Oriental Despotism - Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome

Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome

Of all the ancient Greeks, Aristotle was perhaps the most influential promoter of the concept of oriental despotism; his student, Alexander the Great who conquered Persia, ruled by the despotic Darius III last king of the Achaemenid dynasty. Aristotle asserted that oriental despotism is based not on force, but on consent. Hence, fear cannot be said to be its motive force, instead the power of the despot master feeds upon the servile nature of those enslaved. Among Greek society, a man is free, capable of holding office and ruling and being ruled; among the barbarians, all are slaves by nature. Another difference Aristotle espoused was based on climates. He observed that the peoples of cold countries, especially those of Europe, are full of spirit, but deficient in skill and intelligence; and that the peoples of Asia, although endowed with skill and intelligence, are deficient in spirit, and hence are subjected to slavery. Possessing both spirit and intelligence the Greeks are free to govern all other peoples (Politics 7.1327b).

For the historian Herodotus, it is the way of the Orient to be ruled by autocrats and, even though Oriental, the character faults of despots are no more pronounced than the ordinary man's - but they are given much greater opportunity for indulgence. The story of Croesus of Lydia is a case in point. Leading up to Alexander's expansion into Asia, most Greeks were repelled by the Oriental notion of a sun-king, and the divine law that Oriental societies accepted. Herodotus's version of history advocated a society where men became free when they consented lawfully to the social contract of their respective city-state.

Edward Gibbon suggested that the increasing use of Oriental-style despotism by the Roman emperors was a major factor in the fall of the Roman Empire, particularly from the reign of Elagabalus:

As the attention of the new emperor was diverted by the most trifling amusements, he wasted many months in his luxurious progress from Syria to Italy, passed at Nicomedia his first winter after his victory, and deferred till the ensuing summer his triumphal entry into the capital. A faithful picture, however, which preceded his arrival, and was placed by his immediate order over the altar of Victory in the senate-house, conveyed to the Romans the just but unworthy resemblance of his person and manners. He was drawn in his sacerdotal robes of silk and gold, after the loose flowing fashion of the Medes and Phoenicians; his head was covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous collars and bracelets were adorned with gems of an inestimable value. His eyebrows were tinged with black, and his cheeks painted with an artificial red and white. The grave senators confessed with a sigh, that, after having long experienced the stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at length humbled beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental despotism. (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Book One, Chapter Six)