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Aesymnetes
Aesymnetes (Greek: , from , ''aisa'', a "just portion", hence "a person who gives everyone their just portion") was the name of an ancient Greek elected office similar to, and sometimes indistinguishable from, tyrant. The plural is ''aesymnetai''. The title originally signified merely a judge in the heroic games, but afterwards indicated an individual who was occasionally invested voluntarily by his fellow citizens with essentially unlimited power in a Greek state. Aristotle called the office an "elective tyranny", and said that the power of the ''aesymnetai'' partook in some degree of the nature "both of kingly and tyrannical authority; since he was appointed legally and ruled over willing subjects, but at the same time was not bound by any laws in his public administration." Hence Theophrastus calls the office ("elective tyranny"), and Dionysius compares it with the dictatorship at Rome.Dionysius of Halicarnassus, v. 73 It was not hereditary; but it was sometimes held for lif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans called him Bacchus ( or ; grc, Βάκχος ) for a frenzy he is said to induce called ''bakkheia''. As Dionysus Eleutherios ("the liberator"), his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His ''thyrsus'', a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In Orphic religion, he wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyrant
A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to repressive means. The original Greek term meant an absolute sovereign who came to power without constitutional right, yet the word had a neutral connotation during the Archaic and early Classical periods. However, Greek philosopher Plato saw ''tyrannos'' as a negative word, and on account of the decisive influence of philosophy on politics, its negative connotations only increased, continuing into the Hellenistic period. The philosophers Plato and Aristotle defined a tyrant as a person who rules without law, using extreme and cruel methods against both his own people and others. The ''Encyclopédie'' defined the term as a usurper of sovereign power who makes "his subjects the victims of his passions and unjust desires, which he substitutes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diogenes Laërtius
Diogenes Laërtius ( ; grc-gre, Διογένης Λαέρτιος, ; ) was a biographer of the Ancient Greece, Greek philosophers. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving ''Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers'' is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek philosophy. His reputation is controversial among scholars because he often repeats information from his sources without critically evaluating it. He also frequently focuses on trivial or insignificant details of his subjects' lives while ignoring important details of their philosophical teachings and he sometimes fails to distinguish between earlier and later teachings of specific philosophical schools. However, unlike many other ancient secondary sources, Diogenes Laërtius generally reports philosophical teachings without attempting to reinterpret or expand on them, which means his accounts are often closer to the primary sources. Due to the loss of so many of the primary sources on whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parliamentary Government
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the legislature, typically a parliament, to which it is accountable. In a parliamentary system, the head of state is usually a person distinct from the head of government. This is in contrast to a presidential system, where the head of state often is also the head of government and, most importantly, where the executive does not derive its democratic legitimacy from the legislature. Countries with parliamentary systems may be constitutional monarchies, where a monarch is the head of state while the head of government is almost always a member of parliament, or parliamentary republics, where a mostly ceremonial president is the head of state while the head of government is regularly from the legislature. In a few parliamentary republics, amon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elective Dictatorship
The phrase "elective dictatorship" (also called executive dominance in political science) describes the state in which a typical Westminster system state's parliament is dominated by the government of the day. It refers to the fact that the legislative programme of Parliament is determined by the government, and government bills virtually always pass the legislature because of the nature of the majoritarian first-past-the-post electoral system, which almost always produces strong government, in combination with the imposition of party discipline on the governing party's majority, which almost always ensures loyalty. The phrase was popularised by the former Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom, Lord Hailsham, in a Richard Dimbleby Lecture at the BBC in 1976. The phrase is found a century earlier, in describing Giuseppe Garibaldi's doctrines, and was used by Hailsham (then known as Quintin Hogg) in lectures in 1968 and 1969. Constitutional background In the United Kingdom, ultima ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirement of William P. Sisler in 2017, the university appointed as Director George Andreou. The press maintains offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts near Harvard Square, and in London, England. The press co-founded the distributor TriLiteral LLC with MIT Press and Yale University Press. TriLiteral was sold to LSC Communications in 2018. Notable authors published by HUP include Eudora Welty, Walter Benjamin, E. O. Wilson, John Rawls, Emily Dickinson, Stephen Jay Gould, Helen Vendler, Carol Gilligan, Amartya Sen, David Blight, Martha Nussbaum, and Thomas Piketty. The Display Room in Harvard Square, dedicated to selling HUP publications, closed on June 17, 2009. Related publishers, imprints, and series HUP owns the Belknap Press imprint, whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magistrate
