''Isonomia'' (ἰσονομία "equality of
political rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...
,"
[Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon][The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes", Mogens Herman Hansen, , p. 81-84] from the Greek ἴσος ''isos'', "equal," and νόμος ''nomos'', "usage, custom, law,"
) was a word used by
ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
writers such as
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...
[Herodotus 3.80] and
Thucydides
Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientifi ...
to refer to some kind of popular government. It was subsequently eclipsed until brought back into English as isonomy (
"equality of law"). Economist
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...
attempted to popularize the term in his book
The Constitution of Liberty
''The Constitution of Liberty'' is the magnum opus of Austrian economist and 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences recipient Friedrich A. Hayek. First published in 1960 by the University of Chicago Press, the book is considered Hayek’s ...
and argued that a better understanding of isonomy, as used by the Greeks, defines the term to mean "the equal application of the laws to all."
Ancient usage
Mogens Herman Hansen
Mogens Herman Hansen FBA (born 20 August 1940, Frederiksberg) is a Danish classical philologist and classical demographer who is one of the leading scholars in Athenian Democracy and the Polis.
Academic career
Hansen finished his masters at U ...
has argued that, although often translated as "equality of law," ''isonomia'' was in fact something else.
Along with ''isonomia'', the Athenians used several terms for
equality
Equality may refer to:
Society
* Political equality, in which all members of a society are of equal standing
** Consociationalism, in which an ethnically, religiously, or linguistically divided state functions by cooperation of each group's elite ...
all compounds beginning with ''iso-'': ''isegoria'' (equal right to address the political assemblies), ''isopsephos polis'' (one man one vote) and ''isokratia'' (equality of power).
When Herodotus invents a debate among the
Persians
The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian.
...
over what sort of government they should have, he has Otanes speak in favor of ''isonomia'' when, based on his description of it, we might expect him to call the form of government he favors "democracy."
The rule of the people has the fairest name of all, equality (''isonomia''), and does none of the things that a monarch does. The lot determines offices, power is held accountable, and deliberation is conducted in public.
Thucydides used ''isonomia'' as an alternative to dynastic oligarchy and moderate aristocracy. In time the word ceased to refer to a particular political regime;
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
uses it to refer to simply equal rights and Aristotle does not use the word at all.
Medical usage
'Isonomia' was also used in Hellenic times by Pythagorean physicians, such as Alkmaeon, who used it to refer to the balance or equality of those opposite pairs of hot/cold, wet/dry and bitterness/sweetness that maintained the health of the body. Thus:
Alkmaeon said that the equality (''isonomia'') of the powers (wet, dry, cold, hot, bitter, sweet, etc.) maintains health, but that monarchy ne overrulingamong them produces disease.
Later use
According to economist and political theorist
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...
, ''isonomia'' was championed by the Roman
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...
[Friedrich A. Hayek, Origins of the Rule of Law]
/ref> and "rediscovered" in the eleventh century AD by the law students of Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
whom he says are credited with founding much of the Western legal tradition.
''Isonomia'' was imported into England at the end of the sixteenth century as a word meaning "equality of laws to all manner of persons". Soon after, it was used by the translator of Livy
Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Ancient Rome, Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditiona ...
in the form "Isonomy" (although not a direct translation of ''isonomia'') to describe a state of equal laws for all and responsibility of the magistrates. During the seventeenth century it was gradually replaced by the phrases "equality before the law
Equality before the law, also known as equality under the law, equality in the eyes of the law, legal equality, or legal egalitarianism, is the principle that all people must be equally protected by the law. The principle requires a systematic ru ...
", "rule of law
The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The rule of law is defined in the ''Encyclopedia Britannica ...
" and "government of law".
Political theorist Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
Arendt was born ...
argued that isonomy was equated with political freedom at least from the time of Herodotus. The word essentially denoted a state of no-rule, in which there was no distinction between rulers and ruled. It was "the equality of those who form a body of peers." Isonomy was unique among the forms of government in the ancient lexicon in that it lacked the suffixes "-archy" and "-cracy" which denote a notion of rule in words like "monarchy" and "democracy." Arendt goes on to argue that the Greek ''polis
''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means "city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it also ...
'' was therefore conceived not as a democracy but as an isonomy. "Democracy" was the term used by opponents of isonomy who claimed that "what you say is 'no-rule' is in fact only another kind of rulership...rule by the ''demos
Demos may refer to:
Computing
* DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system
* DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR
* Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems
* plural for Demo (computer programming)
...
''," or majority.
The public administration theorist, Alberto Guerreiro Ramos
Alberto is the Romance version of the Latinized form (''Albertus'') of Germanic ''Albert''. It is used in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. The diminutive forms are ''Albertito'' in Spain or ''Albertico'' in some parts of Latin America, Albertin ...
, reserved for isonomy a central role in his model of human organization. He was particularly concerned with distinguishing the space of the isonomy from that of the economy. Following Arendt, Guerreiro Ramos argued that individuals should have the opportunity to engage with others in settings that are unaffected by economizing considerations. The isonomy constitutes such a setting; its function is to "enhance the good life of the whole."
See also
Notes
Ancient Greek philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire ...
linked to ''isonomía'' with ''isegoría'' (prior equality in determining principles of law) and ''isocratía'' (equality in subsequent governance or application of law)Spanish Ministry of Education resources website / Plato
/ref>
References
Further reading
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*{{cite journal , last=Vlastos , first=Gregory , title=Isonomia , journal=American Journal of Philology , date=1953 , volume=74 , issue=4 , pages=337–366
Direct democracy