Political Thought before the Sophists

It is a fashion among Greek historians nowadays to draw parallels between the history of ancient Greece and that of the modern world. We read of the Greek ‘Middle Ages’, the Greek ‘Reformation’, the Greek ‘Renaissance’. Historians differ in the parallels they draw; and while one may compare the whole period of the classical age of Greece, down to the end of the fifth century, with the medieval period of our history, on the ground that both began in migrations of tribes and both ended in ‘the discovery of the world and of man’, another may compare the early period of Greek history, before the dawn of light in the days of Solon, with the period of our Middle Ages, and place the period of ‘Reformation’ and ‘Renaissance’ in the sixth century. If we follow the latter comparison, we may say that the political thought of the Greek Middle Ages is to be found in Homer and Hesiod, who, indeed, are its only writers. Homer is sometimes quoted as a believer in the divine right of monarchy:

οὐκ ἀγαθòν πολυκοιρανίη. ϵἱς κoίρανoς ἔστω, ϵἱς βασιλϵύς ᾧ ἔδωκϵ Kρóνoυ πάϊς ἀγκυλoμήτϵω σκη̑πτρóν τ’ ἠδέ θέμιστας. ¹