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Wellsprings
greek-politicsfeatured in 30 works

Equality

Equal standing before the law and an equal voice in it — the twin ideals of isonomia and isēgoria.

Greek political equality had two faces: isonomia, equality before the law, and isēgoria, every citizen's equal right to speak in the assembly. Hailed as a watchword of the new Athenian order after Cleisthenes (late 6th c. BCE) and praised in Herodotus' Constitutional Debate, isonomia became the rallying cry against tyranny. Together these ideals defined what it meant to be a free and equal member of the polis, and they remain foundational to egalitarian political thought.

How it traveled

  1. Histories
    Thurii (Magna Graecia) · -425
    explains
  2. History of the Peloponnesian War
    Athens · -400
    explains
  3. Areopagiticus
    Athens · -355
    explains
  4. Cyropaedia
    Athens · -354
    explains
  5. Hellenica
    Athens · -354
    applies
  6. Laws
    Athens · -348
    explains
  7. Panathenaicus
    Athens · -339
    explains
  8. Politics
    Chalcis · -322
    explains
  9. Nicomachean Ethics
    Chalcis · -322
    explains
  10. Against Meidias
    Athens · -322
    explains
  11. Eudemian Ethics
    Chalcis · -322
    explains
  12. Against Leptines
    Athens · -322
    explains
  13. Theomnestus and Apollodorus Against Neaera
    Athens · -322
    explains
  14. Against Timocrates
    Athens · -322
    explains
  15. Magna Moralia
    Chalcis · -322
    explains
  16. Histories
    Megalopolis · -118
    explains
  17. De Lege Agraria
    Formiae · -63
    explains
  18. De Republica
    Formiae · -54
    explains
  19. Ab urbe condita
    Padua · -27
    explains
  20. Lycurgus
    Chaeronea · 120
    explains
  21. Agis and Cleomenes
    Chaeronea · 120
    explains
  22. Apophthegmata Laconica
    Chaeronea · 120
    explains
  23. Solon
    Chaeronea · 120
    explains
  24. Quaestiones Convivales
    Chaeronea · 120
    applies
  25. Saturnalia
    Samosata · 180
    explains
  26. Bava Kamma
    Sura (Babylonia) · 500
  27. Abarbanel on Torah
    Naples · 1505
  28. Torah Temimah on Torah
    Pinsk · 1904
  29. Historia Romana
    Rome
    explains
  30. Historical Library
    Syracuse (Sicily)
    explains

Key passages(20)

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Stromata · Clement of Alexandria

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De Specialibus Legibus (lib. i‑iv) · Philo Judaeus

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De Specialibus Legibus (lib. i‑iv) · Philo Judaeus

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De fraterno amore · Plutarch

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Quaestiones Convivales · Plutarch

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Nicomachean Ethics · Aristotle

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Orationes 46 · Aelius Aristides

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Eudemian Ethics · Aristotle

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Eudemian Ethics · Aristotle

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Nicomachean Ethics · Aristotle

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