness and liberty.77 All subsequent experiments with the Athenian form of government, however well-intentioned, had only brought Athens closer to its eventual decline and fall. Solon’s constitutional architecture was a case in point. While Meerman acknowledged the necessity of Solon’s economic measures, he deeply disapproved of his political reforms. By giving extensive powers to the assembled people of Athens, Solon had basically introduced democracy. Yet in order to prevent democracy from degenerating into “a tyranny of the people,” he had designed various ways to restrain it. Thus he had instituted a Council of Four Hundred (to which Meerman referred as “a senate”), in charge of preparing the matters to be decided by the popular assembly. He had also seen to it that the 74 75 76 77

Klein, “Johan Meerman,” 402–408. Meerman, ed., Parallelon, 1: 190–192. Ibidem, 214–215. Ibidem, 219.

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Areopagus remained largely independent of the popular will. Yet it would soon become clear that these arrangements were quite inadequate and could easily be swept away by an unleashed democracy.78 This happened from the time of Kleisthenes on, but it was Pericles who would deal the final blow to Solon’s constitutional arrangements “by making the popular administration of justice a matter of monetary gain, by undermining the authority of the Areopagus, by depriving the senate of its influence on the general assembly, and by using gifts and money to bring the avarice, corruption, pride and depravity of the nation to levels hitherto unknown.”79 Despite his unmistakable greatness in other areas, Pericles had thus been responsible for transforming Athens from an “ordered and tempered popular government” into a “mad and unlimited ochlocracy.” After the death of Pericles, the fickle population of Athens had increasingly fallen prey to the specious schemes of self-interested demagogues, with predictably disastrous results. Meerman did not doubt that the Athenians had “completely lost what liberty they had when the people, freed from every restraint, could fully impose its will.”80 Yet even this apparently unambiguous and straightforward conclusion seems not altogether to have satisfied him, for at the very end of his commentary on Grotius he returned to the horrors of Athenian democracy at considerable length. This time, however, he did so in a way not previously encountered in Dutch political debate. Following the example of his Göttingen teacher Christian Gottlob Heyne, who in 1793 had discussed the perils inherent in French revolutionary liberty and equality through the works of Aristophanes, Meerman now also turned to this Greek playwright to once again and for the final time expose the unmitigated dreadfulness of popular government.81 His “Athens under Cleon, or Treatise on the play The Knights by Aristophanes” was a curious mixture of historical and political commentary, literary paraphrase

78 79 80 81

Ibidem, 221–224. Ibidem, 4: 2. Ibidem, 1: 209. Heyne had done so in his Libertatis et aequalitatis civilis in Atheniensium rep. delineato ex Aristophane. See Marianne Heidenreich, Christian Gottlob Heyne und die Alte Geschichte (Munich and Leipzig, 2006) 223 and 602. In 1794, Heyne’s treatise was translated into Dutch as Verhandeling over de vrijheid en gelijkheid in de republiek der Atheniensen toegepast op die van Frankrijk, etc. Late eighteenth-century British translators of Aristophanes were also in the habit of writing prefaces “warning the reader of the evils of democratic policy.” See Kyriacos Demetriou, “In Defence of the British Constitution: Theoretical Implications of the Debate over Athenian Democracy in Britain, 1770–1850,” History of Political Thought 17 (1996): 280–297, 285.

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and a Dutch translation of certain key passages from the play.82 He had first intended to translate the entire play, but had soon come to the conclusion that it so strongly differed from contemporary Dutch morals and manners and contained so many passages of a “disgusting impropriety,” that it was far preferable to select only those parts fit for the sensibilities of a modern audience.83 Fortunately there were many of these and, although fully aware that a comedy was perhaps not to be regarded as the most reliable source of information on Greek political life, Meerman was convinced that The Knights offered insights of fundamental importance about “the history, the politics, and the morals” of the time in which it was written.84 Aristophanes had been particularly successful in depicting Athenian democracy and the inevitable prominence in this form of government of monstrous and criminal demagogues such as Cleon, the main character in the play. This hero of the Athenian people was a man who had risen from “the dregs of society” and had possessed no redeeming features whatsoever: “he combined in his person the most shameless and despicable character, the utmost cruelty, an insatiable avarice, and a willingness to sell, for the appropriate sum, everything in the public domain that had been entrusted to him.”85 Cleon, moreover, had been instrumental in disastrously lowering the tone of public debate by using every imaginable form of histrionics to mislead and win over the feckless Athenian crowds.86 It was, in short, simply impossible to read Aristophanes on Cleon “without seeing the Athens of his days as a quagmire of the most shameless rapacity and of injustice, filth and immorality in all aspects of life.”87 But then what could one expect in a democracy? Conclusion Harsh criticism of the democratic experiments conducted in ancient Athens was, as Jennifer Tolbert Roberts has shown with much subtlety and in great detail, the rule rather than the exception in Western political thought until the nineteenth century. Indeed, it was a political discourse that may be traced back to ancient Greece itself and thereafter showed a remarkable degree of continuity and resilience. Looked at from the broadest possible perspective, the three 82 83 84 85 86 87

Meerman, ed., Parallelon, 4: 1–154. Ibidem, 6–7, 121. Ibidem, 9. Ibidem, 10. Ibidem, 58. Ibidem, 150.

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late eighteenth-century Dutch opponents of the introduction of democratic republicanism discussed in this chapter seamlessly fit into this long international tradition of anti-democratic political thought.88 That these men were in some respects echoing the commonplaces of a political discourse going back many centuries, even millennia, should not, however, be allowed to obscure the fact that they were doing so in a very specific time and place. If we study these cases in the context of late eighteenth-century Dutch history and of the late eighteenth-century political revolutions in general, they considerably gain in depth and become decidedly more intriguing. These three cases first of all show us that Dutch late eighteenth-century reformers and revolutionaries were not the only ones enlisting classical antiquity in their political cause, but that those who opposed democratic republicanism were doing so as well. Far from dismissing classical antiquity as irrelevant to contemporary politics, and realising that the example of the ancients still carried considerable weight, these opponents of revolutionary change, who were all convinced that history had the capacity to provide the present with valuable lessons, regarded the history of ancient Athenian democracy as an indispensable part of their political argumentation.89 These three cases moreover demonstrate that criticism of the project of democratic republicanism through the use of Athenian history not only could emerge from a great variety of backgrounds and positions, but also could lead to unexpected results. Johan Luzac was perhaps the least creative of our protagonists. His classical republicanism made him into an enthusiastic supporter of the early Patriot opposition in the Dutch Republic, but also prevented him from following the reformers and revolutionaries in their turn to revolutionary democracy. He was left isolated and baffled. Elie Luzac had no great admiration for the classics to start with, but nonetheless felt that a discussion of classical history was the best way to counter the rise of republican democracy. In the course of his polemics, he increasingly came to doubt the relevance of the traditional distinction between republics and monarchies, and sought to replace it with one between arbitrary and moderate governments, whatever their exact form. Johan Meerman in turn even seems to have abandoned the age-old Dutch aversion to monarchy altogether in his insistence that a hereditary monarchy was far superior to the frenzied chaos inevitably caused by the introduction of popular government. Thus, in the intense conceptual turmoil of the late eighteenth-century, the Dutch consensus that a republic was always preferable to a monarchy seems to have been undermined. 88 Tolbert Roberts, Athens on Trial, 3–226. 89 Cf. Ibidem, 175–207 and Demetriou, “In Defence of the British Constitution,” 280–290.

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Finally, the polemics of these three opponents of democratic republicanism illustrate the extent to which Dutch political debate in the revolutionary era had become a dialogue of the deaf. Despite the fact that both revolutionaries and conservatives made ample use of the classical past, there existed very little common ground between them. The Dutch Patriot and Batavian reformers and revolutionaries were obsessed with the classical world because, among other things, they thought it offered a shining example of republican civic virtue and of citizen participation in politics. What they never claimed was that the democracy of ancient Athens could serve as a direct model for the eighteenth-century Dutch Republic or that the introduction of direct rule by the people was desirable. They were, in other words, seeking ways to adapt ancient liberty to the demands of the modern world and in the end mainly did so through the device of political representation. Their conservative opponents, however, were unable or unwilling to acknowledge the subtlety of the ways in which the Patriots and the Batavians were appropriating and transforming the heritage of classical democratic republicanism. They denied the relevance of the distinction between direct and representative democracy and stubbornly persisted in opposing all forms of democracy through discussions of ancient Athens. To them, the history of the ancient world demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that all forms of democracy, whether direct or representative, were equally disastrous.

chapter 9

The Hebrew Republic in Sixteenth-Century Political Debate: The Struggle for Jurisdiction Guido Bartolucci “Moses was a leader; a labor leader; a leader of revolt; and a great one. And he was loyal to the people.”1 With these words the American journalist Lincoln Steffens began his political description of the episode of Exodus as a model for the Communist Revolution in Russia, in his book Moses in Red. The Revolt of Israel as a Typical Revolution published in 1926. For the first time in the twentieth century, the ancient history of the sons of Israel was used politically: after 1917, according to Steffens, all the old books and works had to be read under a new light, a red one, the colour of revolution. In his work Steffens reinterprets the story of the Hebrews in the desert and the events of their leader as an important revolutionary moment, in which each step of the story of Exodus’ has a correspondence with what had happened in Russia.2 Steffens’ book has played a key role in the development of political interpretation of the Bible in the twentieth century, laying the foundation for the work of recent authors such as Michael Walzer and Aaron Wildavsky. Yet the idea that the political institutions of the Jews could be interpreted according to political categories and absorbed into classical political thought was far from new. Scholarly interest in Hebrew political institutions seems to have originated in the second part of the sixteenth century, but thus far there is little clarity about the cultural background to this phenomenon and its further development.3 In the interpretation of Frank Manuel, “before the seventeenth century 1 Lincoln Steffens, Moses in Red. The Revolt of Israel as a Typical Revolution (Philadelphia, 1926), 51. 2 For an interpretation of Steffens’ work see Melanie J. Wright, Moses in America. The Cultural Uses of Biblical Narrative, (Oxford, 2003), 13–42. For the influence of his book see Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York, 1985); Aaron Wildavsky, Moses as a Political Leader (Jerusalem and New York, 2005). 3 The recent scholarship includes François Laplanche, “L’érudition chrétienne aux xvie et xviie siècles et l’État des Hébreux,” in Groupe de Recherches Spinoziste, L’Écriture Sainte au temps de Spinoza e dans le système spinoziste (Paris, 1992), 133–147; C.R. Ligota, “Histoire à fondement théologique: la République des Hébreux,” in L’Écriture Sainte, 149–167; Bernard Roussel, “Connaissance et interprétation du Judaisme antique: des biblistes chrétien de la

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_011

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there was great reluctance to turn the narrative parts of the Old Testament into a consecutive secular story or to analyze the institutions of the patriarchal age, the period of Moses’ rule or the kingships of the first and second Commonwealths, as if they were states with histories similar to those of other nations.”4 Manuel argues that the conceptual instrumentation that authors subsequently applied to the history of the Hebrews was based on the dominant interpretations of Greek and Roman history. In the seventeenth century, this development resulted in the eventual transformation of the narrative sections of the Old Testament into a story of secular and historical continuity, in which Jewish political structures followed a course similar to that of Greece and Rome. In this context, many scholars assume that the first treatises on the H ­ ebrew Republic, in particular De politia iudaica by Corneille Bertram (1574), De seconde moitié du xvie siècle,” in La république des lettres et l’histoire du Judaisme antique, xvie–xviiie siècles, ed. Chantal Grell and François Laplanche (Paris, 1992), 21–50; Petrus Cunaeus, De republica Hebraeorum, ed. Lea Campos Boralevi, (Florence, 1996), i-lv; Lea Campos Boralevi, “Per una storia della Respublica Hebraeorum come modello politico,” in Dalle “repubbliche elzeviriane” alle ideologie del ‘900, ed. Vittor Ivo Comparato and Eluggero Pii (Florence, 1997), 17–33; Vittorio Conti, Consociatio Civitatum: Le repubbliche nei testi elzeviriani (1625–1649), (Florence, 1997); Jonathan Ziskind, “Cornelius Bertram and Carlo Sigonio: Christian Hebraism’s first Political Scientists,” in Journal of Ecumenical Studies 37 (2000): 381–400; Lea Campos Boralevi and Diego Quaglioni, ed., Politeia Biblica, in Il Pensiero Politico 35, 3 (2002); Y. Deutsch, “‘A View of the Jewish Religion.’ Conceptions of Jewish Practice and Ritual in Early Modern Europe,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte, 3 (2001): 273–295; Fania Oz-Satzberger, “The Jewish Roots of Western Freedom,” Azure. Ideas for the Jewish Nation, 13 (2002): 88–132; Lea Campos Boralevi, “Classical Foundation Myths of European Republicanism: The Jewish Commonwealth,” in Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, ed. Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge, 2002), 1: 247–261; Kalman Neuman, “Political Hebraism and the Early Modern ‘Respublica Hebraeorum’: On Defining the Field,” Hebraic Political Studies 1.1 (2005): 57–70; Guido Bartolucci, La repubblica ebraica di Carlo Sigonio. Modelli politici dell’età moderna (Florence, 2007); Guido Bartolucci, “Carlo Sigonio and the Respublica Hebraeorum: A Re-evaluation,” Hebraic Political Studies 3 (2008): 19–59; Gordon Schochet, Fania Oz-Salzberger and Meirav Jones, eds., Political Hebraism. Judaic Sources in Early Modern Political Thought (Jerusalem and New York, 2008); Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic. Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought, (Cambridge, ma, 2010). Along with this literature the debate on the existence of a Jewish political thought, interpreted through the categories of the classical tradition must be taken into account. On this issue Michael Walzer’s works are fundamental: Michael Walzer, In God’s Shadow. Politics in the Hebrew Bible (New Haven and London, 2012); Michael Walzer, Menachem Lorberbaum and Noam J. Zohar, eds., The Jewish Political Tradition, 2 vols. (New Haven and London, 2000–2003). For a different position see Daniel J. Elazar, ed., Kinship and Consent. The Jewish Political Tradition and its Contemporary Uses (New Brunswick and London, 1997). 4 Frank E. Manuel, The Broken Staff: Judaism through Christian Eyes (Cambridge, 1992), 118.

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r­ epublica Hebraeorum by Carlo Sigonio, (1582) and De optimo imperio by Benedict Arias Montano (1583), did not have a particular political meaning, compared with subsequent works like De republica Hebraeorum (1617) by Petrus Cunaeus. These works are allegedly confined to the field of Biblical archaeology, and thus considered significant for studying the development of Hebrew studies in the early modern age and for the improvement of knowledge of Jewish life and institutions, rather than for their political contents. According to this interpretation, the Jewish model acquired political significance only when it became an object of reflection in the Dutch and English world, when the history of the respublica Hebraeorum proved useful in the theological-­political problems of the Dutch Republic (especially during the clash between the Calvinist orthodoxy and the Arminians in the 1610s) and of those in England during the English revolution.5 Cunaeus and John Selden, together with Hugo Grotius and James Harrington, figure as the ideal representatives of this political use of the Jewish model opposed to their predecessors Bertram, Arias Montano and Sigonio. The works of Kalman Neuman and Eric Nelson provide good examples of this historiographical perspective. In his contribution to defining the genre of early modern studies on the Hebrew Republic, Neuman states that the “genre should be seen in the context of early modern antiquarianism.”6 Following the same line as Manuel, Neuman therefore insists that the treatises on the Hebrew republic followed a specific development, starting from a general interest in the history of Jewish politics in the sixteenth century to a more concrete political use in the next century. Nelson, who has published the most important contribution in this field of studies, likewise maintains that the thinking on the Hebrew Republic and particularly on Jewish theocracy starting from Erastus, heavily influenced the debate on tolerance and the separation of the religious and civil sphere in the Dutch Republic and in England in the seventeenth century. Yet Nelson does not take into account the tradition of the previous century, when the problem of the demarcation of religious and 5 Specifically on these countries see Jonathan Ziskind, “Petrus Cunaeus on Theocracy, Jubilee and Latifundia,” Jewish Quarterly Review 48 (1978): 235–254; Campos Boralevi, “Classical Foundation Myths of European Republicanism”; Guido Bartolucci, “The influence of Carlo Sigonio’s ‘De Republica Hebraeorum’ on Hugo Grotius’ ‘De republica emendanda,’” Hebraic Political Studies 2 (2007): 193–210; Arthur Eyffinger, “’How Wondrously Moses Goes Along with the House of Orange!’ Hugo Grotius’ ‘De Republica Emendanda’ in the Context of the Dutch Revolt,” in Schochet, Oz-Salzberger, Jones, ed., Political Hebraism, 107–147; Petrus Cunaeus, The Hebrew Republic, ed. Arthur Eyffinger, transl. Peter Wyetzner (Jerusalem-New York, 2006); Nelson, The Hebrew Republic. 6 Neuman, “Political Hebraism,” 65.

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civil power arose and when the same ideas of Erastus were discussed in detail, in particular within the Calvinist milieu.7 Indeed, the use of the Jewish model in the political debate from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was much more articulated then Neuman and Nelson assume, and it is not possible to understand what happened in the Dutch Republic and in England without taking into account the way in which Biblical sources were used earlier in other contexts, such as in the ­Calvinist city of Geneva, Counterreformation Italy, or Habsburg Spain. Focusing on key works published in these areas between 1574 and 1583, this chapter shows that also scholars who spent part of their life producing works of a highly antiquarian nature, such as Bertram, Sigonio and Arias Montano, used the Jewish model in order to participate in the political debate of their time. In the Bible and in other Jewish sources, they found the tools to think in a new way about one of the main issues that confronted their societies: the equilibrium between civil and religious power. The model of the Hebrew Republic, then, was not confined to strictly republican readings and uses, but it travelled between different ­political contexts and areas, from republican Geneva to papal ­Bologna and monarchical Spain, where it served primarily as intellectual a­ rmory in the struggle for jurisdiction between princes and ministers, ­emperors, popes and kings.

Corneille Bertram, the Hebrew Republic and the Erastus affaire

The first author who dedicated an entire work to the Hebrew Republic was Corneille Bonaventure Bertram (1531–1594), a French Calvinist theologian and Hebraist.8 Bertram studied law in Poitiers and Toulouse and Oriental languages at the College Royal in Paris with the famous Hebraists Jean Mercier and Angelo Canini. In 1561, in Cahors, he was a student of one the most important French jurists, François Roaldes, and he became involved in strong Calvinist propaganda. After the popular revolt against the Huguenots in 1561, he left Cahors and sought refuge in Geneva, where he taught theology and Oriental languages. In Geneva he became a friend of Théodore Beza and, during the 1570’s, he was a colleague of François Hotman, who taught Law in Geneva ­between 7 Nelson, The Hebrew Republic, 88–137. 8 The first author credited for analysing the Hebrew Republic in a political way is Jean Bodin, but not in an autonomous work. See Anna Maria Lazzarino del Grosso, “The Respublica Hebraeorum as a Scientific Political Model in Jean Bodin’s ‘Methodus,’” Hebraic Political Studies, 5 (2006): 549–567; Bartolucci, La repubblica ebraica di Carlo Sigonio, 21–65.

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1573 and 1578.9 In 1586 Bertram went to Frankenthal, in the Palatinate, and he then taught Hebrew language in Lausanne until his death in 1594.10 As a French émigré in Geneva, Bertram observed with interest what was happening in his native country, in particular after the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572. Two years later, he published his De politia iudaica. In that same period,  ­Hotman and Beza were elaborating a new Calvinist political theory against the French monarchy, founded on constitutionalism and the right of resistance.11 The scholars who have analysed Bertram’s work have assumed that he defended a view of the church-state relation in a Calvinist way;12 in particular Jonathan Ziskind argues that Bertram’s De politia iudaica “is a creative combination of Biblical history and ancient political thought.”13 Ziskind focuses his attention on the passages in which Bertram summarises the structure of the Hebrew Republic during its history and in which he uses the classical model of the mixed constitution. Ziskind claims: “Although Polybius and Aristotle were never cited by name, Bertram saw in this government of monarchy, aristocracy, 9 10

11

12 13

Cf. Donald R. Kelley, François Hotman: a Revolutionary’s Ordeal (Princeton, 1973), 273. For the life of Bertram see Dictionnaire de Biographie Française (Paris, 1965), 6, col. 260; Laplanche, “L’érudition chrétienne aux xvie et xviie,” 133–147; Albert de Montet, ed., Dictionnaire biografique des Genevois et des vaudois, qui se sont distingués dans leurs pays ou à l’étrager pour leurs talents, leurs actions, leurs oeuvres littéraires ou artistique etc. (Lausanne, 1877), 1: 48–49. In the dedication to Willem of Assia in his Lucubrationes, Bertram reports some information about his education. See Bonaventura Cornelius Bertramus, Lucubrationes Franktallenses seu Specimen aliquod interpretationum et expositionum quas plurimas in difficillima quaeque utriusque Testamenti loca meditatus, (Spirae, 1588), 7–8: “Ergo et iam illo ipso tempore septemque deinceps annis, horis certe succisivis recognoscendo Sanctis Pagnini Thesauro seu Dictionario hebraico, ea in memoriam revocavi quae aliquando a Ioanne Mercero, Angelo Caninio et aliis quibusdam viris doctis de genuino linguae Hebraicae et Aramaicae usu Lutetiae addidiceram, reliquo vero tempore meditandis concionibus sacris, reliquisque rationibus quas ex Vetere et Novo Testamento adhiberem moderando illi gregi qui meae fidei concreditus et commissus fuisset, earum et Graecarum acceptione et sensu ab illis ipsis et ab Adriano Turnebo et Ioanne Stracelio Graecis quondam Academiae Parisiensis professoribus audiveram.” See Corrado Vivanti, Lotta politica e pace religiosa in Francia tra Cinque e Seicento (Turin, 1963); Julian H. Franklin, Constitutionalism and Resistance in the Sixteenth Century. Three Treatises by Hotman, Beza and Mornay (New York, 1969); Théodore de Bèze, Du droit des Magistrats, ed. Robert M. Kingdon (Geneva, 1971); Michael Walzer, The Revolution of Saints. A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (Cambridge, ma, 1965). On the work of Bertram see Ziskind, “Cornelius Bertram and Carlo Sigonio,” and Roussel, “Connaissance et interprétation du Judaisme antique.” Ziskind, “Cornelius Bertram and Carlo Sigonio,” 384.

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and democracy the Polybian concept of checks and balances of power and the Aristotelian concept of beneficially blending the moral goals of desirable governmental forms. Polybius compared Rome’s balanced constitution with that of Sparta, and Bertram did the same with respect to the Mosaic regime.”14 Following this reading, Ziskind interprets the De politia iudaica as the result of the encounter between a renewed interest in antiquity and a strong emphasis on biblical and religious study, without any connection to the political events of this period. The introduction of De politia iudaica, dedicated to Beza, is divided into two parts. In the first part Bertram describes how he discovered this topic and, in particular, recalls his teacher Roaldes, the first who recommended that he studied the civil and religious institutions of the Jews: this suggests that the link between the Jewish institutions and the question of jurisdiction was central to Bertram.15 In the second part Bertram writes that Beza’s work was pivotal for his elaboration of De politia iudaica, stating that Beza closely followed the composition of the treatise and that it was based on the ideas and the material collected by Beza himself. Hence, Beza seems to have been the coauthor of the work, in a period in which, as we will see, Beza was reconsidering the organization of the Calvinist society.16 The scholars who have studied De politia iudaica have interpreted this close connection with the work of Beza as a general link to Calvinist theology, in particular regarding the relationship between state and church. However, Bertram’s words must be read as a much more direct intervention in the concrete political and theological debate that involved the Church of Geneva after Calvin’s death. In this perspective the idea

14 15

Ibidem, 385. Bonaventura Cornelius Bertramus, De politia Iudaica (Geneva, 1574), 7: “Tertius et decimus agitur annus, vir Clarissime, quum Franciscus Rhoaldus, iurisconsultus legum Romanarum totiusque antiquitatis consultissimus, Cadurci meam in discutienda Iudaica politia, eiusque duplici iurisdictione operam efflagitavit. ” The first part of the introduction, and especially the quotation of Roaldes, is important in order to understand the success of the Hebrew political model in France. For a discussion of this topic cf. Bartolucci, La repubblica ebraica di Carlo Sigonio, 45–65. 16 Bertramus, De politia Iudaica, 8: “Hoc ergo tuis auspiciis ita agressus sum, ut tuo consilio tuaque opera assidue uterer, non solum dum institutum opus primum meditarer, sed et ubi iam ad summum perduxissem. Adeo ut mihi profiteri necesse sit, quae in hunc libellum congesta sunt, non modo tuo iudicio combrobata fuisse, sed et a te aucta atque cumulata: immo ita expolita et adornata omnia, ut iam fere nihil in eo quod meum sit, agnoscam, sed tua omnia esse palam praedicem, nec tam hic libellus in tuo nomine apparere, quam tuus dici debeat.”

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of Hebrew Law developed by Bertram is paramount to understand the meaning of the whole work. In the first chapter Bertram states: The goal of all good laws, both those written or unwritten ones, is twofold: either they concern the piety of man towards God, or they describe the obligations among men. From here arises the dual form of the administration of the Commonwealth: the divine one, which concerns piety, and the human one, which describes the duties between men. We, however, will call them the ecclesiastical administration and the civil one.17 The scheme presented in this passage reflects how Bertram developed his entire treatise along a binary path in line with the aim of the law: the commandments concerning God, on which religious government is based, and the commandments regarding relations among men, which form the basis of civil government. In the successive chapters Bertram analyses how the Jewish people developed the institutions that had the task of defending, on the one hand, the religious part of the law, and, on the other, the civil one. Bertram seeks to show that, after the period of patriarchs, these two institutions were separated from each other, and that each part had their proper magistrates and tribunals. According to Bertram, the two spheres could not be mixed together. Hence, in some passages he underlines that the best periods of the Jewish State were when the civil and religious authorities were distinguished in a proper way. This scheme is not an original elaboration of Bertram, but it is based on an important passage of John Calvin’s Institutio. In Chapter 20 of the fourth book, Calvin proposes to exceed the medieval division of Mosaic law into coerimonialia, iudicalia and moralia, according to which only the last one would still be valid for the Christian people. He assumes that the Decalogue, which represents the law of God, has to be divided into two parts: the commandments regarding religion and those regarding the government of the state; both have not only a historical meaning but also a moral one.18 Bertram likewise insists on this distinction between the iurisdictio religiosa and civilis, as well as on 17

18

Ibidem, 9–10: “Legum omnium bonarum, sive sint scriptae, sive non scriptae, duplex est scopus: autem enim hominis erga Deum pietatem respiciunt, aut hominum inter se officia describunt. Hinc duplex nascitur politiae genus, quarum unam quae ad pietatem refertur, divinam, alteram quae hominum inter se officia continet, humanam merito vocemus. Nos tamen ex commune loquendi more illa quidem ecclesiasticam istam vero civilem appelabimus.” John Calvin, Institutio religionis christianae 4.20.16. For the political thought of Calvin cf. Marc-Edouard Chenevière, Le pensée politique de Calvin (Geneva, 1970).

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their separation. In doing so, he quotes some examples from the Bible, in particular from the stories of David and Josaphat.19 For Bertram, both kings maintained the division of the two spheres, and during their kingship there was no confusion between the two powers. But these references to the structure of the Jewish State are not tied only to the work of Calvin and to his idea of Jewish Law. Being published in 1574, De politia iudaica is also intimately connected to the figure of Beza and to a specific period in the history of Calvinism. After Calvin’s death, Beza, President of the Company of Pastors in Geneva from 1563 to 1580, had to face a profound crisis of the organizational and disciplinary idea of the Reformed society.20 In particular, a series of events in the second part of sixteenth century shook the Reformed Church, obliging Calvin’s successor to modify his political ideas. The first was the work of Jean Morély and Pierre Ramé who, since 1561, had questioned the organization of the Reformed Church and its lack of internal democracy. A second attack on the Calvinist Church had arrived from the Principality of Palatinate: here the lay theologian Erastus had reacted to the introduction of the Reformed faith by Prince Frederick iii, maintaining that the Calvinist Church was subject to the authority of the civil power.21 The reaction of Geneva’s authorities, and in particular of Beza, to Erastus was harsh, insisting on the jurisdictional prerogative of the Church. The debate remained in manuscript until 1590, but it inevitably influenced works that were published prior to that date.22 This is the case of Bertram, whose work was a direct response to Erastus: in using Jewish history, Bertram refused the subordination of the Church to the civil authority, reaffirming, for example, Church power on excommunication.23 Bertram’s work 19 Bertramus, De politia iudaica, 65: “Ex eadem ergo familia adhibiti sunt ad regendam ecclesiam et ad politiam civilem gubernandam, ita tamen ut nulla esset utriusque politiae confusio et permixtio, ut etiam apparebit ex his quae a Iosaphato restituta sunt.” 20 See Toshiko Maruyama, The Ecclesiology of Theodore Beza. The Reform of the True Church (Geneva, 1978), 106–129. 21 On Erastus see Charles D. Gunnoe Jr., Thomas Erastus and the Palatinate. A Renaissance Physician in the Second Reformation (Leiden, 2010). 22 For the Erastian debate and its link to the Hebrew Republic cf. Nelson, The Hebrew Republic, 92–97. 23 Bertramus, De politia iudaica, 43–44: “Commune omnibus sacerdotibus officium erat docere, precari et offerre ac proinde sanctuarii vasa adornare et instruere. Docendi munus vel nudam verbi Dei explicationem spectabat, vel coniunctam etiam cum Iurisdictione. Iurisdictio vel nudas repraehensiones, vel eas coniunctas cum legis sanctione. Legis sanctio triplex ex legis ipsius interpretatione a veteribus rabbinis derivata est, longe ante legem patribusprobata et postea ab apostolis rata habita. […] Secunda est cherem devotio extremo cuidam exitio, excommunicatio, quando videlicet aliquis excindi dicebatur

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therefore had a clearly topical political meaning, closely tied to the Erastian debate of his time. Indeed, in his analysis Bertram showed that since the early days of the rediscovery of Jewish institutions under the guidance of Roaldes, the jurisdictional problem between religious and civil authority had assumed a very important role, a context in which the Mosaic model was considered the best example to study.

Carlo Sigonio, the Mosaic Law and the Power of the Emperor

While Bertram was working on the De politia iudaica, he also published a new edition of the Dictionarium linguae sanctae written by the Italian Christian Hebraist Sante Pagnini.24 In doing so Bertram added new Jewish sources and new material to Pagnini’s definition of Hebrew items, shifting the meaning of the words towards a “Calvinist” sense. Here Bertram presented his idea of Jewish law, differentiating legal terminology into separate items, for example in the case of the root chekek: Statutes [Statuta] in the Sacred Scriptures (chukim in the male form or chukot in the female one) are called the rites and ceremonies that are related and indicate the precepts that are not understood by reason. They differ from mishpat, with which they are often linked, which means political judgment [iudicia] and laws that concern the administration of society. The statutes are therefore ceremonies relating to religion and worship of God, such as circumcision, the sacrifices, holidays and more.25 ex populo suo et in eo amplius non censeri […] ex maiore aliquo delicto.” Significantly, Constantijn L’Empereur, the important seventeenth-century theologian and Hebraist, decided to publish Bertram’s work in order to affirm an orthodox Calvinist model against Cunaeus. See Bonaventura Cornelius Bertramus, De Republica Hebraeorum (Leiden, 1641) and Peter Van Rooden, Theology, Biblical Scholarship and Rabbinical Studies in the Seventeenth Century. Constantijn L’Empereur (1591–1648) Professor of Hebrew and Theology at Leiden (Leiden, 1989), 219–221. 24 Sante Pagninus, Thesaurus Linguae Sanctae, sive lexicon Hebraicum, auctore Sancte Pagnino, nunc demum cum doctissimis quibusque hebraeorum scriptis quam accuratissime collatum, ex iisdem auctum ac recognitum, opera Ioannis Merceri, Antonii Cevallerii et B. Corneli Bertrami, (Lyon, 1575). The first edition by Pagnini was published in 1529. For a discussion on this source see Guido Bartolucci, “Introduction,” in Carlo Sigonio, The Hebrew Republic, transl. Peter Wyetzner (New York and Jerusalem, 2010), xxiii-xxvi, xlix-l. 25 Pagninus, Thesaurus, 783–784: “Statuta in Scriptura masc. ‘huqim’ vel foemin. ‘huqot’ dicuntur ritus et cerimoniae aliquid referentes et repraesentes, quorum, ut Hebraei

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In this passage Pagnini distinguished between two sets of orders, those that collect the ceremonies relating to religion, chukim, and those concerning the political sphere of government. In his dictionary we also find this definition of tzedeka (justice): These two terms are often joined together in the Sacred Scriptures, respectively judgment (mishpat) and justice (tzedeka). The term judgment means that part of the law which punishes the guilty men and criminals; justice, on the other hand, defends the good people from the offenses of the evil people. Both refer to the duty of the court. […] Also, in civil proceedings, we establish a judgment and we do justice, namely we absolve the innocent and condemn the culprits.26 The definition in the Dictionary corresponds to the analysis made by Bertram in the De politia iudaica, but it did not remain limited to the Calvinist world. In fact the Dictionary had a wide circulation in the entire Republic of Letters, reaching the private library of Ulisse Aldrovandi, one of the close colleagues of the second author who dedicated a work to the Jewish political institution: Carlo Sigonio (c. 1525–1584).27 Sigonio was one of the most famous historians of his time, teaching at the University of Bologna between 1563 and 1584. During this period he published several works on the medieval history of Italian cities and the Holy Roman Empire, which included a stronger political interpretation than the one found in his previous works on Roman and Greek antiquity. Furthermore, he also published a work on the Hebrew Republic that, according to many scholars, is not

26

27

i­nquiunt, magna ex parte ratio ignoratur. Differt autem a ‘mishpat,’ cum quo saepe ­iunctum videas, quod per iudicia ritus politici intelligantur et constitutiones quae ad societatem tuendam pertinet. Statuta vero sint cerimoniae ad religionem et Dei cultum pertinentes, ab ipso institutae, ut circumcisio, sacrificia, feriae et id genus.” Ibidem, 2302: “Haec duo nomina, iudicii, hoc est mishpat, et tzedeqa, hoc est Iustitia, passim in Scriptura videas simul iungi. Iudicii nomine ea iuris pars intelligitur, qua nocentes et facinorosi puniuntur, iustitiae vero, qua boni defenduntur ab iniuria malorum utrunque est ex officio iudicis. […] Ita et nos civiliter iubemur iudicium et iustitiam facere: id est iusta iustificare et iniusta damnare.” See Maria Cristina Bacchi, “Ulisse Aldrovandi e la sua biblioteca,” L’ Archiginnasio 100 (2005): 256–366. The first page of all the books owned by Aldrovandi states: “Ulissi Aldrovandi et amicorum” (owned by Ulisse Aldrovandi and friends), which testifies to Aldrovandi’s habit of sharing his books. The main part of Aldrovandi’s library is in the University Library of Bologna. The location of the Thesaurus is Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, A.M. P. iv 10.

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linked to his works on the ancient and medieval political tradition, but rather to the religious and ecclesiastical policy of the bishop of Bologna, Gabriele Paleotti.28 One of the most interesting parts of his work on the Hebrew Republic, published in Bologna in 1582, lies in its description of Jewish law, which was absolutely unprecedented for a treatise written by a Catholic at the end of the sixteenth century. Sigonio finds the distinction between the religious and civil authorities in the Jewish polity to be grounded in Mosaic law, and hence the chapter entitled “The law given by God to the Israelites” is key to understanding the work in its entirety.29 Sigonio imposes a two-part structure on Mosaic law, and further divides each part into two. As in Calvin and Bertram, the resulting four-part structure breaks with the medieval tradition which viewed ancient Jewish law as consisting of three kinds of precepts: moral, ceremonial, and judicial. For Christian theologians, first among them Aquinas, only the first part (pertaining to moral precepts) was still valid for Christians, while the remaining two could be applied only to the history of the Jewish people.30 Sigonio takes a different approach. He begins his analysis of Jewish law with the two commandments of loving God and loving one’s neighbour, claiming these to represent the categories of religious life and civil life respectively. These categories cover all of Jewish law. Sigonio then goes into more detail and differentiates between two types of commandments that regulate religious life—mandates and precepts—and between two types of commandments that rule the civil sphere—iudicia and iustificationes. The first two categories include norms concerning ritual and religious organisation, and the last two are strictly juridical in character (being, in effect, the God-given tools by which humanity condemns the guilty and acquits the innocent).31 The juxtaposition of Sigonio’s description and Bertram’s additions to Pagnini’s Dictionary makes it clear that Sigonio used the latter. We do not know if Sigonio was aware that 28

On the life of Sigonio see William McCuaig, Carlo Sigonio: The Changing World of the Late Renaissance (Princeton, 1989). On the interpretation of the link between Sigonio and Paleotti see Paolo Prodi, “La storia umana come luogo teologico,” in Prodi, Profezia vs. Utopia (Bologna, 2013), 217–242; Prodi, “Storia sacra e controriforma, Nota sulle censure al commento di Carlo Sigonio a Sulpicio Severo,” Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento 3 (1977): 75–104; Prodi, “Vecchi appunti e nuove riflessioni su Carlo Sigonio,” in Nunc alia tempora, alii mores. Storici e storia in età postridentina. Atti del Convegno internazionale, Torino, 24–27 settembre 2003, ed. Massimo Firpo (Florence, 2005), 291–310. 29 Carolus Sigonius, De republica Hebraeorum libri vii (Bologna, 1582). The references are to the English translation: Sigonio, The Hebrew Republic, 20–25. 30 See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia 2ae, q 99, 1–6. On the meaning of the Decalogue in the Catholic tradition see Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, s.v. Decalogue. 31 Sigonio, The Hebrew Republic, 22.

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the Dictionary he was using was a Calvinist work, but he found it extremally useful for his purpose. Sigonio’s description, in fact, has two important implications that help us to understand his intentions and his idea of the Jewish State. The first concerns the structure of the law, which makes it relevant in a political-juridical sense and not just a theological one. Jewish law and the texts expounding it then became relevant and comparable to the secular legacy of Greece and Rome. The second point, which is actually more important in order to understand the contribution of the Jewish state, concerns the result that this division of the law produces in the distribution of powers within the state itself. According to Sigonio, the theoretical separation between the religious and civil spheres also requires a practical separation between the investment of religious authority and civil authority in the hands of individuals. In other words, those in charge of the administration of religious matters (the priestly class) could not intervene in matters which pertained to the administration of the state, and in particular the activities of the court. The pontiff, for example, could preside over the Sanhedrin (when it acted as a court of law) only if the crime to be judged was of a religious nature. One example of this idea is in Chapter 5 of the first book, where Sigonio writes: Moses, in fact, handed over the entire government to a large group of men, men who were good and wise, so that some could look after the sacred matters, and others the profane ones. (And of the men responsible for sacred matters, one was the high priest and the rest were priests and Levites. The latter handled profane matters: some devoted their time to giving counsel, and others to judgements, and many of them saw to civil or military education).32 Did Sigonio’s analysis have a political purpose? In order to understand this point we need to turn our attention to another of his works, published in 1574 and then again in 1580, De regno Italiae libri xv.33 This treatise examines the history of the Kingdom of Italy from the death of Emperor Justinian in 565 to the death of Henry vi at the beginning of the thirteenth century. An important part of the work is dedicated to the relationship between the power of the 32 33

Ibidem, 26. Carolus Sigonius, De regno Italiae libri xv (Venice, 1574); De Regno Italiae libri xv (Bologna, 1580). On this work see McCuaig, Carlo Sigonio, 80–90; 275–285; Manuela Doni Garfagnini, “La prefazione al ‘De Regno Italiae’ di Carlo Sigonio,” in Garfagnini, Il teatro della storia fra rappresentazione e realtà: storiografia e trattatistica fra Quattrocento e Seicento (Rome, 2002), 197–230.