The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judicial and executive powers. In other parts of the world, such as China, a magistrate was responsible for administration over a particular geographic area. Today, in some jurisdictions, a magistrate is a judicial officer who hears cases in a lower court, and typically deals with more minor or preliminary matters. In other jurisdictions (e.g., England and Wales), magistrates are typically trained volunteers appointed to deal with criminal and civil matters in their local areas. Original meaning In ancient Rome, the word '' magistratus'' referred to one of the highest offices of state. Analogous offices in the local authorities, such as ''municipium'', were subordinate only to the legislature of which they generally were members, '' ex officio'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chalcedon
Chalcedon ( or ; , sometimes transliterated as ''Chalkedon'') was an ancient maritime town of Bithynia, in Asia Minor. It was located almost directly opposite Byzantium, south of Scutari (modern Üsküdar) and it is now a district of the city of Istanbul named Kadıköy. The name ''Chalcedon'' is a variant of Calchedon, found on all the coins of the town as well as in manuscripts of Herodotus's '' Histories'', Xenophon's '' Hellenica'', Arrian's ''Anabasis'', and other works. Except for the Maiden's Tower, almost no above-ground vestiges of the ancient city survive in Kadıköy today; artifacts uncovered at Altıyol and other excavation sites are on display at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. The site of Chalcedon is located on a small peninsula on the north coast of the Sea of Marmara, near the mouth of the Bosphorus. A stream, called the Chalcis or Chalcedon in antiquity William Smith, LLD, ed. (1854). '' Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography''"Chalcedon" and now kno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyme (Aeolis)
Cyme ( el, Κύμη) or Cumae was an Aeolian city in Aeolis (Asia Minor) close to the kingdom of Lydia. It was called Phriconian, perhaps from the mountain Phricion in Aeolis, near which the Aeolians had been settled before their migration to Asia. The Aeolians regarded Cyme as the largest and most important of their twelve cities, which were located on the coastline of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). As a result of their direct access to the sea, unlike most non-landlocked settlements of the ancient world, trade is believed to have prospered. Location Both the author of the 'life of Homer' and Strabo the ancient geographer, locate Cyme north of the Hermus river on the Asia Minor coastline: After crossing the Hyllus, the distance from Larissa to Cyme was 70 stadia, and from Cyme to Myrina was 40 stadia. (Strabo: 622) Archaeological finds such as coins give reference also to a river, believed to be that of the Hyllus. History Early history Little is known about the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charondas
Charondas ( grc-gre, Χαρώνδας) was a celebrated lawgiver of Catania in Sicily. It is uncertain when he lived; some identify him as a pupil of Pythagoras (c. 580 – 504 BC), but all that can be said is that he lived earlier than Anaxilas of Rhegium (494 – 476 BC), as his laws were in use by the Rhegians until they were abolished by Anaxilas. His laws, originally written in verse, were adopted by the other Chalcidic colonies in Sicily and Italy. According to Aristotle, there was nothing special about these laws except that Charondas introduced actions for perjury, but he speaks highly of the precision with which they were devised, while Plato speaks of him positively in The Republic. The story that Charondas killed himself because he entered the public assembly wearing a sword, which was a violation of his own law, is also told of Diocles of Syracuse and Zaleucus. cites ''Diod. Sic.'' xii. 11-19. The fragments of laws attributed to him by Stobaeus and Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zaleucus
Zaleucus ( grc, Ζάλευκος; fl. 7th century BC) was the Greek lawgiver of Epizephyrian Locri, in Italy. According to the Suda, he was previously a slave and a shepherd, and after having been educated he gave laws to his fellow-citizens. Some sources make him a Pythagorean philosopher, although older ones put him as older than Pythagoras or even deny his existence altogether. They also attribute divine origin to his laws. Most probably, he devised the first written European law code, the Locrian code, in the 7th century BC. The code, however, is lost except for some later mentions and imitations which seem clearly anachronistic. These, which among other things mention that: It also banned the drinking of undiluted wine except for medical purposes. Although the Locrian code distinctly favored the aristocracy, Zaleucus was famous for his conciliation of societal factions. No other facts of his life at all are certain. According to legends, he punished adultery with the forfe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Draco (lawgiver)
Draco (; grc-gre, Δράκων, ''Drakōn''; fl. c. 7th century BC), also called Drako or Drakon, was the first recorded legislator of Athens in Ancient Greece. He replaced the prevailing system of oral law and blood feud by the Draconian constitution, a written code to be enforced only by a court of law. Draco was the first democratic legislator requested by the Athenian citizens to be a lawgiver for the city-state, but the citizens had not expected that Draco would establish laws characterized by their harshness. Since the 19th century, the adjective ''draconian'' (Greek: ''δρακόντειος'' ''drakónteios'') refers to similarly unforgiving rules or laws, in Greek, English, and other European languages. Life During the 39th Olympiad, in 622 or 621 BC, Draco established the legal code with which he is identified. Little is known about Draco’s life. He may have belonged to the Greek nobility of Attica prior to the period of the Seven Sages of Greece, as per the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
