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David.Williams@depaul.edu
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It seems that superhero stories are big these days. Batman, Superman, Iron Man, X-Men,
Spiderman, and even the Green Hornet, among others. One reason that these heroes are
the objects of fascination to audiences is because of their ability, as it were, to save us from
ourselves. Us normal folks, for various reasons, almost inevitably find ourselves on the
brink of disaster. And our disasters are generally brought about by a combination of very
human failures – selfishness, greed, the lust to dominate others, and myriad other flaws,
vices, and sins. The appeal of superhero stories, however, is that no matter how close we
might approach catastrophe and devastation, the heroes swoop in, remove the offending
elements from our population, and offer the rest of us a chance to move forward with our
In the Ancient world, of course, the gods often played the role of these
superheroes. If one reads either the poetry of Homer or the history of Herodotus, one finds
gods earnestly intervening in human affairs so as to save one city or another from
destruction. The Iliad, for example, is littered with gods variously taking the sides of the
Greeks or the Trojans, intervening with supernatural deeds to correct wrongs and set their
people on a favorable course. Similarly, Herodotus’s Histories, written in the early 5th century
BCE, employs gods involved at various levels nudging the events of the Persian Wars in
favor of the Greeks so that they might stave off their Persian nemesis. On these accounts
embodied in Homer and Herodotus, the gods exist and they take an earnest interest in
It is worth noting that the Persian Wars with its account of intervening gods
took place not long after the long reign of the Athenian tyrant, Pisistratus. While perceived
by the masses as a benevolent tyrant, who confiscated the property of aristocrats and
redistributed it to the lower classes, he did so without the benefit of laws. He ruled by fiat or
arbitrary decree. This is the classical definition of a tyrant – someone who rules without
I am admittedly speculating here, but one cannot help but imagine, however
popular Pisistratus’s reforms might have been, there was sense of unease with this kind of
rule. Because for every popular tyrant, such as Pisistratus, there are surely many other
vicious tyrants who would instinctually abuse this arbitrary rule for personal gain. Thus, one
might reason, the need for gods to enforce limits, correct human errors and abuses, and
restore an ordered justice. A world with tyrants requires gods to step in and correct the
abuses. In this way, Herodotus’s gods are a helpful and even necessary cosmic corrective
The next great Greek historian after Herodotus was Thucydides, who
recorded the events of the Peloponnesian War. And while he was merely a generation after
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Herodotus, his history is strikingly different from his predecessor in one relevant respect: the
gods are no longer intervening. The events of this war unfold in ways that he attributes
entirely to human and other natural causes. If there were still gods, the implication, it seems
to me for our purposes, is that if anyone is to be saved, it must be us, and not the gods,
doing the saving. It is in this context that I would like us to think about the origins of the
rule of law in Ancient Athens and specifically Sophocles’s great tragedy, Antigone.
The first serious defense of the rule of law in the Western world can be found in Sophocles’s
tragedy, Antigone. Let me provide a brief recap of the plot. Antigone’s brother, Polynices,
had taken up arms against his home city of Thebes and died at the hands of his and
Antigone’s brother. The Thebian king, Creon, had decreed before this had happened that
no traitor would receive the burial rites to which all citizens were otherwise entitled. Such
corpses were to be left to the buzzards. Despite the edict, Antigone insists that she has an
obligation transcending the law – one based on family kinship and the will of the gods. She
then takes it upon herself to provide her fallen brother with burial rites all on her own, even
as her own sister reminds her that this would “violate the laws and override the fixed decree
of the throne” (72-73). Upon discovery of the illicit burial, King Creon is outraged. He
confronts Antigone, who confesses her crime, appealing above the city’s laws to “the great
primary obligations are to the city’s laws. He is also unimpressed by the defense of her
fiancée, Haemon, who happens to be Creon’s own son. As he engages Antigone and
Haemon successively, Creon grows increasingly angry and impatient, insisting that Antigone
must die for her crime. It is only when his counselor and prophet, Tiresias, warns him that
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his severity might have been carried too far that he relents. But by the time that he locates
Antigone, he finds a scene of carnage. Antigone has killed herself in anticipation of her
execution. Creon’s son, Haemon, has killed himself when discovering the loss of his fiancé.
And Creon’s wife, Eurydice, has also killed herself when discovering that she has lost her
beloved son. Creon is left alone at the conclusion, left to contemplate how everything has
gone wrong.
For audiences in the 20th and 21st centuries, Antigone is typically the most
sympathetic character. On the surface, she resembles heroes who have stood up against
unjust laws – such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Ghandi. But scholars have
noted that when the play was first produced, Creon was far more sympathetic, specifically
because of his defense of the rule of law. Creon announces his principles clearly before he
Creon’s point was clear to his Athenian audiences. If we fail to prioritize the city over
relations of blood and private friendships, the city itself is not ruled by law – it is ruled by
what we in the 21st century call “patronage.” Such a city, in Creon’s estimation, does not
long endure. Indeed, Pisistratus’s own tyrant son, Hippias, was viewed as having fickle
loyalties because of his own family connections to Persia. A rule of law establishes a fixed
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and legal equality of all citizens that provides the foundations for a functional democracy.
