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Article

French

ID: <

10.3406/ktema.1991.2043

>

·

DOI: <

10.3406/ktema.1991.2043

>

Where these data come from
Kidney and tyrans at Nicolas de Damascus

Abstract

Kings and tyrans in Nicolaus Damascenus’ works. Nicolaus Damascenus’ political language shows how much this historian, writing in the 1st century, tries to give of any political power he describes a figure consonant with the hellenistic monarchy. In the first part of his Universal History, Assyrian and Persian subjects using the word δεσπότης lay stress on their profession of personal allegiance to the King ; in the opposite, βασιλεύς is reserved for objective narration. In the stories about Archaic Greece, the distinction between the alternative words βασιλεύς and τύραννος does not follow its classical meaning : for Nicolaus, everyone holding power with legitimacy and popularity is a βασιλεύς, while any unpopular king is called a τύραννος, even if he is not a usurper. By this political définition, the archaic βασιλεύς καταθύμιος becomes the hellenistic βασιλεύς ευεργέτης’ predecessor. The Βίος Καίσαρος keeps the same distinction, but the antithesis between άρχή and δυναστεία takes the place of βασιλεύς / τύραννος : αρχή means Caesar’s lawful power being handed over to Octavianus, while δυναστεία is used about conspirators and Antony’s lust for power. So, in spite of the dissimilar matters he is writing about, Nicolaus Damascenus carries on building a coherent system of language, in which the hellenistic βασιλεύς εύεργέτης is reflected back by the Persian monarchy, the Greek tyranny and the Roman principate.

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