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pope and the power of the Emperor. In a passage in which Sigonio describes the equilibrium between the two powers in the beginning of the Ottonian age, he writes: And certainly, although Italy was held by the king, who was the Emperor, and by the Roman pontiff, they did not have identical auctoritas. The pope held Rome, Ravenna and the other regions by auctoritas more than by imperium, because the cities regarded the pontiff as princeps of a respublica, but the king as supreme lord and to him they paid tribute and homage, which I have mentioned. The powers of the pontiff resided in the power of excommunication (sacris detestationibus), then greatly feared by Christian kings; those of the emperor in armies and military intervention, to which the pontiffs themselves were often forced to succumb. […] Both were sacred powers, instituted for the conservation of the Respublica Christiana.34 Sigonio’s passage proposes a representation of the two “universal” powers, the papacy and the Empire, that is extremely articulate. In the first part, he portrays the relationship between the two auctoritates during the Ottonian period, in which, Sigonio writes, the auctoritas of the pope in governing the cities of his domain had no imperium, which was instead a prerogative of the Emperor. In distinguishing between auctoritas and imperium, Sigonio claims that only the Emperor had those powers to resolve the issues raised between the different parts of his kingdom. If then the first lines recognize a de facto limit in papal auctoritas, in his later analysis Sigonio takes a further step: he seems to proceed through a process of abstraction, from a concrete historical example (the comparison between the powers of Otto and pope John xii) to the theoretical representation of the relationship between the two potestates (depicted by the pope and the Emperor), legitimised by a single source (God), but which 34 Sigonius, De Regno Italiae libri xv (Basel, 1575), 290: “Et sane, quanquam Italia a rege, eodemque imperatore et a Romano pontifice tenebatur, non eadem tamen erat in utroque auctoritas. Pontifex Romam Ravennamque et ditiones reliquas tenebat auctoritate magis quam imperio, quod civitates pontificem ut reipublicae principem, regem vero ut summum dominum intuerentur, atque ei tributa obsequiaque quae dixi praeberent. Et pontificis vires in sacris detestationibus versabantur, quas Christiani reges tum maxime exhorruerunt, Imperatoris in armis et expeditionibus, quibus ipsi etiam pontifices cedere saepe compulsi sunt. […] Utraque vero potestas sacra erat, ad Christianam conservandam rempublicam instituta.” See McCuaig, Carlo Sigonio, 89; Guido Bartolucci, “Historian Engagé. Republicanism and Oligarchy in Carlo Sigonio’s Political Histories,” Storicamente 8 (2012) http://www.storicamente.org/01_fonti/bartolucci_sigonio.htm [accessed 4 February 2015].

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are exercised in two separate and distinct spheres (the spiritual and temporal) in defense of the Christian respublica, without any hierarchical dependence. This is an ideal representation, which could also be considered an ideological description of the emergence and articulation of the different powers that characterised the history of the Italian Kingdom from its beginning until Sigonio’s time. Its importance is further demonstrated by the content of Sigonio’s later works, for example De Occidentali Imperio libri xx, published in 1578, where he rejected the legitimacy of the Donation of Constantine.35 In his work on the Jewish respublica, in particular, published two years after the last edition of De regno Italiae (1582), Sigonio took into account some central themes of the Ottonian kingdom. Even in the Jewish State we find the idea of the law that God gave to Moses and to the Jewish people distinguished into precepts governing the spiritual sphere and those governing the temporal one, whose principles and division the different magistrates had to conform to. In others words, Carlo Sigonio was not only a historian committed, through the careful study of the sources, to reconstructing fragments of Roman, Greek, Italian history or the Jewish tradition; he was well aware that his studies, and in particular those on the late Empire, on the Kingdom of Italy, and on the Jewish Republic, had a profound meaning for his time. It is not difficult to imagine that this reflection on the relationship between religious and civil institutions in the state founded by God and the limits of papal power was highly pertinent to the conflict between the two cities, Bologna, where Sigonio taught, and Rome, a conflict with which he started to become familiar when he became professor at the Studio in 1563.36 Furthermore, his analysis of certain major events in past history, especially in the works of the last decade of his life, show that Sigonio was engaged in an intellectual debate, not only locally but also nationally and internationally on the nature and origins of power, with the Hebrew Republic figuring as the starting point.

Arias Montano and Joshua as the Perfect King

From the 1580 onwards, the Catholic censors toughly attacked Sigonio’s work. One of the manuscripts that contains parts of the censures to Sigonio’s 35

36

On the Donation see Guido Bartolucci, “Costantino nella storiografia della Controriforma. Sigonio e Baronio tra filologia, censura e apologetica,” in Costantino I. Enciclopedia costantiniana sulla figura e l’immagine dell’Imperatore del cosidetto editto di Milano 313–2013, 3 vols. (Rome, 2013), 3: 99–114. See Angela De Benedictis, Repubblica per contratto. Bologna: una città europea nello Stato della Chiesa (Bologna, 1995).

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c­ ommentary on Sulpicius Severus’s Historia Ecclesiastica and on De republica Hebraeorum was owned by Benedict Arias Montano (1527–1598).37 Arias Montano was one of the most important Christian Hebraists of the sixteenth century, and his masterpiece was the edition of the Antwerp Polyglot Bible printed in 1572.38 He also composed several works on the ancient Jewish tradition in order to reconstruct the context in which the stories of the Old and New Testament had taken place, mainly through the use of rabbinical sources. Thanks to his knowledge of Holy Scriptures, Arias Montano, who participated in the Council of Trent together with the Bishop of Segovia Martin Perez de Ayala in 1562, was considered one of the most important scholars of Oriental languages of his time. This reputation impacted upon all his works, such as De optimo imperio, causing them to be interpreted as learned treatises without any political meaning.39 Modern scholars who have studied the tradition of respublica Hebraeorum have interpreted Arias Montano’s work, in particular De optimo imperio, as examples of Biblical archaeology.40 But actually this work, which contains a commentary on the biblical Book of Joshua, is a sort of speculum

37

38 39

40

The role of Arias Montano in the elaboration of the censures to Sigonio’s work is unclear. Moreover, we do not know if Montano used Sigonio’s De republica Hebraeorum in writing his work; no explicit references to Sigonio’s work were found. See Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, Ms. 12702. On the Censures see McCuaig, Carlo Sigonio, 251–290. Ben Rekers, Benito Arias Montano (1527–1598) (Leiden, 1972). Benedictus Arias Montanus, De optimo imperio sive in libro Iosuae commentarium, (­Antwerp, 1583). This text is not the only political work written by Arias Montano and inspired by the Bible. In 1592 he published another book, a commentary on the book of ­Judges, which analyses various forms of state: Benedictus Arias Montanus, De varia republica sive commentaria in Librum Iudicum (Antwerp, 1592). In the introduction he reconstructs the role of Biblical history in his political reflection, writing that if Joshua was a perfect model of government but also a foundational one (as Moses had been), the era of Judges represented the beginning of the “real political” history of the Jews. Arias M ­ ontano, De varia  republica, *3v–*4r: “Atque superioribus illis duobus ­voluminibus,  maiore  ­videlicet  legis totius a Mose conscriptae et minore altero per Iosuam concinnato, non tam Reipublicae summa aliqua, quam institutio tradita nobis videtur.  […] Iosuae vero praecipuus labor in deducendo populo, hostibus bello ac pugna pellendis, locis o­ ccupandis, haereditatibusque dividundis consumptus est, quibus in rebus ille vir optimi, prudentissimi, piissimi atque innocentissimi et integerrimi ­Imperatoris ­expressit imaginem. Iam vero Israelitis in promissa ante ac iam accepta regione ­habitantibus, et reipublicae populique formam plane obtinentibus, cuiusmodi status porro fuerint et duobus iis quos explicare aggredimur et quatuor proximis narrantur libris.” See for example Campos Boralevi, “Introduzione,” xv–xvi.

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principum, in which Arias Montano recognises in the realm of Joshua a model that teaches the King, Philip ii, the best art of government.41 In fact, the example of Joshua was for years at the heart of the European political debate, especially within the Catholic world. The interpretation of his story was twofold: first, especially among the Jesuits like Robert Bellarmine, the story of Joshua was read through Numbers 27, 21: And he (Joshua) shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim before the Lord: at his word shall they go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he, and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation. On the basis of this passage, these interpreters supported the idea of the submission of civil power (represented by Joshua) to religious power (the high priest Eleazar).42 The second interpretation, not using the passage from Numbers, instead based its analysis on the book of Joshua, where the relationship between the successor of Moses and Eleazar was overturned and as a result, the political power dominated over the religious one. The latter interpretation was developed by Andreas Masius in his commentary on the book of Joshua published in 1574, but it was Arias Montano who attributed a full political dimension to it.43 According to Arias Montano, the most important aspect was the moment when God commanded Joshua to lead the people of Israel across the Jordan River. It is at this point, he argued, that the deepest essence of Joshua’s power emerged together with its relationship with the religious sphere represented by the priestly class. A first aspect of Arias Montano’s interpretation is already present in the first few lines of the first chapter, when God said to Joshua: “Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.” Joshua therefore received the mandate directly from God without the mediation of a priest. Even more explicit, according to Arias Montano, was the episode in which God told Joshua to command the priests to cross the Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant. As is written in Joshua 4, 16–17: “And the Lord spoke unto Joshua, saying, Command the priests that bear the Ark of the testimony, that they come up 41 42 43

The best interpretation of this work is José Luis Sánchez Lora, Arias Montano y el pensamiento político en la Corte de Felipe ii (Huelva, 2008), 91–106. Ibidem, 94. See Andreas Masius, Iosuae imperatoris historia illustrata atque explicata ab Andrea Masio (Antwerp, 1574).

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out of Jordan.” According to Arias Montano the direct relationship between God and Joshua recognised in him a prophetic spirit that turned him into an instrument of God and thus raised him above the other political and religious institutions. The key passage in which Arias Montano develops this thought reads as follows: To show clearly that Joshua had the responsibility and the authority both on the religious and civil sphere directly from God, as a commander and as a prophet, God commanded to Joshua to order to priests, who carried the Ark of the Covenant, to leave the Jordan River. As we have already said, this was not possible through a regular power, but due to the prophetic authority, to which obeyed not only humble and important men, but also princes, priests and pontiffs.44 A final aspect of the analysis made by Arias Montano is located in the final chapters of the book of Joshua, which describes the distribution of land to the tribes of Israel made by the Council which was laid in Shilo.45 In one of these phases, and, specifically, at the moment when the Levites asked that fortyeight cities were assigned to them according to the Law given to Moses, the biblical account relates who were the members of this Council: Joshua, Eleazar the high priest, and the twelve men representing the tribes. In this case, Arias 44

Arias Montanus, De optimo imperio, 123: “Ut religionis totiusque summae rerum administrandae cura et auctoritas Iosue tanquam Duci atque Prophetae divinitus tradita, publice ostenderetur, iubet Deus Imperatori ipsi ut praecipiat sacerdotibus, nempe iis qui foederis arcam portabant, ut ascendant de Iordane. Atque iam diximus hoc non ex communi potestatis usu factum, sed ex propheticae auctoritatis ratione, cui non solum minores, sed magnates etiam viros, atque adeo principes ipsos ac sacerdotes et Pontifices obsequi oporteat.” Arias Montano analyzed this prerogative of Joshua also in his work of 1592 and claimed that the prophetic power was not transmitted to other political leaders, but after the death of Joshua, it became a responsibility of the priestly class. Arias Montanus, De varia republica, 3–4: “Illo [Iosue] autem vita ac muneribus defuncto, quamquam gubernandae rei ius et authoritas ad successores deferretur legitime, tamen singularis illa vaticinandi praerogativa non omnibus gubernatoribus a Deo data est, sed ea authoritas ad publicarum rerum usum apud sacerdotem haesit.” As to the relationship between Joshua and the high priest, Arias Montano makes the dependence of Joshua on Eleazar in religious matters more evident, De varia republica, 3: “Duobus itaque muneribus Iosue praeditus, altero vaticinandi, populi deducendi ac gubernandi altero, quod ad propheticum officium pertinebat, cum ipsemet divina responsa saepe acciperet, non iubebatur sacerdotem consulerem, quod vero gubernationem spectabat, ubi quicquam magni atque ardui consilii incidisset, pontificem petere ex religione debuit.” 45 Cf. Josh. 18

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Montano, for the first time in his treatise, discusses the role of the high priest and distinguishes it from that of Joshua. If, up to this point, the successor of Moses had authority over all the people, including priests, here Arias Montano seems to attribute to Eleazar the role of princeps of the religious sphere, distinguishing his role from that of Joshua, who, on the other hand, was the princeps of the civil sphere. In doing so Arias Montano introduces a metaphor that explains the relationship between the two powers very well, namely the comparison with two stars (duo lumina), which establishes a relationship that is equal and not subordinate to one another.46 But Arias Montano’s analysis does not stop at this point. After having described the process that led to the distribution of the cities, he concludes his examination by arguing that the authority of Joshua, who had received political authority directly from God, sanctioned such distribution. Arias Montano seems here to reaffirm what he had already said in comment to the previous chapters, that the political authority represented by Joshua in the affairs concerning the sphere of politics, was superior to the priestly class, a superiority established by divine will.47 The exaltation of Joshua’s divine power attests Montano’s political project: he wanted to legitimise the policy of Philip ii of Spain who, particularly after 1559, had come into conflict with the papacy in several areas, ranging from foreign policy, the problem of the wars of religion in France, to jurisdiction on the Church of Spain. This legitimization of the policy of Philip ii was to occur through the use of a Christian Joshua as he was proposed as a model of optimum imperium (more so than the Jewish kings David and Salomon, because they were consecrated by the high priest) and one in which a power higher than the priest was conferred directly by God. Montano’s work was an answer to two questions which concerned the relation between the Spanish crown and the papacy. The first one was purely jurisdictional and political, since it concerned relations between the Empire of Philip ii and the Church of Rome: Philip wanted to maintain his dominion over his Italian possessions, exposed to the papacy (Pope Pius v and Gregory xiii), which wanted to restore judicial prerogatives that had belonged to the Church in past centuries.48 46

47

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Arias Montanus, De optimo imperio, 530: “Namque illi (Eleazar and Joshua), alter in iis quae religionem praecipue spectarent, alter vero in civilibus rebus ac bellicis duo totius populi principes ac veluti lumina in omni publico concilio primas obtinebant.” Ibidem, 535: “Iam vero quisnam assignationis huius minister, executor et nomenclator iure esse debuerit, indicatur nempe Iosue dux, penes quem bellicae atque civilis administrationis cura erat. Haec enim conciliorum esse ratio solet, ut quae publico atque communi consensu decreta fuerint, principes exequantur, exercendaque curent.” See in particular Gaetano Catalano, Controversie giurisdizionali tra Chiesa e Stato nell’età di Gregorio xiii e Filippo ii. Atti della Accademia di Scienze Lettere e Arti di P­ alermo

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A second ­aspect concerned the legitimacy of authority and its relationship with its source, namely the divine foundation of power. In this context, as we have seen also in Sigonio’s work, the Biblical narrative became an important place in which different ideas of political authority and links between religious and civil spheres became strategic in the Catholic world.49 Conclusion The work of Arias Montano, like Bertram’s and Sigonio’s treatises, sought to respond to the conflict between religious and civil authorities. The three authors acknowledged three different ideal constitutional models in Jewish history, a mixed constitution for Bertram, an aristocratic republic for Sigonio and the monarchy for Arias Montano, but all three also recognised that Jewish history was the most important example in order to understand and justify the source of political power and its relation to religious power. Eric Nelson, as previously mentioned, has argued that the history of religious tolerance and the secularisation of political institutions have their origins in the work of Erastus on Jewish theocracy and have borne fruit in the political thought of Cunaeus and Grotius in the Dutch Republic and of Selden and Harrington in England. However, the history of the Jewish model is more complex, involving from the beginning other authors and other countries. What is common to all these authors and contexts is the idea that only the Jewish tradition could help to solve the problems of the relationship between religious and civil spheres (not a new problem, but one that could find a new legitimacy through the Jewish past) and also that the Jewish history could be read politically as any other experiences of human history.

49

(­Palermo,  1955); Paolo Prodi, “San Carlo Borromeo e le trattative tra Gregorio xiii e ­Filippo ii sulla giurisdizione ecclesiastica,” Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 11.2 (1957): ­195–240; John Lynch, “Philip ii and the Papacy,” Transactions of the Royal Society, 5th series, 11 (1961): ­23–42; Manfredi Merluzzi, “Considerazioni su Cesare Baronio e la Spagna, tra controversia giuridica e ricezione erudita,” in Cesare Baronio tra santità e scrittura storica, ed. Giuseppe Antonio Guazzelli, Raimondo Michetti and Francesco Scorza Barcellona (Rome, 2012), 341–365. On the use of the biblical model in Jesuit political literature of the seventeenth century see Mario Rosa, “‘Per tenere alla futura mutatione volto il pensiero.’ Corte di Roma e cultura politica nella prima metà del Seicento,” in La corte di Roma tra Cinque e Seicento. “Teatro” della politica europea, ed. Gianvittorio Signorotto and Maria Antonietta Visceglia (Rome, 1998), 13–36.

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The works of Bertram, Sigonio and Arias Montano show that, since its first appearance in the sixteenth century, the Jewish model was immediately used in political and religious debate. What characterised its use was primarily the possibility for many authors to find solutions (or perhaps it would be better to say justifications) in Biblical history for the different jurisdictional problems involving the civil and religious authorities. The works that have been analysed in this chapter reveal an established tradition of discussing and interpreting the various sources, deepened by the religious division of Europe in the sixteenth century. It is, therefore, difficult to find a specific influence of Jewish sources in this type of analysis: the biblical and rabbinic texts provide only a confirmation of what these individual authors wanted to prove. But what is clear is that if the history of the Jewish model in the European political tradition reached its zenith in the seventeenth-century in the Dutch Republic and England, it had its origin in sixteenth-century continental Europe, where the first authors Bertram, Sigonio and Arias Montano, starting from similar political and religious problems, forged forms and vocabulary that would be the basis of its further development.

chapter 10

The Hebrew Republic in Dutch Political Thought, c. 1650–1675 René Koekkoek* The notion of Neerlands Israel (“Dutch Israel”), the view that the Dutch people were chosen by God, analogous to the biblical story of the Israelites as the people chosen to be in covenant with God, was widespread in seventeenthcentury Dutch public discourse.1 A “Hebraic tint lay over Dutch society in these days,” as the nineteenth-century literary critic and historian Conrad Busken Huet put it.2 Simon Schama has contended that the Hebraic self-image of the Dutch was “much more successfully a unifying bond than a divisive dogma.” In a same vein Willem Frijhoff has also emphasised the unifying character of the analogy: “Among the religious models of unity, the notion of new Israel or ‘Dutch Israel,’ was particularly important.”3 Schama’s and Frijhoff’s evaluations of the inclusiveness of the model of the biblical Israelites, however, are only valid to a limited extent. The issue of how to read the Old Testament politically was highly contested between different sides of the ideological spectrum in the Dutch Republic in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. * I would like to thank Scott Mandelbrote, Joris van Eijnatten, and Frank Daudeij for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter. 1 It is also sometimes referred to as ‘second’ or ‘new’ Israel. The idea of Holland as a new Israel surfaced for the first time in pamphlets and songs of the Geuzen (‘Beggars’), the rebelling Dutch (lower) nobles, who fought the Spanish troops and played a decisive part in the Dutch Revolt against Spain. See E.T. Kuiper, ed., Het Geuzenliedboek (Zutphen, 1924); R. Bisschop, Sions vorst en volk. Het tweede-Israelidee als theocratisch concept in de Gereformeerde kerk van de Republiek tussen ca. 1650 en ca. 1750 (Veenendaal, 1993); G. Groenhuis, De predikanten. De sociale positie van de gereformeerde predikanten in de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden voor ± 1700 (Groningen, 1977), 77–102; Idem, “Calvinism and the National Consciousness: The Dutch Republic as the New Israel,” Britain and The Netherlands 7 (1981): 118–33; S. Schama, Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (New York, 1987), 51–125; H. Smitskamp, Calvinistisch nationaal besef in Nederland vóór het midden der 17e eeuw (The Hague, 1947). 2 C. Busken Huet, Het land van Rembrandt. Studiën over de Noordnederlandsche beschaving in de zeventiende eeuw, 2 vols. (Haarlem, 1882–1884), 2: 406. 3 Schama, Embarrassment of Riches, 97; W. Frijhoff, “Religious Toleration in the United Provinces: From ‘Case’ to ‘Model,’” in Calvinism and Religious Toleration in the Dutch Golden Age, ed. H. van Nierop and R. Po-Chia Hsia (Cambridge, 2002), 27–52: 50. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_012

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The ­arguments, examples, imagery, lessons, and political models that orthodox Calvinist ministers such as Abraham van de Velde, Hermannus Witsius, and Jodocus van Lodenstein culled from the Old Testament were often diametrically opposed to the interpretations of radical writers like Adriaen Koerbagh, Baruch Spinoza, and Lambertus van Velthuysen. At stake in these debates were the lessons the Bible might provide with regard to questions about the most desirable relationship between Church and State, the scope of toleration, and more generally the political organization of the commonwealth. They moreover concerned the nature of history (providential or secular), the concept of divine election, and ultimately the status of the Bible itself.4 This chapter argues that against the background of these debates about the example provided by the ancient Hebrew Republic within the context of the Hebraic self-perception of the Dutch grounded in the analogy with this ancient commonwealth, a refreshing light can be shed on Spinoza’s extensive discussion of the Hebrew Republic in his Theological-Political Treatise of 1670. Spinoza’s discussion of the Hebrew Republic is notoriously difficult to understand, even though a number of thoughtful essays have drawn attention, from a variety of angles, to some key issues and historical, political and intellectual contexts. Michael Rosenthal has rightly insisted that Spinoza did not reject, as some have argued, the example of the ancient Hebrew Republic altogether and that we need to turn to the specific political context of the period and seventeenth-century political thought to grasp what Spinoza was up to.5 Lea Campos Boralevi, in an article in which she presents “the Jewish Commonwealth” as one of the “classical foundational myths of European republicanism,” has moreover reconstructed a rich Dutch tradition of political Hebraeism, which tapped into a broader early modern European interest in ancient Israel’s political institutions. The key text within this tradition is De republica Hebraeorum (1617) of Petrus Cunaeus, the chair of politics at Leiden University from 1614 to 1638. A close friend of Hugo Grotius, Cuneaus offered this republic—“the holiest ever to have existed in the world, and the richest in examples for us to emulate”—for consideration to the States of Holland.6 Although Campos Boralevi holds that Spinoza’s treatise can be seen as both the “conclusion” and the “overturning” of this tradition, her remarks are only an epilogue to an o­ therwise 4 Cf. M. Bodian, “The Biblical ‘Jewish Republic’ and Dutch ‘New Israel’ in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Thought,” Hebraic Political Studies 1 (2006): 186–202; D. Novak, “Spinoza and the Doctrine of the Election of Israel,” Studia Spinozana 13 (2003): 81–99. 5 Rosenthal, however, does not draw on Dutch primary sources. M. Rosenthal, “Why Spinoza Chose the Hebrews: The Exemplary Function of Prophecy in the Theological-Political Treatise,” History of Political Thought 18 (1997): 207–241, 231–240. 6 Petrus Cuneaus, The Hebrew Republic, ed. A. Eyffiner, trans. P. Wyetzner (New York, 2006), 3.

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rich article.7 Eric Nelson’s important book The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought regards Spinoza primarily as an exception, that is, as standing outside or overturning a tradition of seeing the Hebrew Republic as an authoritative example commanding the supreme sovereignty of the civil magistrate in religious matters and embracing toleration. This was a tradition, Nelson argues, to which Grotius, Cunaeus, John Selden and James Harrington belonged.8 As the discussion in this chapter will show, however, Dutch republican authors in the third quarter of the seventeenth century, including Spinoza, used the Hebrew Republic as a distinctly negative example in their arguments for broad religious toleration. The chapter thereby follows up on Theodor Dunkelgrün’s suggestion that the phenomenon of Neerlands Israel should be understood comprehensively, within the combined contexts of Calvinist political theology, Christian Hebraism, and humanist Biblical antiquarianism.9 Situating Spinoza’s use of the Hebrew Republic more robustly within a range of contemporary Dutch voices on the Hebrew Republic, the chapter discusses authors who have attracted much scholarly attention in the last decade or so, such as the brothers Johan and Pieter de la Court and Adriaen Koerbagh.10 With the exception of Spinoza, however, remarkably little has been written on their political readings and rhetorical use of the Old Testament.11 ­Moreover, 7

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L. Campos Boralevi, “Classical Foundational Myths of European Republicanism: The Jewish Commonwealth,” in Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, ed. M. van Gelderen and Q. Skinner, 2 vols., (Cambridge, 2002) 1: 247–262. Campos Boralevi does not draw on Dutch primary sources either. Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought. (Cambridge, ma, 2010), 134. Theodor Dunkelgrün, “‘Neerlands Israel’: Political Theology, Christian Hebraism, Biblical Antiquarianism and Historical Myth,” in Myth in History, History in Myth, ed. Laura Cruz and Willem Frijhoff (Leiden, 2009), 201–236: 229. On the De la Courts, see A. Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age: The Political Thought of Johan & Pieter de la Court (Leiden, 2011); E.H. Kossmann, Political Thought in the Dutch Republic: Three Studies (Amsterdam, 2000); W.R.E. Velema, “‘That a Republic is Better than a Monarchy’: Anti-monarchism in Early Modern Dutch Political Thought,” in Republicanism, ed. Van Gelderen and Skinner, 9–26. On Koerbagh: J.I. Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1650–1752 (Oxford, 2006), 185–196; M. Wielema, “Adriaan Koerbagh: Biblical Criticism and Enlightenment,” in The Early Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic, 1650–1750, ed. W. van Bunge (Leiden, 2003), 61–80. On Spinoza’s discussion of the Hebrew Republic there is a large body of literature. See, for instance, L. Feuer, Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism (Boston, 1958), 119–135; Novak, “Spinoza and the Doctrine of the Election of Israel”; Rosenthal, “Why Spinoza Chose the Hebrews,” 207–241; M. Terpstra, “De betekenis van de oudtestamentische theocratie voor

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unlike a number of contextualist studies of Spinoza whose narratives are mainly about Spinoza’s intellectual allies and hardly about his intellectual opponents, this chapter also pays serious attention to the writings of orthodox Calvinist ministers.12 To the extent that these intellectual opponents of Koerbagh and Spinoza are discussed, their views are generally presented sketchily, as being incoherent, traditional or backward. Accordingly, Jonathan Israel has presented the views of prominent Calvinists such as Voetius as “resistance” against a supposedly unstoppable rise of “the New Philosophy.” Voetius and his followers are more or less reduced to the phrase “fundamentalist, hardline confessional orthodoxy.”13 Such a presentation, it seems to me, obscures our understanding of the ideological landscape of Spinoza’s time, and hence makes it difficult to appreciate Spinoza’s intervention. This chapter thus turns first to the notion of Neerlands Israel in Dutch Calvinist political theology, followed by a discussion of Van Velthuysen and the De la Court brothers. For these Dutch republican authors, Thomas Hobbes’s writings, which had just become available in the Dutch Republic, became highly relevant as they picked up—and re-appropriated—some of Hobbes’s insights in the unity of civil and ecclesiastical authority. The last part of the chapter explores Spinoza’s seminal contribution to this debate, and shows not only how in his political thinking the Hebrew Republic turns out to be both a model and an anti-model, but also the ways in which the exemplum of the Hebrew Republic functioned within Spinoza’s broader view on the need for a public religion and broad toleration at the same time.

Neerlands Israel and the Orthodox Calvinist Ministers’ Political Reading of the Old Testament

On the death of Prince William ii in 1650 the Dutch Republic entered what is known as the First Stadholderless Period. During this period that lasted until 1672, when William iii restored the political power of the House of Orange, the

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de politieke filosofie van Spinoza. Een hoofdstuk uit de geschiedenis van de politieke theologie,” Tijdschrift voor filosofie 60 (1998): 292–320; T. Verbeek, Spinoza’s TheologicoPolitical Treatise. Exploring the Will of God (Aldershot, 2003), 121–150. H.W. Blom, Causality and Morality in Politics. The Rise of Naturalism in Dutch SeventeenthCentury Political Thought (Ph.D. Dissertation, Utrecht University, 1995); W. van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza. An Essay on Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic (Leiden, 2001). J. Israel, Radical Enlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford, 2001), 25. A similar approach can be discerned in E.H. Kossmann’s classic collection of studies Political Thought in the Dutch Republic, 44–46.

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lax approach on the part of the States General, the provincial States and the city councils to combatting dissenting Protestant groups (other than the Calvinist Reformed Church), Catholics, Jews, and the “new philosophy,” aroused enormous frustration and drew heavy criticism from orthodox clergymen. Most prominent among them was the theologian and university professor Gisbert Voetius (1589–1676), whose theological rigor and precision, insistence on the practice of piety, and pleas for a “further” reformation of society, played a vital role in the renewal of orthodoxy among reformed ministers.14 The pious mode of life that Voetius and his followers aimed to restore was ideologically backed up by their rhetorical use of the notion of Neerlands Israel. Representative examples of Dutch Calvinist (Voetian) discourse concerned with the notion of Neerlands Israel were Abraham van de Velde’s Wonderen des Alder-hooghsten (Miracles of the Almighty, 1668), Hermannus Witsius’ De Twist des Heeren (The Lord’s Dispute, 1669), and Jodocus van Lodenstein’s Beschouwinge van Zion (Considerations of Zion, 1674–77).15 All three authors urged their readers to “let the Israelites […] be an example” to them.16 Published in the late 1660s, Van de Velde’s Wonderen des Alder-hooghsten provides a fairly representative picture of the reasoning and language used in the public preaching of Voetian ministers in the 1650s and 1660s.17 In it Van de 14

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J.R. Beeke, “Toward a Reformed Marriage of Knowledge and Piety: The Contribution of Gisbertus Voetius,” Reformation and Revival 10 (2001): 124–155; F. van Lieburg, “From Pure Church to Pious Culture: The Further Reformation in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic,” in Later Calvinism. International Perspectives, ed. W. Graham (Kirksville, 1994), 409–421; D. Nobbs, Theocracy and Toleration. A Study of the Disputes in Dutch Calvinism from 1600 to 1650 (Cambridge, 1938). A. van de Velde, De wonderen des Alder-hooghsten, ofte aenwijsinge vande oorsaecken, wegen en middelen, waer door de Geunieerde Provintien, uyt hare vorige onderdruckinge soo wonderbaerlijck, tegen vermoeden van de heele Wereldt, tot soo grooten macht rijckdom, eere, en onsaggelijkheydt zyn verheven (Middelburg, 1668); H. Witsius, Twist des Heeren met sijn wyngaert, deselve overtuygende van misbruyk sijner weldaden, onvruchtbaerheydt in ‘t goede, en al te dertele weeldrigheydt, in schadelijcke nieuwigheden van opinien, en schandelijcke outheyt van quade zeeden, met bedreyginge van sijn uyterste ongenade (Leeuwarden, 1669); J. van Lodenstein, Beschouwinge van Zion ofte Aandagten en Opmerckingen over den tegenwoordigen toestand van ’t Gerformeerde Christen Volk (Utrecht, 1674). Van Lodenstein, Beschouwinge van Zion, ii, 50. Citations are taken from the H.P. Scholte edition (Amsterdam, 1839). Wonderen des Alder-hooghsten would become an influential and popular book in the late 1660s and 1670s. In 1669, soon after its first publication, a second edition came out in both Middelburg and Utrecht, and in 1677 a third in Hoorn. Its influence, however, extends to  later centuries as well: it saw as much as fifteen editions, the latest of which was published in the 1980s. J. van der Haar, Schatkamer van de gereformeerde theologie in

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Velde narrates how the hand of God could be seen at work at numerous critical moments in the history of the liberation of the Dutch Republic from the Spanish monarchy. Indeed, he wrote, “[i]f there is something remarkable in the affairs of The Netherlands, it is this visible and evident help of God, who used the entire nature, heaven, earth, air, and sea, to our advantage, and through them fought against our enemies.”18 The question whether it was strictly the Dutch people as a whole, or only the elected community of the Reformed church that was identified with the Israelite people has been endlessly disputed.19 For “the elect” in seventeenth-century Calvinist theology was a universal category; they could be found in other countries as well.20 But it was not so much the case that Dutch orthodox ministers denied the universality of an elected church community. Rather, the notion of a “special” election of the Dutch people was used as a rhetorical device to convey the message that the Dutch ought to be worthy of God’s help. It was used as a legitimization to uphold a certain social order or public structure that was embedded within a higher divinely ordained order. In Hermannus Witsius’s De Twist des Heeren this special relationship was exemplified thus: Or do you want me to put it more clearly? You are the people of God, to whom The Lord has come so near, whom he, from so many peoples, in a special way, chose to be his own, and of whom he fairly expects more than of the rest.21 Nederland (c. 1600–c. 1800) (Veenendaal, 1987), 513–514. Van de Velde was a minister, first in Zevenhoven and Schoonhoven in the 1640s, and in 1651 in Utrecht. Because of his fulmination against the civil authorities in a dispute over the property of a former Catholic chapter, Van de Velde was dismissed as minister and banned from the city by the States of Utrecht in 1660. He returned to Zeeland and decided to stay and preach in Middelburg from 1663 until his death in 1677. It was probably in this period in Middelburg that he wrote De Wonderen des Alder-hooghsten. See “Velde, Abraham van der,” in Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, ed. P.C. Molhuysen and P.J. Blok, 10 vols. (Leiden, 1911– 1937), 5:996; “Velde, Abraham van de,” in Biografisch lexicon voor de geschiedenis van het Nederlands protestantisme, ed. J.W. Buisman and G. Brinkman, 6 vols. (­Kampen, 1978), 1: 392. 18 Van de Velde, Wonderen des Alder-hooghsten, 80. 19 Groenhuis, “Calvinism and the National Consciousness,” 124; E.H. Kossmann, In Praise of the Dutch Republic: Some Seventeenth-Century Attitudes (London, 1963), 12; Smitskamp, Calvinistisch Nationaal Besef, 14–17. 20 Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of the English, Dutch, and Swedish Public Churches, 1685–1772 (Leiden, 2005). 21 Witsius, Twist des Heeren, 119.

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The point that Witsius and Van de Velde wanted to convey was that this special providential relationship required maintenance. The word of God, often metaphorically described as a “tree” or a “candlestick,” was “planted” in the Dutch Republic, but could also be taken away.22 Hence these ministers cautioned that God can “remove his candlestick” if the people would desert “the holy doctrine of Reformed truths,” as Van Lodenstein put it.23 Just as the Jews were ordered by God to drive out idolatry and the Canaanite religion, Van Lodenstein argued that similarly the Reformed people ought to dispel Catholic public worship. In Witsius’ Twist des Heeren God’s “vineyard” was “the people of Israel” in which “the stinking sins and wickedness had obtained the upper hand” over the “good grapes.”24 Witsius warned his readers that it was their duty to prevent this. Among such rotten grapes Witsius reckoned Cartesianism and the “new philosophy that would like to arrogate to itself the domain of theology and the word of God.” He rejected the idea that the Bible in matters concerning natural phenomena is accommodated to “the opinions of the evil people.” The Bible, he reasserted, is the “undeniable authority” and “infallible truth” in “whatever kind of matters.”25 The history of the Hebrew people proved that “God had removed the idols (Afgoden) from their midst” and “purified them of false doctrines and heresies.” Referring directly to the work of the republican brothers Johan and Pieter de la Court (which will be discussed further on), Witsius charged the De la Courts for spreading the pernicious idea that “public teachers” are only allowed to preach “in the name of the political authority.” The example of the early Christians, apostles and “loyal ministers,” who under the pagan emperors were labelled “rioters” and “rebels” for teaching the “holy truth,” showed according to Witsius the foolishness of such maxims. Even with regard to this historical example in which Christians were branded rebels by the reigning authorities, Witsius claimed, “they [the De la Courts] hold that the public judgment of good and evil,” including the judgment whether “their laws are in conflict with God’s commands,” belongs to the political sovereign.26 Witsius also pointed his venom at the “atrocious maxims of some political flatterers” and other “political lords” who want to turn “the servants of the 22

Indicative of this preoccupation is that twelve of the sixteen sermons in the orthodox minister Jodocus van Lodenstein’s Boet-predikatien (penalty sermons) dealt with the text: “Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land” (Jeremiah 45:4). Bisschop, Sions vorst en volk, 71–73. 23 Van Lodenstein, Beschouwinge van Zion, i, 245. 24 Witsius, Twist des Heeren, 4. 25 Ibidem, 262, 278–279. 26 Ibidem, 223.

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Word not only into kissers but also into footstools of their feet.” Witsius was all too aware of the arguments of his opponents, as he consciously put his arguments in opposition to the “detestable” works, the anonymous De jure ecclesiasticorum (1665), and Grotius’ De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra (1647), the central contention of which was that the supreme power in matters concerning theology or “the sacred” should reside with the civil authority.27 To decide the matter once and for all, Witsius referred to the example of the “Jewish council,” the Sanhedrin. This what Witsius took to be a political authority had “threatened” and forbidden no-one less than the apostles Peter and John to teach that faith in Jesus was “the only way to salvation.” These examples make abundantly clear, Witsius concluded, that ministers should always retain the right to judge, admonish and remind the political authority to their duty to the word of God. They have the supreme authority in interpreting the word of God and deciding on the nature of “true religion.”28 In perfect agreement with Witsius’ argumentation were the stern measures suggested by Van de Velden in his Wonderen des Alder-hooghsten. In order to keep God’s tree in the Republic Van de Velde first stressed the restoration of the prophetic status of Calvinist ministers: they “have received the treasure of sacred truth” and ought to reveal it.29 Secondly, Christian ceremonies and doctrines, such as Sunday observance, Lord’s Supper, feast-days, and public prayer, should be strictly adhered to and placed under the authority of the ­ecclesiastical authorities. More generally, all sinful aspects of daily life should be placed under the strict exercise of church discipline. Thirdly, ministers ought to counter erroneous and heretical teachings. “Should ministers refrain from refuting ­doctrinal errors,” so that “Christians can better unite with each other?” Van de Velde asked rhetorically. Clearly aware of the arguments in favour of passive toleration, his answer was an unambiguous “no.” Instead he made an appeal to the regents to promote godliness, avert and punish ­godlessness, and give a “strong example.” Moreover, political functions should be open only for those who adhere to the Reformed religion and only Reformed schools should be a­ llowed. All harmful books and slander must be prohibited, and lastly, Socinianism, Remonstrantism, Catholicism and Cartesian 27

Ibidem, 343, 351 (emphasis in original). De Iure Ecclesiasticorum was published under the pseudonym Lucius Antistius Constans in Amsterdam in the year 1665. For this work, see the introductions of Hans Blom and Christian Lazzéri in the reissued Latin edition (with French translation) edited by V. Butori et al. Lucius Antistius Constans, Du droit des ecclésiastiques (Caen, 1991), ix-xli. 28 Witsius, Twist des Heeren, 353–356. 29 Van de Velde, De wonderen des Alder-hoogsten, 264.

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philosophy must be fought. For “[i]f our fatherland was ever in great danger, it must be now,” Van de Velde warned, “because of these atrocities and seducing doctrines.”30 In the eyes of Van de Velde and his Voetian colleagues, then, the growth of de facto toleration under the political regime of Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt had to be reversed. Whereas in the 1640s and the first half of the 1650s the rise of Cartesian philosophy at Dutch universities was mainly an internal academic discussion (conducted in Latin), during the second half of the 1650s and the 1660s it seemed as if theology, the Bible, and thus the religious and social authority of the Church and its clergy were being openly challenged on the streets.31 As the Restoration of the English monarchy in 1660 heightened the expectation that the young Prince William iii would one day return to the Republic, orthodox clerics—who were almost without exception supporters of the return of an Orangist stadholder—took up a more confident position to put more pressure on their efforts to purify Dutch society.32 They sought to bring the regents, as members of the Reformed church, under their religious  authority. Their claim to be the only righteous interpreters of the word of  God  not  only threatened the independence of the regents but was also directed towards the daily life of people. Neither civil authorities nor common people, including  philosophers and university professors, they argued, should have the right to challenge this authority. This was, however, precisely what the brothers De la Court, Koerbagh, Van Velthuysen, and Spinoza did. As we shall see, in particular Hobbes’s De Cive, and later his Leviathan, offered them intellectual armour with which to oppose the orthodox Calvinist ministers’ claim to independent authority in ecclesiastical matters alongside the civil sovereign.