So when Antigone challenges the rule of law on the grounds that she has greater obligations
to her family than to her law, she is effectively challenging the very status and legitimacy of
the state itself. This is why the crime of treason merits such severe penalties.
Anarchy –
Show me a greater crime in all the earth!
She, she destroys cities, rips up houses,
Breaks the ranks of spearmen into headlong rout.
But the ones who last it out, the great mass of them
owe their lives to discipline. Therefore
we must defend the men who live by law (746-757).
Without fidelity to the rule of law, and anticipating the subsequent logic of Thomas Hobbes,
we are necessarily returned not only to patronage, but also almost certainly to anarchy – that
which “destroys cities, rips up houses,” as Creon memorably warns. The rule of law is our
superhero, our Greek god – that which prevents us from doing horrific things to one
another. And so long as it is maintained, so Creon argues, we can live among one another
Of course, Antigone is a tragedy. This is because despite the fact that Creon is right to defend
the rule of law, his power to make that law goes to his head increasingly throughout the
story. Whereas he begins with a sober defense of the rule of law, near the end he adopts the
disposition of an autocrat or tyrant. In the argument with his son, he is so angered that he
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barks, “The city is the king’s – that’s the law!” (825). Thus in the span of a few dozen pages,
Creon is transformed from a defender of the rule of law against anarchy, by the end he has
undermined the rule of law by elevating his whim to serve as the law itself. He no longer
appears bound by the laws – he stands above them. This is what makes Creon a tragic
character.
Plato was born in Athens not long after Sophocles and surely knew
Sophocles’s works, including Antigone. Although one cannot claim with certainty that he was
inspired by this work to write on politics and the law, he visits the same intellectual terrain.
His most celebrated work today, The Republic, seems to downplay the importance of laws.
While his utopian city occasionally references the laws, it is not a point of emphasis. The
Plato goes some distance to assure that his rulers will be accomplished on both dimensions –
subjecting them to an education extending for fifty years before they are able to assume high
office. But once they arrive there, he does not worry about them abusing power. They will
not become tyrants like Hippias, nor will their character decline when pushed, like Creon,
into autocratic tendencies. They are the bedrocks upon which the entire state rests. As
such, Plato is comfortable in permitting them to rule more or less by fiat – since their
intelligence and virtue assures that they will consistently make wise choices benefitting the
whole community.
confidence in the integrity of those rulers. And a frequent criticism leveled against Plato, by
people like Karl Popper, is that it is naïve to rest this degree of power in anyone’s hands.
Yet this criticism does not consider Plato’s own revisions to his political and legal theory.
Specifically, it ignores his two subsequent political dialogues – The Statesman and The Laws.
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With regard to The Statesman, Plato importantly outlines the Myth of Two Ages. The two
ages of this myth are of Cronus and Zeus respectively. In the age of Cronus, a god has spun
the earth clockwise, opposite of its normal course, which has the effect of subjecting
humankind to the political rule of the gods. Because the gods are both wise and good, they
rule without law and do so with perfectly benevolent effects. Plato describes it thus: “So it
befell that savagery was nowhere to be found nor preying of creature on creature, nor did
war rage nor any strife whatsoever.” He goes on to describe this lawless earth as a
“paradise” (Statesman, 271e). The story, however, continues with the celestial god returning
the earth back to its normal counter-clockwise rotation. This has the effect of casting the
governing gods from the earth, hence leaving humanity to run its own affairs. This is now
the Age of Zeus. At first, human beings had a good memory of how the gods were running
things before, and did their best to model their rule on what the gods had previously done.
But over time, each passing generation would forget a bit more until most of that wisdom
had been lost. At this point, the success of governments would hinge upon the limited
wisdom and virtue of humanity. And because of human limitations particularly with regard
to virtue, we would have to devise laws to which all citizens, including the rulers, would be
subject.
them, since this is a common theme among philosophers, theologians, and jurists alike. In
his Laws, a dialogue dramatically set on a walk toward the Temple of Zeus, Plato’s
interlocutors stress these limitations: “human nature is not at all capable of regulating the
human things, when it possesses autocratic authority over everything, without becoming
swollen with insolence and injustice” (Laws, 713c). Human beings are not gods. They make
mistakes. They are tempted by power, wealth, and flattery. As such, the rulers must be
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accountable in a way that neither gods nor philosopher-kings are: they must themselves be
subjected to the rule of law. In this spirit, Plato explains that while the rulers enforce the
I have now applied the term ‘servants of the laws’ to the men usually said to be
rulers, not for the sake of an innovation in names but because I hold that it is this
above all that determines whether the city survives or undergoes the opposite.
