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Along the same lines, even kings didn't exercise absolute power. One of the recurring themes in the history of the Persian empire before Alexander was how frequ

by pradn 8y ago

Along the same lines, even kings didn't exercise absolute power. One of the recurring themes in the history of the Persian empire before Alexander was how frequently the far off governors of Egypt and Anatolia would rebel. How much control does a king have if their governor and their own army and were two months away by letter? The Macedonian warlords who took control of Alexander's territory actually had to negotiate with cities like Athens and Rhodes. The cost of attacking them to get them to obey was too high. It was better to negotiate reasonable taxes. If a king can't set tax rates unilaterally, they aren't very powerful either. Power exists along a long continuum.

cletus 8y ago
I think you're slightly missing the point. Absolute power doesn't mean your subjects won't rebel. Nor does it mean there are people beyond your sphere of influence. The likes of Cyrus the Great by any reasonable measure had absolute power but obviously no influence over, say, China. Absolute power here really means that the ruler's power is unchecked. In the US for example, the president's power is checked by Congress and the courts. This is really the rule of law. The typical model for monarchs of old was quite simple: whatever the monarch said was absolute. As an aside I recently listend to Dan Carlin's 3 part series on the Achaemenid Persian Empire titled the Kings of Kings (~20 hours of listening) and thoroughly enjoyed it. It spans a ~200 year period from Cyrus the Great to Alexander the Great and it covers subjects such as the Egyptian rebellion and how harshly the Persians came down on the Egyptians (if you believe Heroditus). What's interesting about the Persians is just how critical this period was to the development of Western civilization. He raises the point with something like the light bulb if Edison hadn't invented it, someone else would've. But there are two events in this period that changed history in ways that could've had completely different outcomes. Cyrus the Great reportedly freed the Jews and rebuilt the Temple and it can be argued if that hadn't happened, it may have spelt the end for Judaism and all the offshoots (so Christianity and Islam too). The second was the Battle of Marathon, which was a turning point that stopped the Greeks being ruled by the Persians and probably greatly influenced Western civilization ever since.

by pradn 8y ago

cletus 8y ago

I think you're slightly missing the point. Absolute power doesn't mean your subjects won't rebel. Nor does it mean there are people beyond your sphere of influence. The likes of Cyrus the Great by any reasonable measure had absolute power but obviously no influence over, say, China. Absolute power here really means that the ruler's power is unchecked. In the US for example, the president's power is checked by Congress and the courts. This is really the rule of law. The typical model for monarchs of old was quite simple: whatever the monarch said was absolute. As an aside I recently listend to Dan Carlin's 3 part series on the Achaemenid Persian Empire titled the Kings of Kings (~20 hours of listening) and thoroughly enjoyed it. It spans a ~200 year period from Cyrus the Great to Alexander the Great and it covers subjects such as the Egyptian rebellion and how harshly the Persians came down on the Egyptians (if you believe Heroditus). What's interesting about the Persians is just how critical this period was to the development of Western civilization. He raises the point with something like the light bulb if Edison hadn't invented it, someone else would've. But there are two events in this period that changed history in ways that could've had completely different outcomes. Cyrus the Great reportedly freed the Jews and rebuilt the Temple and it can be argued if that hadn't happened, it may have spelt the end for Judaism and all the offshoots (so Christianity and Islam too). The second was the Battle of Marathon, which was a turning point that stopped the Greeks being ruled by the Persians and probably greatly influenced Western civilization ever since.