Hobbes and Dutch Republican Authors on the Supreme Sovereignty of the Civil Magistrate in Religious Matters

In 1667 a Dutch version of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan was published by Jacobus Wagenaar, a young bookseller who owned a small bookshop located in a narrow alley in the centre of Amsterdam named Des-Cartes. It was translated into Dutch by the theologian and doctor of medicine Abraham van Berkel 30 31

Ibidem, 260–261, 276. R. Vermij, The Calvinist Copernicans. The Reception of the new Astronomy in the Dutch Republic, 1575–1750 (Amsterdam, 2002), 272–294. 32 Israel, The Dutch Republic, 637–690.

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(1639–1686).33 The opening sentence of Van Berkel’s introduction to the text of Leviathan stated that for “absolute supreme powers” (onbepaelde Oppermagten) there is “no more necessary knowledge” thinkable than understanding wherein their sovereign right lies. What is more, Van Berkel immediately added, the prosperity and decline of a state are wholly dependent upon such knowledge: For, after the Jews had dismissed θεοκρατία [theocracy] (as Josephus coined their state in praise of his fellow compatriots) or government by  God, and in imitation of other peoples had chosen and been given a king, so one can usually find in Holy Scripture that God, through his prophets, often bursts into this lamentation; that the damnation and destruction, and the persecution they have suffered from others […] resulted from this; that they did not have sufficient knowledge of sovereignty.34 Van Berkel’s reference to the decision of the ancient Hebrews to “dismiss” (ontslaan) God and choose a mortal king instead, which in his eyes signified the beginning of the dreadful decline of the Hebrew Republic, and which illustrated his claim that a clear understanding of sovereignty within a state might be crucial for its survival and well-being, serves as a revealing point of entry into the topic of Hobbes’s reception in the Dutch Republic.35 Van Berkel’s carefully chosen reference not only gives us a hint about what it was in Hobbes’s work that he thought would appeal to the Dutch audience he intended to reach, but it also represented an important voice in contemporary Dutch public debates concerning the lessons that might be drawn from the history and nature of the biblical Hebrew Republic. In this context, it was no coincidence that Van Berkel referred to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. A popular and widely read author in the Dutch Republic, Josephus was one of the central intellectual sources relevant to the controversies about the status and meaning of the Hebrew Republic as the second book of his Against Apion provided a lively depiction of the history of 33

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The full title page reads: Leviathan: of van de stoffe, gedaente, ende magt vande kerckelycke ende wereltlycke Regeeringe. Beschreven door Thomas Hobbes van Malmesburg. By Jacobus Wagenaar, Boeck-verkooper, op de hoeck van de Mol-steegh, in Des-Cartes. (Amsterdam, 1667). The introduction is signed by ‘A.T.A.B.’: Abraham Theodorus à Berkel. The translation was based on the ‘head-edition.’ See C.W. Schoneveld, Intertraffic of the Mind: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Anglo-Dutch Translation (Leiden, 1983), 29–62. Van Berkel, ‘Voor-reden’ (preface) to Van Berkel’s translation of Leviathan. C. Secretan, “La réception de Hobbes aux Pays-Bas au xviie siècle,” Studia Spinozana 3 (1987): 27–45.

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the Jewish commonwealth.36 Josephus was the first who suggested that the ­political constitution of the Israelites under Moses should not be classified as one of the traditional forms of “polity”—rule by one, a few, or the many—but is better understood by the neologism “theocracy.” In this unique constitution, Josephus explained, all sovereignty and authority was placed in the hands of God.37 Josephus’ account of the Hebrew Republic figures prominently in the work of Hobbes. In Chapters sixteen and seventeen of De Cive Hobbes ascertained that under God’s kingship over the Israelite people, Moses was “the sole interpreter of God’s word, and also held sovereign power in civil matters.”38 This unity of ecclesiastical and civil authority, Hobbes continued, was essentially retained thereafter. After Moses, it was handed over to the high priests and when their rule came to an end their authority was ceded to the Kings of Israel.39 After the Babylonian captivity supreme authority was again restored in what Hobbes called the “Priestly Kingdom” (Regnum Sacerdotale). For Hobbes the history of the Hebrews was an authoritative example for c­ ontemporary ­Christian sovereigns, who likewise should be head of both the commonwealth and the Church, “for a Christian Church and a Christian Commonwealth are 36

Josephus was translated into Dutch as early as the thirteenth century: see R. Veenman, De klassieke traditie in de lage landen (Nijmegen, 2009), 30. Other editions in the vernacular appeared in 1552 and 1580 (Antwerpen), 1636 (Haarlem), and 1647 (Amsterdam). A successful Latin version was the 1534 Basel edition Flavii Iosephi Antiquitatum Judaicarum libri xx (reissued in 1537 and 1540). Spinoza owned a copy of the 1540 edition. Van Berkel appears to have owned a 1567 edition entitled Josephi Judaei opera Latine (Basel, 1567) and an earlier Opera Graece (Basel, 1516). See “Book Sales Catalogues of the Dutch Republic, 1599–1800” [mf 2986]. Earlier in the seventeenth century Josephus had been an important source for both Grotius and Cunaeus: Nelson, The Hebrew Republic, 88–111. On the relationship between Josephus and Spinoza, see W. Klever, Spinoza classicus. Antieke bronnen van een moderne denker (Budel, 2005), 253–267. 37 Josephus, Against Apion, Book 2, in: Flavius Josephus. Translation and Commentary. Volume 10: Against Apion ed. S. Mason (Leiden, 2007), 261–263. 38 Hobbes, De Cive: The Latin Version, ed. H. Warrender, (Oxford, 1983), 244–245; Hobbes, On the Citizen, ed. R. Tuck (Cambridge, 1998), 196–197. 39 Hobbes, De Cive: The Latin Version, 243; Hobbes, On the Citizen, 196. In Leviathan Hobbes presented an identical argument: ‘Therefore the Civill and Ecclesiasticall Power were both joined together in one and the same person, the High Priest.’ And later on: ‘To the judges, succeeded Kings: And whereas before, all authority, both in Religion, and Policy, was in the High Priest; so now it was all in the King.’ Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C.B. Macpherson (London, 1968; 1651), 506–507. See also J.P. Sommerville, “Hobbes, Selden, Erastianism, and the History of the Jews,” in Hobbes and History, ed. G.A.J. Rogers and T. Sorell (London, 2000), 160–188.

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one and the same thing.”40 In Leviathan Hobbes basically reiterated his analysis: “[F]rom the first institution of God’s Kingdome, to the Captivity, the Supremacy of Religion, was in the same hand with that of the Civill Sovereignty.” Accordingly, “we may conclude that whosoever in Christian Commonwealth holdeth the place of Moses is the sole messenger of God and interpreter of his commandments.”41 Hobbes’s writings became widely available in the Dutch Republic in the period 1647–1675.42 The translation of Leviathan in 1667 was clearly part of an endeavour of Van Berkel and other radical authors to challenge and push back the growing influence of ecclesiastical authorities both by a process of educating the common people intellectually and by encouraging the regents to reclaim their sovereignty in ecclesiastical matters. Indeed, Hobbes’s interpretation of God as civil sovereign of the Hebrew Republic and his discussion of sovereignty based on free consent was an inflammable issue in the Dutch Republic. This can be inferred from the fierce attack on De Cive by Gisbertus Cocquius (1630–1708), a disciple of Voetius and Calvinist minister from Kockengen, a small town near Utrecht. His Vindiciae pro lege et imperio […] contra tractatum Hobbii de cive (1661) criticised Hobbes’s account of popular sovereignty and his picture of the Israelites choosing Samuel as their king by free consent, preferring to argue the other way around, that is, that God had elected the Israelites as “his” people, and that hence the notion of popular sovereignty was mistaken.43 The original source of legitimate sovereignty, Cocquius argued, was God’s will, not the consent of the people.44 Hobbes’s interpretation of I Samuel 8 was undoubtedly one of Cocquius’s greatest concerns about the work (in particular v. 11–19 which recounts all the terrible things that will happen when a king established by free consent will rein), as he decided to add Voetius’s Disquisitio textualis ad I Sam. 8. v. 11–19. de Jure Regio Hebraeorum (originally published in 1653) as an annex to his work. 40 Hobbes, De Cive: The Latin Version, 244–246, 279; Hobbes, On the Citizen, 197–199, 233. 41 Hobbes, Leviathan, 326, 329. 42 C.W. Schoneveld, “Holland and the Early Editions of Thomas Hobbes,” in Sea-Changes. Studies in Three Centuries of Anglo-Dutch Cultural Transmission, ed. C.W. Schoneveld (Amsterdam, 1996), 31–47; and Idem, Intertraffic of the Mind, 29–62. 43 W. Hübener, “Die Verlorene Unschuld Der Theokratie,” in Religionstheorie und Politische Theologie, Vol. 3: Theokratie, ed. J. Taubes (Munich, 1987), 29–64: 49. 44 Cocquius, Vindiciae pro lege et imperio, sive Dissertationes duae, quarum una est de lege in communi, altera de exemption principis a lege, institutae potissimum contra tractatum Hobbii de cive (Utrecht, 1661). A revised edition under the title Hobbes έλεγχομενος; sive, Vindiciae pro Lege, Imperio, et Religione, contra Hobbesii tractatus de Cive et Leviathan appeared in 1668.

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A few years later, the eminent Dutch lawyer and diplomat Dirck Graswinckel (1600–1666), in his defence of the absolute sovereignty of the States of Holland, was like Cocquius eager to point out that “the whole body of subjects” does not have “the right or power of supreme authority.” According to Graswinckel, who was also an avid reader of Josephus, it was God who, “due to his right of absolute power and property,” is “the sovereign and monarch of the republic of the whole world.”45 Supreme authority was established solely “through God’s word, will and power.”46 Thus when the Israelites committed the “crime” of rejecting God and asking Samuel to be their (mortal) king, Graswinckel warned that “these folks should not have imagined that they had any right or power from themselves to institute a supreme head above them on their own authority.”47 Although Graswinckel shared with Cocquius his rejection of Hobbes’s conception of sovereignty based on popular consent, his overall defence of the sovereignty of the States of Holland put him rather in the camp of De Witt. His work can therefore best be read as a counterargument against the two Leiden cloth merchants who also have usually been counted among the supporters of De Witt’s republicanism: the brothers Johan and Pieter de la Court. In Consideratien van Staet, ofte Politike Weegschaal (Considerations of State, or Political Balance) the De la Courts had put forth an argument, based on a republicanised reading of Hobbes, for the “reasonableness, naturalness, and fairness” of a “popular government.”48 The brothers also discussed the succession of the Kingdom of God over the Hebrews by a kingdom ruled by mortal kings. Although they were keen to appropriate Hobbes’s language of a natural state and the equal natural right of self-preservation, they strongly opposed Hobbes’s view that the high priests were the successors of Moses as supreme sovereign of both civil and religious matters. Instead, the De la Courts emphasised that the high priests were “unarmed” and could be deposed as presidents of the Sanhedrin by the Elders of the different Israelite tribes. In other words, the high priests lacked the means to enforce law, and moreover, 45

46 47 48

D. Graswinckel, Nasporinge van het recht van de opperste macht toekomende de edele groot mogende heeren de Heeren Staten van Holland en Westfriesland (1667), 8–9. Cf. Ibidem, 334, 450–452, for reference to Josephus. Ibidem, 4. Ibidem, 32. [Johan and Pieter de la Court], Consideratien van Staat, ofte Politike Weeg-schaal (Amsterdam, 1662), 530. Five editions of Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Politike Weeg-schaal were published between 1660 and 1662. Quotations are from the fourth edition. Spinoza owned a copy of the second edition. For an informed discussion of the De la Courts’ appropriation of Hobbesian concepts, see Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism in the Dutch Golden Age, 147–157.

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were ­ultimately subordinate to the people, represented by the Elders. When Samuel and the high priest Eli were ever more seeking after “their own wellbeing than after the honour of God and the republic’s well-being,” the De la Courts explained, the Israelites (“fools as they are”) instead of “diminishing the power of the all too powerful head, the high priest,” asked for a king. Originally, the De la Courts maintained, God had established a republic, with “laws and magistrates” ruling in the name of God, who they accepted “as their lord or king.” Once they rebelled against God and refrained from reinstituting “their old and free government,” they fell into slavery.49 So while the De la Courts embraced Hobbes’s theory of an undivided sovereign, they only partially accepted Hobbes’s arguments and the biblical interpretations that supported it. Antimonarchical thinkers as they were, they accepted Hobbes’s argument for the supreme authority over civil and ecclesiastical matters but resolutely rejected his suggestion that this supreme authority was handed over to priest-kings. A more elaborate critical engagement with Hobbes’s argument for the unity of civil and ecclesiastical authority can be found in the thought of Lambertus van Velthuysen (1622–1685), a student of philosophy, theology and medicine at the University of Utrecht. A prolific writer and prominent member of the local patriciate in Utrecht at a time of bickering between the city council and the assertive Church council led by Voetius, Van Velthuysen did not shun polemics.50 In the aftermath of his notorious polemic with Voetian theologians over the biblical basis for the rejection of Copernicanism, Van Velthuysen wrote two pamphlets that appeared in the year 1660 entitled Het Predick-Ampt en ‘t Recht der Kercke [The Office of Minister and the Right of the Church, hereafter: Het Predick-Ampt] and Ondersoeck of de Christelijcke Overheydt eenigh quaedt in haer gebiedt mach toe laten [Inquiry whether the Christian Government may allow any Evil in its Territory, hereafter: Ondersoeck].51 As Het Predick-Ampt and Ondersoeck appeared in the same year, the two pamphlets can be read as complementing each other: the former argued for the subordination of the Church and its ministers to the authority of the State; the latter dealt with the question how much scope for religious “error” a “Christian government” should allow. 49 De la Court, Consideratien van Staat, 155–159. 50 His Opera Omnia, published in 1680, counts almost 1600 pages. L. van Velthuysen, Opera omnia (Rotterdam, 1680). 51 L. van Velthuysen, Het Predick-Ampt en ‘t Recht der Kercke (Amsterdam, 1660); idem, Ondersoeck of de Christelijcke Overheydt eenigh quaedt in haer gebiedt mach toe laten (Middelburg, 1660). Ondersoeck also appeared in Latin translation in Opera Omnia. On Van Velthuysen’s polemic with Voetian theologians over Copernicanism, see Van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza, 74–85; Vermij, The Calvinist Copernicans, 272–293.

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Van Velthuysen wrote Het Predick-Ampt against “the sentiments of some reformed ministers who expand their own power more than they ought to.” In his pamphlet Van Velthuysen questioned what source of authority there was for appointing ministers. His answer involved a small excursion into Church history. The first, “primitive” Church, he admitted, appointed clergymen “outside of the authority and knowledge of the magistrate.” These “first Christians” were justified in doing so on the basis of “natural” or “private” right. But such a natural right only applied to “private persons” in situations of “emergency, persecution, confusion, and hostile activities […] against them.” In a later chapter Van Velthuysen elaborated this point: “The Christian Church was established under pagan supreme powers.” In this “emergency situation” circumventing magisterial authority was justified. But such a right comes to an end “when the magistrate is taking care of our safety and tranquillity, and has restored order.” According to Van Velthuysen, Calvinist political theology has misinterpreted the example of the early Church (which, as we have seen, Witsius was to repeat a few years later). This explained where “the confusion,” that is, that the Church has a special right within a polity, had come from. This misinterpretation was “the foundation of that false distinction between Church and polity, worldly and spiritual power.”52 Therefore, he concluded, “one cannot base the right of Church on this example.”53 Van Velthuysen subsequently set out to offer a natural right based argument that the magistrate is to decide what religion his subjects should adhere to, and that accordingly, it is the right and duty of the magistrate to appoint ministers, to “speak the word of God purely,” and to “administer the holy sacrament purely and according to God’s direction.” Van Velthuysen furthermore emphasised that “these matters are no less political, because they are executed by someone else,” i.e. by appointed ministers.54 The magistrate ought to rule the Church as a “college,” similar to “colleges of midwives” or “colleges of justices.” Thus, “so as to bring this issue once and for all to a final conclusion,” Van Velthuysen stated that “the Church is not only within the polity” but is “a political society.” And “so it is the case that religion, which descends from heaven immediately through revelation […] is part of the polity, and a political affair.” As a consequence, “the divine decree becomes a political decree.”55 Civil law thus included laws on ecclesiastical matters and divine worship.

52 53 54 55

Van Velthuysen, Het Predick-Ampt, 101–103, 107. Ibidem, 47–49, 53, 56. Ibidem, 97. Ibidem, 61–62, 87, 94, 97 (emphasis in original).

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At this particular point, Van Velthuysen invoked the Hebrew Republic, as a negative example, to demonstrate that a Christian commonwealth, such as the one he claimed to be living in, should allow for considerable toleration for differences of religious opinion, whereas in the ancient Hebrew Republic this was an entirely different matter. The ancient Hebrews, he wrote, had a bold commandment to accept no-one into the community of the Republic of Israel who did not promise to abide by the Jewish religion. And on this foundation the Jewish magistrate not only had the right to admonish his subjects and to advise them to stick to the Jewish religion, but also to formally command it. This right of the magistrate in the Hebrew state was not based on contract or nature, but on fundamentally different grounds: [W]hoever abandoned the Jewish religion was punishable, because he formally acted against the commandment; in such a way that this right of the Jewish magistrate, to demand such a religion of his subjects, and punish those who acted against it, did not originate from the right of selfdefence, but because God had subjected the consciences of the Jewish subjects to the command of the Magistrate. A “Christian magistrate,” on the other hand, although he also “commands and demands a particular religion,” cannot do this because “he has neither jurisdiction nor the right to administrate justice over the consciences of his subjects.” In a Christian commonwealth, Van Velthuysen insisted, it is not the case that “someone who does not subjects his mind and conscience” to the commandment of the magistrate “commits the sin of disobedience.”56 Instead, Christian regents may avert error “not from the nature of sin and error, as if it would spark off the wrath of God […] but from reason of state.”57 Disbelief, in other words, is not a form of political disobedience as it had been in the Hebrew Republic. Van Velthuysen was not alone in making this argument. The brothers De la Court in their Politike Discoursen (1662) too stressed the uniqueness of the way in which the “divine Republic” handled religious deviance, just as, as we will see below, Spinoza did. In the Hebrew Republic God had “commanded the killing of heretics, or better, those who taught a different God and religion,” the 56 57

Van Velthuysen, Ondersoeck, 87–88 (emphasis in original). Ibidem, 47.

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De la Courts averred. But “our” government, they continued, is not obliged to act accordingly, because “they are not bound to the Mosaic political laws, but to reason and fairness alone.”58 Thus Van Velthuysen’s and the De la Courts’ counter-point to the theocratic aspirations of Calvinist ministers was that a Christian commonwealth differed in a fundamental respect from the Hebrew Republic. Whereas the political authorities in the latter were ordered by God to be intolerant, the political authorities in the former need not necessarily follow this example. The Mosaic laws, they held, were uniquely meant for the Hebrew Republic, whereas in a Christian republic political prudence, natural right, and reason of state superseded the claims of the Voetian theologians. The State, they argued, had the right to follow its own judgment in these matters, undermining thereby the political-theological basis for intolerance. At the same time, both Van Velthuysen and the De la Courts agreed that “a public religion in a state” is nevertheless “necessary.” Otherwise subjects might become “disloyal” and “uncharitable,” and rulers “would only be chasing their private advantage.”59 For these authors, as for Spinoza, a public religion ordered by the State and broad toleration did not preclude each other.

The Model and Anti-model of the Hebrew Republic in Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise

The debate about the Hebrew Republic in the Dutch Republic took on a new dimension with the work of Adriaen Koerbagh (1633–1669), and above all with that of Spinoza. In 1668 Koerbagh published his treatise Een ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen: om te verligten de voornaamste saaken der Gods geleertheyd en gods dienst (A Light Shining in Dark Places to Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion), followed two years later by Spinoza’s TheologicalPolitical Treatise. Both works questioned the very foundations underlying Dutch Calvinist political theology, including the authority of the example of the Hebrew Republic: namely, the notion of divine election, the nature of the Bible, and the nature of history. In doing so, they fundamentally ­undermined the notion of Neerlands Israel as Calvinist orthodox ministers understood it. The Theological-Political Treatise, although systematically and philosophically superior to Een ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen, shared its aim of

58 59

[Johan and Pieter de la Court], Politike Discoursen handelende in Ses onderscheide boeken, van Steeden, Landen, Oorlogen, Kerken, Regeeringen en Zeeden (Leiden, 1662), 322–323. Ibidem, 288.

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­ istoricizing and secularizing the status of the Bible, which in turn had major h repercussions for their views on the model of the Hebrew Republic. Koerbagh’s starting point was the observation that people have fallen back into various false religions “full of superstitions, fictions and fabrications” and are more concerned with violently imposing their beliefs on others, than with worshipping the one, unchanging, eternal God.60 In fact, Koerbagh maintained, Moses himself installed superstitious practices, even though the Bible says the Lord had spoken to him. In a long chapter on religion Koerbagh turned to the burning issue of the right of governments to make religious laws, noting that “the government has such a power” as “is also shown by Thomas Hobbes.”61 A central part of his argumentation revolved around the “lawgiver” Moses and the example of the Hebrew Republic. “Did Moses hold meetings with hundreds of clergymen to make laws and ordinances and then approve them?” Koerbagh asked. “Oh no! He made them himself.”62 Moses “has to be considered as a ruler and a statesman.” He, not high priest Aaron, “gave laws, both spiritual and state laws, and introduced ordinances.” What is more, Koerbagh suggested, we would rather criticise Moses and speak against him, and claim that Moses should have openly said: these laws, which I have devised through divine wisdom and which I know to be very necessary among such a large group of people, you must accept as divine and holy laws and live according to them.63 In Koerbagh’s view, then, the laws that Moses had laid down were simply a matter of political expediency. It might indeed be correct to call the laws of the Hebrews “the law of God,” but only in the sense that God had bestowed upon Moses “an enlightened intellect” so that he was capable of making up the laws himself.64 God’s word was in Koerbagh’s philosophy unchangeable and eternally true, but in a radical different way than the manner in which Calvinist theology understood it. For “Holy Scripture is not God’s word but the word of the people, which they [governments] may change if they wish since it only applies to the Jews.” “The real word of God,” Koerbagh held, “is reason, for, just 60 61 62 63 64

A. Koerbagh, A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion, ed. and trans. M. Wielema (Leiden, 2011), 299. Ibidem, 253. Ibidem, 225, 257 (translation slightly altered). Ibidem, 391, 395–397. Ibidem, 387.

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as God the Lord is unchangeable, eternal and true, so is reason.”65 Koerbagh thus stripped the Hebrew Republic and their laws from their special divine origins and situated it within a secularised historical framework. By implication the notion of “elected people” became highly problematic. It was precisely this crucial misunderstanding, that is, the idea of a divine election of the Jews, Spinoza in his Theological-Political Treatise wanted to get rid of. In fact, he sought to remove any notion of divine election whatsoever, including the orthodox Calvinist notion of Neerlands Israel. Moses’s belief that God had chosen the Hebrew nation was in Spinoza’s eyes merely an interpretation based on assumptions that Moses had already made. This was not surprising, Spinoza thought, since the Hebrews were “primitive and reduced to abject slavery” and could not be expected to have a sound conception of God.66 Since God’s direction “is the fixed and unalterable order of nature or the interconnectedness of [all] natural things,” a conception of God Spinoza would famously work out in his Ethica, God cannot favour any nation in particular. The Jews’ idea of election and vocation, Spinoza explained, was an act of their imagination that can be explained by “the success and the prosperity at that time of their commonwealth,” which was a consequence of “the [form of] society and laws” under which they lived.67 Since Spinoza identified the government of God over the Hebrews as “the Kingdom of God,” he may at first glance seem to have followed the analysis of Hobbes and Josephus. Civil law and religion in this state, Spinoza confirmed, “were one and the same thing.” That is to say, “religious dogmas were not doctrines but rather laws and decrees.” This state, therefore, “could be called a theocracy.” But then Spinoza fundamentally departed from both Hobbes and Josephus: God cannot be considered to have been the actual king of the Jews. This view was “more opinion than reality.” Instead, Spinoza introduced a “premosaic” theocracy which was established after the Jews departed from Egypt and found themselves in a “natural state.” Initially, on Moses’ advice, [t]he Hebrews did not transfer their right to another person but rather all gave up their right, equally, as in a democracy, crying with one voice: “We will do whatever God shall say” (making no mention of an intermediary). It follows that they all remained perfectly equal as a result of this 65 Ibidem, 299, 303. 66 Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise, ed. J.L. Israel, trans. M. Silverthorne and J.L. Israel (Cambridge, 2007), 37–38; Spinoza, Opera, ed. C. Gebhardt, 4 vols. (Heidelberg, 1925), 3:39–41. 67 Theological-Political Treatise, 44, 46–47; Opera, 3:45–48.

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agreement. The right to consult God, receive laws, and interpret them remained equal for all, and all equally without exception retained the whole administration of the state. This first covenant introduced by Spinoza as a sort of experiment in “democratic theocracy,” was, however, untenable. Because of their flawed conception of God the “primitive” Hebrews became “exceedingly terrified and astonished” when they consulted God and thus begged Moses to do so for them. As a result of giving up their rights to Moses under a “second” covenant, Moses became “the sole maker and interpreter of divine laws.”68 Spinoza’s bold reading of the doctrine of election ruled out the existence of sacred or providential history and thereby fundamentally undermined a cornerstone of Dutch Calvinist political theology. But his interpretation was at the same time a refutation of Hobbes’s Leviathan. Hobbes had attributed to God “a twofold kingdom”: one natural, “wherein he governeth […] by the Dictates of Right Reason,” the other prophetic, “wherein he had chosen out one peculiar Nation (the Jewes),” whom “he governed […] by Positive Lawes.”69 Spinoza dismissed Hobbes’s notion of a prophetic kingdom and rejected his eschatological notion of the restoration of the Kingdom of God through the return of Christ.70 In Spinoza’s philosophy the covenant with God “is no longer written in ink or on stone tablets but rather on the heart by the spirit of God.” God therefore “cannot be conceived as a prince or legislator enacting laws for men.” A covenant, “from which the law of religion arises,” can only be made with an “intermediary.”71 For Spinoza the Hebrew Republic was no authoritative example in the sense that it was a uniquely and divinely ordained constitution ordered by God himself. Yet Spinoza held that many lessons could be learned from the “excellent” state in the period after the death of Moses and before the appointment of kings. The Hebrew Republic was in certain circumscribed respects still a model to be followed. The reason for thinking so was that Spinoza deemed his theoretical foundation of the state (within a largely Hobbesian framework) to be one thing; but once established, “it is not so easy to ascertain” how citizens “can

68 Theological-Political Treatise, 213–214; Opera, 3:205–207. 69 Hobbes, Leviathan, 397. 70 J.G.A. Pocock, “Time, History and Eschatology in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes,” in The Diversity of History: Essays in Honour of Sir Herbert Butterfield, ed. J.H. Elliot and H.G. Koenigsberger (London, 1970), 149–198. 71 Theological-Political Treatise, 214, 229–230, 241; Opera, 206, 221, 231.

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be helped to keep up their loyalty and virtue consistently.”72 The issue commanded close attention, Spinoza thought, and the best way of probing it was by exploring both the excellence and shortcomings of the form of government that the state of the ancient Hebrews had adopted. Intriguingly, Spinoza thought it was precisely the theocratic character of the Hebrew Republic that was the determining factor for its stability and prosperity. As illustration he mentioned among other things the practice that the Jewish people as a whole congregated every seven years to learn and read about the religious laws, so that the leaders therefore had to take very good care, if only for their own sakes, to govern entirely according to the prescribed laws […] if they wanted to be held in the highest honour by the people who at that time revered them as ministers of God’s government and as having the place of God.73 The people themselves, in whose minds was aroused “a unique love” for their country, since they believed to be living in the republic of God, were “held in check” by the theocratic principles of their state. Their patriotism was not simply based on love, but was a form of (religious) piety. So it was an obligation at certain times of the year, Spinoza noted, for them to partake in feasts for God. About this ritual cult he remarked: “I do not think anything can be devised which is more effective than this for swaying men’s minds.”74 After describing the organization of the state, and the manner in which this contributed to the loyalty and obedience of its citizens, Spinoza praised the fact that there were “no sects in their religion, until the high priests obtained the authority to issue decrees and manage the business of government.”75 Indeed, the decline of the Hebrew state was due to a decision to have the Levites (i.e. the tribe from which the high priests were chosen) consult God. This decision in the end created a “government within a government.”76 From the moment that the high priests started to usurp control of the state, the degeneration of true religion set in and the number of doctrines proliferated. What may also be inferred from their history, Spinoza argued, is that turning divine law into complex philosophical articles of faith, and subsequently making laws 72 73 74 75 76

Theological-Political Treatise, 210; Opera, 203. Theological-Political Treatise, 220; Opera, 3:212. Theological-Political Treatise, 220, 231; Opera, 3:212, 222. Ibidem. Theological-Political Treatise, 228; Opera, 3:220.

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about them, is a recipe for oppression and potentially schismatic disputes. What the history of the Hebrew Republic suggested were simple doctrines instituted solely with an eye to the practice of piety under the supreme authority of a civil magistrate. After the destruction of the Hebrew state, Spinoza explained, the era of Jewish theocracy was over. When the Hebrew Republic came to an end, “religion could no longer be regarded as the prescription of a particular state.” And so the era of the “universal religion of reason” had begun. In this new stage of civil history, religion can only be ordered by the right of the political sovereign, for “God cannot be conceived as a prince or legislator.” Spinoza was well aware that “there has always been controversy about this right in Christian states.” The Hebrews, on the other hand, “never had any doubts about it.” This is not surprising, Spinoza held, echoing Van Velthuysen, if we reflect on the earliest beginnings of the Christian religion […] It was not kings who first taught the Christian religion, but rather private individuals, who were acting against the will of those who exercised political power, whose subjects they were […] Among the Hebrews the situation had been completely different. Their church began at the same time as their state, and Moses, who held absolute power, taught the people religion, organized the sacred ministries and selected the ministers.77 Whereas piety in the Hebrew Republic was religious in nature and political loyalty and religious loyalty to the State were one and the same thing, in Christian states piety was merely directed “towards one’s country,” that is to say, towards the well-being of the state. To see the difference, it may be clarifying at this point to recall the distinction that Spinoza made between “public” and “private” forms of religion, worship and piety. “Pious conduct” and external “formal religious worship” on the one hand, must be determined by the political sovereign. “Piety itself” or “private worship,” on the other hand, “are under everyone’s individual jurisdiction.”78 In so far as religion was not connected to external acts it remained a private affair, according to Spinoza, just like making judgments on any kind of philosophical or religious topic. In so far as religion was public, that is, in so far as it applied to the public practice of piety, charity and justice, and moreover, to the duty of obedience to the moral law, an individual did not have the liberty to interpret religion “at his own discretion.”79 77 78 79

Theological-Political Treatise, 241, 247–248; Opera, 3:231, 237. Theological-Political Treatise, 239–240; Opera, 3:229. Theological-Political Treatise, 116; Opera, 3:116.

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In Christian states, then, as long as the religion of private (groups of) individuals stayed within the political boundaries stipulated by the state religious pluralism may be tolerated. In the Hebrew Republic this was unthinkable. Echoing the observations of Van Velthuysen and the De la Courts, Spinoza’s observed that the Hebrews “had to do whatever they were commanded by the authority of the divine response received in the Temple or via the Law delivered by God without consulting reason.”80 In addition, he recalled the obligation that he thought the Hebrew people were under, “to denounce to a judge anyone who committed an offence against the stipulations of the Law […] and slaughter that person if condemned to death.” Such violent intolerance was unique to the Hebrew Republic, Spinoza thought. Moses laid down his laws as a public person; they were meant as political laws solely for the Hebrew Republic. Laws about what they should eat, how they should dress, how to shave their beards, and so on, Spinoza pointed out, were meant to impress on the people that they “should do nothing at their own discretion and everything at the command of another.”81 The teachings of Jesus, on the other hand, have a universal moral character. The prophets who preached his universal message did so as “private individuals.” And although the pagan rulers had not authorised the prophets to do so, Spinoza still thought their preaching was justified “by right of the power they had received from Jesus.” His contemporary Calvinist ministers should enjoy this liberty as well, that is to say, as private men, and provided that they remained within the boundaries set by the supreme political authority.82 While Spinoza rejected the harsh intolerance of the Hebrew Republic, he did see the need for a shared, public, or what may be called a, civil religion.83 The overriding consideration that informed Spinoza’s argument was that Biblical narratives and the prospect of salvation from simple obedience to the moral law of the Bible might raise people’s spirits to become better citizens. 80 81 82 83

Theological-Political Treatise, 225; Opera, 217. Theological-Political Treatise, 68, 75; Opera, 3: 69, 75. Theological-Political Treatise, 244; Opera, 3: 233. The term was of course coined by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Book iv, Chapter 8 of his On the social Contract. Yet I think that it captures nicely what Spinoza had in mind by a ‘universal religion’ under the jurisdiction of the civil sovereign. The term has been applied to other seventeenth-century authors as well. See especially M. Goldie, “The Civil Religion of James Harrington,” in The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe, ed. A. Pagden (Cambridge, 1987), 197–222; R. Tuck, “The Civil Religion of Thomas Hobbes,” in Political Discourse in Early Modern Britain, ed. N. Phillipson and Q. Skinner (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 120–138; see also R. Beiner, Civil Religion. A Dialogue in the History of Political Philosophy (Cambridge, 2011).

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Especially the common people, or multitude, who lack philosophical insight, Spinoza thought, are required to be to taught simple moral doctrines and obedience by church ministers. Against this background we are better able to understand Spinoza’s favourable estimation of ceremonies, public cults and worship. It was clear for him that neither ancient Hebrew nor Christian ceremonies contributed anything to (divine) salvation per se. Thus in contrast to the orthodox Calvinist view, Spinoza insisted that the precepts and laws of the Old Testament were solely meant for the Hebrews. They were only conducive to “material prosperity and peace” of their state. They belong, in other words, to things that are “indifferent” to salvation.84 Yet, as long as ceremonies were “consistent with the stability and conservation of the commonwealth,” they could be very helpful to turn the common people into loyal and virtuous citizens. In his (unfinished) Political Treatise, published in the Opera Posthuma (1677), Spinoza realised that he “omitted some points” that pertained to this topic. These are first, “that all ­patricians should be of the same religion, a very simple religion of a most universal nature as described in that treatise [the Theological-Political Treatise]”; second, that “churches dedicated to the national religion (religio patriae) should be large and costly”; and third, that “only patricians and senators should be permitted to administer its chief rites […] they alone should be acknowledged as ministers of the churches and as guardians and interpreters of the national religion.”85 Spinoza’s view of a civil (or national, public) religion drew inspiration from the example of the Hebrew Republic, but was stripped from its theocratic nature. Conclusion For Spinoza, Koerbagh, the De la Courts, and Van Velthuysen, the Hebrew Republic was both a model and an anti-model. It was a model primarily for the reason that it constituted an important authoritative example for the unity of civil and religious authority within one supreme civil sovereign. They employed this example as a counterargument against the orthodox Calvinist vision of an intolerant Neerlands Israel paralleling the divine, orthodox republic of the Hebrews. This example provided Calvinist ministers an argument for purifying Church and society of religious convictions other than those of the 84 Theological-Political Treatise, 61; Opera, 62. 85 Spinoza, Political Treatise, in: Spinoza, The Complete Works, trans. S. Shirley (Indianapolis, 2002), 740.

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Reformed creed. In this sense the De la Courts, Van Velthuysen, Koerbagh and Spinoza fit within the tradition that sees the Hebrew Republic as an authoritative example in early modern political thought to counter the Church’s claim to religious authority independent of the State. But these Dutch republicans did not invoke the Hebrew Republic in ways that early modern authors as discussed by Nelson in his The Hebrew Republic did. Authors like Grotius, Selden, Harrington and others, Nelson maintains, “nurtured by deeply felt religious convictions,” established the view based on rabbinic literature that God’s own republic had “embraced toleration” by demanding the emptying of “the set of religious matters deemed worthy of civil legislation.”86 It has become clear from the discussion in this chapter that Van Velthuysen, Koerbagh, the De la Courts, and Spinoza, presented the Hebrew Republic as a negative example, an anti-model, of theocratic intolerance. What mattered to them was the fundamental difference between the Hebrew state and the Christian state. A Christian state should be ruled according to the maxims of reason of state, peace and public morality. These maxims, in their eyes, encompassed a widely felt need for a tolerant public religion. But it is crucial to understand they did not propound this vision of a broad tolerant moral community that could unite both the multitude and the reasonable, because they thought that God had commanded it. It might be true that a significant number of authors in early modern Europe drew lessons of tolerance from the Hebrew Republic, but like with so many passages of the Bible, and perhaps any ancient intellectual source whatsoever, for many others it was perfectly possible to infer from the same passages diametrically opposed conclusions.

86 Nelson, The Hebrew Republic, 4–5, 16, 91.

chapter 11

The Helvetians as Ancestors and Brutus as a Model: The Classical Past in the Early Modern Swiss Confederation Thomas Maissen* The present volume in many respects continues in the research tradition of “classical republicanism” and “civic humanism,” which originated in the thought of Hannah Arendt and Hans Baron, and was popularised by John Pocock and Quentin Skinner in the 1960s and 1970s.1 In the past two decades the original perspective, which focused on the Italian Renaissance and on the Anglo-American world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, has been considerably broadened.2 During this process, it has become clear that an interest in the tradition of the classical past developed in many early modern ­locales—not least in the few existing republics—and that this interest took many different forms. It also was increasingly realised that it would be a mistake to see references to the Greek poleis or the Roman Republic as sufficient proof of an early modern political preference for a particular—republican—constitutional model. On the one hand, interest in the Roman Empire and heroes like Augustus and Hadrian was equally enduring and pervasive as the interest in the Roman Republic; and a fascination for the latter and its protagonists was notable among authors who were not likely to have had any republican sympathies. One example of this is Corneille and his tragedy Sertorius, another is constituted by the many references to Sparta during the French Enlightenment, which generally aimed at championing order rather than at establishing a republican constitution.3 On the other hand, in the search for the models * I am most grateful to Angela Roberts and Felicitas Eichhorn for their valuable help in translating and editing this text. All translations of quotations are mine unless stated otherwise. 1 J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975); Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1979). 2 Quentin Skinner and Martin van Gelderen, eds., Republicanism. A Shared European Heritage, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2002); Quentin Skinner and Martin van Gelderen, eds., Freedom and the Construction of Europe, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2013). 3 Chantal Grell, “Le modèle républicain antique à l’âge des Lumières,” Méditerranées 1 (1994): 53–64. See also Chapter 7 in this volume by Wessel Krul.

