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Document Details : Title: Augustine's Pirate Subtitle: The Conception of King and Bandit in Greek and Roman Political Philosophy Author(s): BEEK, Aaron L. Journal: Latomus Volume: 81 Issue: 2 Date: 2022 Pages: 298-319 DOI: 10.2143/LAT.81.2.3291088 Abstract : A commonly quoted quip about piracy in Augustine’s City of God has had great impact on how we perceive both pirates and monarchs. This piece aims to show this dichotomy in earlier Greek and Roman writers and reflects that Augustine’s relative comfort with monarchy may be well more in line with Cicero’s Hellenistic Greek sources than they were with the ideas of Cicero himself. This is because the representation of kings and bandits as opposites was an argument for royal legitimacy in the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean, but in Republican Rome, kings were set as equals to bandits to prove their lack of legitimacy. |
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