Where the law is itself ruled over and lacks sovereign authority, I see destruction at
hand for such a place. But where it is despot over the rulers and the rulers are slaves
of the law, there I foresee safety and all the good things which the gods have given
good cities (Laws, 715d).
Plato’s passage is notable for three reasons. First, this ‘sovereignty of the law’ over the rulers
is precisely what subsequent scholars and statesmen, such as John Adams, would come to
call the ‘government of law and not of man.’ Rulers are distinguished not by their ability to
inspire obedience through fear, but rather to inspire obedience with their own obedience.
Second, the passage suggests that if there is a divine element here, it is in the rule of law itself
– that is, in the ability of human beings to manage their own affairs without further
interventions by and assistance from the gods. Third, it resembles one of the most
memorable passages from the Republic, in which Plato insists, “Until philosophers rule as
kings in their cities, or those who are nowadays called kings and leading men become
genuine and adequate philosophers so that political power and philosophy become
thoroughly blended together . . . cities will have not rest from evils” (473d). Plato modifies
this doctrine in The Laws, recognizing that it is not impossibly intelligent and virtuous rulers
we need, since they do not exist, but rather that our fate rests on controlling those in power
with laws.
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4. The Limits of General Rules and the Need for Virtue
While Plato is the first great champion of the rule of law, he was also keenly aware its
limitations. I don’t want to spend too much time on this now, but I’d like to make two
quick points so that we can appreciate, at least a little, Plato’s sophistication on the rule of
law. While it is abundantly clear in the Statesman and The Laws, that the rule of law is
required for any semblance of a thriving political community, we should not assume that
pertains to the very nature of rules. They are, by their nature, general. They speak to the
usual cases. As such, they are prone to errors and exceptions in particular instances. As he
Law can never issue an injunction binding on all which really embodies what is best
for each; it cannot prescribe with perfect accuracy what is good and right for each
member of the community at any one time. The differences in human personality,
the variety of men’s activities, and the inevitable unsettlement attending all human
experience make it impossible for any art whatsoever to issue unqualified rule
holding good on all questions at all times (Statesman, 294ab).
Laws pertain to the general case. They do not speak to the exceptions that inevitably emerge
in practical living. Accepting this difficulty is a necessary feature of living without the
A second difficulty, Plato observes, is the assumption that we can solve all of
our problems with laws. In his Republic, he draws out an analogy between the sick city and
the sick person. A sick person with bad habits is constantly feeling ill. He looks for
medicines and potions to make himself feel better. Yet as soon as he treats one symptom,
another emerges. Consider the obese person. The overwhelmingly most common cause of
obesity is poor dietary and exercise habits. So what happens if we try to treat the symptoms
with drugs and surgeries? Chances are, the problems are only solved in a partial way for a
short period of time. Then the old problems return – often along with some new ones as
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well. Gastric by-pass surgery or liposuction is only good so long as the patients reform their
habits after their procedures. If they don’t, they have gotten no better, and probably a bit
worse. The same is true with the laws. Most social and political problems cannot be solved
with statutes. Laws against one variety of insider-trading will inspire the wicked to invent
new ones. Drug-testing in athletics is a hopeless way of addressing the real problem of
steroids. The clever and determined athletes will simply find new drugs and new ways of
evading detection. The best solution, argues Plato, is to give citizens a good education from
the beginning. Teach them what virtue is. Train them in good habits. Beyond this, we need
to eliminate temptations for being wicked. For Plato this meant, among other things,
prohibiting obscene wealth, eliminating private property for rulers, and teaching citizens to
value one another as siblings. These will go much further to achieving the desired effects
rather than simply passing a new law that will surely be ignored or circumvented.
The topic of this panel encourages us to think about the rule of law beyond national borders,
specifically, whether or not the United States should promote it abroad. Plato obviously
does not directly address this question, as he wasn’t even aware of the existence of our
continent! But I imagine he would surely think the rule of law anywhere to be good for
people everywhere. If the Greeks were right, the alternative to the rule of law was some
version of tyrannical or autocratic rule. This is power without limits. In this context, I want
to remind us once again of Plato’s mature thoughts about unlimited powers: “human nature
is not at all capable of regulating the human things, when it possesses autocratic authority
over everything, without becoming swollen with insolence and injustice.” When autocrats
and tyrants become “swollen with insolence and injustice,” there is no reason to assume that
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their lust for power will stop at national boundaries. They are unaccustomed to respecting
boundaries and limits. They may not even have a fully-developed concept of such notions.
As such, it seems clear that autocratic and tyrannical nations are a genuine threat to others by
their very nature. And as such, as a general principle, it seems obvious that all nations
making a good-faith effort to live under the rule of law ought to be encouraging all others to
do the same – not only for those living under autocratic rule, but for simple reasons of self-
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