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and means to legitimate their rather unusual political constitutions, the early modern republics drew not only on classical antiquity, but also on many alternatives. Indeed, they usually based their independence and lordship over their territory on customary law, which was based on privileges granted by emperors and popes. In the Middle Ages, this formed the legal foundation of the Italian communes, and remained so for the German imperial cities until 1806. The approach taken in the Swiss Confederation inhabited the considerable space between these two models. The freedom and form of government of each canton were based on privileges granted by the Holy Roman Empire, which were carefully preserved and copied into books.4 When a new emperor was crowned, he usually acknowledged these privileges. Indeed, up to the sixteenth century the Swiss cantons regularly asked for this confirmation, and for several of them this remained important into the seventeenth century. Even by the middle of the eighteenth century the two-headed imperial eagle still graced the coins of a few minor Catholic cantons like Schwyz or Appenzell Innerrhoden. It was only after the Westphalian Peace that the Swiss slowly began to adopt the conventions of modern public and international law and its core concept of sovereignty, which gradually replaced traditional imperial law in the Confederation.5 It was during this process of transition from an imperial universe to the European state system, and from medieval burghers to early modern citizens, that the confederates began to see themselves as republicans and began to look at contemporary republics such as Venice or the Dutch Republic, as well as at the ancients, for inspiration. In the Catholic city of Lucerne, Johann Carl Balthasar, a member of the Small Council, illustrated this new ambition with a bold and impressive ceiling fresco in his house that was completed around 1690. Twelve panels in the painting depict heroes of the Roman Republic: Scipio, Coriolanus, Mucius Scaevola, Cato Uticensis, Lucretia and Marcus ­Curtius among them. In the main fresco (see figure 11.1), a personification of Rome sits with Romulus, Remus and their wolf in front of the Senatorial Palace on the Capitoline Hill. In her right hand Rome holds a book, perhaps containing legal or historiographical content, while her left hand rests on a statue of Nike, who spurns the monarchical symbols—a crown and an i­mperial banner—that lie 4 Regula Schmid, “Bundbücher. Formen, Funktionen und politische Symbolik,” Der Geschichtsfreund. Mitteilungen des Historischen Vereins der Fünf Orte Luzern, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden ob und nid dem Wald und Zug 153 (2000): 243–258. 5 For the gradual detachment from the Holy Roman Empire, see Thomas Maissen, Die Geburt der Republic: Staatsverständnis und Repräsentation in der frühneuzeitlichen Eidgenossenschaft (Göttingen, 2006).

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Johann Carl Balthasar, Roma teaching Hollandia, Venetia and Helvetia, c. 1690, Lucerne.

before her in the dust. To banish any doubt regarding the message, a banderole reads PRAECLARAM ROM[A] REIP[UBLICAE] LIBERTATEM DOCET: “Rome teaches the wonderful liberty of the republic.” And indeed, three curious personifications sit at Rome’s feet following her lessons: Venetia with the lion of St. Mark; Hollandia and her lion, holding the bundle of seven arrows that symbolise the United Provinces; and in the foreground, Helvetia embracing William Tell’s son, who displays the iconic apple on his head.6 As this image demonstrates, the classical past played an important role in the transition from imperial membership to republican sovereignty, a shift that also awakened a republican consciousness in the Confederation, albeit 6 Georg Carlen, Manierismus und Frühbarock—Bilder für Kirche und Staat. Barockmalerei in der Zentralschweiz, Innerschweizer Schatztruhe, ed. Jost Schumacher, vol. 1 (Lucerne, 2002) 46, fig. 35; Maissen, Geburt, 521, fig. 38.

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only since the seventeenth century. This chapter presents two examples of this use of the ancients: first, the discovery of the Helvetians as the ancestors of the Swiss; and second, the different uses of Lucius Iunius Brutus as a champion of liberty.7

The Helvetians Thesis

The discovery of Helvetian ancestors did not develop from a mere fascination with antiquity, but was the result of a serious struggle over historical legitimacy. The Confederation was a defensive league of—since 1513—thirteen free or imperial cities and rural cantons within the Holy Roman Empire and was in this respect similar to other lasting alliances such as the Swabian League (1488–1534) and the Hansa. When the confederates fought against the German king, a member of the Habsburg dynasty, during the Old Zurich War (1440–1450) and especially during the Swabian War in 1499, notable humanists such as Sebastian Brant, Jakob Wimpfeling and Heinrich Bebel accused them of disloyalty to their legitimate lord.8 To delegitimise the Confederate claims these authors dismissed the original legends of the inhabitants of central Switzerland, especially the Herkommen der Schwyzer und Oberhasler (The Origins of the peoples from Schwyz and Oberhasli), a tale probably created by Heinrich von Gundelfingen in the later fifteenth century. This legend was similar to the model narrative used elsewhere by noble families, who tended to trace their origins back to the main characters of universal history to legitimise and further ennoble themselves. According to the Herkommen, Swedes, under the leadership of Swytherus, immigrated to and named the valley of Schwyz. Later in the fifth century, they aided the emperor and the pope in a battle against the 7 For an extended discussion of these issues in German, see Thomas Maissen, “Weshalb die Eidgenossen Helvetier wurden. Die humanistische Definition einer natio,” in Diffusion des Humanismus. Studien zur nationalen Geschichtsschreibung europäischer Humanisten, ed. ­Johannes Helmrath et al. (Göttingen, 2002), 210–249; and Thomas Maissen, “‘Mit katonischem Fanatisme den Despotisme daniedergehauen.’ Johann Jacob Bodmers Brutus-Trauerspiele und die republikanische Tradition,” in Bodmer und Breitinger im Netzwerk der europäischen Aufklärung (Das Achtzehnte Jahrhundert. Supplementa), ed. Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer (Göttingen, 2009), 350–364. 8 Cf. Claudius Sieber-Lehmann and Thomas Wilhelmi, eds., In Helvetios—wider die Kuhschweizer. Fremd- und Feindbilder von den Schweizern in antieidgenössischen Texten aus der Zeit von 1386 bis 1532 (Bern, 1998); Peter Ochsenbein, “Jakob Wimpfelings literarische Fehde mit den Baslern und Eidgenossen,” Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde 79 (1979): 37–65.

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pagan lord, Eugen. Gundelfingen’s Legend has it that as a reward for this assistance, these so-called Schwyzer received privileges—liberties (freyheitten)— and were freed from subordination to a ruler.9 In his Soliloquium of 1505, Jakob Wimpfeling (1450–1528), who was from the imperial region of Alsace, mocked this version of events, which was included in the rhyming Kronigk on the Swabian War, published in 1500 by Nikolaus Schradin (c. 1470–1531), a scribe from Lucerne, and the first work ever printed on an event in the Confederation’s history.10 Wimpfeling called the pretended exemtio Suitensium (the privilege granting them an exemption from their overlords) a “fairy tale” (fabulae aniles) and “phantasm” (phantasticorum somnia) and thus the opposite of true hystoria. He not only asked for the name of the pope, who had allegedly privileged the Swiss, and for the bulla that had instituted this privilege, but also wondered where such a Lord Eugen was ­mentioned, what could have been his realm, and who could have been his historical e­ nemies. In short, Wimpfeling summarily dismissed the legend as the  anachronistic nonsense of an ignorant would-be poet (historiarum o­ mnium ignarus).11 Although the confederates won the Swabian War of 1499 and defeated their noble enemies, including, most notably, King Maximilian, they risked losing the propaganda war if they allowed themselves to be cast as ignorant braggarts. The legends of the Schwyzer, and by extension of the Swiss origins, no longer held up against humanist critiques. It is in this context that the notion of Helvetia and the Helvetians became a subject of dispute among some members of the same group of scholars. Caesar had written quite favorably about 9

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Albert Bruckner, ed., Das Herkommen der Schwyzer und Oberhasler, Quellenwerk zur Entstehung der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, Abt. iii: Chroniken und Dichtungen, vol. 2 (Aarau, 1961); Guy P. Marchal, Die frommen Schweden in Schwyz. Das “Herkommen der Schwyzer und Oberhasler” als Quelle zum schwyzerischen Selbstverständnis im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (Basel, 1976). Nikolaus Schradin, Konigk [sic] diß kiergs [sic] gegen dem allerdurchlüchtigisten hernn Romschen konig als ertzrhertzogen zu Osterich und dem schwebyschen pund, etc. (Sursee, 1500), fol. avj–bij.12. For extracts see Sieber-Lehmann and Wilhelmi, In Helvetios, 162–217; cf. for polemical remarks against Schradin 164, 172, 192, 196, and Jakob Wimpfeling, Briefwechsel, Opera Selecta, eds. Otto Herding and Dieter Mertens, vol. 3 (Munich, 1990), 585. For the Soliloquium see Ochsenbein, “Wimpfelings literarische Fehde” and Guy P. Marchal, “‘Bellum justum contra judicium belli.’ Zur Interpretation von Jakob Wimpfelings antieidgenössischer ­Streitschrift Soliloquium pro pace Christianorum et pro Helvetiis ut resipiscant … (1505),” in Gesellschaft und Gesellschaften. Festschrift Ulrich Im Hof, ed. Nicolai Bernard and Quirinus Reichen (Bern, 1982), 114–137.

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the Helvetii in the Bellum gallicum, but the word Helvetia was not recorded by him or any other author in antiquity. Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the propagator of humanism north of the Alps, was the first to use the term Helvecia in his De Europa of 1458; however, this was not a reference to Switzerland but to the Alsace, which according to Piccolomini was once called Helvecia: in Alsacia cui quondam Helvecia nomen fuit.12 Perhaps inspired by Piccolomini, the Zurich-born scholar Felix Fabri (c. 1441–1502), who later emigrated to Ulm, first used the term Helvetia in reference to the country (terra) that was confined by the Alps and the Rhine between Constance and Basel—the core of nowadays Switzerland’s German speaking area. This country had allegedly been conquered by the Svitenses, a modification of Svesi, which suggested a connection to the Swabians (Svevi). Hence, according to Fabri, Helvetia formed the superior part of the region of Swabia that stretched from Franconia to the Alps. Swabia was thus conceived as an integral part of the provincia nostra—namely, Germany—which Fabri referred to in his work as Germania, Alamannia, Teutonia, Cimbria and even Francia.13 He thus invented Helvetia as the southern half of Swabia, or rather of the Duchy of Swabia as it had existed in the High Middle Ages until the decline of the Staufer dynasty in 1250. Shortly after Fabri’s writing, the two halves of this historical duchy fell into kind of a civil war, the above-mentioned Swabian War of 1499, which, interestingly, the Swabians, and Germans thereafter, referred to as the Swiss War. In Fabri’s work, the population of Helvetia is correctly referred to as Suitenses and not as Helveti, despite the fact that the appellation Helvetus appeared in some humanists’ contemporary correspondence (albeit rarely).14 This ­terminology was possibly inspired by the editio princeps of Caesar’s ­Bellum ­gallicum, which was printed in 1469 and was followed by numerous subsequent editions. After 1477 these editions also contained geographic registers, which allowed for references to contemporary locations. Although Caesar ­stated in his first book that the civitas Helvetia consisted of four districts (pagi), he named only two: the pagum Tigurinum and Verbigenum; in another passage he also mentioned the Lepontii as inhabitants of the Alps near the source from 12 13 14

Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Cosmographia in Asiae & Europae eleganti descriptione (Paris, 1509), 124. Felix Fabri (Schmid), Descriptio Sveviae, Quellen zur Schweizer Geschichte, ed. Hermann Escher, vol. 6 (Basel, 1884), 128–131; for Germany 109–110 and note 1, 120–124. Wilhelm Oechsli, “Die Benennung der Alten Eidgenossenschaft und ihrer Glieder,” Jahrbuch für Schweizer Geschichte 42 (1917): 89–258, 156; Albrecht von Bonstetten, Briefe und ausgewählte Schriften, ed. Albert Büchi, Quellen zur Schweizer Geschichte, vol. 13 (Basel 1893), 88 (Ascanio Sforza, 4 April 1478?), 148 (Berchtold von Mainz, 12 July 1498).

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where the Rhine springs. Around 1495 a Zurich-born mathematician and doctor, Conrad Türst (c. 1455–1509), drew the first technically detailed map of the Confederation, which by then consisted of ten cantons. Türst took up Caesar’s partition and identified the district of Zürich (pagus Tigurinus), the Birggöuw of central Switzerland (pagus Leopontinus) and the Bernese Aargau, which he called the pagum Helvetium. Accordingly, Türst was probably the first to equate the former Helvetians and the modern confederates (Helvetii sive Confoederati; in the German version: Ergöuwern und Eydgnossen).15 Around the same time Peter von Neumagen, a chaplain who had received a humanistic education, read Caesar’s sentence omnis civitas elvetia in quattuor partes divisa est in his copy of De bello gallico (an incunabulum from 1482). By adding in the margins Hodie in octo, Peter von Neumagen interpreted the eight cantons as districts; more importantly, he assumed a territorial continuity from the classical era through to his own time.16 This was a highly controversial claim around 1500, a time of deep conflict. Again, Wimpfeling, the Alsatian who continued to profess his deep and continued loyalty to the empire, opposed the confederates and declared that the term Helvetii should be understood as a reference to the Alsatians. Wimpfeling referred to Piccolomini’s above-mentioned sentence and declared that the river Alsa vel Helva, today known as the Ill, flowed from the Upper-Alsace (the Sundgau or the Helvecia) down to Strasbourg. In order to underscore his position on the issue, Wimpfeling had written Helvecii, hoc est Alsatici in his letters since 1498. Accordingly, he referred to himself as Helvetius, and in 1502 in De laudibus sanctae crucis, he referred to Strasbourg as urbs Helvetiorum, the Helvetians’ city. In his Germania of 1501, Wimpfeling did not only talk about the Alsatians as the Helvetii, but called the territory Helvetiam, id est Alsatiam as well. As for the Suitenses, they should be named (E-)Leuci or Leponcii, in agreement with Caesar. Wimpfeling professed a deep disappointment that in his own time the population of the Alpine backwoods had usurped the name Helvetii from the Alsatians.17 15

Conrad Türst, De situ confoederatorum descriptio, Quellen zur Schweizer Geschichte, vol. 6. (Basel, 1884), 1–2, 22; cf. Caesar, De bello gallico, 1, 12 (pagus Tigurinus); 1, 27 (pagus Verbigenus); 4, 10 (Lepontii). 16 Gaius Iulius Caesar, Commentariorum de bello gallico, ed. Hieronymus Bononius (Venice, 1482), Zentralbibliothek Zürich ink K 283, fol. 3; cf. Guy P. Marchal, “Höllenväter—Heldenväter—Helvetier. Die Helvetier und ihre Nachbarn als Identifikationsfiguren der heutigen Schweizer,” Theorien und Auswirkungen = Archäologie der Schweiz 14 (1991), 5. 17 Wimpfeling, Briefwechsel, vol. 3, 392 (before the 28th of August 1502): “Doleo Helveciorum nomen tribui sylvestribus illis Alpes incolentibus, quos Suitenses vocant, cum revera sit proprium Alsaticorum vocabulum.”

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It was typical for the day that an Italian humanist finally made the decisive step in this German contest over the true successor to the region’s antique ancestors. Between 1500 and 1504, the Milanese humanist Balcus composed a Descriptio Helvetiae that to a large extent followed the Superioris Germaniae confoederationis descriptio (1479), written by the Swiss humanist Albrecht von Bonstetten (1441/45–1503/05). However, by prepending his topography with a historic account of the Helvetii that was based on Caesar and Tacitus, Balcus made an original contribution to the genre. He summarised the wars of the Helvetians against the Romans and concluded that the name of the former had disappeared over time, and that their present descendants (horum modo posteri), the Svitenses, were named after Schwyz.18 Although he spoke of posteri—descendants—Balcus did not exactly specify the degree to which the contemporary Swiss and the Helvetians were connected. His decision to attach the history of the Helvetians to a monograph on the Confederation, however, was a crucial change in historiography, although it remained in manuscript. When Erasmus’s student, Heinrich Loriti of Glarus (1488–1563), who later adopted the humanist name Glarean, entered the scene, another text predicated on the same assumption became more accessible. Around 1510, in his epos De pugna confoederatorum Helvetiae commissa in Naefels, Glarean presented the warriors who had fought against Caesar in the battle of Bibracte as maiores nostri to his fellow citizens, thereby very clearly identifying the Helvetians as ancestors of the Swiss.19 In 1514 Glarean published a didactic poem Descriptio de situ Helvetiae, which presented the Confederation topographically and historiographically and was reprinted several times. He was the first to systematically exploit Caesar, Strabo, Ptolemy, Pliny the elder, Tacitus, Pomponius Mela and others to explain his view on Swiss geography.20 Glarean even employed the neologism Helvetia in the title of the poem, a choice that the commentator Oswald Myconius still needed to explain to readers in 1519: Helvetiae vocabulum apud veteres nusquam inveniri, sed Helvetios (“unlike Helvetii, the word Helvetia cannot be found in classical texts”).21 Glarean’s aim was to trace out the 18 Balcus, Descriptio Helvetiae, Quellen zur Schweizer Geschichte, ed. August Bernoulli, vol. 6. (Basel, 1884), 73–105, 77: “Helvetiorum nomen sicuti caetera fere antiquitate desiit atque immutatum; est [et?] horum modo posteri Svitenses a Svitia, ipsorum oppido, nuncupantur.” 19 Heinrich Glarean, “Carmen de pugna confoederatorum Helvetiae commissa in Naefels,” Jahrbuch des historischen Vereins des Kantons Glarus (1949), 98, v. 614–625. 20 Arthur Dürst, “Glarean als Geograph und Mathematiker,” in Der Humanist Heinrich Loriti, genannt Glarean, 1488–1563. Beiträge zu seinem Leben und Werk (Mollis, 1983), 119–144, 120. 21 Heinrich Glarean, Descriptio de situ Helvetiae […] cum commentarijs Osvaldi Myconij L­ ucernani (Basel, 1519), 11 [= Helvetiae descriptio cum iiii Helvetiorum pagis ac xiii urbium panegyrico & Osvaldi Molitoris Lucerini commentario (Basel, 1554), 8].

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spatial dimensions of his fatherland explicitly, and he implicitly contradicted Piccolomini and Wimpfeling by declaring that it was incorrect to speak of the Alsace as Helvetia. Instead, Glarean identified Helvetia with his homeland and defined its borders as the Jura, Lake Geneva, the Rhone and the Rhine, as had been the case in De bello gallico, which had separated the Roman from the barbarian territories. The authority of the ancients remained uncontested, and Glarean reassessed their geographical descriptions for his own time. Thus, he grouped each of the four districts (pagi) found in Caesar—without being able to locate them precisely—around rivers: Thur, Limmat, Reuss and Aare. This loosely corresponded to the structure of the Confederation, which was made up of thirteen cantons by then.22 In spite of all the difficulties of identification, Glarean’s attempt to harmonise the classical tradition with the modern Swiss Confederation promised to be more fruitful than the contested genealogies of Swytherus and his ilk. In Glarean’s view, the Swiss Confederation was no longer understood as merely a confederatio, a relatively young and loose alliance formed to maintain public peace and order (Landfriede) within a part of the empire. Instead, the Confederation now had its own people, the Helvetii, and a particular territory, Helvetia, and both had already existed for over a thousand years. Thus, the Confederates made the same shift as the southwest German humanists around Wimpfeling had done in reference to the Germani: they were praised for being indigenae or aborigines, as substantiated by antique authorities such as Caesar, and thus replaced the medieval narratives about the origin of the nation in a people of immigrants.23 Likewise, (mostly Italian) humanists like Bonifacio Simonetta, Paolo Emilio and Alberto Cattaneo had begun to replace the notion of itinerant Franci who had immigrated from Troy, with the notion of the aboriginal Gauls.24 The Germani and Franci had populated the historiography 22

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Heinrich Glarean, Helvetiae Descriptio Panegyricum, ed. and trans. Werner Näf (St. Gallen, 1948) v. 13–14, 24–25, 56–57, 94–97: “Quisve typus patriae, quae forma quibusque remensa limitibus […] Idcirco Alsatia non recte a nonnullis Helvetia dicitur quando neque Rhodanum, neque Juram montem qui lacui Lemanno propinquus est, attingat […] Utque illi scripsere, hodie quoque ita esse probemus.” For the rejection of the Alsatian version cf. the prose version of the Descriptio by Otto Fridolin Fritzsche, “Glareana,” Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 5 (1888): 77–91, 81. See also Caesar, De bello gallico, 1.2. Herfried Münkler, Kathrin Meyer and Hans Grünberg, Nationenbildung. Die Nationalisierung Europas im Diskurs humanistischer Intellektueller—Italien und Deutschland (Berlin, 1998), 235–261; cf., for example, Heinrich Bebel’s Demonstratio Germanos esse indigenas (ca. 1500), in Opera sequentia, Pforzheim 1509, fol. diij v–eij. Cf. Thomas Maissen, Von der Legende zum Modell. Das Interesse an Frankreichs Vergangenheit während der italienischen Renaissance, Basler Beiträge zur Geschichtswissenschaft, vol. 166 (Basel, 1994), 327–350; for the later French debates about the Gaulish ­ancestors

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and ethnography continuously for centuries, however, whereas the notion of Helvetii only emerged around 1500. Still, they were most noble, because their origins as recorded in the classical authors reached even farther back than the Roman Empire and Christianisation. For this reason, the Helvetii were seen as uncontroversial in the ferocious confessional conflicts that followed between Protestant and Catholic Swiss. Indeed, they granted the Swiss Confederation some legitimacy: with antique roots it could no longer be deprecated as the result of a late medieval rebellion against the rulers of the House of Habsburg whom God had deployed. Thanks to the original Helvetian freedoms, the contested imperial privileges became secondary in the struggle for legitimation. This was a welcome development during a time of ongoing tension with the Habsburg emperor. The ethnicisation of the Swiss and the territorialisation of the Swiss Confederation in an antique-Helvetian tradition formed the basis for new confederate legitimacy strategies in the sixteenth century. What this ethnicisation actually meant becomes clear from the contrast between Petermann Etterlin (c.1430/40–c.1509) and Aegidius Tschudi (1505–1572). In 1507, Etterlin published the first printed comprehensive history of the Swiss Confederation. In this Kronica von der loblichen Eydtgnoschaft, jr harkommen und sust seltzam strittenn und geschichten, he explained that the inhabitants of central Switzerland did not belong to the same nation, a declaration he substantiated with reports on the different and fabulous origins of the peoples of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden.25 In contrast to Etterlin, Tschudi, the most important Swiss historian of his time, constructed the coeval Swiss as a single nation, at least in the humanists’ sense of the word “nation.”26 In the middle of the sixteenth century, Tschudi was engaged in writing different works on Swiss history: the Gallia Comata (printed only in 1758) and the influential Chronicon Helveticum, which was not published until 1734/36, but was already influential in its manuscript

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Nos ancêtres les Gaulois. Actes du colloque international de Clermont-Ferrand 23–25 juin 1980 (Clermont-Ferrand, 1982); Krzystof Pomian, “Francs et Gaulois,” in Les lieux de mémoire, ed. Pierre Nora, vol. 2 (Paris, 1997), 2245–2300. Petermann Etterlin, Kronica von der loblichen Eydtgnoschaft, jr harkommen und sust seltzam strittenn und geschichten, Quellenwerk zur Entstehung der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft Abt. iii, 3, ed. Eugen Gruber (Aarau, 1965), 79: “das die landlüt in den Lendern nit von einer nacion gewesen”; on fol. 7 in the original from 1507; a facsimile has been published by Guy P. Marchal in the series Helvetica Rara (Zurich, 2011). See Caspar Hirschi, Wettkampf der Nationen. Konstruktionen einer deutschen Ehrgemeinschaft an der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit (Göttingen, 2005) and Caspar Hirschi, The Origins of Nationalism. An Alternative History from Ancient Rome to Early Modern G ­ ermany (Cambridge, 2012).

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version and later became a main source for Friedrich Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell. While Tschudi conjured up powerful myths in his founding saga about Tell and the Confederates’ oath on the Rütli, he heavily criticised the legends that had already been shattered by the foreign humanists. In the margins of his personal copy of the previously mentioned medieval Herkommen der Schwyzer und Oberhasler, Tschudi noted that this story could not possibly be a true account of the times, and questioned the very existence of the popes and emperors playing a role in the plot. In his own Chronicon, Tschudi replaced the medieval foundational legend with an even nobler ancestry: the people of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden were so ancient that they did not derive from the Swedes or from the East Frisians; they were, by common knowledge and according to Julius Caesar’s reports, Helvetians.27 The Urner, Schwyzer and Unterwaldner, who in Etterlin’s Kronika were not yet one nation, in Tschudi’s account had become a single people with classical roots. These roots lay left of the river Rhine, as did Gallia in former times, and thus the Helvetians were not a Germanic tribe but actually Gauls. This was the crux of Tschudi’s argument in his Alpisch Rhaetia, which was printed in 1538 and heavily relied on classical ethnography. Curiously, he also suggested that the Helvetians had “doubtless spoken German,” indicating that the Helvetians were German-speaking Gauls!28 In order to make this claim Tschudi relied on Strabo, who had mentioned German-speaking Gauls. The ethnic difference was also linguistically manifest, at least according to Tschudi, because the age-old “tütsch” of the Helvetians (and later Swiss) differed from the Germanic “teutsch.”29 Thus, in a cultural sense, the Swiss belonged to Germany (Tütschland), which was composed of many other different—Germanic— peoples or “nations.” The Helvetians had originally been free but, after a brave battle against Caesar, they had been integrated into the Roman Empire. During the Barbarian Migration, these German-speaking Gauls were then divided: the 27 Marchal, Frommen Schweden, 74–76: “nit wahrhafft […] nach rechnung der zitt und der jahren, so die selben bëpst und keißer gelept hand […] die Urner, Switter und Underwaldner vil ein elter volck sind dann es hierinn meldet und komen nit weder von Swedien noch von Ostfriesen, dann si sind von rechten alt Helvetier, darvon dann Julius Cesar der Römer clarlichen schribt”; cf. Tschudi to Simler, 12 October, 1568 in Jakob Vogel, Egidius Tschudi als Staatsmann und Geschichtsschreiber. Ein Beitrag zur Schweizergeschichte des 16ten Jahrhunderts (Zurich, 1856), 254. 28 Aegidius Tschudi, Grundtliche und warhaffte beschreibung der uralten Alpischen R ­ hetie (Basel, 1560) (orig. 1538), fol. P iijr/v: “on zwyfel tütscher spraach gewesen”; in Latin: ­Aegidius Tschudi, De prisca et vera alpina Rhaetia (Basel, 1538), 109. 29 Bernhard Stettler, Tschudi-Vademecum. Annäherungen an Aegidius Tschudi und sein “Chronicon Helveticum” (Basel, 2001), 22.

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three districts of the Burgundian West had become Roman, while the unruly Tigurini (around Zurich and including Tschudi’s home Glarus) in the East had formed an alliance with the Swabians, to become known as the “Alemani.”30 Tschudi asserted that the name Alemani derived from the fact that they were composed of all kinds of men (“allerley Volcks”). Hence the Alemani, in contrast to the indigenous Helvetians, had not formed a single nation, but constituted an anti-Roman war alliance. To support this argument, Tschudi studied the antique divide along the Rhine and between the Gauls and Germanic peoples. Swabia had always been between Lake Constance and the Rhine in Vindelecia—­ Germania—and close to the Black Forest, […] while Zurich and the Thurgau lay in Gallia and did not belong to the same nation. They had been two different peoples—the Thurgovians in Gallia and the Swabians in Germania—and had joined together with numerous other Germanic peoples into the Alemannic federation. […] the Zurichers and the Thurgovians are Alemanni, and so are the Swabians, but they are two nations and two territories and not all the same people. Similarly, Picards and Normans are French; but no Picard wants to be a Norman, and no Norman wants to be a Picard.31 In the Middle Ages, the historical center of the Duchy of Swabia had been located around Lake Constance and had encompassed the area south and north of the lake. Tschudi’s recourse to antique ethnography meant that this area became a historical dividing line, although it actually had been such only since the Swabian War of 1499. Tschudi’s new territorial concept of the Confederation was also a reaction to the expansion towards the West after Bern had conquered the French-speaking Vaud in 1536 and brought Calvinist Geneva 30

Tschudi to Simler on 27 July, 1568, in Vogel, Tschudi, 249; Aegidius Tschudi, Beschreibung von dem Ursprung-Landmarchen-Alten Namen-und-Mutter-Sprachen Galliae Comatae, etc., ed. Johann Jakob Gallati, (Constance, 1758), 93. 31 Tschudi, Galliae Comatae, 93: “ennet dem Bodensee und Rhein in Vindelicia—Germania—und am Schwartzwald, … hinwider Zürich und das gantz Turgäu in Gallia, seynd gar nicht einer Nation, doch seynd beyde Völcker—die Turgäuer in Gallia und die Schwaben in Germania, und etliche Germanische Völcker mehr im Allamanischen Pundt gewesen. … die Zürcher und Turgäuer seynd Alamannier, die Schwaben auch, doch zwerley Nationen und Landen und nicht einerley Volcks. Picardier und Normandier seynd Franzosen; es will aber kein Picard ein Normandier, noch ein Normander ein Picarder seyn.” Cf. Ibidem, 239–252: “über die Irrtümer, so mit den Namen Alamanni, Suevi und Germani gebraucht worden.”

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closer. Although he was Catholic, Tschudi explicitly promoted closer ties between the Swiss Confederation and the two Protestant, but strategically important cities of Geneva and Constance; the latter was situated left of the Rhine, as were Gallia and Helvetia. However, Constance eventually lost its autonomy in the Schmalkaldic War, when the emperor Charles v conquered the imperial city in 1547 and turned it into a Catholic Austrian municipality. Although Tschudi remained unsuccessful with his claim for Swiss support to Constance, his references to antiquity legitimised the anti-Habsburg and anti-Savoy foreign and territorial policies. He maintained that the Helvetians had lived as one people between Lake Constance and Lake Geneva, but that the separation between Burgundian and Alemanian Switzerland during the Migration Period had produced two different “nations,” and that the names Helveti and Helvetia had been lost. According to Tschudi, the western regions of Aargau, Üechtland, the Vaud and the Valais, as well as Savoy, all had joined Burgundia, while the Thurgau was Alemanian. Thus the Barbarian Migration had created two distinct nations in former Helvetia; but in Tschudi’s own time, and thanks to the grace of God, these regions were reunited and the name Helvetia was restored.32 This re-unification occurred when it became clear to the Swiss that the elective kings in the Empire no longer respected or protected their original—that is, Helvetian—freedoms. This transpired around 1300 when the confederates, gathered around William Tell, rose up against the Habsburg reeves. Through the Rütlischwur, the oath on the Rütli allegedly made by the confederates in 1307, the land of the Helvetians, which the confederates now called Switzerland, was restored to its original order and liberty.33 In light of this, the Bernese conquest of the western, formerly Savoyan, part of Switzerland in the year 1536 could be interpreted as the complete reunification of the Burgundian part of antique Helvetia, instead of as an illegitimate expansion. It is symptomatic that Tschudi also provided the concept for an influential map that was printed in 1538 together with the Alpisch Rhetia. Today the map only exists as an etching from the second edition of 1560.34 Its reception, however, started earlier. The publisher of the 1538 Alpisch Rhetia was the 32

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34

Ibidem, 76: “[…] von deßhin ist Ergäu, Uchtland, die Waat, Wallis, Savoyen etc. allweg des Burgundischen Namens gewesen und das Turgäu Alemannisch—und dardurch zweyerley Nationen worden und von einander gar abgesöndert, diser Zeit aber von Gottes Gnaden alle vier Theil widerum zusamen gefügt und den Namen Helvetiae erneueret.” Aegidius Tschudi, Chronicon Helveticum, Quellen zur Schweizer Geschichte N.F., i, 7/3, ed. Bernhard Stettler, vol. 3 (Basel, 1980), 224: “das land Helvetia (jetz Switzerland genant) wider in sin uralten stand und frijheit gebracht worden.” Cf. Walter Blumer, Bibliographie der Gesamtkarten der Schweiz von Anfang bis 1802, Bibliographia Helvetica, ed. Schweizer Landesbibliothek Bern, vol. 2 (Bern, 1957), 33–45.

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­cosmographer Sebastian Münster (1480–1553), who in 1540 also printed his edition of Ptolemy in Basel. In the latter book, the Swiss Central Plateau for the first time appeared as Helvetia on a European overview map. It was located between France (Franckreich) and Germany (Tütschlandt), but in smaller letters; the font size of Helvetia corresponded with the circumjacent regions of Sabaudia, Burgundia and Suevia. Münster also produced a small but detailed map of the antique Helvetia prima. In doing so, he was explicitly referring to Tschudi and thereby to Caesar, whose authority standardised the borderline Rhine, Rhone and Jura. In one fell swoop he thus saw to it that those who dared call Alsatia Helvetia would henceforth be regarded as entirely misguided.35 In Münster’s own Cosmographey, which was first published in 1544, the map Eidgnoschafft, Elsass und Brisgow also contained a symptomatic text describing “Helvetia, that is Switzerland or the Confederation” with a detailed historical commentary.36 Tschudi’s suggestions, only partially printed in the sixteenth century, were, in addition to Münster’s book, also made accessible in the Gemeiner loblicher Eydtgnoschaft Stetten, Landen und Voelckeren Chronick (1547/48), a bulky folio publication by the Zuricher Johannes Stumpf (1500–c.1578). Stumpf accomplished the ethnicisation and the territorialisation of the Swiss leagues by conflating the original Helvetians and the present-day Swiss, and by referring to them as the same alpine people (Alpenvolck); that is, the natural inhabitants of an everlasting and free Helvetia, confined by clear geographical boundaries, the existence of which reduced all internal differences to matters of secondary importance.37 Stumpf illustrated this point of view on the maps that accompanied his folios and referred back to Tschudi’s map of 1538 (see figure 11.2). Probably for the first time in the history of cartography, dotted borderlines were used to separate the territory of the Confederation (whose borders correspond almost exactly with its contemporary dimensions, with the Valais and Grisons enclosed) from the surrounding countries. Thus the “national” level of this union was made strikingly clear: in Stumpf’s comprehensive map of Europe (see figure 11.3), Helvetia is written in 35 36 37

Claudius Ptolemaeus, Geographia, ed. Sebastian Münster (Basel, 1540): “Errant ergo qui Alsatiam audent dicere Helvetiam.” Sebastian Münster, Cosmographey (Basel, 1544), ccv–ccclxvii: “Helvetia, das ist Schweitzerland oder Eidtgnosschafft.” For Stumpf, Gemeiner loblicher Eydgnoschafft Stetten, Landen und Voelckeren Chronick (Zürich 1547/48), with the corresponding references, see Thomas Maissen, “Ein helvetisch ‘Alpenvolck.’ Die Formulierung eines gesamteidgenössischen Selbstverständnisses in der Schweizer Historiographie des 16. Jahrhunderts,” in Historiographie in Polen und der Schweiz, ed. Krzysztof Baczkowski and Christian Simon (Krakow, 1994), 69–86, esp. 79–83.

The Helvetians as Ancestors and Brutus as a Model

Figure 11.2

273

Excerpt of Johannes Stumpf, Landtaflen, Zurich, 1548.

­ ntiqua as a Latin word, like Avernia (Auvergne) or Apulia for example; A these names c­ orrespond to the German names, in Gothic print, of Bavaria (Beiern), Swabia (Schwaben), Burgundy (Burgund) or Savoy (Saffoyen). In contrast, the countries Italia, Germania, Gallia and Francia, all labeled in Latin, form a different dimension and are presented in large typeface.38 Stumpf, who originated from the German city of Bruchsal, conceived Switzerland as Helvetia and placed it on the same level as a German stem duchy that had evolved over time into an imperial state: next to Bavarians and Swabians, there were now also Helvetians, and they all belonged to one all-­encompassing Germania. At a time when Holstein (1474), Württemberg (1495), Prussia (1525) and other new duchies were constituting themselves politically, the n­ atio ­Helvetica, though it was not ruled by a duke, was historiographically catapulted into that same category. In contrast to the historic stem Duchy of Swabia, Helvetia was a purely humanist invention that gave a classical-sounding name to a recently formed defensive alliance made up of citizens and f­armers, thereby propelling it to a position of its own on the map of the ­imperial territories. 38

Johannes Stumpf, Landtaflen, ed. Arthur Dürst (Zurich, 1975); for the dotted border, see Uta Lindgren, “Die Grenzen des Alten Reiches auf gedruckten Karten,” in Bilder des R ­ eiches, Irseer Schriften, vol. 4, ed. Rainer A. Müller (Sigmaringen, 1997), 34.

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Figure 11.3

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Excerpts of Johannes Stumpf, Landtaflen, Zurich, 1548.

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This invention of classical roots for a new nation was the achievement of humanists and of humanistically-educated politicians. They distinguished themselves in their own country because they knew how to intellectually oppose what Tschudi had called aemuli Helvetiorum, the foreign foes of the Helvetians. Basing themselves on the canonised classical texts that had become available in print, these authors defined their natio as clearly and unambiguously as was possible within the confines of a scholarly dialogue. This meant divesting it of any medieval myths of origin. Virtuosi in handling written texts and the recent medium of print, and acting as an intellectual “regulatory force,” the united humanists of all the countries competed externally against one another to gain an internal monopoly on inventing and transmitting narratives that gave a historical sense to their political communities.39 The losers in this process were the clergy and the nobility, which continued by and large to hold on to oral traditions and to the universal institutions represented by the emperor, the pope and the universities. These medieval institutions were confronted with a changing national public sphere which the humanists knew how to exploit to their own advantage. As recognised experts in history and ethnography, and crowned with poets’ laurels, they began to replace the clergy as the educational elite and to declare themselves the new intellectual aristocracy. This new cultural hierarchy was indispensable for the development of a solidly patriotic, integrative self-assurance, a core element of early modern statehood.40

Lucius Iunius Brutus as a Freedom Fighter

The greater accessibility of printed works by classical authors not only made possible the development of new views on notions such as people and territory, but also provided numerous exempla of heroic personalities. Although not entirely unknown in the Middle Ages, the genre De viris illustribus and—more rarely—De mulieribus illustribus had experienced a significant boom since the age of Petrarch and Boccaccio. Classical authors such as Cicero, Livy, Plutarch, Suetonius and Valerius Maximus furnished rich material that was often used for discussions of current issues. A well-known example of this was the confrontation between Caesar and Marcus Iunius Brutus: Dante saw the latter as a traitor, whereas Leonardo Bruni praised him as a noble tyrannicide. Lorenzino dei Medici similarly saw himself as a new Brutus when he murdered his relative Alessandro dei Medici, the Duke of Tuscany, in 1537. To justify his deed, 39 40

Münkler et al., Nationenbildung, 25–28. For this whole process, see Hirschi, Wettkampf.

