ABSTRACT
The study of political ideas naturally begins with the ancient Greeks, because, in a real sense, they were the first people to have political ideas at all. Of course, there was plenty of thinking much earlier about practical problems, how best to conquer a neighbouring territory, for instance, or how to retain one’s power over it after the conquest. The ordinary Greek in the classical period, in spite of criticisms, still normally looked on the laws as providing a sufficient standard of right and wrong in human behaviour. In the so-called Hellenistic age, with the conquest of the Persian empire by Alexander and the establishment of the Greco-Macedonian kingdoms into which his dominions broke up after his death, a great change comes over the Greek outlook on politics. The Romans were not a philosophically minded people and any philosophical ideas that they had were borrowed straight from the Greeks.