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Lorenzino employed the same symbols as the murderer of Caesar had done: the dagger and pileus. Michelangelo’s bust of Brutus also referred to this event and further justified the action taken.41 During the Renaissance, Brutus became also a popular figure in the Confederation, although here it was Marcus’s alleged ancestor—Lucius Iunius Brutus—who attracted most attention. According to Livy, he cast out the dynasty of the Tarquinii and founded the republic in 509 bc. The theme of Brutus is encountered, probably for the first time in Switzerland, at the beginning of the sixteenth century in the anonymous play Urner Spiel von Wilhelm Tell (1512?), which, despite its title, was most likely composed in Zurich. The introductory allegory mentions the debasement of Lucretia’s dignity and—in an explicit parallel to the legendary struggle for Swiss liberty—the subsequent indignation of the Romans who banished the king and all his men and became free.42 In his already previously mentioned poem Descriptio de situ Helvetiae, Glarean in 1515 wrote that history had granted the Confederation its own Brutus in William Tell.43 Likewise, in an adaption of the Tell play in 1545, Jacob Ruf (1505–1558) spoke of Brutus as the first Roman “burgomaster.” As we shall see, this amalgamation of Zurich and the Roman Republic was not unique.44 In 1533 Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575), who succeeded Ulrich Zwingli as Antistes of Zurich, published a Nice theatre play about the story of the noble Roman Lucretia […] and furthermore about the steadfastness of Iunij Bruti.45 The 41

Manfredi Piccolomini, The Brutus Revival. Parricide and Tyrannicide during the Renaissance (Carbondale, 1991), 65–94; also see Alois Riklin, Giannotti, Michelangelo und der Tyrannenmord (Bern, 1996). 42 “Ein hüpsch Spyl gehalten zu Ury in der Eydgnoschafft von dem frommen und ersten Eydgnossen Wilhem Thell genannt,” in Schweizerische Schauspiele des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts, ed. Jakob Bächtold, vol. 3 (Zurich, 1893), 13–56, 16: “Veriagtend den Küng und all sin man, Deß sy in fryheit thatend kommen.” A more recent edition is Das Urner Tellenspiel, Quellenwerk zur Entstehung der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, ed. Max Wehrli, vol. 3, 2 (Aarau, 1952). 43 Glarean, Helvetiae Descriptio, 88–90, v. 390–402. 44 Jacob Ruf, Ein hüpsch und lustig Spyl […] von dem frommen und ersten Eydgnossen Wilhelm Thellen Jrem Landtmann (Zurich, 1545); on Ruf see Hildegard Keller, ed., Jakob Ruf: Leben, Werk und Studien (Zurich, 2006). 45 Heinrich Bullinger, “Ein schön Spil von der geschicht der Edlen Römerin Lucretiae, und wie der Tyrannisch küng Tarquinius Superbus von Rhom vertriben, und sunderlich von der standhafftigkeit Junij Bruti, des Ersten Consuls zu Rhom (Basel, 2. März 1533),” in Schweizerische Schauspiele des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts, ed. Jakob Bächtold, vol. 1 (Zurich, 1890), 105–169; Käthe Hirth, “Heinrich Bullingers Spiel von ‘Lucretia und Brutus’ 1533” (Ph.D. diss., University of Marburg, 1919); Rémy Charbon, “Lucretia Tigurina. Heinrich Bullingers Spiel von Lucretia und Brutus (1526),” in Antiquitates Renatae. Deutsche und französische Beiträge zur Wirkung der Antike in der europäischen Literatur, ed. Verena

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story is not so much about Lucretia, as about the political question “how one could keep the new liberty against all kinds of tyranny and oligarchy (this is against such a force, where only a few are masters).” The answer to this question could be found in the orders of Brutus (“uß der ordnung Bruti”).46 The play is deliberately set in a Swiss town, where Bullinger introduces the audience to a poor farmer. Such figures did not usually appear in the tragic genre nor—as the Reformer explicitly mentions—in the classical sources. In this case, the poor farmer is used in order to illustrate the fact that he is helpless, since the wealthy Plutus can alter the law under the despotic rule of Tarquinius Superbus. After the banishment of Tarquinius, the great tartar (“große wueterich”), the farmers’ rights and law and order in general are restored. It is at this moment in the play that the nobility laments the passing of its life of luxury and idleness. Brutus’ sons, who are described as arrogant and dressed in foreign clothing, are among these noblemen. They are, in another reference to Bullinger’s time, represented as mercenary entrepreneurs. The two brothers, who receive their money from the emigrated king, dislike the new leaders whom they do not consider as free, because they must work all the time. Bullinger’s Brutus juxtaposes his own concept of liberty, which has its roots in law and impartial jurisdiction, with this aristocratic understanding of liberty. Institutionally, the supervision by the pious councils, the participation of the citizens in major public issues and the alternating administration by the two consuls or burgomasters (“zween Consules, oder Burgermeyster”)—another similarity between Zurich and Rome—guarantee that rulers are sometimes also subjects, and thus have a strong incentive to act with a certain degree of modesty and restraint.47 The central concept for Bullinger in this context was the contrast between law and order on the one hand, and the self-interest and despotism of the nobility on the other. By condemning his own children, without any regard for friendship, family or even for their direct pleas, Brutus becomes the incarnation of a virtuous ruler who does not raise himself above the law and who uses his sword in the service of God’s will. The message of the drama was clearly aimed at Zurich’s masters (“unsren Herren”). Indeed, the epilogue states that they must lead the people that God had confided to them with just advice.48 In

46 47 48

Ehrich-Haefeli et al. (Würzburg, 1998), 35–47; Emidio Campi, “Brutus Tigurinus. Aspekte des politischen und theologischen Denkens des jungen Bullinger,” in Geschichten und ihre Geschichte, ed. Therese Fuhrer (Basel, 2004), 145–174; Anja Buckenberger, “Heinrich Bullingers Rezeption des Lucretia-Stoffes,” Zwingliana 33 (2006): 77–91. Bullinger, “Schön Spil,” 107: “wie man die erobert fryheit behalten mög wider alle Tyranny und Oligarchi (das ist wider ein sölchen gwallt, do wenig lüdt herren und meyster sind).” Ibidem, 133. Ibidem, 147, 167.

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other words, the authorities had to abide by the same eternal, God-given rules as everyone else. For Bullinger, as long as political rule was in accordance with God’s deontology, its form did not really matter. Since correctives for individual misbehaviour were generally absent in a monarchical government, however, justice was more likely to be found in a republic. Bullinger thus agreed with Zwingli’s conviction that Brutus had replaced tyranny with aequitas futurae democratiae, or in Leo Jud’s translation “the uniform, common and fair rule of the people” (glychmäßige, gemeyne unnd billiche Regiment des volcks).49 The predominantly and even exclusively political interpretation of the Brutus theme evinced by the Swiss authors of the sixteenth century was far from universal or self-evident and was quite different from, for example, Hans Sachs’s contemporaneous Tragedia von der Lucretia (1527). This play remained rooted in the ribald tradition of the Shrovetide plays and focused on the erotic motives of the characters highlighted in the literary tradition. The political line of interpretation remained a Swiss peculiarity, more especially a Zurich one. Although it was far from an established tradition, Roman and local constitutional history came to be seen as parallel phenomena. This development was further fostered in the second half of the seventeenth century, when Zurich and the other Swiss cantons came into contact with a new form of antimonarchical republicanism which had evolved in the Netherlands, and which had adapted the modern doctrine of sovereignty to suit republican needs during the wars first with Spain and then with France.50 The confederates gradually adopted these models after the Peace of Westphalia granted them the privilege of exemption that was soon interpreted as sovereignty. It was in this context that Zurich built a new town hall, which was inaugurated on June 22, 1698. A sophisticated programme of figures on the façade and in the interior of the town hall expressed the city’s political identity. Among other republican symbols, this decorative programme included window pediments on the ground floor showing twenty-three busts of republican heroes from ancient Greece and Rome and from the eight original cantons of the Confederation. To this day, on the left front-hand corner of the building (see figure 11.4), Lucius Iunius Brutus continues to remind the magistrates that they must place their republican virtue before all other concerns: LIBERTAS SANGUINE PRAESTAT—“liberty precedes one’s own blood,” meaning the blood of Brutus’ sons. Like most of the other busts, from Themistocles to the Scipios, and from William Tell to Arnold von Winkelried, Brutus reminds his viewers that the 49 50

Huldreich Zwingli, “Sermonis de providentia dei anamnema (1530),” in Sämtliche Werke, vol. 6.3, Corpus Reformatorum, vol. 93.3 (Zurich, 1983), 217. Cf. for this process Maissen, Geburt der Republic, 345–365 (the Netherlands) and 383–400 (Zurich’s town hall).

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Figure 11.4 Bust of Lucius Iunius Brutus, Zurich town hall, 1698.

salvation of the fatherland depends on the readiness of each individual to make personal sacrifices. Libertas took up the idea of sovereignty and interpreted it as the independence of the petty state of Zurich from foreign powers. It was this lesson that spread across Switzerland after the Peace of Westphalia. The special significance of the elder Brutus for Zurich was also manifest in the parallels drawn between him and Zurich’s founding figure, the fourteenth-century mayor Rudolf Brun. In 1679, an Allusio inter Brutum et Brunium was submitted to the first society of the early Enlightenment, the Collegium Insulanum. It praised the older Brutus and criticised the younger Brutus for murdering Caesar.51 Such comparisons between Rome and Zurich, neither of which was described as subordinated to any higher authority, would become frequent during the eighteenth century. Sebastian Walch’s series of portraits of Zurich’s mayors (1756), for example, presented Rudolf Brun as the founder of the city’s new constitution (“neues Stadt-Regiment”). This constitution had to be defended against both external and internal enemies (that is, against both the Habsburgs and the nobility), just as Brutus had once protected the Roman 51

Heinrich Werdmüller, Vom ersten Rider Rathsperiodo und damaligen Regierung der Stadt Zürich und dem ersten geschwornen Brief. Allusio inter Brutum et Brunium, 16. Juli 1679, Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Ms P 6224, 93–96.

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Republic simultaneously against the Etruscan ruler Porsenna and the banished tyrant Tarquinius. Mayor Brun was judged to have been courageous and wise in his defence of the city, and to have thus lived up to and even partially surpassed the example provided by Brutus.52 The most relevant Zurich adaptation of the subject was the tragedy Junius Brutus, published in 1761 by the council scrivener Salomon Hirzel (1727–1818). He dedicated the play to his teacher Johann Jacob Bodmer (1698–1783), who was the leading proponent of the Swiss Enlightenment. In the same year that he wrote his play, Hirzel became a founding member of the famous Helvetische Gesellschaft, the enlightened Helvetian Society. His tragedy began with some thoughts on the transformation of the state and argued that Brutus’s actions had laid the foundation for a severe republican virtue and thereby for the ­prosperity and the magnitude of Rome.53 The strength of Hirzel’s tragedy lay in the neo-classical attempt to grant every character a modicum of highmindedness and thereby to attribute credible and comprehensible motives to all characters—including Brutus’s antagonists. For Tiberius, one of Brutus’s illbred sons, the motive is love for Princess Tarquinia; for the other son, Titus, it is longing for the glory of Rome, which he believes can only be realised in a monarchy and not under plebeian rule. Titus feels that these sentiments are in conflict with his duty towards his father and his fatherland. Duty is the central theme in Hirzel’s drama, and it compels Brutus to sacrifice everything for the welfare of his country, even his sons.54 Against Titus’s ideal of a heroic monarchy, Hirzel’s Brutus sketches the alternative of a free, virtuous and mild regime of brethren who divide political power among one another, and where love of duty and of country live in every heart. Titus’s contempt for the plebs is unjustified: “if they [the common citizens] have learned to rule, through willing obedience and love of duty, then what hinders us from confiding sacred authority to them, and where is the harm, if they, fraught with the will to do good, fulfil even the most important duties?”55 52

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Sebastian Walch, Portraits aller Herren Burger-Meistern, der vortrefflichen Republique, Stadt und Vor-Orths Zürich (Kempten, 1756): “Und so hat dieser Burger-Meister Brunn noch manche treffliche Proben seiner Klugheit und Tapfferkeit gegeben, und sich also dem ersten roemischen Burger-Meister Brutus vollkommen aehnlich gemacht, wo Er Ihn nicht gar in vielen Stuecken uebertroffen hat.” Salomon Hirzel, Junius Brutus. Ein Trauerspiel in fünf Aufzügen (Zurich, 1761), 5: “zu der strengen Republicanischen Tugend, und also zu dem Wohlstand und der Grösse Roms, den ersten Grund legte.” Ibidem, 127, 135, 138. Ibidem, 111: “Wenn sie vom willigen Gehorsam und der Liebe zur Pflicht herrschen gelernt; was hindert uns denn ihnen die geheiligte Gewalt anzuvertrauen, und wo ist das Unglück, wenn sie, zu jedem Guten gestärkt, auch die wichtigsten Pflichten erfüllen?”

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In some respects, Hirzel’s version closely followed Voltaire’s drama Brutus (1730), for instance in the characterisation of Titus as torn between sentiment and devoir. But the liberal ethos proclaimed by Voltaire’s Brutus did not sit well with a republican constitution. It was mainly meant and understood as a defence against unbridled, absolutist monarchy, or despotism in Montesquieu’s sense; thus, Voltaire’s Brutus calls out: “Rome eut ses souverains, mais jamais absolus.”56 In contrast to Voltaire’s plea for a limited monarchy, Hirzel insisted on the necessity of rigorous virtue in a true republic. Like his teacher Bodmer, he criticised the luxury and venality of Zurich’s elite, which he felt undermined the moral foundations of the republic. Johann Jacob Bodmer not only praised Hirzel’s play, but also presented a drama of his own on the same topic in 1762: Tarquinius Superbus.57 Although the play as a whole was rather dull it was nevertheless saturated with a fiery, egalitarian republicanism: “Man is born free, liberty flows from his nature and is his eldest right.”58 The tyrant, or rather the despot, opposes this principle, because he claims full control over the property of his subjects. “Leave him your silver as inheritance, your sons as henchmen and your daughters as ­concubines”—such are the king’s demands in Tarquinius Superbus.59 Bodmer made a traditional distinction (which had recently been refreshed by Montesquieu) between on the one hand the free peoples and civilisations of the West, and on the other hand the barbarians. For the latter, despotism might well be appropriate, but the Romans, Zurich’s citizens and, it may be presumed, other Europeans were bound together as a “sociable people” that lived in a situation of law and order, and were unfit for arbitrary rule. Their authorities, and indeed all members of their states, were bound by law, order, conventions and institutional checks.60 As he grew older, Bodmer developed an almost obsessive interest in Brutus. Although he also occasionally alluded to the elder Brutus, in most of his dramas he focused on the younger.61 In an unsuccessful attempt to imitate 56 57 58

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Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), “Brutus,” in Les oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 5 (Oxford, 1998), 192 (i, 2). See Bodmer’s letter to Sulzer, 20 December, 1759, quoted in Jakob Baechtold, Geschichte der Deutschen Literatur in der Schweiz (Frauenfeld, 1892), 195. Johann Jacob Bodmer, “Tarquinius Superbus,” in Politische Schauspiele (Zurich, 1768), 147: “Der Mensch ist frey gebohren, die Freyheit fliesst aus seiner Natur, und sie ist sein ältestes Recht.” Ibidem, 128: “gebet ihm euer Silber zum Erbe, eure Söhne zu Häschern, eure Tochter zu Beyschläferinnen.” Ibidem, 130: “gesellschaftliches Volk.” Cf. Johann Jacob Bodmer, “Marcus Brutus,” in Politische Schauspiele (Zurich, 1768), 95: “Marcus Brutus verdient eine Bildsaeule, neben des Junius Brutus. Junius Brutus ist auferstanden.”

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­Shakespeare and Voltaire, the Zuricher wrote a number of tragedies: Julius Caesar (1763), Marcus Brutus (1768), and Brutus und Kassius Tod (The Death of Brutus and Cassius, 1782), his final opus. In these works Caesar is depicted as a one-dimensional tyrant who despises his fellow citizens and seeks to profit from Rome’s crisis in order to become an absolute ruler. In one instance, he even exclaims: “Cursed be the first Brutus, who under the appearance of an august virtue, chased away his rightful and legitimate king, a sacred person, and sowed the first seeds of an inhumane hate against king, crown, diadem and tiara in the people’s minds.”62 As for Marcus Brutus, like his ancestor Lucius Brutus he seeks to belie the “maxim of tyranny,” which holds “that on the peak of republican liberty, it is impossible to tame the passions and even more impossible to preserve mutual consent and peace.”63 Liberty, according to Bodmer’s younger Brutus, can only prevail where customs, virtue, temperance, love of law and order exist together with the Greek love of beauty and goodness. This works much better than laws in protecting states from “lusts, splendour, inequality and any pest.”64 Indeed, the existence of such a morality is seen as the very condition of political liberty. In the absence of an overpowering monarchical authority, it is only republican and civil virtue that guarantees political order and prevents anarchy.65 Thanks to the cultivation of his virtue the insightful citizen is able to voluntarily submit himself to the law. Thus for Bodmer, man-made law is the foundation of the state, and Brutus had been its first and dutiful bailee. Bodmer’s cult of Brutus was not just a literary or academic gimmick. In 1762, one year after the publication of Hirzel’s tragedy, the Grebelhandel occurred. In this famous affair, Bodmer’s teachings mobilised his students Johann Caspar Lavater (1741–1801) and Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741–1825) to act against Felix Grebel, Zurich’s corrupt bailiff in the small city of Grüningen. Their manifesto began with a complaint against nepotism that was inspired by Plutarch and 62

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Ibidem, 22: “Verflucht sey der erste Brutus, der unter dem Schein einer erhabenen Tugend seinen rechtmaessigen, erkannten Koenig, eine unverletzliche Person, verjagt, und den ersten Samen zu unmenschlichen Hasse, gegen Koenig, Kron, Diadem und Thiare, in die Gemuether geworfen hat!” Ibidem, 9: “Daß es unmoeglich sey auf dem Gipfel der republicanischen Freyheit die Leidenschaften zu bezaehmen, und dann noch unmoeglicher die Einigkeit und Ruhe zu erhalten.” Ibidem, 30. Cf. Johann Jacob Bodmer, “Polytimet,” Politische Schauspiele (Zurich, 1768), 328–329, where Aristodem answers Polemon’s question whether republics and their citizens will be able to cope with their freedom: “O sie müssen zuvor noch um ethliche Grade tugendhafter werden. Ich fürchte, sie haben noch zu wenig von der politischen Tugend, welche die Neigung ist, sein eigenes Bestes in dem allgemeinen Besten zu suchen.”

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Voltaire: “You, Brutus! And you sleep! Oh, if only you lived!”66 The pamphlet called for a “Iunius Brutus among the Christians,” who would hand over the “ill-bred sons” to justice and even destroy the godless. The fact that both the elder and the younger Brutus had sacrificed their own blood for the sake of the fatherland and for republican liberty particularly impressed the members of Bodmer’s circle. Many rebellious youths saw themselves in a similar s­ ituation when confronting the authorities. Even more astonishing was the radical way in which these rebels, who belonged to Zurich’s leading families, fought against members of their own circle. They called for tyrannicide, for murdering the “outrageous” Grebel, “whose death I long for.”67 Similar justifications could be found in the weekly society journal Der Erinnerer (The Reminder), which in 1766 printed a Totengespräch zwischen Brutus und Cäsar, an imagined conversation between the dead Caesar and Brutus, composed by Antoine Roustan, a follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.68 Bodmer and Lavater may even have inspired Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein’s painting of Lucius Iunius Brutus judging his sons (1784), which in turn possibly influenced the famous 1789 painting of Brutus by Jacques Louis David.69 Conclusion The afterlife of the two Bruti in Zurich is enlightening in many ways. In the first half of the sixteenth century, Bullinger maintained that God-given rights, perverted by the arbitrary rule of noblemen, should once again receive recognition in a static, hierarchical, corporative society. Ready for sacrifice, the 66

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[Johann Heinrich Füssli and Johann Caspar Lavater], Der ungerechte Landvogt, oder Klagen eines Patrioten, Der von Jo. Caspar Lavater glücklich besiegte Landvogt Felix Grebel (Arnheim, 1769), 9: “Du, Brutus! und du schläfst? ach, wenn du lebtest!” Cf. William Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar,” in The Complete Works, ed. W.J. Graig (London, 1957), 826 (ii, 1, 48): “Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake!”; Voltaire, “La Mort de César,” in Les oeuvres compètes de Voltaire, vol. 8 (Oxford, 1988), 195 (ii, 2): “Tu dors, Brutus, et Rome est dans les fers!” For the context, see Rolf Graber, Bürgerliche Öffentlichkeit und spätabsolutistischer Staat. Sozietätenbewegung und Konfliktkonjunktur in Zürich 1746–1780 (Zurich, 1993). [Füssli and Lavater], Der ungerechte Landvogt, 15–16: “Vertilgung dieses Bösewichts.” Bettina Volz-Tobler, Rebellion im Namen der Tugend. “Der Erinnerer”—eine Moralische Wochenschrift, Zürich 1765–1767 (Zurich, 1997), 247–250. Hubertus Günther, “‘Brutus! und du schläfst? ach, wenn du lebtest!’ Das Zürcher BrutusBild des Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung 31. 7./1. 8. (1993), 49–50; Hubertus Günther, “Das Urteil des Brutus. Vom Paradigma der Gerechtigkeit zur aufrührenden Tragödie,” in Geschichten, ed. Fuhrer, 89–144, 130–131. Many thanks to ­Sebastian Bott for the reference to Tischbein.

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late seventeenth-century Brutus on the façade of the town hall guaranteed the sovereignty and thus the liberty of the Zurich Republic against outside forces, but did not highlight the internal constitution of the city or the citizens’ participation. In the eighteenth century Hirzel, on the other hand, was very preoccupied with Zurich’s internal order. In contrast to Bullinger, he assumed the existence of a dynamic and secular society, in which each individual needed to develop a strong sense of duty in order to cope with the continuously changing imponderabilia of life. This sense of duty arose, according to Hirzel, as the result of an individual and social process of learning that was fundamentally open to everyone: in other words, whoever emancipated himself to civic virtue through intellectual and moral education could hope for political emancipation. For Bodmer, by contrast, it was not virtue, but the abstract, secular law inspired by Rousseau’s volonté générale that was the supreme ruler, and all citizens had to subordinate themselves to it equally. With its emphasis on natural equality, liberty and popular sovereignty, Bodmer’s radical position, with its nostalgia for an original community of customs among equals, was strongly pre-modern and even anti-modern, if not anti-liberal. In other Swiss cantons and among allies like Geneva one finds many other references to the classical past in the Enlightenment. In Bern, for example, Johann Rudolf Tschiffeli in 1766 boasted that his city was “clever as Rome, staunch as her citizens and adopted the same measures under the same circumstances.”70 But Tschiffeli was actually wrong, for the references to the classical past eventually helped the Swiss to become something that neither Rome nor the Confederation ever had been: a democratic nation-state. To take up Georg Jellinek’s well-known definition, a Staatsvolk, a Staatsgebiet and a Staatsgewalt are the indispensable prerequisites of the modern state. Although the Confederation was an alliance of cities and rural communities, humanists like Fabri and Glarean invented Helvetia as a territory; out of city dwellers and countrymen, historians like Stumpf and Tschudi constructed a Swiss people linked to its imagined ancestors, the Helvetians, through the eternal qualities of an Alpenvolck; and the radical Enlightenment of Hirzel and Bodmer turned Bullinger’s static concept of collective freedom into the idea of the free-born and emancipated citizen and member of a sovereign people able to exercise sovereign authority over itself. 70

Johann Rudolf Tschiffeli, “Grundsätze der Stadt Bern in ihren ersten Jahrhunderten, zu einiger Erläuterung der Geschichte dieses Freystaates,” in Patriotische Reden, gehalten vor dem hochlöblichen aussern Stande der Stadt Bern (Bern, 1773), 62–63: “Klug wie Rom, standhaft wie seine Bürger, ergreiffet Bern, bey gleichen Umständen, die gleichen Massregeln”; quoted in Daniel Tröhler, “Kommerz und Patriotismus. Pestalozzis Weg vom politischen zum christlichen Republikanismus (1764–1780),” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte 50 (2000): 325–352, 333.

chapter 12

Classical Models in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania Tomasz Gromelski The importance of the classical tradition to the polity that became known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth represents a problem that certainly deserves a close scholarly attention. Historians of early modern Poland-­Lithuania readily acknowledge and almost unanimously agree that classical themes played a central role in the political thought and political culture of this polity, and that these themes thoroughly permeated the country’s constitution and laws. Yet, despite the concentrated attention that modern eastern- and centralEuropean historiography continues to devote to the study of the political institutions and political practices of this community poised precariously between the Russian tsardom, the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, the political impact of the classical tradition in Poland-Lithuania has never really become the subject of an in-depth systematic analysis, and consequently remains much under-researched. This chapter examines evidence to support the assertion that GrecoRoman antiquity saturated political and social discourse in sixteenth- and ­seventeenth-century Poland-Lithuania, and that the country’s political and intellectual elite embraced and internalised the classical virtues with the kind of zeal and enthusiasm that they are conventionally credited with. The chapter focuses on some of the most conspicuous topics of contemporary public ­debates, and especially ones centred around the key institutions, doctrines, principles, and concepts that lay at the foundation of the Polish-Lithuanian constitution and that shaped political structures and socio-economic relationships in the country. It does so to establish the links between the prevailing themes, attitudes, and rhetorical modes with what falls under the general heading of the classical tradition, and to assess the role and overall impact of the latter on the Commonwealth’s culture. It uses a wide range of sources, which includes political treaties and pamphlets, chronicles, armorials, ­parliamentary journals, statutes, sermons, eulogies, correspondence, counsel literature, and poetry to demonstrate more clearly why and how early modern Poles and Lithuanians turned to Greek and Roman authors, and classical antiquity in general, to understand and explain the workings of the world, to gain insight into the future of societies and states, to seek moralising examples, © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_014

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to provide justification for their actions, or simply to achieve their rhetorical goals or to create an artistic effect.

Noble Culture and Humanist Education

Why should Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów, or the Commonwealth of Two Nations, seemingly a rather distant cousin of the western European polities that traced their lineage to the great Mediterranean empires of the past, become a fertile ground for the reception of the classical past, and particularly in its political and constitutional dimensions? What was the political, social, economic and intellectual climate that created the conditions for the flourishing of ideas linked inextricably with republican Rome and Greek city-states? In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and part of the eighteenth century the conjoined Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a territorially vast, populous, multi-ethnic and pluri-religious polity with considerable ­financial and military potential. It was dominated and governed by a numerous but hermetic hereditary noble class known as the szlachta, which ­constituted between five and eight per cent of the population (with significant regional variations). The nobility’s exceptionally strong position resulted directly from the monarchy’s weakness, brought about by political and social developments during the period of fragmentation (1138–1320), and by a great number of concessions exacted from members of the Hungarian Anjou (1370–1385) and the Jagiellonian dynasties (1385–1572) in exchange for support for the rulers’ ambitious dynastic and military plans. These special privileges or liberties (wolności), as they were most often described, enabled the szlachta effectively to enslave the peasantry, subdue the frail burgher class, infiltrate the clerical estate, and to gain enormous influence over all aspects of the nation’s life. An additional factor that enhanced the nobility’s power and had serious cultural consequences was the fact that, unlike their counterparts elsewhere, the Polish-Lithuanian nobilitas had never become internally stratified in any formal sense. Because of the lack of a full-blown multi-tiered feudal hierarchy, the knightly estate (stan rycerskii) came to encompass both powerful magnates and petty landless squires, who enjoyed equal rights and subscribed to the same set of values. By the mid-sixteenth century, as all other voices were supressed, noble culture reigned supreme. The szlachta’s narrow class interests, which boiled down to preserving and strengthening a socio-economic system based on serfdom and to maintaining the status quo in relation to the throne, became conflated with the national interest and common good. The nobility were immensely

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proud of their Rzeczpospolita, which they perceived as simultaneously a product and emanation of the innate wisdom and natural virtues of many generations of native aristocracy. They believed that their ancestors had arrived at the best possible constitutional solutions and the best social arrangements instinctively and unaided. The political writer and philosopher Wawrzyniec Goślicki (1530?–1607) wrote: And what shall I say about our forefathers, who established for us a commonwealth not much different from the Roman one? They were not acquainted with the teachings of Plato, Lycurgus, Solon, Aristotle and the greatest philosophers and lawmakers; their state arose solely from virtue, which they found not in books but in themselves. Their wisdom was to submit to virtue and neither to do nor to conceive anything against it.1 At the same time the nobility were fully aware that it was difficult to make cultural progress completely unassisted without relying on the experiences of others. They found that learning about the great polities and communities of the past, and understanding the languages they spoke, were essential to the shedding of the stigma of barbarity that haunted most northern and eastern Europeans; what was necessary, in effect, to become part of the civilised world. The sixteenth century was the time of a cultural leap, when large sections of the better-off citizenry craved and acquired access to Europe’s classical heritage—a development described by Stanisław Orzechowski (1513–1566), a popular political commentator: Before, Greek writings in Poland were rare and almost unheard of, and they were so little known among our people that when someone failed to comprehend something, he called it Greek. Even the Latin speech, how rough and barbaric it was […] Compare with this what you studied and in what your children are schooled. You will say that Poland has become not barbarian but Greece, not Sarmatia but Italy, and so it may seem that, by God’s will, not the Greek and Roman muses but these cities themselves, 1 Warzyniec Goślicki, O senatorze doskonałym księgi dwie. De optimo senatore libri duo, trans. Tadeusz Bieńkowski, ed. Mirosław Korolko (Cracow, 2000), 206: “Quid dicam de maioribus nostris, qui non multum dissimilem Romanae, nobis quoque Rempublicam condiderunt? Aberant tum a Polonis longe Platonis, Lycurgi, Solonis, Aristotelis, summorumque Philosophorum & legislatorum disciplinae, sola virtute res illorum crevit, quam non e libris sed a seipsis petebant. Haec sapientia fuit illis, virtuti obsequi, nihilque contra hanc, nec facere, nec sentire.”

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Rome and Athens, have moved to Poland […] In the mouths of our people the spirit, sound and subtlety of both tongues appear to be not alien but domestic, not foreign but native.2 Crucially, education was seen as benefiting not just the individual, who gained personal enlightenment, but also his country, by forming a dutiful citizen determined to use his knowledge and skills to build his nation’s greatness. As another author stated at the start of the seventeenth century: They say that an ignorant man is as distant from a learned man as a corpse is from a living body. And rightly so! For as the sun illuminates everything so studying discourages us from evil things and leads towards good. It adorns and saves from error, moderates violent and dangerous minds, directs to concord and shows the way to worthy causes, it sharpens reason and, finally, makes one an honest and useful servant of the Commonwealth. Should then a nobleman lie among the dead? God forbid! His country is proof of Epaminondas’s learned wisdom; Greece of Philopoemen’s; Rome of Julius Caesar’s.3 Despite this realisation the majority of rank and file nobility remained uneducated and unaware of the wider world. This was partly due to the lack of means to continue education beyond the parish school or basic home-tuition level, and partly because university studies and academic interests in general 2 Stanisław Orzechowski, Funebris oratio: habita a Stanislao Orichouio, Ruteno, ad Equites Polonos, in funere Sigismundi Jagellonis, Poloniae Regis (Cracow, 1548), Cvi: “Rarum fuit antea, ac pene inauditum in Polonia Graecarum litterarum nomen, quae ita erant hominibus nostris incognitae, ut id quod quis non intelligeret, Graecum esse diceret. Iam vero Latina ipsa oratio, quam absona fuerit, atque barbara […] Conferte nunc cum his eas que et ispsi didicistis et in quibus liberi exercentur vestri: non barbariam, sed Graeciam, non Sarmatiam sed Italiam dicetis factam esse Poloniam, ut iam non musae Graecae, neque Latinae, sed urbes medius fidius ipsae, Roma atque Athenae […] commigrasse in Poloniam videatur. Ita mens, sonus, ac subtilitas utriusque orationis non externa, sed vernacula, non peregrina, sed domestica in ore nostrorum hominum versari mihi videtur.” 3 Wacław Kunicki, Obraz szlachcica polskiego (Cracow, 1615), Br: “Powiadają o tym, że nieuk od uczonego iest tak daleki iako umarły od żywego. I słusznie, ponieważ iako słońce wszystko nam oświeca tak nauka od rzeczy szkodliwych na dobre nawodzi: z złego razu wyrywa y zdobi, srogie y porywcze umysły miękczy, do łaskawości, do zgody prowadzi, do zacnych spraw drogę ukazuie, umysł zaostrza; a na ostatek godnym y pożytecznym sługą Rzeczypospolitej czyni. Y miałby szlachcic między trupami leżeć? Zachowaj tego Boże. Świadkiem nauki Epaminondeszowey iego Oyczyzna. Świadkiem Philopemenowey Grecia, Świadkiem Juliusza Cesarza Rzym.”

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were not seen as part of the nobility’s ethos. On the other hand, sons of the wealthier and more refined szlachta would usually receive a good education with a focus on history, rhetoric, law, and classical and modern languages. As is frequently pointed out by historians, the majority of significant sixteenthand early seventeenth-century political authors and a considerable proportion of politicians spent many years travelling and studying abroad, especially in ­Bologna, Padua, Rome, Vienna, Heidelberg, Wittenberg, Leipzig, Ingolstadt, Cologne, Tübingen, and Königsberg. They returned immersed in the humanistic tradition, well versed in classical literature, and often strongly influenced by the ideas of the Protestant Reformation. Accordingly, the country’s political and intellectual elite had been exposed to and had a good understanding of both older and newer concepts and theories pertaining to the field of political philosophy and jurisprudence. This knowledge, however, did not stimulate the sort of learned scholarly debate that would play any large role in shaping the Polish-Lithuanian constitution and the law. Throughout the early modern period both political thought and political culture seem to have been to a much larger degree a product of political practices at the local and national level than of measured exchanges between academic theorists. In the words of a seventeenth-century Polish poet: “Elsewhere eloquence resides in books, here it reigns in assemblies, in courts of law and in parliament. And so a Spaniard is by nature a theologian, an Italian a philosopher, a Frenchman a poet, a German a historian, and a Pole an orator.”4 As a consequence, much of our understanding of what contemporaries thought about politics is based on sources documenting actual discussions in public fora that took place at the time of important political events or processes, or else shortly thereafter. As we have seen, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Polish and Lithuanian commentators were proficient at quoting classical authors and at evoking Greek and Roman examples to reinforce their argument or to provide an informative comparison. How could this phenomenon, symptomatic of a much wider cultural trend, be explained? What were the reasons for the fascination with classical antiquity, and its political institutions in particular, in early modern Poland-Lithuania?

4 Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, O poezji doskonałej czyli Wergiliusz i Homer (De perfecta poesi, sive Vergilius et Homerus), ed. Stanisław Skimina (Wrocław, 1954), 100: “Alicubi eloquentia ­latet in libris, apud nos in conventibus, in foro, in comitiis dominatur. Itaque ut Hispanus proprio theologus, Italus philosophus, Gallus poeta, Germanus historicus, ita Polonus orator est.”

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Political Freedom and Polish Golden Liberty

If there was one notion that could be described as the very centre of the szlachta’s conceptual universe, a principle underpinning all their thinking and practices, it was without doubt the idea of freedom. When discussed more ­inquisitively freedom would normally be placed within a framework of moral and theological premises. But the majority of early modern commentators were entirely satisfied with the observation that “freedom is mankind’s greatest possession.”5 From this it followed that liberty ought to be cherished and valued above all treasure and wealth, for once it is forfeited and neglected, all prosperity, all riches are nothing, and even life itself cannot be joyful. As Diogenes the Cynic said when asked what would be the best thing in the world. He said: Libertas, hac enim amissa non facile recuperatur. Which saying is not different from this one: Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro.6 Of course, freedom and liberty—the Polish language does not distinguish between the two—are capacious terms that contain a number of concepts and apply to many different fields of human activity. What constituted the primary concern of the Polish-Lithuanian citizenry, however, was freedom in the public sphere, that is libertas politica. They understood it primarily as the ability to participate in power in an unrestrained way in the absence of a superior coercive authority, and as such, it was a prerequisite of individual freedom and civic liberties. Naturally, according to contemporary opinion, this kind of freedom could only exist in polities whose citizens’ moral awareness, civic virtues, and understanding of politics had reached the highest standards characteristic of the most developed societies. Where do we look, asked Poles and Lithuanians, for 5 Andrzej Wolan, De libertate politica seu civili. O wolności Rzeczypospolitej albo ślacheckiej, ed. Maciej Eder and Roman Mazurkiewicz (Warsaw, 2010), 74: “omnium rerum humanarum pulcherrimum […] libertas.” 6 Anon., Philopolites to iest Miłosnik Oyczyzny, albo o powinności dobrego obywatela, Oyczyźnie dobrze chcącego i oną miłujacego, krótki traktat (Cracow, 1588), Fr.: “Wolność pospolita, tha nad wszytki bogactwa ma być przekładana y w uważeniu miana. Bo za upuszczeniem, za zaniedbanim wolności, wszelakie dostatki, wszelakie zbiory nizacz nie są, na osthatek y sam żywot smaczny być nie może. Jako ono Dyogenes Cynikus będąc pytany, coby było na swiecie najlepszego. Odpowiedział: Libertas, hac enim amissa non facile recuperatur. Kthora powieść iego nie iest od oney rozna: Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro.”

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such perfect polities designed specifically to facilitate political liberty? It was a rhetorical question because the answer was blatantly obvious. The form of commonwealth […] which we call free […] of which there have been only three in the world: the Roman one, founded by them [the Romans] in a new, unusual and hitherto unheard of manner; and as long as they fared in it, they were fortunate and illustrious, so much so that other nations craved their government and their liberty, and so because of such almost willing submission by other nations they came to rule the whole world. After, it passed on to the Venetians and exists there to this day. Our ancestors established the third one.7 Another author added that should “Polish Golden Liberty,” as it was often described, be in peril, then “we should turn to the good old Lycurguses or Solons or Greek Platos or Jewish Salomons, who established commonwealths among people wisely, governed them sagely and wrote about them in a thorough manner.”8 Throughout the early-modern period and beyond, a common belief among the szlachta was that Poland-Lithuania not only benefited directly from the political legacy of classical antiquity, but that it also developed it creatively and improved on it, achieving the quickest progress on the road to realizing the ideal of a state and society built on the foundation of true liberty. When writing about their patria most authors could not resist the temptation to throw in a concluding remark that the commonwealth of the Polish kingdom is so thoughtfully conceived that it surpasses the wisdom of those sage founders of commonwealths, 7 Anon., Libera respublica—absolutum dominium—rokosz, in Pisma polityczne z czasów Rokoszu Zebrzydowskiego, 1606–1608, ed. Jan Czubek, 3 vols. (Cracow, 1916–18), 2: 407: “to jest forma tej Rzpltej […] którą wolną zowiemy […] i których nie było, jedno trzy na świecie: rzymska, od nich nowem, niezwykłem, nigdy przedtym niesłychanem obyczajem wynaleziona, i póki w niej trwali, byli szczęśliwemi i sławnemi byli, tak iż wszytkie narody do ich rządu i wolności garnęły się i za dobrowolnem prawie się poddawaniem narodów przyszli byli do tego, że opanowali wszytek świat; potym się przeniosła do Wenetów i po dziś trwa. Przodkowie naszy […] postanowili tę trzecią.” 8 Stanisław Orzechowski, Dyalóg albo rozmowa około egzekucyjej Korony Polskiej in Orzechowski, Wybór pism, ed. Jerzy Starnawski (Wrocław, 1972), 415: “trzeba by nam ku temu onych starych Likurgów albo Solonów albo też Platonów greckich albo Salomonów żydowskich, którzy mądrze rzeczpospolite między ludźmi stanawiali i rozumnie je rządzili i gruntownie o ich pisali.”

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as they describe Lycurgus, Solon, Romulus and so forth. Which is clearly apparent: for Poland has flourished so much that no nation in the world has greater freedom and liberties.9

Mixed Government and Classical Models

The state of full political freedom could only come into existence and thrive in a certain type of political system. That system was mixed government. The idea that in the interest of the national community the state should not be controlled entirely by a single person or a small elite, but that responsibility for public welfare should be shared, was seen as a foundation of civilised society. As Wawrzyniec Goślicki stated: Some consider a commonwealth to be best if it comprises three sorts and orders of men; for this reason they laud the Spartan polity, which was composed of the aristocracy, that is senators, the regime of one, that is kings, and the people, embodied in the ephors, who were elected from among the people. Polybius extols to the skies with the greatest praises the Roman commonwealth for it also embraced and was made up of a king, the aristocracy, and the people, in which monarchs could not grow haughty for fear of the people, and the people dared not scorn monarchs because of the senators. This kind of commonwealth was considered, and not without reason, to be the most just. For as on strings a consonance is achieved through moderation of different tones: the highest, the lowest, and the middling orders; and as Cicero says, from sounds is effected harmony, which is the strongest and the best bond in a commonwealth.10 9 Anon., Naprawa Rzeczypospolitej koronnej do elekcyi nowego króla, 1573, ed. Kazimierz Turowski (Cracow, 1859), 4: “Rzeczpospolita królestwa polskiego od przodków naszych tak jest mądrze postanowiona, iż przechodzi rozumy mądrych onych stanowiec ­rzeczypospolitych, co piszą o Likurgu, Solonie, Romulusie, etc. Co acz łacno rzecz sama pokazuje: bo tak zakwitnęła Polska, iż żaden naród pod światem wolności i swobód więtszych nie ma nad nas, wszakże i wywody jasnemi to sie pokazać może.” 10 Goślicki, O senatorze doskonałym, 70, 72: “Quidam optimam reipublice formam esse putant, si fuerit ex tribus hominum generibus, ordinibusque temperata et constituta: proptereaque Lacedaemoniorum rempublicam laudant, quod ex optimatibus, id es senatoribus erat composita: ex unius imperio, regibus scilicet; e populo, is enim in Ephoris consistebat, eo quod ex populo eligebantur. Polybius rempublicam Romanam summis in coelum effert laudibus, quod ea quoque conflata fuisset et compacta, ex rege, ­optimatibus, et populo; in hac reges insolescere non poterant, metu populi; populus reges despicere

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Poles and Lithuanians contrasted their government with those of other polities, both existing and historical, and concluded that their own constitutional setup represented a particularly well-balanced mixed state or mixed monarchy, which was the most advanced regime, far superior to any contemporary or past political systems. This habit of searching for the classical origins of ideas and institutions, and the urge to compare contemporaneous and ancient political and social orders, and to find parallels between them, was not limited to general concepts and issues. Given the slightest opportunity, the majority of early-modern Polish-Lithuanian commentators would immediately point out the similarities between their constitution and the political and social arrangements that according to their knowledge existed in the classical world and served the primary purpose of preventing the rise of tyrannical rule and upholding and enhancing civic liberties. The cornerstone of the Polish-Lithuanian constitution, the elective monarchy, and the act of royal election, whereby all noble citizens had the right to participate personally and even to stand as candidates, were therefore often presented as institutions that had originated in Rome and Athens. In the former case, it was argued, it all started with Numa Pompilius, who after Romulus’s death and a year-long interregnum was in such manner most concordantly elected king. The people first began to riot against the elders and to complain about increased burdens, that many lords arose in place of one, and finally demanded that the king be elected by none but the people […] The elders gave power to the people and allowed them to elect whomever they wished without any objection.11

11

non audebat, propter senatores. Quod genus reipublicae non sine ratione iustissimum fuit existimatum. Sicut enim in fidibus concentus, ex dissimilium vocum moderatione, concors efficitur: sic e summis, infimis, et mediis ordinibus, uti Cicero dicit, tanquam sonis, ubi harmonia est effecta, arctissimum atque optimum est in republicam vinculum, omnium incolumitatis.” Krzysztof Warszewicki, De optimo statu libertatis libri duo, in Krzysztofa Warszewickiego i Anonima uwagi o wolności szlacheckiej, ed. Krzysztof Koehler (Cracow, 2010), 149, 154: “Omnium namque comitiorum magnus est aestus, sed elecionum maximus. Itaque prudentissimus ille omnium historicorum, Cornelius Tacitus, qui tot tamque varios casus et eligendorum caesarum viderat exitus et qui non solum interfuerat ipse, sed et praefuerat rebus […] quodam loco monet minore periculo sumi quam quaere reges […] Numae Pompilii exemplum Romae memorabile fuerit, qui extincto Romulo post unius anni interregnum rex concordissime hoc modo fuit electus. Plebs primum contra patres furere ac conqueri coepit multiplicatam servitutem, pro uno multos multos dominos esse factos,

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The same solution was applied in the early days of the Attican empire. In his celebrated treatise De optimo senatore Goślicki explained that “after [their] state was established by Theseus, the Athenians […] would elect a king from among those excelling in virtue by pointing with their extended hands.”12 Likewise, the Polish-Lithuanian parliament, or Sejm, resembled closely and was modelled on what could be found in classical polities. Provincial members of the lower house, or posłowie, were chosen and appointed as monitores consiliariorum et custodes libertatis et praerogativarum nobilitatis et legum publicarum: a praiseworthy institution for the Polish nation […] in the likeness of institutions by the wise founders of the Roman and Lacedemonian commonwealths, who, in order to restrain their superior authorities so that the commonwealth might be watched over; had in Rome the tribunos plebis, and the Lacedemonians their ephoros.13 Confederations, formalised institutions of resistance, were regarded highly and praised as one of the pillars of liberty in Poland-Lithuania. The right to renounce obedience and actively oppose a monarch became a constitutional right in the sixteenth century, and this too had classical archetypes. “Let us look at the history of Rome,” wrote the author of a 1600s political pamphlet, “when a magistratus became oppressive towards the populus, when their liberties were at stake, then they [would go] ad Montem Sacrum, ad Aventinum to gather, and in such manner they freed themselves from oppression and multiplied their liberties.”14 The same was being said about the country’s highest regem denique non alium quam a plebe eligendum […] Patres potestatem plebi dederunt et ut ipsa eligeret, quem vellet, regem, citra omnem controversiam permiserunt.” 12 Goślicki, O senatorze doskonałym, 58, 60: “Athenienses […] post institutam a Theseo rempublicam regem, e virtute praestantioribus eligere, ac porrigendis manibus designare solebant.” 13 Anon., Naprawa Rzeczypospolitej, 21: “nie jako przysięgli do rady, ale jako jako monitores consiliariorum et custodes libertatis et praerogativarum nobilitatis et legum publicarum: chwalebne postanowienie narodowi polskiemu […] na kształt postanowienia mądrych stanowiec rzeczypospolitych Rzymian i Lacedemonów, którzy dla pohamowania władz zwierzchnich swych, ażeby dozór był w rzeczypospolitej, rzymska miała tribunos plebis, a Lacedemoni ephoros.” 14 Anon. [possibly Jan Szczęsny Herburt], Skrypt o sluszności zjazdu stężyckiego, in Pisma polityczne z czasów Rokoszu, 2: 261: “Wejźrymy w historye rzymskie […] kiedy jedno populo był ciężki magistratus, kiedy szło o wolności ich, ali oni do gromady, to ad Montem Sacrum, to ad Aventinum i tak zrazieli z siebie niewolą, pomnożeli wolności swe.”

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court of law—the Crown Tribunal, or Trybunał Koronny, established in 1578. In the 1540s, when it was still only a parliamentary proposal, many argued that a “tribunal consisting of select judges, to whom all private cases would be conferred, and whatever they decree, their sentence would stand without appeal” should be called into existence as soon as possible. The project’s proponents wrote that in their opinion nothing wiser or more practical or more salutary for the kingdom, could be conceived. In such manner Greece once ran its affairs well, whereby having chosen men from chief cities, it had judges, whom the Greeks called amphictyones, to handle all their quarrels. Which practice Rome then followed […] And because these tribunals were seen as not only the cause of justice among citizens but also of peace and concord, then France gave her parliament this form with such power that in private cases the king himself became subject to its judgement. And for the same reason Germany desired to have one tribunal for the whole empire […] which Germans commonly call kammericht.15 Even the most carefully designed institutions emulating those conceived and established by the ancient Greeks and Romans were in themselves no guarantee of the stability of the political system, or that civil and political rights, and consequently freedom of the individual, would be realised and protected. The Polish-Lithuanian nobility believed that this could be facilitated only through adopting and closely adhering to the principle of the rule of law— another mark of a civilised and progressive society. Again, as with everything else, the value of the lex est rex concept consisted in the fact that it had been

15

Stanisław Orzechowski, Fidelis subditus, ed. Teodor Wierzbowski (Warsaw, 1900), 15: “iudicium in regno ex delectis iudicibus, ad quos omnes controversiae rerum privatarum deferantur, et ut ab his nulla sit provocatio, sed illorum iudicio stetur, quiquid decreverint. Nil mea sententia neque sapientius, neque utilius, neque quod ad salutem huius regni magis pertineat, potuit decerni. Hoc modo vixit olim salvis rebus Graecia, quae ex primoribus civitatibus delectos viros habebat omnium controversiarum suarum iudices, quod Graeci amphictyones vocant; quem deinde morem secuta Roma […] Et quoniam haec iudicia non tantum iustitiae inter cives, sed etiam pacis et concordiae videbantur esse causae, ideo et Gallia parlamentum suum ad hanc formam constituit auctoritatis tante, ut etiam regem ipsum illi iudicio in privatis causis subiiceret. Et Germania quoque non dissimili retione unum iudicium ese in cuncto imperio suo voluit […] quod vulgo Germani vocant kammericht.”

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­thought-out, endorsed and employed by the ancients. As explained in the introduction to the Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania compiled in 1588: Laws are created for the reason that the mighty and the great be not free to do as they will, as Cicero said: we are slaves to laws so that we might use our freedom […] Because the aim and effect of all laws throughout the world are and ought to be, that all keep their good name, health and possessions in their entirety and suffer no loss of any kind […] not only our neighbour and our fellow citizen in this motherland but also the prince himself, our lord, may not have authority over us except only to such extent as the law allows.16

Serfdom and (in)equality of Citizens

Almost every aspect of Polish-Lithuanian political culture and the country’s constitution and law could be discussed with reference to institutions and practices that existed, or were believed to exist, at the time when the heroic Greek and Roman leaders and thinkers walked the earth and led their countries to greatness. The same was true about socio-economic arrangements, and especially the relationship between the szlachta and the “meaner sort,” and between the ordinary nobilitas and the upper echelons of their caste. In the first case the nobility used Plato’s and Aristotle’s considerations about natural inequality and slavery, and about the nature of multitude, to explain their elevated position in society and to provide a moral justification for what effectively amounted to the enslavement of much of the rural population. A classic argument, frequently advanced, was that for a well-functioning polity it was necessary that it has that kind of people, who are born for and capable of virtue, good fortune, honesty. And so artisans, merchants, serfs we exclude 16

Statut Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego naprzód, za nayjaśniejszego hospodara Zygmunta iii, w Krakowie w roku 1588 (Vilnius, 1819), c: “Bo dla tego prawa są postanowione, aby możnemu i potężnemu nie wszystko było wolno czynić, jako Cycero powiedział, iżeśmy niewolnikami praw dlatego, żebyśmy wolności pożywać mogli […] Bo ten cel i skutek wszystkich praw jest i ma być na świecie, aby każdy dobrą sławę swą, zdrowie i majętność w całości miał, a na tym wszystkich żadnego uszczerbku nie cierpiał […] nie tylko sąsiad, a spólny nasz Obywatel oyczyzny, ale i sam hospodar, pan nasz żadney zwierzchności nad nami zażywać nie może, iedno tylko wiele mu prawo dopuszcza.”

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from the commonwealth: for the life of that degree of people is vile and contrary to virtue. Albeit they are useful for the preservation of civic society, yet, because they occupy themselves with crafts unbecoming of free people, they are utterly excluded from governing the commonwealth.17 Indeed, history provided numerous examples of how the people could easily turn into a mob and could not be trusted. Krzysztof Warszewicki (1543–1603), a historian, political writer, statesman and Jesuit priest, argued: Did not […] this father of great prudence and eloquence [Plato] openly argue that the multitude has no reason, no sound judgement, no wisdom? Which the most eminent chronicler of Roman history Polybius and also T. Livy reasserted in many places. And also experience, the teacher of truth itself, tells us that there is nothing more volatile than the multitude. […] The most memorable story of the Roman people’s fickle nature is when after the defeat at Cannae, they praised to the skies the courage and good fortune of Hannibal, the enemy of the fatherland, and condemned their own commanders.18 The natural conclusion deriving from these considerations was that the commonalty constituted a subspecies of men and as such should be closely supervised and put to work for the benefit of the community of true citizens in the manner of Spartan helots, who were seen as the archetypal and most efficiently managed class of serfs. Consequently, the commonalty in the lands of Poland-Lithuania, and especially the unfree soil-bound peasants had to face a grim reality. Both domestic and foreign commentators agreed that there was

17 Goślicki, O senatorze doskonałym, 78: “necesse est, ut illa genus hominum ad virtutem, felicitatem, honestatem, natumet aptum habeat. Itaque artifices, mercatores, servos, a republica arcemus: vilis est enim eiusmodi hominum vita, et virtuti adversa. Qui tametsi ad civilem societatem luendam utiles sunt, quoniam tamen artes, hominibus liberis minus dignas exercent, a reipublica administratione prorsus arcendi sunt.” 18 Warszewicki, De optimo statu libertatis, 167–169: “An […] ille magni consilii et eloquentiae pater [Plato] non rationem, non discrimen, non consilium vulgo esse aperte non testificatur? Cui et rerum Romanarum gravissimus scriptor Polybius ac item T. Liuius multis in locis adstipulanuntur. Et ipsa veritatis magistra docuit nos experientia vulgo ventosius esse nihil […] Sed una omnium maxime de populi Romani inconstantia memorabilis est historia, quando post Cannensem cladem Hannibalis patria hostis fortitudinem et felicitatem laudibus in caelum ferebat, suorum vero ducum et populi Romani fortunam contemnebat.”

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no other European polity “wherein subjects and ploughmen would be under such absolutum dominium as the nobility exerts without any legal restraint.”19 Despite the harsh treatment that the plebeians received at the hands of the szlachta, and the rigidity of the social structure, the majority of early modern commentators seemed to agree that some members of the multitude were capable of virtue and were therefore eligible to become gentlemen and enter the ranks of nobility, which automatically conferred on them full civic rights. Although the law of 1505 clearly stated that noble status could be claimed only by those “whose both parents are noble and born into a noble family, and who […] live on their estates, in their castles, towns or villages according to the custom of this land and after the manner of the nobility,” it was clear that there must be exceptions to the rule.20 As in other cases, Greek and Roman histories were relied on to provide relevant examples. One author noted: Even among the lower orders you can find a gallant youth. […] There are many of this degree who became great men and won kingship […] Agathocles had been an apprentice potter and then became a lord in Sicily; in his youth emperor Maximinus was a shepherd in montibus Traciae; Justin was a herdsman; Galerius and Licinius were of peasant stock.21 Or, in the words of the poet Mikołaj Rej (1505–1569): “And from whence was Varrus, Homer, Cicero, from whence Cato/ Socrates, Euripides, or the virtuous Plato/ They say they all rose from obscurity,/ Yet their minds easily reached high planes of divinity.”22 19

20

21

22

Piotr Skarga, Kazania sejmowe, ed. Janusz Tazbir and Mirosław Korolko (Wrocław, 1984), 195: “nie masz państwa, w którym by barziej poddani i oracze uciśnieni byli pod tak absolutum dominium, którego nad nimi szlachta bez żadnej prawnej przeszkody używa.” Volumina Constitutionum, ed. Stanisław Grodziski, Irena Dwornicka and Wacław Uruszczak, 3 vols. (Warsaw, 1996–2013), 1/1, 140: “Cuius uterque parens nobilis et ex familia nobili sit progenitus; et quod […] habitarunt et habitant in suis possessionibus, castris, oppidis vel villis, iuxta morem patriae et consuetudinem nobilitatis.” Walenty Kuczborski, Przestroga dla króla Zygmunta z roku 1569, in Sześć broszur politycznych z xvi i początku xvii stulecia, ed. Bronisław Ulanowski (Cracow, 1921), 79: “Najdzieć i między tem podłem stanem niepodłego junaka […] trafiali się przed tym z tego cechu takowi, którzy wielkimi ludźmi zostawali i do cesarstwa przychodzili […] Agatocles był zduńczyk, a potem panem in Sicilia został; Maximinus cesarz był zmłodu owczarzem in montibus Traciae; Iustinus był wołowiec; Galerius et Licinius z kmieci się porodzili.” Mikołaj Rej, Wizerunek własny żywota człowieka poczciwego, ed. Władysław Kuraszkiewicz, 2 vols. (Wrocław and Warsaw), 1: 445: “Także z małego stanu, gdy szczęście przypadnie / Obierze sie ślachetny narod barzo snadnie. / Skąd by Warro, Homerus, Cycero, skąd

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The nominal equality of all noble citizens as guaranteed by law was c­ herished as one the main pillars of the political system and repeated ad nauseam in parliamentary speeches and during elections, in political tracts, sermons, literature, and correspondence; but the ideal hardly matched reality. Wealth, lineage, office-holding, tradition, and several other factors inevitably set some nobles apart from their “brethren.” Those who “are so poore as they drink water, and follow the plough bare-footed” and “are forced to attend on other ­gentlemen” could hardly equate themselves with the great magnates, who owned or leased scores of town and hundreds of villages and manors ­inhabited by thousands of  enslaved peasants.23 Subsequently, the szlachta became divided, in the words of Jerzy Zbaraski (1573–1631), castellan of Cracow, into “two orders […] by reason of a certain small superiority, which classes must be in every assembly of men.”24 This did not lead, h ­ owever, to any sharp internal divisions that might have escalated into conflict. The harmonious r­ elations between the great nobles and the ordinary szlachta were described by Sir George Carew, a surprisingly well-informed royal ambassador  visiting  Poland in 1598. Noting the existing equality under the law, he ­observed how the voyce of every poore servingman being a gentleman weighes as muche in all Conventes and elections as the greatest princes […] is the common bande of unity between the riche and the poore, bothe by that meanes participating in the benefittes of the lande, the one by commaunde, and the other by dependency of the Commaunders trencher, besides the correspondency of patrone, and Cliente, imitating in that the auncient Rommane state, which by that order was united and kepte in mutuall amity, the Patricians being the patrones of the Plebeians, counselling them, following theire suites, pleading theire causes, and defending them in all cases without fee or reward, and on the other syde the Clientes observing, honoring and with greate respecte wayting on theire patrone.25

23

24

25

Kato, / Sokrates, Ewrypides, albo zacny Plato? / Z tych sie każdy podobno z prostakow wylągnął, / A wżdy drugi rozumem aż nieba dosiągnął.” Fynes Moryson, Shakespeare’s Europe: Unpublished Chapters of Fynes Moryson’s Itinerary, Being a Survey of the Condition of Europe at the End of the 16th Century, ed. C. Hughes (London, 1903), 90. Jerzy Zbaraski, Listy księcia Jerzego Zbaraskiego, kasztelana krakowskiego, z lat 1621–1631, ed. August Sokołowski (Cracow, 1878), 47: “duos ordines […] ratione trochę wyższej superioris, które gradus w każdej kupie ludzi zawżdy być muszą.” Sir George Carew, Relation of the State of Polonia and the United Provinces of that Crown Anno 1598, ed. Charles H. Talbot, Elementa ad Fontium Editiones 13 (1965): 86.

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Civic Virtues and the Active Life

The area where the political culture of early-modern Poland-Lithuania seems to have been most influenced by classical antiquity was in the realm of civic virtues, with all its accompanying and complementary ideologies and n ­ otions. Deliberations on the ideal of the good citizen usually started with the a­ ssertion that man’s activities could be conveniently grouped into two categories, in other words, two modes of interacting with the world. Łukasz Górnicki (1527– 1603), an ennobled courtier, poet and translator of Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano stated: There are men in the world who are only concerned with shrewdness of mind and witty deliberations upon things, and others who entertain enterprise and valour; those two manners of living the Latinists divided into activam and contemplativam vitam.26 Although they were not totally incompatible, more often than not the active life and the contemplative life were perceived as inherently antagonistic. The active life was, of course, superior because of its significance in the context of state and society. The nature of the individual’s relation with the national community was in his obligation to protect it, which of course entailed action. As one author put it: in a few words a good citizen cannot be any other than he who is a good man and useful to the commonwealth. For firstly he ought to have before his eyes this maxim of Plato’s from his letter to Archita (followed in this by Cicero), in which Plato admonished him to remember that man was not born for himself only, but partly for his country, partly for his kin, partly for his friends, and for posterity. Which maxim of this worthy man, when considered properly, makes everyone understand that he owes his country service, succour, and assistance at all times, bearing in mind that he benefits from it in no small manner.27 26

Łukasz Górnicki, Dworzanin polski, in Górnicki, Pisma, ed. Roman Pollak, 2 vols. (Warsaw, 1961), 1: 396: “jedni ludzie na świecie, którzy telko sie około bystrości rozumu i subtylnie obaczania rzeczy pętają; drudzy zasię są, którzy telko około spraw a dzielności; otóż obadwa te żywoty Łacinnicy na activam a contemplativam vitam rozdzielili.” 27 Anon., Philopolites, Bv: “Dobry obywatel krothkoscią słow oznaczony, inaczey być niemoże, iedno dobrym mężem y Rzeczypospolithey potrzebnym. Wprzod bowiem ma mieć przed oczyma swoimi one Sentencyą Plathonowe w liscie do Archity napisaną (w czym go też

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The ultimate test of one’s civic virtue was of course the ability and preparedness to sacrifice one’s own life and possessions in service of the ­community and country. The Greeks and Romans, it was argued, excelled at this. Although a heathen people, they loved their fatherland so much that they would save nothing in its stead, not their possessions or their health or the lives of their wives or their children. Cicero said about this: […] To every one of us parents are dear, so are our children, kin and companions, but love of the fatherland is above all these ties, and which good man would not be glad to die for it so as to save it? And they held nothing in greater esteem than their good name and honest reputation, for which they lived and for which they were not afraid to die. Which was shown by the Scaevolas, Curtiuses, Deciuses, Reguluses, Cocleses, and many others who would not preserve their wealth or health in stead of their commonwealth and its good name. And for this love and affection they had toward for their motherland, God rewarded them in such manner that no other people ruled them but they ruled many peoples et imperii sui leges imposuerunt. […] And to this day their great and famous memory continues among all nations.28

Cycero nasladuie) gdzie go napomniał aby pamiętał na to, że cz łowiek nie sam dla siebie narodził sie, zle częscią dla Oyczyzny, częscią dla powinnych, dla przyjaciół y dla potomstwa. Ktora to męża thego zacnego Sentencya, gdy w dobrym uważeniu będzie, rozeznać to każdy musi, że Oyczyznie swej iest powinien pomoc, ratunek y podporę każdego czasu, oglądając sie na to, że od niej niemałe dobrodzieystwa odnosi.” 28 Anon., Elekcya króla krześcijańska, in Pisma polityczne z czasów pierwszego bezkrólewia, ed. Jan Czubek (Cracow, 1906), 315: “Rzymianie, ludzie pogańscy, tak miłowali ojczyznę swoje, iż dla niej niczego nie litowali, ani majętności ani zdrowia ani gardł ani żon ani dzieci swoich. O czym Cicero tak powiedział: […] Każdemu z nas mili są rodzice, miłe są dziatki, mili krewni i towarzysze, ale nade wszytkie te powinowactwa więtsza jest miłość ojczyzny, za którą ktoby dobry nie rad umarł, by jej tylko mógł ratować? I nic sobie więcej nie ważyli, jako dobrą i uczciwą sławę, dla której samej tylko na świecie żyć chcieli i dla niej samej umrzeć nie wątpili. Co skutkiem pokazali Scewolowie, Kurcyusowie, Decyusowie, Regulusowie, Koklesowie i innych wiele, którzy ani majętności ani zdrowia swego dla rzeczypospolitej i dobrej sławy ojczyzny swej nie litowali. Za którą miłość i życzliwość, którą mieli przeciwko ojczyźnie swej, tym je Bóg uczcił, iż jem żaden naród obcy nie rozkazował, ale oni wiele narodom rozkazowali et imperii sui leges imposuerunt. I jeszcze po dziś dzień z pisma i z historyj miedzy wszystkiemi narody wielka i sławna ich jest pamięć.”

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The nature of good citizen’s duties entailed a number of skills and qualities  ­referred to as virtues, such as martial prowess, resilience, determination,  but  also the ability to provide counsel and lead others. These could be ­ acquired through a combination of breeding, training, and proper ­lifestyle.  Again, the ways of the ancient Romans and Greeks served as a source of inspiration but also as a warning about the dangers of rejecting or ­neglecting virtue. Ennius writes: Moribus antiquis res stat romana virisque. And Saint Augustine writes that it was legitimum imperium of God for their justice and great righteousness of their manners. They were wise people but in a simple manner, spoke little, accomplished much, wore their hearts on their sleeves, were hard-working, knew hunger and cold, were strict to their children whom they raised in the country, loved not luxury, were content with little, preferred a sword, a horse, a galea. Behold! when they abandoned their old ways, and when ambition and gluttony made a home among them and then luxus and debauchery of the young: thus perished Rome.29 Failure to comply with this ideal was subject to criticism. In his Coats of Arms of the Polish Knighthood, Bartosz Paprocki (1543–1613), an antiquary, genealogist and historian of Poland and Bohemia, included short biographies of many of his noble contemporaries, focusing in particular on their achievements and shortcomings as citizens. About one Mikołaj Koryciński of Korytno in Lesser Poland, for example, he wrote: A man of great wit and learning […] vir probus, moderatus and constans […] His great fault was that with such superb worthiness, which was in him to serve the commonwealth, he sat quietly at home being content with modesty in everything, in lands as in money, and not craving more. For offices which would engage him too much, he cared not; and when 29 Anon., Naprawa Rzeczypospolitej, 9–10: “Pisze Ennius: Moribus antiquis res stat romana virisque. A święty Augustyn tak pisze, że to było legitimum imperium od Pana Boga dla sprawiedliwości i wielkiej ućciwości obyczajów ich. Byli to ludzie z prosta mądrzy, mało mówili, wiele czynili, co w sercu to w uściech, pracowici, głód, zimno cierpieli, dziatki swe na wsiach wychowywali grubo, nie kochali sie in luxu, na małe przestawali, kochanie ich było szpada, koń, galea. Patrzże, jako skoro stare obyczaje opuścili, a wniosła sie do nich ambicya, potem łakomstwo, za łakomstwem luxus, rozpusta młodzi: te rzeczy zgubiły Rzym.”

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someone else was promoted above him he would say as the Laconian Paedaretus, Gratias vobis habeo dii, quod tot homines meliores me huic regno dedistis.30 Conclusion This chapter set out to provide an overview of the reception of classical ­republicanism, and more generally classical antiquity, in early modern PolandLithuania—a problem that as yet has not been studied in detail, particularly in relation to its importance for the understanding of political thought and political culture in the Commonwealth of Two Nations. As we have seen, Polish-Lithuanian political and intellectual elites were fascinated with Greek city-states and Rome. They believed that, uniquely among states past and present, the polities of ancient Greece and the Roman Republic had established, perfected, and upheld political systems that favoured and protected the freedom of the individual without compromising the common good. They put much effort not only into tracing parallels between their own constitution and the political systems they believed had existed in Athens, Sparta and Rome, but also into moulding their Rzeczpospolita in the likeness of those ancient states. They sought to fuse the native Sarmatian tradition and legal system with the laws, institutions and codes of behaviour of public life as described by Aristotle, Plato, Polybius, Cicero, Sallust, Livy, Tacitus and other venerated authors. The Poles and the Lithuanians considered themselves to be an elite blessed with an innate and inalienable virtue inherited from the citizenry of Athens and Sparta and from the Roman equites. In order to associate themselves more closely with the classical past, a number of leading families went so far as to claim descent from Greek and Roman aristocracy. Several Lithuanian clans, for example,

30

Bartosz Paprocki, Herby rycerstwa polskiego, ed. Kazimierz Turowski (Cracow, 1858), 100: “człowiek nauki i dowcipu wielkiego […] vir probus, moderatus, constans. Owa wszystkie cnoty, z których dobrego męża chwalą, tam zastaniesz. To nawiętsza w nim wina, że z taką godnością swą wielką, która w nim była do służb r. p. cicho sobie w domu zasiadał, będąc na wszystko dostatecznym; tak w majętność jako i w pieniądze, więcej u szczęścia nie prosił. O urzędy żadne, któreby go turbować miały, nie dbał, tylko gdy przed nim komu jaki urząd oddano, właśnie by on Padaretus lakoński mawiał: Gratias vobis habeo dii, quod tot homines meliores me huic regno dedistis.”

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traced the genealogy of their house to Roman lords, […] descendants of Roman duke Palemon, or Publius Libon, or his companions, who sailed the English and Baltic oceans and into the Sound narrow straits, and through God’s marvellous fiat, arrived in these northern parts, that is today’s Somogitia, Livonia or Latvia and Lithuania, with five hundred of Roman nobility and four more notable families.31 By the mid sixteenth century it had become commonplace to evoke Greek and Roman institutions, political practices, customs, and eminent figures. All kinds of sources from the period in question, ranging from legislative acts and judicial records to private correspondence and prose, poetry and drama, abound in pertinent references and quotations. When choosing the topic of his doctoral thesis—to be completed at the university of Padua—Jan Zamoyski (1542–1606), Crown Chancellor and Grand Hetman, one of the most influential politicians of his era, unhesitatingly picked the Roman senate. Classical antiquity served as an inexhaustible source of wisdom. It was frequently argued that the Romans left “all kinds of examples of the art of governing cities, as well as different and multiple testimonies of valour and military art and industry. And as the Greeks once taught posterity through their precepts, so did the Romans through deeds and example.”32 Many subscribed to the view that running the country and devising solutions for urgent problems required no more than consulting Greco-Roman authors. A Gdańsk philosopher and theologian, Bartholomäus Keckermann (1572–1609), wrote in his methodological essay published shortly after his death: “If it is necessary to give counsel to the Polish commonwealth, we should compare with it the commonwealths of Sparta, Rome, Venice and others both at the time of peace and trouble, and

31

Maciej Stryjkowski, Kronika polska, litewska, żmódzka i wszystkiej Rusi, ed. Ignacy Daniłowicz and Mikołaj Malinowski, 2 vols. (Cracow, 1846), 1: 114: “wywod narodu swego pewną genealogią wiedli z rzymskich panów […] potomkami Palemona albo P ­ ubliussa Libona Rzymskiego xiążęcia, albo towarzyszami jego być musieli, który w ty strony północne, gdzie dziś Żmodź, Liflanci albo Łotwa i Litwa, z piącią set szlachty rzymskiej i cztermi familiami przedniejszymi […] przez Angielski i Bałtycki Ocean ciasnościami Zundzkimi, dziwnym lossem Bożym przyżeglował.” 32 Warszewicki, De optimo statu libertatis, 253: “omnis generis exempla, tam urbanarum in gubernatione artium quam variae et multiplicis virtutis et industriae scientiaeque militaris. Quod enim olim aliquando Graeci praeceptis, hoc Romani factis et exemplis posteros docuerunt.”

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learn from this comparison about the existing forms.”33 Overall, this enthusiastic embracing of the classical tradition and classical republicanism in particular by the Polish-Lithuanian elite had a lasting impact on the constitution and on political culture in the Rzeczpospolita and the political entities that came into being after its eventual collapse. 33

Bartholomäus Keckermann, De natura et proprietatibus historiae commentarius (Hanau, 1610), 213: “Consilium dandum est pro Rep. Polona, comparamus cum ea Remp. Spartanam, Romanam & Venetam, & ex salutaribus consiliis datis pro Rep. Spartana, Romana, aut Veneta in statu pacato aut turbato, invenimus ex ista similitudine formarum, quae est in his Rebusp. consilium salutare pro Republica Polona, sive in pacato, aut turbato statu.”

chapter 13

America’s Antiquities: The Ancient Past in the Creation of the American Republic Eran Shalev “We have the power to create the world anew,” Thomas Paine asserted as British North Americans were inching toward declaring their independence and establishing a republic. Paine was able to convert many of his contemporaries, as well as future generations, to the view that the United States was a nation born modern. Indeed, Americans have always made much of their “newness” and isolation from—or transcendence of—the kind of “history” suffered by peoples of the Old World. The “end of history” trope long antedates Francis Fukuyama’s famous 1992 book, serving as a foundational premise of exceptionalist mythology since the new nation’s founding: as the vanguards of modernity, Americans make their own history and are therefore exempt from the tragic fates of all other peoples.1 But Americans’ focus on the future is in fact predicated on their understandings of the past. Their very status as a “people” depended on creatively constructing a past—or, indeed, multiple pasts—in order to delegitimise the imperial old regime, demystify monarchical authority, authorise the creation of a plurality of new republican regimes and cohere as “Americans.” E.J. Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson, and other students of modern nationalism have emphasised the importance of invented traditions, including the fabrication of legitimating historical narratives, for the nation-making project. Meanwhile, pathbreaking historians of the American Revolution revealed the importance of history and the formulation of historical consciousness to creating an infrastructure for the newly founded American republic. These strains

1 For the latest scholarly analysis of American exceptionalism, the notion of the uniqueness of the course of the United States’ history, see the articles in the symposium “American Exceptionalism” in American Political Thought 1 (Spring 2012): 3–128. See also Joyce Chaplin, “Expansion and Exceptionalism in Early American History,” Journal of American History 89 (2003): 1431–1455 and Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science (New York, 1992), 22–52.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004351387_015

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are imperative for making sense of the drama that unfolded in British North America after 1765.2 From the beginning national independence generated a lasting intellectual problem: the American union of states was a modern polity, but as such it was a nation that lacked historical precedence. Not content with the new world they were busy creating, the citizens of the young United States repeatedly attempted to place their political experiment in a historical perspective. They did so by elaborating compelling narratives, which interweaved America with the histories of the most revered and ancient past societies. Revolutionary patriots first drew inspiration from the Whig historical narrative they shared with metropolitan Britons, but soon discovered a pedigree for their nascent republicanism in the primitive purity of pre-Norman Conquest Anglo-Saxon institutions. After independence, as they extricated themselves from English and British history, a plurality of histories came usefully into view, particularly those of ancient Rome and ancient Israel. Far from rejecting “history,” the selfauthorised American nation was to an extraordinary degree dependent on history for its very existence.

Anglo-Saxon Liberty

From the early days of their resistance to Britain’s attempt to tax the colonies in the mid-1760s, the Anglo-Saxons provided revolutionary Americans with a paradigm of a free society ruled by law. The disgruntled British North Americans found the Dark-Age Germanic tribes, who stemmed from the thick of northern Europe’s forests and settled the English isle in the early fifth century, particularly attractive during the early stages of the revolution. They were fascinated by the free and raw form of government the Anglo-Saxons supposedly imported with them to England, which enabled the English, so they believed, to retain their identity as a free people through centuries of conquests and upheavals. The English could achieve this because they managed to preserve 2 Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, etc., 1992); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Edition (London and New York, 1983). The most important studies of the role of history in the making of the American Revolution are Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill, 1969); and J.G.A. Pocock’s The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, n.j., 1975).

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an ancient, unwritten, and customary constitution, which was understood to be Anglo-Saxon in origin. That constitution restrained the sovereign and guaranteed liberties that came to be seen as essential to the identity of Englishmen. During the years leading to independence American colonists repeatedly appealed to an Anglo-Saxon golden age of freedom. The Anglo-Saxons were already a staple in English oppositional thought, evoked regularly during the tumultuous seventeenth century’s battles against the Stuarts by revolutionaries such as Algernon Sidney and later by eighteenth-century Whig Commonwealthmen. Americans were thus making use of a well-established British tradition of opposition to what was widely perceived as governmental arbitrariness and referred to as “tyranny.” American colonists were making use of the English view of history that has come to be called “Whig” and evolved in the first half of the eighteenth century among a circle of Commonwealthmen opposition writers. Indeed, they were taking the lead of authors in oppositional venues such as The Craftsman, the leading anti-Walpolean journal, which periodically expressed the notion that “from the earliest accounts of time, our ancestors in Germany were a free people, and had a right to assent or dissent to all laws; that right was exercised and preserved under the Saxon and Norman Kings, even to our days.” The Saxons, before they had invaded Britannia, had been a free people, living under a constitution of liberty. When They were settled, according to their Liking, They form’d a Government upon the same Model though it hath been often interrupted, or depress’d, by Conquest, Usurpation, and arbitrary Power, the Stamina of it have been still preserved, and transmitted down to us thro’ all Ages and Changes of Government.3 In the wake of the unprecedented attempts to tax the North American colonies, colonists habitually extended this Whig view of history to their own situation, as they described parliament as yet another “Norman yoke.” Americans, in the tradition of English oppositional discourse, believed that Westminster attempted to subdue their tenacious and pristine spirit of liberty, which was molded in the German forests, imported to Britain, and given a new birth in the New World. Revolutionaries thus positioned themselves in numerous speeches, sermons and petitions as direct descendants, virtually and at times literally, of the Anglo-Saxons and their free society. In the attempts to block and prove wrong the imperial ambitions to tax the colonies and later to ­assert 3 The Craftsman, no. 470, July 5, 1735 and no. 405, April 6, 1734.

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English sovereignty over North America, colonial spokesmen evoked their “Gothic predecessors” for several reasons. First among the reasons to appeal to the Saxons were their political arrangements, which were supposedly enshrined in the unwritten but sacrosanct British constitution. The Virginian Richard Bland (1710–1776), in attempting to demonstrate that the colonists were opposed to any attempt to tax them without their consent, was among the earliest to address the Anglo-Saxons relevance to the American situation. During the Stamp Act crisis (1765–66), Bland argued that it was a Fact, as certain as History can make it, that the present civil Constitution of England derives its Original from those Saxons who, coming over to the Assistance of the Britons […] made themselves Masters of the Kingdom, and established a Form of Government in it similar to that they had been accustomed to live under in their native Country.4 James Otis (1725–1783), a Massachusetts lawyer who too rose as a leading voice of the patriot cause in the early years of the imperial crisis, elaborated AngloSaxonism’s most generally accepted historical premises: Few people have extended their enquiries after the foundation of any of their rights, beyond a charter from the crown. There are others who think when they have got back to old Magna Charta, that they are at the beginning of all things. They imagine themselves on the borders of Chaos (and so indeed in some respects they are) and see creation rising out of the unformed mass, or from nothing. Hence, say they, spring all the rights of men and of citizens. Freedom, however, did not arise like a deus ex machina in England, but was, in Otis’s view, rooted in the nation’s Dark Ages. “Liberty,” he continued, “was better understood and more fully enjoyed by our ancestors before the coming in of the first Norman Tyrants than ever after, till it was found necessary for the salvation of the kingdom to combat the arbitrary and wicked proceedings of the Stuarts.” In the same year, across the Atlantic Englishmen concurred that it was that unspoiled form of liberty that had been “an essential part of the form of government, that universally prevailed among the northern nations, and 4 Richard Bland, “An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies,” (1776) in American Political Writing during the Founding Era, 1760–1805, ed. Charles S. Hyneman and Donald S. Lutz, 2 vols. (Indianapolis, 1983), 1:70.

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was transplanted hither with our Saxon ancestors.” Whether the constitution had evolved to its recognisable form among the Germanic tribes before their migration to Britain or only after the Anglo-Saxons had conquered the Britons on the English isle seemed irrelevant. “[T]he present civil constitution of England,” Otis concluded, derived “its original” from the Saxons. “This government, like that from whence they [the Saxons] came, was founded upon principles of the most perfect liberty.”5 What mattered was that the same unchanged and seemingly timeless constitution that originated with the ancients had persevered and preserved through numerous trials, by Normans and Stuarts among others. Now the British Constitution faced another critical challenge in the New World, which was merely another ring in the long chain of attempts at despotic encroachment. Thomas Jefferson was among the most famous expositors of the Anglo-­ Saxons as American progenitors. His motives for evoking them in his Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774) were different, however, from those we have just reviewed. Jefferson did not wish to connect the ancient Britons to a political constitution that originated in times immemorial. Indeed, Jefferson did not interweave the Anglo-Saxons, British history and the colonies. While earlier commentators typically pointed to the relationship between the ancient Germanic political institutions (and the ideology that forged them) and those of America (via Britain), Jefferson had a different purpose in mind. The Saxons had, according to Jefferson, under a universal law of liberty, “in like manner [as the Americans] left their native wilds and woods in the north of Europe, had possessed themselves of the island of Britain […] and had established there that system of laws which has so long been the glory and protection of that country.” Jefferson was pointing out the similarity of the historical narrative between the peoples: the Americans, like their Germanic predecessors, were not sent by their masters to claim a new land in a monarch’s name, but were autonomous agents on a self-directed and independent endeavor. Jefferson’s claim for colonial autonomy was derived from his firm view that “no circumstance has occurred to distinguish materially” the British migration to America from that of the Saxons. In both cases there was no “claim of superiority or dependence” asserted over the two peoples by the mother country from which they had migrated. Even “were such a claim made, it is believed that his majesty’s subjects […] have too firm a feeling of the rights derived to them from their ancestors, to bow down the sovereignty of their state before 5 James Otis, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (Boston, 1764), 31, and Robert Lowth, A Sermon Preached Before the Honourable and Right Reverend Richard, Lord Bishop of Durham […] at the Assizes Holden at Durham, August 15, 1764 (Newcastle, 1764), 7–8.

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such visionary pretensions.”6 This notion of the Anglo-Saxons as a people exerting its right to relinquish a (Germanic) home country and associate together into a new free political society and independent state in a new (English) land resonated in America during the decade of resistance and rebellion that culminated in independence. Patriot Americans could readily recognise that history, identify with it, and make use of it for political, ideological and legal reasons. After 1776, with independence confirmed and the colonies-turned-states’ final separation from Britain, the Anglo-Saxons quickly lost their appeal. As long as Americans were still citizens of the British Empire and felt kinship to and an emotional bond with the English people, it made sense for them to describe themselves as sharing revered common ancestors with their overseas compatriots. After the implosion of the political bond, however, the Anglo Saxons were no longer politically or rhetorically useful for an independent union of American states. Subsequently, powerful—and non-British—models emerged for the new American republic. Indeed, in comparison with other usable pasts that Americans conjured during the Founding Era, the extent of the identification with the Anglo-Saxons was limited in its duration and scope. Nonetheless, during the decade between the Stamp Act (1765) and independence (1776) the free Anglo-Saxons and their consensual rule of law exerted a considerable and widespread influence on revolutionary patriots. The most graphic evidence of this was Thomas Jefferson’s proposal for the new nation’s Great Seal: the Virginian recommended that the Seal should depict Hengist and Horsa, the legendary Anglo-Saxon brothers who were believed to be the first to settle Britain. Thus, in 1776, the Saxons were still candidates to justify American independence and to represent the aspirations of the new nation.

Roman Republicanism

The United States was founded as a republic (a res publica), with a legislature named after Roman assemblies consisting of American congressmen and senators, habitually represented toga-clad in white marble busts, meeting in a Capitol built as a classical temple. This elaborate fashioning was a conscious and deliberate effort to construct the new nation along the lines of the venerated Roman Republic. Even though today much of the meaning of that classical cosmology is lost, for classically educated eighteenth-century Americans the Roman Republic towered as a political model. It was Rome’s early history, 6 Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America, etc. (Williamsburg, 1774).

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before it conquered an empire and lost its austere republican character, which inspired virtue-based politics and captivated late eighteenth-century imaginations. American leaders wished to establish the ethos of the United States, like that of Rome, on the independent and arms-bearing citizen. They worked hard to emulate revered Romans such as Brutus and Cato who had sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom. They aspired to nothing more than to be seen as self-effacing, “disinterested” republicans such as the mythic Cincinnatus. They repeatedly depicted their political enemies as reincarnations of Julius Caesar, attempting to destroy the republic.7 As the attraction to Anglo-Saxon history demonstrates, the radicalised ­ideology that emerged with Britain’s attempts to tax the American colonies ­unleashed the revolutionary necessity for, and fascination with, historical precedents. If the Anglo-Saxons acted as an important stepping-stone in the colonies’ advance toward their intellectual separation from British history, the depth and extent of the ideological uses of the Roman republic dwarfed the references to the Goths. Soon enough an impressive and conscious effort to fashion the new republic as Rome and its inhabitants as latter-day Romans was in place. Following the tenets of civic humanism, an ideology that originated in the classical world and was subsequently revived by Italian humanists and British Whigs, American patriots looked to antiquity for evaluating the dangers that the British Empire posed to their virtue and to their collective prospects. Consequently, they began fantasising about reviving the glory of the republican ancients on their American shores. A prominent revolutionary characteristically reflected: “I us’d to regret not being thrown into the world in the glamorous third or fourth century [bc] of the Romans; but now I am thoroughly reconcil’d to my lot.”8 Numerous others similarly understood their experiences through the lens of Roman annals. As a result, dormant historical sensibilities awakened and enabled American revolutionaries to compare themselves to, and to imagine themselves as, Roman heroes. Revolutionary author and salonist Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814) demonstrated the rhetorical potential of this kind of classical imagination. As the revolution in Boston unfolded, Warren wrote polemic neo-Roman dramas in which she summoned Cassius, Brutus, and other Roman protagonists to represent the leaders of revolutionary Boston. In a typical scene,

7 For the influence of the classics on the founding generation see Carl J. Richard, The Founders and the Classics. Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1994). 8 Charles Lee quoted in Richard, The Founders and the Classics, 84.

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Cassius and Brutus, the revered heroes of the Roman republic, stood in a narrow Bostonian street, discussing the precarious state of liberty. Brutus, the stern republican, censured the “insulting soldiers,” who “tread down our choicest rights.” Cassius, Brutus’s co-conspirator to free the republic of the menace of the British Caesar, responded, “Oh! Brutus, our noble ancestors, who lived for freedom, and for freedom died,” would have been proud to see the young generation’s “generous bosoms flow with manly sentiment.” These young republicans swore that they would not put their mythologised predecessors to shame, but would react harshly against despotism. When other Romans, Junius and Portius, joined their compatriots, a Roman revolution seemed imminent. The Roman republicans, in short, were about to lead an American Revolution in Otis’s dramas that portrayed heroic Romans roaming the American landscape.9 Another manifestation of this distinct classical imagination was constituted by the actions of Joseph Warren, one of the revolution’s leaders in Boston, who gave a speech in the Old South Church dressed in a Ciceronian toga.10 Such incidents in which revolutionaries “played Roman” conflated and even merged Rome with the American present and revolutionary America with classical Rome. American neo-Romanism peaked during the constitutional debates of the late 1780s. It was then, as the new nation was solidifying its governmental arrangements and debating whether to adopt or reject the proposed constitution of 1787, that Americans could see themselves as republican Romans more intensely than they ever had before or ever would in the future. Their unprecedented use of classical pseudonyms in the debate over the ratification of the proposed federal constitution of 1787 stands witness to the remarkable sway of the Roman past during the formation of the United States. Pseudonymous essays appeared mostly in newspapers, but also in pamphlets and broadsides, and seem to have exercised “a vital influence on the minds of the reading public.”11 Thousands of political essays and readers’ letters proved vehicles of propaganda, and were meant not only to inform, but also to persuade. Classical pseudonyms, and particularly Roman pseudonyms, were a common rhetorical strategy in the early modern Anglophone world. 9

10 11

Mercy Otis Warren, The Adulateur and The Defeat, in Plays and Poems of Mercy Warren Otis (Delmar, ny, 1980). These dramas take place in “Upper Servia,” an obvious reference to revolutionary Massachusetts. Eran Shalev, “Dr. Warren’s Ciceronian Toga,” Common-Place 7, no. 2 (2007): http://com mon-place.org/book/dr-warrens-ciceronian-toga/ (accessed on 25 November, 2016). Philip Davidson, Propaganda and the American Revolution 1763–1783 (Chapel Hill, 1941), 225.

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The main reason for mobilising Roman antiquity to promote republican ideals was that the ancients were held to embody and epitomise those ideals. Whigs identified the Greco-Roman tradition with republicanism and civic virtue and saw it as the origin of these concepts. Appeal to the ancients and to their political thought and history supplied much-needed trustworthiness, positioning the emblems of the past as guardians, validating pamphlets and pamphleteers by their mere presence. So common did this rhetorical tactic become that the number of classical pseudonyms during the revolutionary era is virtually countless. The use of classical pseudonyms, and arguably American classicism more generally, peaked during the ratification debates. The debates took place on the local, state, regional, and national levels. Local and state debates were conducted in town, city, and county meetings; in political and social clubs; in state legislatures, and in ratification conventions. However, the national debates were conducted almost entirely in newspapers, magazines, broadsides, and pamphlets. Therefore, newspapers and their content are key sources for the study of the public debate over the constitution. New York was a primary center for the national debate over the ratification of the Constitution. It would be instructive to understand the extent and depth of classical pseudonymity through its newspapers. These were filled with essays overflowing with both personal invectives and great originality, many of them published under classical pseudonyms. Cato fired the opening salvo in what was to become an extraordinary quarrel among American ancients in the state of New York. His first letter published on September 27, 1787, elicited a furious reply from Caesar after a mere five days.12 The two antagonists of the late Roman republic, Marcus Porcius Uticensis Cato and Gaius Julius Caesar, were re-enacting their age-old battle. Cato was admired as the Roman republic’s defender. His suicide in Utica, when his cause was finally lost, symbolised the death of the republic. Julius Caesar, although his generalship and his dynamic personality were acknowledged, was remembered as the republic’s ambitious death-dealer. No one would likely assume Caesar as a pseudonym, except to resuscitate an ancient battle, this time in the battlefields of the New York Journal and the Daily Advertiser. We need not be surprised that it was a Federalist promoting a strong national government who chose Caesar as his alter ego, and not a republican seeking the diffusion of central power. 12

Jacob Cooke identifies Cato as George Clinton and argues convincingly that Alexander Hamilton was most likely not Caesar; Jacob E. Cooke, “Alexander Hamilton’s Authorship of the Caesar Letters,” William and Mary Quarterly 17(1960): 78–85.

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Caesar’s rhetoric was full of classical allusions: Cato, he cried, is “an ally of Pompey, no doubt.” George Washington was “the American Fabius,” the Roman general who defeated Hannibal by strategies of delay. Caesar ridiculed Cato as “this prudent Censor” and “demagogue”; both epithets would suit a (derogative) description of the historical Cato. Caesar warned that “Cato, in his future marches, will very probably be followed by Caesar,” undertaking to stalk Cato as Julius Caesar hunted Marcus Procius Cato, eventually driving him to suicide.13 Thus the symbolism of the discourse created by the classical pseudonyms unfolded. The two historical arch-enemies came to blows again, this time in the arena of the American newspapers. They re-enacted the drama of the first century bc, intensified by the fact that few readers knew or guessed the writers’ true identities.14 In his rebuttal, Cato referred to “this Caesar,” alleging that he was the same as “his tyrant name-sake” and claiming that Caesar objected to free deliberation just as Julius Caesar did in Rome. Taking names seriously for the ideas behind them, Cato identified the contemporary Caesar with the historical Caesar by attributing tyrannical aspirations to him. Cato continued to refer to his contemporaries through the medium of the ancients: “the American Fabius [Washington], if we are to believe Caesar, is to command an army.”15 In referring to the historical Cato and Caesar and their contemporary namesakes, the contenders were exploiting the metaphorical and symbolical possibilities of the situation. A formal debate on the matter of Federalism was indeed in progress, but historical knowledge was necessary in order to capture the symbolism embedded in these texts. The debate was conducted through Roman annals, by bringing the contexts and actors of antiquity onto the American stage. Curtius, assuming the name of the hero who, together with Helvidius Priscus, was memorably condemned for treason under Nero, joined the ancient choir on its Federalist side, citing Joseph Addison’s 1712 play Cato (perhaps in order to retake Cato’s memory from the Anti-Federalists). Curtius then asked: “But who is Cato,” referring to the American author, “whose elegant diction and long spun argumentation would lead us to suspect him both the scholar and

13 “Caesar,” Daily Advertiser, October 1, 1787. Interestingly, Democritus, another Anti-­ Federalist writing under a classical pseudonym, mocked Caesar on December 14, 1787: “I will not (like the boyish Caesar) promise to follow you,” perhaps alluding to Hamilton, the suspected “boyish” Caesar. “Democritus,” New York Journal, December 14, 1787. 14 Jack Rakove, Original Meanings. Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (New York, 1997), 156. 15 “Cato,” New York Journal, October 11, 1787.

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the sophist?” Curtius concluded: “the virtuous [historical] Cato is forgotten!”16 Only a week had passed when Brutus spoke for the first time. The Roman B ­ rutus stood for patriotism and virtuous disinterestedness. He, even more than Cassius, was considered as a man who dared commit regicide for the sake of his beloved republic, ridding it, he hoped, of Julius Caesar’s tyranny. The American Brutus agitated fiercely against the constitution, unsurprisingly aligning himself with his historical ally Cato: “The Grecian republics were of small extent; so also was that of the Romans. [When their size extended] their governments were changed from that of free governments to those of the most tyrannical that ever existed.”17 Brutus joined Cato in opposition against their nemesis: “Where was there a braver army than under Jul. Caesar? [sic] […] That army was commanded generally by the best citizens of Rome […] yet that army enslaved their country.”18 Anti-Federalists were thus issuing the warning that their political adversaries would take their tyrannical Roman role seriously. In his fifth letter, published a month later, Cato presaged, “great power connected with ambition, luxury, and flattery, will as readily produce a Caesar, Caligula, Nero or Domitian in America, as the same causes did in the Roman empire.”19 Cato, witness to the fall of one republic, was issuing a warning that the fate of his ancient patria was imminent in America with the return of tyrants to the American shores. Hailing Brutus’s writing, he also appealed to the Cato-Brutus historical alliance. During the first month of 1788, Brutus again confronted the (historical) Caesar, accusing him of being the man who transformed Rome “from a free republic […] into that most absolute despotism.”20 Brutus identified with his namesake’s rage which led him to regicide, by actingout his Brutus role, attacking the real life enemies of his assumed character. Yet a new, vituperative contender emerged: Mark Anthony, who assaulted Brutus, contending that his “patriotism is pretension; his zeal is suspicious” and that he had “sacrificed the truth.” Mark Anthony played up his rebuttal by quoting the immortal monologue of Shakespeare’s Anthony, in which he lamented Caesar and ironically denigrated Brutus: “For Brutus is an honourable man; so are they all, all honourable men.”21 The great drama of the last days of the ­Roman republic was unfolding week by week in the New York newspapers, staged by American actors. 16 “Curtius,” New York Daily Advertiser, October 18, 1787. 17 “Brutus,” New York Journal, October 18, 1787. 18 “Brutus,” New York Journal, January 10, 1788. 19 “Cato,” New York Journal, November 22, 1787. 20 “Brutus,” New York Journal, January 24, 1788. 21 “Mark Anthony,” Independent Chronicle, January 10, 1788.

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The case of the multiple addresses by Publius, published in New York during the winter of 1787–8, exemplifies the quintessential connection in such texts between the pseudonym, the words it signed, and the classical history it ­suggested, allegorised, and metaphorised. Publius Valerius, who established the Roman Republic after the last king of Rome had been expelled in 509 bce, was the pseudonym adopted by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay in a series of essays supporting the proposed constitution in 1787–88. The three adopted Publius, as a nom de plume commemorating the Roman’s act of banishing a king and founding a great republic, for their own founding mission. The eighty-five letters they signed under that name were collectively named The Federalist Papers, and became the most famous and revered product of the whole prolific debate. Those papers also testify to the common contemporary habit of addressing moderns in a Roman guise. By 1788 Americans on both sides of the debate, while adopting numerous Roman pseudonyms, were nonetheless also beginning to question the relevance of Roman history to their situation. Federalists increasingly doubted the relevance of Roman antiquity as a meaningful precedent, because they believed that “the path we are pursuing is new, and has never before been trodden by man.”22 Anti-Federalists started to question the usefulness of the Roman example for different reasons. Agrippa, for example, believed that Carthage, not Rome, had set the appropriate model for America to follow. “Carthage, the great commercial republic of antiquity, though resembling Rome in the form of its government and her rival for power, retained her freedom longer than Rome, and was never disturbed by sedition during the long period of her duration.” This, Agrippa argued, was “a striking proof that […] the spirit of commerce is the great bond of union among citizens.” He concluded that “our great object therefore ought to be to encourage this [Carthaginian] spirit.”23 The fear of a strong executive, and the perceived incompatibility between an extended territory and a republican form of government, the mainstay of Anti-Federalist argumentation, added force to the misgivings contemporaries had regarding Rome as a potential historical example for the American federation.24 Furthermore, while questioning the relevance of the Roman exemplum, both sides in the debate looked back to the ancient Greek leagues for precedents, for m ­ aking

22 “Americanus,” Daily Advertiser, December 5, 1787. 23 “Agrippa,” Massachusetts Gazette, January 15, 1788. 24 For a comprehensive essay on Anti-Federalism see Herbert J. Storing, What the Anti-­ Federalists Were For. The Political Thought of the Opponents of the Constitution (Chicago and London, 1981).

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sense of their present, and for scoring rhetorical points.25 The size of those ancient confederations, their purpose, and conduct all seemed appropriate to the American situation.26 Late eighteenth-century Americans’ imagery commonly derived from the early history of the Roman Republic, a time when, so they thought, the ideal of the armed, self-effacing, staunchly independent, and virtuous citizen reigned. Nevertheless, the attempt to emulate and repeat such a history was challenging, to say the least: many of the Romans that Americans most revered and frequently alluded to, such as Cato the Younger and Cicero, lived to see the demise of the Republic and the rise of the Principate with their own bewildered eyes (before perishing at the hand of the Republic’s destroyers). It is no surprise that the demise of Roman liberty had plagued observers ever since the empire’s fall. Many of them saw that although Rome had built an empire, it had been unable to retain its republican integrity in the process.27 Hence, following the peak of American classicism during the constitutional debates, Americans slowly but surely lost interest in republican Rome. With the advent of the market revolution and the rapid democratisation of American politics, aristocratic Rome became less appealing, whereas other classical models, such as democratic Athens, gained in relevance. Nevertheless, Rome influenced the political culture and moral economy of the United States during its formative years to an extent that today is hard to imagine.

The Hebrew Constitution

Another historical model, arguably the most enduring and influential of them all, served to further entrench the emerging if embryonic American collective sentiment. Scholars have recently begun to appreciate the extent to which ­Europe, for a century and a half after the Protestant Reformation “between Bodin and Locke, with Machiavelli as a significant predecessor,” experienced the efflorescence of political Hebraism, that is the analysis of the Hebrew republic in political context.28 A full century after Locke, and following the 25 See, for example, Federalist no. 18. 26 Richard, The Founders and the Classics, 75–77. 27 J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion. Volume Three. The First Decline and Fall (Cambridge, 2003). 28 Fania Oz-Salzberger, “The Political Thought of John Locke and the Significance of Political Hebraism,” Hebraic Political Studies 1 (2006): 568–592, 569. The most provocative addition to the growing literature on political Hebraism is Eric Nelson, The Hebrew

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decline in European political interest in the Bible, revolutionary America experienced a similar and prolonged Mosaic moment.29 For many decades after the Revolution, numerous Americans saw themselves as a reincarnation of the biblical Israelites and the newly independent United States of America as a biblical Hebrew state, or as contemporaries put is, a “second Israel.” The Puritans were the first who grafted the Exodus and notions of “chosenness” onto their Atlantic crossing and settlement in America, and thus established a lasting connection between the Israelites and the American people.30 As the rebellion against the British Empire gained steam, Americans reinvigorated the interpretation of their experiences along the lines of Hebrew history: both were a chosen and righteous people, slaves to “Egyptians,” subjects of a ferocious king, and were eventually led out of the house of bondage by the hand of a mighty God. Even the least religious minds of the era did not escape the Bible’s political allure: here again images proposed for the Great Seal serve as an indicator of the Zeitgeist. Both Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin suggested Biblical images of the children of Israel crossing the sea, and led by the pillar of fire in the desert, for America’s official seal. Along the same lines, America’s first epic poem, Timothy Dwight’s 1782 “The Conquest of Canaan,” was a clear allegory: America was biblical Israel led to the promised land by a modern-day Joshua, general Washington.31 The biblical history of ancient Israel provided early Americans with a historical precedent for their experiment in federal republicanism and led many Americans to view their young republic, then and thereafter, as a chosen nation of latter-day Israelites. Exodus was one among many biblical tropes for the construction of America’s Israelite identity. Americans also justified the novel constitutional arrangements of their young republic through the ­“Mosaic constitution,” the hallowed political model of biblical Israel.32 That biblical

29

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Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2011). For Reformation uses of the Bible as a political text see L.W. Gough, The Social Contract: A Critical Study of its Development (Oxford, 1957) and John Kincaid and Daniel J. Elazar, eds., The Covenant Connection (Grenshaw, 1987). For an analysis of the concept of “chosenness” in Israel and America see: Todd Gitlin and Liel Leibovitz, The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeal of Divine Election (New York, 2010). Timothy Dwight, The Conquest of Canaan: A Poem (Hartford, ct, 1788). Eran Shalev, “A Perfect Republic: The Mosaic Constitution in Revolutionary New England,” New England Quarterly 82 (2009): 235–263. For useful examinations of the d­ ifferences between New Englanders and ministers from southern- and mid-colonies-turned-states, see Melvin B. Endy Jr., “Just War, Holy War and Millennialism in Revolutionary A ­ merica,”

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constitution provided contemporary Americans with a divinely sanctioned archetype of a federation of tribes, which had been commonly understood in Europe since the seventeenth century as a “republic.”33 In their attempt to reconcile the contradictory commitments of the Bible and modern public politics, revolutionary-age Americans portrayed the United States’ Constitution as following a biblical constitutional configuration: a federation of state-like tribes led by a president-like judge. The American confederacy of 1776 and the Federal Constitution that was ratified in 1788 could thus be seen as following the ancient constitutional arrangement of God’s chosen people. Revolution, the construction of state governments, and later of a federal constitution, necessitated new legitimising sources and justifications for the novel republican situation. Taking the lead of New England pastors, revolutionaries attempted to make sense of and to reconcile the experimental constitutional arrangements of the young United States and the hallowed political models introduced through the history of the biblical Jewish republic. Thomas Paine was among the first to appeal to the Mosaic Constitution in his rabidly anti-monarchical and era-defining pamphlet Common Sense (1776). Nathan ­Pearl-Rosenthal has illuminated how Paine used biblical texts to make a powerful case against the legitimacy of monarchy.34 Even in the context of attacking monarchy, which was not meant to provide a detailed constitutional program for the British North American colonies, Paine made clear in a passing remark that he believed that the Hebrew polity was a republic: the Israelites had no kings and “it was held sinful to acknowledge any”; also, their form of government was “a kind of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes.”35 After independence, Americans would fully elaborate on the republican nature of the ancient Hebrew form of government and its correlations with its American counterpart. These articulations would form a distinct American tradition of equating the American and “Mosaic” constitutions, which would subside only in the wake of the Civil War.

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35

­William and Mary Quarterly 41 (1985): 3–25; Mark Valeri, “The New Divinity and the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly 46 (1989): 741–769, esp. 765 and Keith L. Griffin, Revolution and Religion: American Revolutionary War and the Reformed Clergy (New York, 1994). Daniel J. Elazar, “Deuteronomy as Israel’s Ancient Constitution: Some Preliminary Reflections,” Jewish Political Studies Review 4 (1992): 3–39. Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, “The ‘Divine Rights of Republics’: Hebraic Republicanism and the Debate Over Kingless Government in Revolutionary America,” William and Mary Quarterly 66 (2009): 535–564. Thomas Paine, Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America, etc. (Philadelphia, 1776), 10.

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The reverend Samuel Cooper (1725–1783) was among the first to fully explain the affinities of the Israelite and the embryonic American g­ overnmental ­systems. In a sermon preached in 1780 in front of both of Massachusetts’s Houses, Cooper detailed what he and many of his contemporaries regarded as striking similarities in the circumstances of the “antient Israelites” and the American people: the two chosen nations rose from oppression and emerged “from the house of bondage”; they both were pursued through the sea and were led into the wilderness as a refuge from tyranny and as a preparation for the enjoyment of civil and religious rights. As in sermons from earlier phases of the revolution, Cooper continued to attack manifestations of despotic power, which was “guided and inflamed by […] lusts of the human heart.”36 But now, on the occasion of the commencement of Massachusetts’s constitution, the preacher expanded on the political structure of the biblical Hebrew nation. Cooper opened his sermon with the prophecy in Jeremiah 30, 20–21: “Their Congregation shall be established before me: and their Nobles shall be of themselves, and their Governor shall proceed from the midst of them.” This prophecy seemed to Cooper “to have been made for ourselves,” but also to embody the biblical spirit of “that essential civil blessing” of the Mosaic constitution: it seemed to confirm the ideal characteristics of a commonwealth, led by a natural, non-hereditary aristocracy bred from its midst.37 In concurrence with Samuel Langdon and others, Cooper pointed out that Israel was a well-ordered nation with a balanced constitution, but also a “free republic, over which God himself, in peculiar favour to that people, was pleased to preside.” Cooper attempted to explain that paradox through Israel’s “charter from heaven,” which seemed to declare that the Jewish people themselves, not God, would manage their polity. He did not understand ancient Israel as a theocracy in the form of a republic, but as a true republic with divine characteristics.38 As was the case in other contemporary depictions, Cooper portrayed the Hebrew polity as consisting of three parts: a chief magistrate called a judge, a council of seventy chosen men—the Sanhedrin (occasionally spelled Sanhedrim)—and the general assemblies of the people. This neat division into the prevailing concepts of contemporary political theory of “the one,” “the 36

Samuel Cooper, A Sermon Preached before his Excellency John Hancock Esq, etc. October 25, 1780. Being the Day of the Commencement of the Constitution, and Inauguration of the New Government (Boston, 1780), 2–3. 37 Ibidem, 1. The King James Bible’s translation is misleading: the fact that what should have been translated as “Greaters” was translated as “Nobles,” reflected the political sensibilities of early seventeenth-century England, not the original Hebrew. 38 Cooper, A Sermon, 8.

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few,” and “the many” was not to be found so explicitly in the Bible. Cooper, like others, had to search the scriptures for clear constitutional notions. His findings were remarkable. Cooper inferred, for example, that the Israelite assemblies were of a more “essential and permanent” nature than the chief magistracy, the judgeship. The Sanhedrin “remained with but little suspension, through all the vicissitudes they experienced, till after the commencement of the Christian aera,” while the assemblies of the people “were frequently held by divine appointment, and considered as the fountain of civil power.” Those powers were exercised through decrees and other channels that they judged “most conducive to their own security, order, and happiness.” The chief magistracy, the judgeship, on the other hand, was of a more occasional nature. Such understanding of the Hebrews’ political system was somewhat anachronistic, interpreting it as driven by modern notions of popular sovereignty. Consequently, Cooper insisted, even the Mosaic law that God himself delivered to Moses on Mt. Sinai was not imposed on the Israelites against their will. That legal code was “laid open before the whole congregation of Israel; they freely adopted it, and it became their law […] by their own voluntary and express consent.”39 To illustrate this interpretation, Cooper cited the renewal of the covenant of the Hebrew tribes in Shechem under Joshua’s leadership, whereby they voluntarily re-established their acceptance of their godly constitution. In this voluntary act of confirmation of their governing laws and statutes “the Hebrew nation, lately redeemed from tyranny, had now a civil and religious constitution of their own choice.” Such an account underlay federal theology and notions of covenant, but was especially illuminating in the context of republican thought.40 Biblical covenant ideas and civic humanism thus merged into a novel amalgam of Hebraic republicanism, which was particularly instrumental in articulating a historical meaning and lineage for an emerging American constitutionalism. Cooper concluded that the biblical history of the children of Israel pointed to the kind of government that “infinite wisdom and goodness would establish among mankind.”41 Such a government would be a republic, perfectly balanced and divinely ordained. Eight years later, again in Massachusetts, as the Commonwealth braced itself to vote for the ratification of the Federal Constitution, Samuel Langdon (1723–1797) provided a remarkably rich analysis of the Hebrew constitution 39

Ibidem, 8; Dan Foster concurred, stating that “God did not see it fit to assume to himself the regency and supreme civil government of Israel without their consent and election of him.” Dan Foster, A Short Essay on Civil Government (Hartford, 1775), 18. 40 Cooper, A Sermon, 11. 41 Ibidem, 14.

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and its relevance to the United States’ proposed system of governance. As the title of his sermon indicates, Langdon believed that the republic of the ­Israelites provided “an example to the American States.” Moreover, not only America could benefit from the example of “every thing excellent in their constitution of government.” Rather, although the Israelites had “the advantage of applying to the oracle of the living God,” the Mosaic constitution still provided a civic law and could thus “be considered as a pattern to the world in all ages.” The Israelites were the first nation to establish government by law: other nations traditionally saw kings ruling with “their will […] as a law,” or the rule of “the capricious humour of the multitude,” or “senators and judges […] left to act according to their best discretion.” The first to balance the one, the few and the many, the Hebrews were also the first to establish the rule of law. For these reasons, Langdon believed that Israel provided a better example than the one offered by the revered classical states, thus reversing the common wisdom of eighteenth-century political discourse. Although Lycurgus had provided the Spartans with a code of laws, that system was six centuries younger than that of Moses, “imperfect,” and in some instances even “absurd.” Six centuries after the Spartans, the laws of the Roman Empire, even at the height of its glory when its complex and effective legislation was “carried to great perfection,” were “far from being worthy to be compared with the laws of Israel.” Langdon went on to charge Great Britain’s laws with “tediousness, voluminous bulk, intricacy, barbarous language, and uncertain operation of many of them as to equity.” The laws of Israel antedate these and other exemplary systems by centuries and millennia (an especially important attribute in a culture still saturated with the legalistic language of “usage”), but were also inherently superior, politically and morally, to any judicial code, ancient or modern.42 Yet the Israelite republic offered America much more than a superb and time-proven legal code; ancient Israel, which according to a modern student was a “tribal federation in which the tribal leadership play[ed] a vital role,” provided a model federal constitution, which was especially instructive to Americans about to adopt an innovative governing system.43 Langdon proposed to “look over [the Israelites’] constitution and laws, enquire into their practice, and observe how

42 43

J.G.A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law. A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century (New York, 1967), 30–55. Daniel J. Elazar, “The Book of Judges: The Israelite Tribal Federation and Its Discontents”: http://www.jcpa.org/dje/articles/judges.htm (accessed on 25 November, 2016).

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their prosperity and fame depended on their strict observance of the divine commands both as to their government and religion.”44 Appropriately, issues of state formation were the focus of Langdon’s sermon, delivered at the moment of American political and legal reorganisation. Langdon noted that, when fleeing from the Egyptians into the wilderness, the Israelites were merely an unruly multitude “without any other order than what had been kept up” during their captivity. Yet the fleeing Hebrew multitude was “suddenly collected into a body under the conduct of Moses.” Like the Americans declaring independence from their oppressors, the Israelites were transformed in a short space of time after they had passed the Red Sea “into such civil and military order […] [and] adapted to their circumstances in the wilderness while destitute of property.” This martial order was further enforced by able men being chosen out of the tribes, and made “captains and rulers of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens: and these commanded them as military officers, and acted as judges in matters of common controversy.” The Israelites’ rapid progress “from abject slavery, ignorance, and almost total want of order, to a national establishment […] from a mere mob to a regulated nation,” impressive, perhaps even miraculous as it was, was only half the tale. So was the history of the American Revolution before the adoption of the Constitution.45 A people mobilised for war, as were both the Israelite tribes in the wilderness and the revolutionary American states, did not satisfy the civil requirements of society. Langdon recounted how God commanded Moses to bring seventy men, “chosen from among the elders and officers, and [to] present them at the tabernacle,” so that they might share the burden of government with him. Thus, the American preacher concluded, a “senate” was constituted, “as necessary for the future government of the nation.” Langdon purposely conflated the American (or rather Latin) and Hebrew nomenclatures, “senate” with “Sanhedrin.” Yet his conflations were conceptual too. Conceding that changes had taken place over the centuries in political theory and practice (in biblical times, he pointed out, “the people in all republics were entirely unacquainted with the way of appointing delegates to act for them, which is a very excellent modern improvement in the management of republics”), he went on to underscore the similarities in the procedure of the election of the Hebrew “senate” and the way in which modern assemblies were elected: even if they did not actually elect their representatives Langdon declared, “doubtless the [Hebrew] people were consulted as to the choice of this senate.” The preacher 44 45

Samuel Langdon, The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States, etc. (­ Exeter, 1788), 7, 6, 15, 16, 7. Ibidem, 8, 15.

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indeed believed that they had a voice in public affairs “from time to time,” when the “whole congregation [was] […] called together on all ­important ­occasions.” The conclusion of this constitutional exegesis was predictable: the Hebrew government was “a proper republic.”46 That biblical commonwealth, however, was not a simple republic, but a federacy. “Every tribe,” Langdon pointed out, “had elders and a prince […] with which Moses did not interfere.” These tribal leaders had an acknowledged right to meet and consult together and “with the consent of the congregation do whatever was necessary to preserve good order, and promote the common interest of the tribe.” In short, in Langdon’s interpretation the tribes resembled the American states under the Constitution: they were autonomous and semi-sovereign entities. As in the United States, the local governments of the Israelites’ tribes were structurally “very similar to the general government.” Each had “a president and senate” at its head, while the whole of the Hebrew people “assembled and gave their voice in all great matters.” The arrangement of the Hebrew courts, too, resembled the American federal solution. The civil government of the Israelites included, after the settlement in Canaan, courts “appointed in every walled city” in which elders “most distinguished for wisdom and integrity were to be made judges, ready always to sit and decide the common controversies within their respective jurisdictions.” The people of the separate tribes could appoint “officers as they might think necessary for the more effectual execution of justice.” As in the proposed American Constitution, from the provincial Israelite courts “an appeal was allowed in weighty causes to higher courts appointed over the whole tribe, and in very great and difficult cases to the supreme authority of the general senate and chief magistrate.” This Hebraic hierarchy of courts supposedly mirrored the complex and layered judiciary branch of the proposed American Constitution. The Hebrew Republic, in short, provided a blueprint of the United States’ federation. Its constitution was “concise and plain, and easily applicable to almost every controversy.” It offered a laudable governmental structure, which was moreover God-given. On the eve of the adoption of the American Constitution, the ­Hebrew political structure could be seen as a historical example of the division and balance of powers in the magisterial, legislative and judicial spheres, and between periphery and centre, that reflected the expectations (or at least the Federalists’ expectations) of the proposed Constitution of the United States. The “perfect republic” could indeed be both faultless and republican not because it was God-given; rather, because it was God-given, it was “founded on 46

Ibidem, 8–9.

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the plain immutable principles of reason, justice, and social virtue,” which perfected it to the utmost.47 Analyses of and references to the affinities between biblical Israel’s form of government and America’s “Mosaic” constitution remained a staple of political discourse. Unlike the relevance of the Anglo-Saxons, which evaporated with independence, and the sway of the Roman example, which lost its attractiveness once the American republic was established and was on course, these biblical notions persisted deep into the nineteenth century, both on l­ ocal and national stages. Enoch Wines’s 640-page study on the Mosaic constitution, Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews (1853) was a remarkable testament to the tenacity of this discursive mode. Throughout his exhaustive tome, Wines articulated—in the sixth decade of the nineteenth century!—the view that the Hebrew Republic, like America, was “a confederacy in which each of the Israelitish tribes formed a separate state, having a local legislature and a distinct administration of justice.” As in the United States, “the power of the several [Israelite] states was sovereign within the limits of their reserved rights. Still, there was both a real and a vigorous government.” Hence, as with the American federation the Hebrew tribes were, in some respects, independent sovereignties, while, in other respects, their individual sovereignty was merged in the broader and higher sovereignty of the commonwealth of Israel. They were independent republics, having each a local government, which was sovereign in the exercise of its reserved rights; yet they all united together and formed one great republic, with a general government, which was sovereign in the highest sense.48 Wines was convinced that Israel’s constitution had “a similitude to our own, which will strike every reader.” By the 1850s, he could analyse Israel with the hindsight of decades of deliberations and crises regarding the proper sphere and sovereignty of the states vis-à-vis the federal government. He thus compared the United States to a biblical federation that he believed worked exceptionally well: “all the tribes together formed a sort of federative republic, in which no thing could be done or resolved without the general consent of their respective representatives, and in which each individual tribe had a constitution formed upon the model of the national constitution.” Indeed, so similar did America and Israel seem that Wines concluded that “the nation might 47 48

Ibidem, 9–11. E.C. Wines, Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews (New York, 1853), 520–521.

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have been styled the united tribes, provinces, or states of Israel.”49 This view of American federalism as reflecting and being modeled upon the H ­ ebrew ­Republic, an outlook that survived until the era of the Civil War, was thus not a fleeting or temporary perspective, but rather a significant and persistent interpretive mode of American politics. What may have begun as an expedient revolutionary-era measure had by the nineteenth century developed into a full-blown ideological justification well-suited to the age of Manifest Destiny and the maturation of the belief in America as a second Israel. Such typological reading of American and Hebrew federalism contributed to the alleviation of Americans’ persistent anxieties regarding the viability of their political experiment, by allowing them to understand it as a godly project. Americans were thus thought able to escape Roman-bred civic corruption and the decline of virtue that had plagued past republics. Conclusion Early Americans conducted a modern, path-breaking experiment in republicanism. At the same time, however, they were deeply attracted to and reliant upon the past to make sense of their accomplishments. To legitimize, encourage, and make sense of their radical political actions they turned to millennia old narratives: as tensions with the mother country brewed after 1765 they chose an Anglo and Monarchical model to reflect their needs. The Saxons suited the early phase of the Revolution as they provided a valiant model of autonomy and political self-sufficiency while maintaining the colonists’ still prized Englishness and reverence of the Crown. However, in the wake of political escalation and Independence, the classical model of the Roman republic (and to a lesser extent other classical alternatives) brushed aside the Saxons. The advent of a full-blown American republicanism stemmed from and necessitated a usable past that would mirror and enhance the stern Whiggism that emerged in the early United States. Hence, Americans no longer strove for a Saxon-like America but rather wanted to become a Rome Reborn on western shores. For a good while this neo-Roman paradigm was arguably the most important component of the forming American political tradition. However, by the early nineteenth century a new biblical model replaced the Roman. The waves of evangelical fervor sweeping through cities and countryside determined that the United States was no longer to be a Second Rome but rather a New Israel. This unique American theo-politics would spawn and embolden 49

Ibidem, 521, 532, 490.

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Shalev

critical categories such as “the American mission” and Manifest destiny, and would thus outlive the other models of the revolutionary era. In doing so it is still an active ingredient of American national sentiment. In light of this complex web of competing appeals to the past we cannot properly understand the political choices and claims made by founding-­ generation Americans unless we realize the crucial role that history played in forming their political worldviews. Without a full grasp of the nature and scope of their attraction to history, and the importance of a historical frame for their political actions, we cannot fully appreciate how revolutionaries decided to make the break with Britain, how they justified that rupture, and how they constructed their new, independent states and eventually the federal union. History provided early Americans with meaning and a sense of direction as they conducted their novel experiment in government. As they erected their political edifice, they were compelled to understand and represent their actions in terms of historical analogy, and explore the deep relationship of history, revolution and state building in the eighteenth century and after. This dependence on history may have limited the scope of the political ideas that contemporaries came up with, steering them away from certain courses of action and swaying them toward others. History, however, as Hannah Arendt realised half a century ago, gave Americans the courage to rebel. It also provided patriots and state-builders with a spectacular range of images and narratives through which to comprehend their own situation, and thus enriched their ability to imagine solutions to the many quandaries they were confronting. It is crucial then that we understand the modes through which they utilised history, and realise the processes through which they made revered past societies meaningful to their unprecedented political endeavours. Did revolutionary Americans have it in their power, in the words of Thomas Paine, to begin the world anew? Perhaps so, but they had to depend on worlds bygone to communicate, indeed to make sense of their national undertaking. The historical lenses through which contemporaries envisioned their republic enabled them to contemplate what they wished it to be, and facilitated their expectations for its future. The United States was founded in the Western Hemisphere, physically removed from the stages upon which the histories they looked back to unfolded. Contemporaries were compelled to compensate that perceived deficiency by weaving their newly founded nation into dignifying and meaning-bestowing historical narratives and comparisons. Recognising its reliance on history vastly expands our appreciation of the origins and nature of the republic’s founding, and thus provides us with a richer understanding of the American experience.

Index Aargau 265, 271 Aaron 251 Absolutism 1, 6, 12, 167, 172, 178, 189, 246, 281–282, 298, 316 Achaean League 14, 16, 107, 109–130 Adams, John 200 Addison, Joseph 146, 315 Agathocles 298 Alamannia, Alemani 264, 270–271 Alciato, Andrea 10 Aldrovandi, Ulisse 223 Alexander the Great 52, 117 Alkmaar 161, 163 Alps 264–265, 272, 284 Alsace 263–265, 267, 272 American Republic, United States of ­America 1–3, 5, 13, 14, 19, 61, 63, 86, 189,  197, 259, 306–328 American Revolution 2, 61, 86, 189, 197, 306, 312–313, 319–321, 324, 327–328 Ampolo, Carmine 89, 95 Amsterdam 122, 164, 242 Amyot, Jacques 159, 165 Anderson, Benedict 306 Angiviller, Comte d’ 175–176, 179 Anglo-Saxon(s) 307–312, 326–327 Anjou dynasty 286 Anti-Federalists 315–317 Anti-model 71, 74, 81, 85, 237, 250, 257–258 Antiquarianism 10, 72, 88–89, 98, 114, 216–217, 236, 302 Appenzell Innerrhoden 260 Aquinas, Thomas 49, 224 Archita 300 Archon 199 Arendt, Hannah 259, 328 Areopagus 210 Arias Montano, Benedict 18 Aristides 174 Aristocracy 103–104, 110, 119, 125, 136, 170, 171, 174, 178, 196, 198–199, 218, 232, 275, 277, 279, 283, 286–289, 292, 295–296, 298–299, 303–304, 318, 321 Aristophanes 210–211

Aristotle, Aristotelianism 3, 11, 28, 48–49, 53, 55–56, 59–60, 88, 102, 105, 114, 218–219, 287, 296, 303 Ark of the Covenant 229–230 Arminianism, see: Remonstrantism Asia 78, 80, 91, 93 Athens 11, 13–14, 16–18, 75–76, 78, 80, 84, 86, 88, 91, 94–107, 110, 129–156, 173–174, 194, 195–213, 288, 293–294, 303, 318 Atlantic Ocean 1, 5, 13–14, 190, 195, 309, 319 Augustine 40, 51–53, 55, 57, 65–66, 68, 70, 73, 76, 79, 157, 302 Augustus 11, 50, 259 Babylonian captivity 244–245 Bailyn, Bernard 2 Balanced government, balanced ­constitution 160, 192, 196, 198,  321–323, 325 Balcus 266 Baldis de Ubaldis 59 Balthasar, Johann Carl 260 Baltic Sea 304 Barbarians, barbarism 14, 77, 94, 144, 149, 193, 267, 269, 271, 281, 287 Barker, William 90 Baron, Hans 1, 2, 4, 15, 27–31, 48, 59, 133, 259 Barthélémy, abbé 208 Bartolus of Sassoferrato 48, 59 Basel 95, 102, 264 Batavian Revolution 192–193, 197–199, 201, 205, 213 Batavians, Batavian myth 75–81 Battle of Bibracte 266 Battle of Rocroi 120 Bavaria 273 Bebel, Heinrich 262 Bell, Andrew 132 Bellarmine, Robert 229 Bembo, Pietro 68 Ben-Tov, Asaph 92 Berkel, Abraham van 242–243, 245 Berlin, Isaiah 3 Bern 265, 271, 284

330 Berry, Helen 139 Bertram, Corneille Bonaventure 18, 215, 217–224, 232–233 Beza, Théodore 217–219, 221 Bible, biblical 9, 19, 132, 157, 214, 216–219, 221, 228, 230, 232–233, 234–236, 240, 242–243, 247, 250–251, 256, 258, 319–322, 324–327 Birggöuw 265 Bland, Richard 309 Boccaccio 275 Boccalini, Trajano 16, 64, 81–84 Bodin, Jean 11, 12, 60, 88, 102, 119, 134, 318 Bodmer, Johann Jacob 18, 280–284 Bologna 96–97, 217, 223–224, 227, 289 Bonstetten, Albrecht von 266 Boston 312–313 Botero, Giovanni 103 Boucher, François 170 Bourbon, House of 120 Boxhorn, Marcus Zuerius 16, 111, 113–121, 124–125, 129–130 Brand, Sebastian 262 Brenet, Nicolas 179 Britain, British 86–87, 109, 138, 154, 306–307, 309–313, 319–320, 323, 328 Brotherhood 17, 183 Bruchsal 273 Brun, Rudolph 279–280 Bruni, Leonardo 1, 15, 21, 27–34, 36, 38–39, 59, 275 Brutus, Lucius Iunius 14, 18, 106, 259, 262, 275–284 Brutus, Marcus Iunius 27, 275–276, 279, 281–283, 312–313, 316 Bruyère, Jean de la 17, 138–140, 148–153 Buis, Paul 112–113 Bullinger, Heinrich 276–278, 283–284 Burgersdijk, Franco 114, 123 Burgundy, Burgundia 271–273 Burke, Peter 25 Busken Huet, Conrad 234 Butler, Samuel 155 Byzantine studies 92–93, 98 Caesar, Julius 11, 12, 27, 50, 56, 263–267, 269, 272, 275–276, 279, 282–283, 288, 312–316 Cahors 217 Calcagus 65, 73, 78, 82

Index Caligula 316 Calvin, John 219–221, 224 Calvinism, Calvinist 18, 97–98, 113–114, 123, 180, 216–219, 221–223, 225, 235–239, 241, 245, 248, 250–253, 256–257, 270 Campos Boralevi, Lea 235 Canaan 240, 319, 325 Canini, Angelo 217 Cannae 297 Canton, cantons 260, 262, 265, 267, 278, 284 Capellen tot den Pol, Joan Derk van der 192, 197 Capitol, American 311 Capitoline Hill 111, 260 Carew, Sir George 299 Carneades 40, 43, 52, 56 Cartesianism 240–242 Carthage 13, 33, 62, 110, 317 Casaubon, Isaac 90 Cassius 282, 312–313, 316 Castiglione, Baldassare 300 Catholicism, Catholic 71, 151–152, 224, 227, 229, 232, 238, 240–241, 260, 268, 271 Cato Censorius, Marcus Porcius 51, 298 Cato Uticensis, Marcus Porcius 175, 260, 298, 312, 314–317 Cattaneo, Alberto 267 Châlons-sur-Marne 205 Charilaus 165, 184 Charity 169, 255 Charles V 271 Choiseul, Duc de 178 Choisy, Château de 167, 169–170 Christianity, Christian 5, 27, 65–66, 74, 95, 101, 105, 140, 143, 160, 167, 172, 197, 220, 222, 224, 226–228, 231, 236, 240–241, 244–245, 247–250, 255–258, 268, 283, 322 Chronology 92–94 Church-state relationship 17, 113, 218, 235, 248 Cicero 4, 11, 15, 26, 30, 40–43, 45, 52–62, 77, 275, 292, 296, 298, 300–301, 303, 313, 318 Cincinnatus 312 Citizen, citizenship 3, 67, 170, 171, 179, 182, 192, 194–197, 201, 206, 209, 213, 253, 256–257, 273, 277, 282, 284, 288, 290, 293, 295–297, 299–300, 302–303, 307, 309, 311–312, 316–318

Index Civic humanism 2–3, 27–28, 30–31, 59, 133, 189, 259, 312, 322 Civil religion 256 Civil war 73, 76 Civil War, American 320, 327 Civility 15–17, 148, 150 Classical republicanism 1–19, 27–28, 32, 40, 60, 62, 85, 155, 157–158, 171, 174, 186–189, 192, 195–197, 199, 206, 212, 259, 303, 305 Classicism 158, 164, 314, 318 Cleisthenes 97, 210 Cleon 210–211 Cochin, Charles 167–171, 176, 187 Cocles 301 Cocquius, Gisbertus 245–246 Cola di Rienzo 48 Coleman, Janet 26 Collegium Insulanum 279 Colmerus, Clemens 94–95, 102–103 Cologne 289 Colonialism, colonization 19, 27, 76, 79–81, 85, 91, 93, 307–312, 320, 327 Comité du Salut Public 184 Commerce, commercial 15, 16, 63, 70–71, 73–74, 78–81, 85, 127–128, 136, 148, 150, 174, 187, 190, 200, 202–203, 209, 317 Commines, Philippe de 125 Common good, general good 79–80, 118, 182, 186, 286, 303, 196, 286, 303 Commonwealthmen 308 Concord 16, 69–71, 74, 79–80, 83, 85, 113–114, 118 Confederation, confederate 1, 8, 12, 14–16, 18, 84, 109–130, 259–263, 265–272, 276, 278, 284, 294, 318, 320, 326 Conservative, conservatism 17, 174, 193–194, 200, 213 Constance 264, 271 Constant, Benjamin 55 Constantinople 92–93 Constitution, constitutionalism 13–15, 17, 19, 40–61, 95–96, 101–102, 106, 113, 136, 163, 176, 192, 203–204, 209, 218, 244, 253, 259–260, 278–279, 281, 284–287, 289, 293–294, 296, 303, 305, 308–310, 313–314, 316–326 Consuls, consulate (Rome) 50–51 Contarini, Gasparo 12, 67–68 Conti, Vittorio 106

331 Cooke, Thomas 153 Cooper, Samuel 321–322 Copernicanism 247 Corday, Charlotte 165 Coriolanus 260 Corneille 259 Corruption 42, 60, 78, 151–152, 155 Cosidine, John 98 Council of Four Hundred, Athenian 209 Council of Trent 228 Counterreformation 71, 217 Court, Johan and Pieter de la 18, 84, 109–110, 202, 236–237, 240, 242, 246–247, 249–250, 256–258 Cozzi, Gaetano 99 Cracow 299 Cragius, Nicolaus 16, 94, 100–102, 104–105 Cromwell, Oliver 63, 129, 136 Crusius, Martin 93 Cunaeus, Petrus 12, 113–114, 216, 232, 235–236 Curtius 301 Dacier, André 165, 173 Dacier, Anne 165, 173 Dante 48, 275 David 221, 231 David, Jacques-Louis 158, 175, 180, 184–187, 283 Davis, Charles Till 48 Decalogue 220 Decemvirate (Rome) 44–45 Decius 301 Decline 29, 33, 42, 51, 65, 69, 73, 78–80, 82–83, 104, 106, 113, 117–118, 136, 191, 195, 198, 200, 203, 243, 254, 264, 302, 327 Demagogues 196, 198–199, 204, 207, 210–211, 315 Demarteau, Gilles 171 Democracy, popular government 14, 17, 18, 46n12, 86, 96–97, 103, 106–107, 110, 116, 157, 159, 173–174, 189–213, 219, 221, 252–253, 278, 284, 322 Demosthenes 195 Denmark Sound 304 Denmark 14, 100 Descartes, René 124 Despot, despotism 40, 49, 53–54, 277, 281, 310, 313, 316, 321

332 Dictator (Rome) 45–46, 50, 56 Didacticism 170 Diderot, Denis 168, 170, 178 Diogenes the Cynic 290 Directoire 171 Discipline 17, 72, 159–160, 167, 173, 186 Domitian 316 Donation of Constantine 227 Dunkelgrün, Theodor 236 Dunton, John 131–133, 139–141, 143, 155 Dutch Republic, United Provinces of the Netherlands 1, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14–17, 63–64,   71–85, 95, 97–100, 105–107, 109–130, 135,   157, 161–165, 187, 189–213, 216–217,   232–233, 234–258, 260–261, 278 Duty, duties 53, 102, 198, 220, 223, 240–241, 248, 255, 280, 284, 302 Dwight, Timothy 319 East Frisians 269 Education 100, 103, 131, 142–143, 163, 166, 173–174, 208–209, 225, 245, 288–289 Egalitarianism: see Equality Egypt, Egyptians 149, 252, 319, 324 Eleazar 229–231 Eli 247 Elzevier 12, 93, 106, 135 Emilio, Paolo 267 Emmius, Ubbo 12, 16, 93, 95, 105–107, 202 Emperor 33, 41, 46–48, 50, 56–59, 170, 196, 217, 222, 225–226, 240, 260, 262, 268–269, 271, 275, 298 Empire 14, 16, 43, 62–85, 110, 203, 306, 309, 311–312, 318 England, English Commonwealth 1–3, 5, 14, 17, 63, 85, 86–87, 122, 131–156, 216–217, 232–233, 242, 259, 304, 307–311, 327 Enlightenment 2, 12, 17, 18, 86–87, 108, 167, 189–191, 193–194, 197, 259, 279–280, 284 Epaminondas 164, 288 Ephors 13, 160, 166, 292, 294 Equality 15, 18, 103–104, 107, 113, 148, 151, 156, 157, 160, 163, 172, 174, 186, 198, 252–253, 281–282, 284, 299 Equites 303 Erasmus, Desiderius 66, 74, 266 Erastus, Thomas 216–217, 221–222, 232 Estienne, Henri 89–90

Index Ethics: see Morals, morality Etruscans 33, 280 Etterlin, Petermann 268–269 Eugen, Lord 263 Eugenics 180 Euripides 298 Europe, European 2, 10, 12–13, 15–16, 25, 52, 62, 66, 72, 74, 81–83, 85, 89–91, 109–110, 120, 130, 133, 141–142, 144, 157–158, 187, 190, 193, 229, 233, 235, 258, 260, 272, 281, 285–287, 298, 307, 310, 318–320 Eutropius, Flavius 49–50 Everdingen, Caesar van 161, 163 Excommunication 221, 226 Exodus 214, 319 Fabius Cunctator 315 Fabri, Felix 264, 284 Federalism 15, 84, 109–130, 313–315, 317, 319–320, 322, 325–328 Federalist Papers, The 61, 317 Felici, Lucia 102 Fénelon, François 12, 178 Ferguson, Adam 208 Fink, Zera 2, 133 Flavius Josephus 243 Florence 1, 3–5, 8, 14–16, 20–39, 63, 66–67, 85 France 1, 14, 17, 63, 86, 95–96, 120–121, 137–140, 143–144, 151–152, 154–155, 157, 158, 165–188, 231, 272, 278, 295 Francia, Franci 264, 267, 273 Frankenthal 218 Franklin, Benjamin 319 Frederick iii of the Palatinate 221 Free cities, German and Swiss 6, 260, 262 Free speech 77, 148, 150 Freedom: see Liberty French Revolution 63, 86, 158, 167, 171, 174, 176, 180, 184–185, 189, 197, 206, 210 Friedrich, Carl 54 Frijhoff, Willem 234 Fugger, Johann Jakob 92 Fukuyama, Francis 306 Füssli, Johann Heinrich 282 Galerius 298 Gallia 268–271, 273

Index Gaul, Gauls 267, 269–270 Gay, Peter 190 Gdańsk 95, 102, 105, 304 Geneva 18, 180, 183–184, 187, 217–219, 221, 270–271, 284 Gentili, Alberico 60 Geography 91, 93, 102 Gerbel, Nicolaus 91 Germania, Germani 264–267, 270, 273 Germany, German 6, 14, 21, 23–24, 95, 105, 112, 181, 208, 260, 262, 264–267, 269–270, 272–273, 295, 307–308, 310–311 Giannoti, Donato 12, 68 Gibbon, Edward 88–89, 208 Gilbert, Felix 34, 37, 39 Gildon, Charles 132, 141–146 Gillies, John 86–87 Girondins 184 Glarean, Heinrich 266–267, 276, 284 Glarus 270 God 47, 51, 82, 105, 130, 220, 222, 224, ­226–227, 229–230, 234, 239–256, 258, 268, 271, 277–278, 283, 287–288, 301–302, 304, 319–325, 327 Goltzius, Hubertus 93–94 Gool, Johannes van 164, 165 Gordon, Thomas 60 Górnicky, Lukasz 300 Goślicki, Wawrzyniec 287, 292, 294 Goth(s), Gothic 273, 309, 312 Gōttingen 208, 210 Graswinckel, Dirck 246 Grebel, Felix 282–283 Greek republics (see also: Athens, Sparta) 9, 10, 12, 16, 17, 86–213, 215, 225, 227, 259, 278, 285–289, 295–296, 301–304, 314, 316–317 Gregory xiii, Pope 231 Grisons 272 Gronovius, Jacobus 88 Grote, George 86–88 Grotius, Hugo 10, 16, 17, 60, 64, 75–82, 84–85, 98, 111–114, 124, 207–210, 216, 232, 235–236, 241, 258 Grüningen 282 Guicciardini, Francesco 15, 21, 28, 36–39 Gundelfingen, Heinrich von 262–263

333 Habsburg, House of 12, 14, 18, 66, 74, 81, 84, 94, 120, 217, 262, 268, 271, 279 Hadrian 259 Haitsma Mulier, Eco 84, 99 Hallé, Noël 176 Hamilton, Alexander 317 Hammond, Brean 141 Hannibal 297, 315 Hansa 262 Harrington, James 60, 62–64, 84, 136, 216, 232, 236, 258 Hebrew Republic, Jewish Commonwealth 9–12, 14, 17–19, 96, 112, 130,  214–258, 318–327 Hedonism 171, 172 Heidelberg 289 Heinsius, Daniel 99, 114, 130n72 Helen 178 Helot(s) 104, 297 Helvetia, Helvetians 259, 261–266, 269–273, 275, 284 Helvetische Gesellschaft 280 Helvétius, Claude 172–173 Helvidius Priscus 315 Hengist 311 Henry vi, Holy Roman Emperor 225 Herodotus 90 Heyne, Christian Gottlob 210 Hirzel, Salomon 280–282, 284 Historicism 8, 15, 20–39, 157 Hoare, Lord 179 Hobbes, Thomas 133, 148, 237, 242–246, 251–252 Hobsbawm, E.J. 306 Hoekstra, Kinch 90 Holland , see also: Dutch Republic 83, 109, 113–114, 122–123, 125–126, 128–129, 161, 163, 193, 235, 246, 261 Holstein 273 Holy Roman Empire 63, 223, 226–227, 260–262, 265, 267, 271, 273, 285, 295 Homer 195, 298 Homosexuality 160, 182 Horsa 311 Hotman, François 217–218 Hove, Frederick Hendrik van 144 Huguenots 195, 217

334 Humanism, humanist 10, 18, 20, 24–39, 56, 59, 65–68, 71–81, 115, 125, 130, 209, 236, 262–269, 273, 275, 284–285, 312 Huppert, George 25–26 Ianziti, Gary 30–31 Imperialism, see: empire Ingolstadt 289 Isidore of Seville 50 Israel, Israelites 214, 224, 229–230, 234–240, 244–247, 249–250, 252, 257, 307, 319–327 Israel, Jonathan 5, 237 Italy, see also: Florence, Venice 5, 14, 18, 20, 32, 36, 39, 67, 90–91, 93, 217, 225–227, 259–260, 266, 273, 287 Jacobins 158, 167, 174, 184 Jagiellonian dynasty 286 Jay, John 317 Jefferson, Thomas 310–311, 319 Jellinek, Georg 284 Jeremiah 321 Jesuit, Jesuits 229, 297 Jesus 241, 256 Jews, Jewish: see Hebrew John xii, Pope 226 John, Apostle 241 Jordan river 229–230 Josaphat 221 Josephus, Flavius 243–244, 246, 252 Joshua 18, 227–231, 319, 322 Junius 313 Jura 267, 272 Jurisdiction 14, 18, 214, 217, 219, 221–222, 231, 233, 249, 255, 277, 325 Justice 14, 51, 77, 79, 91, 97, 113, 169, 170, 195, 204, 208, 210, 223, 249, 255, 278, 283, 295, 325–326 Justin 298 Justinian 225 Keckermann, Bartholomeus 16, 102–103, 304 Kelley, Donald 25–26 King, kingdom: see Monarchy Klein, Lawrence 146, 149 Kockengen 245 Koerbagh, Adriaen 18, 235–237, 242, 250–252, 257–258

Index Königsberg 289 Koryciński, Mikolaj 302 Korytno 302 Koselleck, Reinhart 9, 25–26 Kristeller, Paul Oskar 59 La Font de Saint Yenne, Ėtienne 158 Lagrenée, Jean-Jacques 178 Lagrenée, Louis 176–178, 180, 187 Lairesse, Gérard de 164 Lake Constance 270–271 Lake Geneva 267, 271 Langdon, Samuel 321–325 Latini, Brunetto 48 Latvia 304 Lausanne 218 Lavater, Johann Caspar 282–283 Law, laws 25, 42, 44, 46–48, 51–59, 76–77, 83, 88, 91, 95–98, 100–101, 103–104, 106, 112–113, 115–116, 119, 126, 128, 134, 163, 166, 171, 173–174, 194, 204, 206, 209, 217, 220–225, 240, 246–248, 251–257, 260, 277, 281–282, 284–285, 289, 295–296, 298–299, 303, 307–308, 310–311, 322–323 Law, natural 43, 52, 54–55, 57, 59–60, 116 Law, rule of 201, 208, 295, 307, 311, 323 Lazius, Wolfgang 93–94 Le Motteux, Pierre-Antoine 142–143 Learning 16, 138, 140–144 Legislator, lawgiver 14, 41, 54, 58, 97, 117, 158, 160, 163, 167, 174, 251, 253, 255, 325–326 Leiden 95, 97, 99, 110, 113–114, 123, 195, 235 Leipzig 289 Leonidas 184–186 Leponcii 265 Lepontii 264 Leuci 265 Levites 225, 230, 254 Lex de imperio Vespasiani 48, 57 Lex regia 15, 40, 47–48, 56–59 Liberalism 86 Liberty 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 14–19, 33, 40, 42, 55, 64–65, 71, 76–77, 83–86, 96, 99, 101, 103, 106–107, 123, 134–136, 148–152, 156, 160, 173, 186, 189, 192, 194–195, 199, 201, 204–210, 213, 247, 255–256, 260–263, 268–269, 271, 276–279, ­281–284, ­286–287, 290–297, 303, 307–310, 312–313, 316–318, 321

Index Licinius 298 Lipsius, Justus 11–12, 64, 71–82, 84 Lithuania: see Poland-Lithuania Livonia 304 Livy 11, 34, 118n32, 127n64, 275–276, 297, 303 Locke, John 60, 318 Lodenstein, Jodocus van 235, 238 Lord’s Supper 241 Louis xiv 163, 167 Louis xv 169, 170, 178 Louis xvi 175–176 Louvain 71 Louvre museum 171 Lucan 117 Lucerne 260, 263 Lucretia 260, 276–278 Lutheranism 93, 95, 100 Luxury 51, 65, 76–80, 104, 117–118, 130n72, 151, 170, 173–175, 187, 277, 281, 302, 316 Luzac, Elie 17, 19, 200–205, 208–209, 212 Luzac, Johan 17, 195–200, 202, 205, 209, 212 Lycophron 98 Lycurgus 11, 14, 17, 97, 106–107, 159–164, 166–167, 170–172, 178, 185, 187, 287, 291–292, 323 Mably, abbé de 12, 167, 173–177, 187 Macedonians 159, 173 Machiavelli, Niccolò 1, 2, 11, 14, 15, 21, 28, 33–39, 55, 62–63, 66, 70, 74, 76, 83–84, 88, 102, 136, 318 Madison, James 14, 317 Magna Carta 309 Magnanimity 169 Manifest Destiny 327–328 Manuel, Frank 214 Marat, Jean-Paul 166 Marcus Antonius 316 Marcus Curtius 260 Marigny, Marquis de 168, 176 Mark, Saint 261 Marmontel, Jean-François 169 Marsilius of Padua 48, 56, 59 Masius, Andreas 229 Massachusetts 309, 321–322 Materialism 172 Mathon de la Cour, Charles 171 Maximilian 263 Maximinus 298

335 Medici, Alessandro de’ 275 Medici, Lorenzino de’ 275–276 Meerman, Johan 17, 205–212 Melanchton, Philip 93, 95 Menelaos 178 Mercier, Jean 217 Meursius, Johannes 16, 91, 95, 97–100, 105 Michelangelo 276 Middle Ages, medieval thought 4, 10, 26, 28–29, 48–49, 96, 223, 260, 264, 267, 269–270, 275 Milan 266 Millot, Claude 202 Mitford, William 86–87, 95 Mithridates, king of Pontus 64, 73, 78 Mixed regime, mixed constitution 13, 41, 69, 166, 191–192, 196, 199, 201–202, 209, 218, 232, 292–293 Model, models 1, 7, 10–21 24, 27–28, 33–34, 38, 41–42, 57, 60, 62, 64, 66, 70–72, 74–75, 84, 89, 102, 104, 110–111, 113–114, 129–130, 133, 136–140, 142–144, 149–151, 153, 155–156, 160, 166–167, 171, 182, 187, 202, 204, 213–214, 216–218, 222, 229, 231–235, 237, 250–251, 253, 257–260, 278, 285, 292, 294, 308, 311, 317–320, 323, 326–328 Modernity 17, 24, 39, 190, 307 Molino, Domenico 99 Momigliano, Arnaldo 87–89 Monarchy 6, 7, 12, 41, 45–46, 49, 52–55, 73–74, 78, 81, 83, 86–87, 97, 101–102, 116, 124, 151, 160, 164, 166, 167, 168, 170, 172, 184, 187, 189, 191, 195–196, 201–206, 208–209, 212, 218, 221, 232, 239, 242, 244–247, 252–253, 260, 278, 280–282, 286, 292–296, 298, 306, 308–310, 317, 319–320, 327 Monsiau, Nicolas 176 Montaigne 160 Montano, Benedict Arias 216–217, 227–233 Montesquieu, Baron de (Charles-Louis de Secondat) 19, 61, 166, 190, 196, 200, 281 Morals, morality 13, 15, 17, 19–20, 30–32, 38, 42–43, 54, 72, 76, 131, 147, 157, 159–161, 166, 168, 172–173, 178–179, 181, 183, 191, 194, 197, 211, 219–220, 224, 255–258, 281–282, 284–285, 290, 296, 323 More, Thomas 10

336 Morély, Jean 221 Mosaic Law 18, 19, 220, 222, 224, 230, 250, 319–323, 326 Moses, Mosaic 163, 214–215, 219, 222, 225, 229, 231, 244–246, 251–253, 255–256, 319, 323–326 Mount Taygetus 181 Moyle, Walter 146 Mucius Scaevola 260, 301 Münster 114, 116, 118, 120 Münster, Sebastian 272 Myconius, Oswald 266 Napoleon 184–185 Nation, nation-state 18–19, 22–23, 32, 50, 64, 70, 82, 86, 91, 113, 116, 127, 137, 142, 149–150, 152–155, 186, 210, 215, 252–253, 267–271, 275, 284, 286, 288, 291–292, 294, 301, 303, 306–307, 309, 311, 313, 319, 321–324, 326, 328 Nedham, Marchamont 60, 135 Neerlands Israel 234, 236–238, 250, 252, 257 Nelson, Eric 14, 133, 216–217, 232, 236, 258 Neoclassicism 176–177, 180, 280 Neo-Roman theory of liberty 4, 7, 15, 41, 133, 189 Nero 315–316 Neumagen, Peter von 265 Neuman, Kalman 216–217 Neville, Henry 146 New England 320 New Testament 165, 228 New York 314, 317 Nichols, Thomas 90 Nietzsche, Friedrich 157 Nike 260 Nobility: see Aristocracy Nominalism 22–23 Norman Conquest 307 Norman(s) 308–310 Numa Pompilius 293 Numismatics 94 Oberhasli 262 Ochlocracy 210 Old Testament 215, 234–237, 257 Oligarchy 30, 199, 277 Oporinus, Johannes 92 Orators 205, 289

Index Orzechowski, Stanislaw 287 Otis, James 309–310 Otto I 226 Ottoman Empire, Ottomans 66, 74, 93, 285 Ottonian age 226–227 Pace, Giulio 85 Padua 96–97, 102, 289, 304 Paedaretus 303 Pagnini, Sante 222–223 Pagus Helvetius 265 Pagus Leopontinus 265 Pagus Tigurinus 264–265 Pagus Verbigenus 264 Paine, Thomas 306, 320, 328 Palatinate 218, 221 Palemon 304 Paleotti, Gabriele 224 Palmer, R.R. 189 Paprocki, Bartosz 302 Paris 17, 178, 180–181, 217 Parliament, parliamentary 134, 151, 286, 289, 294–295, 299, 308 Paruta, Paolo 16, 64, 68–72, 74, 77, 79, 82–83 Passions 35, 172, 174, 205, 282 Patricians, Roman 107, 299 Patriot, patriotism 51, 104, 206, 254, 280, 307, 309, 311–312, 316, 328 Patriots, Dutch 191–193, 195, 197, 201, 212–213 Pausanias 90 Pauw, Cornelis de 208 Peace of Westphalia 114–121, 260, 278–279 Pearl-Rosenthal, Nathan 320 Perez de Ayala, Martin 228 Pericles 104, 106–107, 210 Persians 185 Peter, Apostle 241 Petrarch 275 Philip ii 229, 231 Philology 28, 98, 105 Philopoemen 288 Phocion 168, 173–175 Physiocracy 179 Piccolomini, Enea Silvio 264–265, 267 Piety 140, 220, 238, 254–255 Pisa 33 Pisistratus 98, 103, 106 Pius V, Pope 231 Plato 42, 102, 287, 291, 296–298, 300, 303

Index Plebeians, Roman 107, 299 Pliny 179, 266 Plutarch 11, 88, 90, 112, 157–188, 275, 282 Plutus 277 Pocock, J.G.A. 3–6, 11, 14, 15, 28–29, 60, 63, 84–85, 133, 189, 259 Poitiers 217 Poland-Lithuania 6, 15, 18, 95, 102–105, 285–305 Politeness 14, 16, 133, 139, 141–156 Polybius 11, 49, 69–72, 74, 77, 112, 218–219, 292, 297, 303 Pompadour, Madame de 168 Pompey 315 Pomponius 15, 40–41, 43–48, 56–57, 60–61, 266 Pope, Papacy; see also: Rome, papal 18, 84, 97, 217, 226–227, 231, 260, 262–263, 269, 275 Porsenna 280 Portius 313 Postel, Guillaume 16, 94–96, 100, 107 Poussin, Nicolas 164, 168, 174–175 Poyet, Guillaume 96 Privilege, privileges 105, 170, 260, 263, 268, 278, 286 Prix de Rome 180 Property 55, 118, 136, 174, 207–208, 246, 281, 324 Protestantism, protestant 95, 238, 268, 271, 289, 318 Providence, providential 54, 235, 240, 253 Prudence 20, 35, 43, 54, 125–126, 198, 250, 297, 315 Prussia 273 Pseudonyms, classical 313–315, 317 Ptolemy of Lucca 15, 40–41, 48–56, 59, 61, 266, 272 Publius Libon 304 Publius Valerius 317 Puritans 319 Querelle des anciens et des modernes 12, 137–138, 140, 190 Quintus Ennius 302 Ramé, Pierre 221 Ramus, Petrus 102 Ranke, Leopold von 23

337 Ravenna 226 Reason of state 54, 249–250, 258 Reason 103, 147, 174, 222, 250–253, 255–256, 288, 297, 326 Red Sea 324 Reformation 289, 318 Regulus 301 Rej, Mikolaj 298 Remigius of Florence 48–49 Remonstrant, Remonstrantism 97, 113–114, 216, 241 Remus 260 Renaissance 1–3, 8, 11, 14–15, 19–61, 63, 67, 85, 88, 157, 190, 259, 276 Representation, representative 192, 204, 207, 213, 324 Republic of Letters 223 Republicanism passim Resistance, right of 116, 218, 294 Respublica Christiana 226–227 Restoration, French 185 Rhetoric, rhetorical 10, 30–31, 34, 110, 130, 138, 141, 149–151, 205, 285, 289, 312–315, 318 Rhine river 264–265, 267, 269–272 Rhone river 267, 272 Rich, Barnabe 90 Right, rights 3, 6, 40, 44–47, 50–51, 53, 55, 62, 81, 113, 119, 125, 148, 192, 202, 204, 206, 218, 241–243, 246, 248–253, 255–256, 277, 281, 283, 286, 293–295, 298, 308–311, 313, 321, 325–326 Roaldes, François 217, 219, 222 Roberts, Jennifer Tolbert 211 Robespierre, Maximilien 185, 188 Rococo 168, 178 Rogers, Daniel T. 6 Roland, Madame 165 Rollin, Charles 166–167, 172, 176 Roman Empire, Principate 27, 40, 44–50, 52, 56–59, 66, 69, 71, 151–152, 157, 196, 207, 209, 215, 225, 227, 259, 268–269, 288–289, 296, 302, 307, 316, 318, 323, 326–327 Roman law 25, 40, 43–48, 57–58 Roman Republic 9–12, 14–19, 20–85, 95–96, 104, 107, 110, 120, 129–130, 136, 142, 144, 149–150, 156, 157, 175, 196, 201, 207, 209, 215, 219, 225, 227, 259–261, 276–282,

338 Roman Republic (cont.) 284–289, 291–296, 301–304, 307, 311–318, 326–327 Rome, papal 14, 15, 18, 36, 48, 56, 176, 178, 180–181, 226–227, 231, 289 Romulus 11, 260, 292–293 Rosenthal, Michael 235 Rous, Francis 134, 151 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 12, 17, 157, 160, 165, 167, 172, 176, 179, 181, 183, 187, 283 Roustan, Antoine 283 Ruf, Jacob 276 Russia 214, 285 Rütli 269, 271 Sachs, Hans 278 Saint Bartolomew’s Day massacre 218 Saint-Just, Louis Antoine 185 Saint-Ours, Jean Pierre 17, 180–184, 187 Salamonio, Mario 15, 40–41, 56–61 Sallust 11, 51, 55, 64–65, 70, 73, 76–79, 85, 117–118, 121, 127, 303 Salomon 231, 291 Salon, Paris art exhibition 17, 167, 168, 169, 170, 175–176, 178–180, 187 Samuel 245–246 Sanhedrin 225, 241, 246, 321–322, 324 Sarmatia 287, 303 Sarpi, Paolo 85, 99 Savoy 271, 273 Savoy, House of 271 Saxon(s) 308–311 Scaliger, Joseph 75, 98 Schama, Simon 234 Schiffman, Zachary 26 Schiller, Friedrich 269 Schmalkaldic War 271 Schoock, Martinus 16, 111, 113, 123–130 Schradin, Nikolaus 263 Schwyz 260, 262–263, 266, 268–269 Scipio 260, 278 Scotland 86–87 Scriverius, Petrus 114 Sejm 294 Selden, John 216, 232, 236, 258 Self-interest 37, 60, 79, 123, 172, 277 Self-preservation 43, 246 Self-sacrifice 169, 173, 279, 301, 312

Index Senate, senator 46–47, 97, 99, 103–104, 106, 134, 136, 209–210, 257, 260, 292, 304, 311, 323–325 Sentimentalism 17, 177, 183 Serfdom 18, 286, 296–297 Severus, Sulpicius 228 Seyssel, Claude de 90 Shaftesbury, Third Earl of (Anthony Ashley Cooper) 17, 146–156 Shakespeare, William 282, 316 Shechem 322 Sheridan, Thomas 154 Sicily 93, 298 Siena 67 Sienicius, Nicolaus 94–95, 102, 104–105 Sigonio, Carlo 11, 16, 18, 94–97, 100, 102–103, 106–107, 216–217, 222–227, 232–233 Simonetta, Bonifacio 267 Sinai, Mount 322 Sister Republics 1 Skinner, Quentin 4, 15, 133, 189, 259 Slavery 4, 77, 101, 160, 167, 191, 206–207, 247, 252, 296, 316, 319, 324 Slaves: see Slavery Social contract 60, 134 Socinianism 241 Socrates 175, 197–198, 298 Solon 11, 14, 88, 97–98, 103, 107, 136, 171, 174, 198–199, 202–204, 209–210, 287, 291–292 Somogitia 304 Sophianos, Nicolaus 91 Sovereignty, sovereign 18, 40, 44–47, 57–59, 63, 119–120, 125, 134, 194, 202, 204–205, 207, 236, 240, 242–247, 255, 257, 260–261, 278–279, 284, 308–310, 322, 325–326 Spain 14, 18, 81, 84, 116–117, 120–121, 217, 231, 239, 278 Sparta 11, 13, 14, 16–18, 62, 78, 86, 91, 94, 97, 100–107, 110, 112–113, 129, 136, 149–151, 156, 157–188, 219, 259, 292, 294, 297, 303–304, 323 Spiegel, Laurens Pieter van de 193–194 Spinoza, Baruch 18, 235–237, 242, 249–258 Spon, Jacob 138 Stadholders, Stadholderate 113, 122–123, 125–126, 129–130, 191, 237, 242 Stamp Act 309, 311

339

Index States General, Dutch 238 Staufer dynasty 264 Steele, Richard 146 Steffens, Lincoln 214 Stoa, stoicism 42–43, 73, 101, 171, 174–175 Stourhead, Wiltshire 179 Strabo 90, 112, 266, 269 Strasbourg 265 Struever, Nancy 30 Stuart, House of 308–310 Stumpf, Johannes 272–273, 284 Suetonius 275 Suevia 272 Sulla 33 Sundgau 265 Svitenses 264–266 Swabia, Swabians, Svevi 264, 270, 273 Swabian War 262–264, 270 Swedes 262, 269 Swiss Central Plateau 272 Swiss Confederation: see Swiss Republic Swiss Republic, Eidgenossenschaft 1, 5, 8, 12, 14, 18, 95, 112, 180, 259–284 Swytherus 262, 267 Sydney, Algernon 308 Syme, Ronald 41–42 Sympathy 17, 97, 157, 176, 183 Szlachta 286, 289–291, 296, 298–299 Tacitus 11, 12, 41–42, 64, 73, 75, 78, 82, 85, 90, 99, 266, 303 Talbert, Richard 159 Tarquinia 280 Tarquinius Superbus 56, 276–277, 280–281 Tell, Wilhelm 261, 269, 271, 276, 278 Temple, William 109 Terror, French revolutionary 185, 187 Teutonia 264 Theatre 14, 18, 137, 158, 177, 277 Thebes 164 Themistocles 278 Theocracy, theocratic 14, 18, 47, 216, 232, 243–244, 250, 252–255, 257–258, 321 Theocritus 98 Theology, theologians 56, 114, 123, 132, 217, 219, 221, 224–225, 236–242, 247–248, 250–251, 253, 289, 290, 304, 322 Theseus 202–203, 294 Thucydides 90, 99, 127

Thurgau 271 Tiberius 280 Tigurini 270 Tischbein, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm 283 Titus 280–281 Tolerance, toleration 15, 18, 197, 216, 232, 235–237, 241, 249–250, 256, 258 Toulouse 217 Trenchard, John 60, 146 Tribune of the people (Rome) 13, 41, 50, 294 Troy 267 Trybunal Koronny 295 Tschiffeli, Johann Rudolf 284 Tschudi, Aegidius 18, 268–272, 275, 284 Tübingen 289 Türst, Conrad 265 Tyranny, tyrant 76, 82, 94, 99, 103, 106, 134, 141, 146, 152, 195–196, 209, 276, 281–283, 293, 308–309, 315–316, 321–322 Űechtland 271 Ulm 264 Unterwalden 268–269 Uri 268–269 Urim 229 Utopianism 10, 14, 174 Utrecht 109, 122–123, 125, 245, 247 Vaenius, Otto 163, 167 Valais 271–272 Valerius Maximus 275 Varrus 298 Vaud 270–271 Velde, Abraham van de 235, 238, 240–242 Velthuysen, Lambertus van 18, 235, 237, 242, 247–249, 256–258 Venice 1, 12, 14, 16, 18, 62–64, 67–71, 74, 77, 81–85, 95–97, 99–100, 103–14, 112, 260–261, 291, 304 Venturi, Franco 2 Vien, Joseph-Marie 180 Vienna 289 Virginia 309, 311 Virtue 2–4, 6, 14–16, 18–19, 29, 32, 34–35, 38, 40, 51–52, 55, 60–61, 65, 69–70, 72, 74–75, 80, 83, 85–86, 97, 102, 139, 146, 150, 166, 170, 173–174, 179, 183, 190–192, 194–197, 199, 204, 213, 254, 257, 277–278, 280–282, 284–285, 287, 290, 294,

340 Virtue (cont.) 296–298, 300–303, 312, 314, 316, 318, 326–327 Visual arts 158–188, 260–261, 278–280, 283–284 Vita activa 300 Vita contemplativa 300 Voetius, Gisbertus 123, 237–238, 242, 245, 247, 250 Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet 172, 281–283 Vossius, Gerardus 114 Vreede, Pieter 192 Wagenaar, Jacobus 242 Walch, Sebastian 279 Walpole, Robert 308 Walraven, Isaac 164, 165, 185 Walzer, Michael 214 Warren, Joseph 313 Warren, Mercy Otis 312–313 Warszewicki, Krzysztof 297 Washington, George 1, 315, 319 Westminster 308 Weststeijn, Arthur 202 Wheler, George 138 Whig(s) 307–308, 312, 314, 327

Index Wildavsky, Aron 214 William iii, Dutch Stadholder 126, 129, 163, 237, 242 Wimpfeling, Jakob 262–263, 265, 267 Wines, Enoch 19, 326 Winkelried, Arnold von 278 Witchcraft 179 Witsius, Hermannus 235, 238–241, 248 Witt, Johan de 123, 125, 129, 163, 242, 246 Witt, Ronald 27 Wittenberg 289 Wolf, Hieronymus 92 Wood, Gordon 2, 190 Württemberg 273 Xenophon 88, 90, 106 Xylander, William 90 Zamoyski, Jan 304 Zbaraski, Jerzy 299 Zeeland 83, 191 Ziskind, Jonathan 218–219 Zurich 262, 264–265, 270, 276–284 Zwinger, Theodore 94–95, 102 Zwingli, Ulrich 276, 278