The Polish Nobility’s “Golden Freedom”: On the Ancient Roots of a Political Idea

Abstract

This essay traces the Greek and Roman roots of Polish sixteenth- to eighteenth-century political thought by discussing the Polish nobility’s concept of the “Golden Freedom” (L. aurea libertas). By focusing on the Roman and the Greek concepts of liberty and the mixed constitution, it argues that the Golden Freedom, a notion central to the Polish-Lithuanian nobility’s self-identification, was based on Roman political ideals and practices that were incompatible with the political reality of the Commonwealth.

Notes

1. Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. I: The Origins to 1795, rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 246–83.

2. Andrzej Waśko, “Sarmatism or the Enlightenment: The Dilemma of Polish Culture,” The Sarmatian Review 17 (1997): 2, at http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/497/wasko.html; Andrzej Borowski, “Sarmaci w Europie—Europa w Sarmacji,” Alma Mater 35 (2001): 20–25, at http://www3.uj.edu.pl/alma/alma/35/01/08.html.

3. See, for example, Michael Crawford, The Roman Republic (London: Fontana Press, 1992), 2; and, in contrast, Andrew Lintott, “Political History, 146–95 B.C.,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 9: The Last Age of the Roman Republic 146–43 B.C., ed. J. A. Crook, Andrew Lintott, and Elizabeth Rawson, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 40–103.

4. See Chaim Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), 21–22.

5. See James Hankins, ed., Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Quentin Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 4, 10; Visions of Politics, Volume III: Hobbes and Civil Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 209–37; and Hobbes and Republican Liberty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); cf. Skinner, Visions of Politics, Volume II: Renaissance Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 10–38, 118–212. On the parallels between ancient and modern (city-)states, see Mogens Herman Hansen, Polis and City-State: An Ancient Concept and its Modern Equivalent, Symposium, 9 January 1998 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1998), and A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures: An Investigation Conducted by the Copenhagen Polis Centre (Copenhagen: Reitzels, 2000).

6. Davies, God’s Playground, 156–96; Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, “Anti-monarchism in Polish Republicanism in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, Volume I: Republicanism and Constitutionalism in Early Modern Europe, ed. M. van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 43–59, 43; and Anna Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Regina libertas. Wolność w polskiej myśli politycznej XVIII wieku (Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo słowo/obraz terytoria, 2006), 23.

7. Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Regina libertas, 76, cf. 121.

8. Stanisław Orzechowski, Policyja Królestwa Polskiego na kształt Arystotelesowych Polityk wypisana i na świat dla dobra pospolitego trzema knitami wydana, ed. Jerzy Starnawski (Przemyśl: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza w Rzeszowie, 1984).

9. Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, “Anti-monarchism,” and “Konarski – Polityk,” in Stanisław Konarski – pedagog, polityk, filozof, ed. Jadwiga Ziętarska (Warszawa: Wydział Polonistyki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2004), 71–84, 75–76.

10. Stanisław Sokołowski, “Pro vera Catholica libertate,” in Opera, t. I (Kraków 1591), 519–33; cf. Eugeniusz Jarra, Historia polskiej filozofii politycznej 966–1795 (London: Orbis, 1968), 70.

11. Szymon Starowolski, “O wolności bez swej woli,” in Reformacja obyczajów polskich (1655?), 24–29.

12. Cf. Jarra, Historia polskiej filozofii politycznej, 207–8.

13. Cf., for example, Jerzy Lukowski, “Political Ideas among the Polish Nobility in the Eighteenth Century (to 1788),” The Slavonic and East European Review 82.1 (2004): 1–26.

14. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea, 13, 18, 20–21.

15. Janet Coleman, A History of Political Thought: From Ancient Greece to Early Christianity (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), 234–38.

16. Lintott, “Political History,” 41–43, 46.

17. Livy, Books III and IV, trans. B. O. Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 148–49 (3.45.8). Unless noted otherwise, all translations from the Greek, Latin, and Polish are either those in common usage in the case of short phrases, or my translations. Cf. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea, 26, 16–17; cf. Kurt Raaflaub, The Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), 266.

18. J. A. Crook, “The Development of Roman Private Law,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, Volumr 9: The Last Age of the Roman Republic 146–43 B.C., ed. J. A. Crook, Andrew Lintott, and Elizabeth Rawson, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 531–63.

19. Cf. Coleman, History of Political Thought, 267.

20. Crawford, The Roman Republic, 1–2; Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea, 7, Raaflaub, Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece, 265–66, Coleman, History of Political Thought, 238.

21. Crawford, The Roman Republic, 1–2; cf. E. M. Atkins, “Cicero,” in The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, ed. Christopher Rowe and Malcolm Schofield (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 477–516.

22. See, for example, Raaflaub, Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece; Ryan K. Balot, Greek Political Thought (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006); Rowe and Schofield, Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought; Stephen Salkever, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); and Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea, 5.

23. Jakub Filonik, “‘Living as one wishes’ in Athens: The (Anti-)democratic Polemics” (forthcoming, 2016); cf. Coleman, History of Political Thought, 239.

24. See, for example, Raaflaub, Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece, 266ff.

25. Crawford, The Roman Republic, 182, 187.

26. CIL (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum) I² 2, 581.

27. Livy, Books XXXVIII–XXXIX, trans. Evan T. Sage (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), 268–73 (39.18).

28. Christopher Nadon, “Republicanism: Ancient, Medieval, and Beyond,” in A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought, ed. Ryan K. Balot (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2009), 529–41.

29. Cf. Robert E. Goodin, Philip Pettit, and Thomas Pogge, eds., A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, 2d ed. (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), esp. 729–35.

30. Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, Athens on Trial: The Anti-democratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994); Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Regina libertas, 22.

31. See, for example, Crawford, The Roman Republic, 2, 85, 154ff.

32. See, for example, Demosthenes, Against Meidias, Androtion, Aristocrates, Timocrates, Aristogeiton, trans. J. H. Vince (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935), 422–23 (24.75–76); Thucycides, History of the Peloponnesian War: Books I and II, trans. Charles Forster Smith (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956), 322–25 (2.37). See also Richard Mulgan, “Liberty in Ancient Greece,” in Conceptions of Liberty in Political Philosophy, ed. Zbigniew Pelczynski and John Gray (London: The Athlone Press, 1984), 7–26. See also Filonik, “Living as one wishes.”

33. See, for example, Aristotle, Politics, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 504–7 (1319b.1–32, VI, 9–12); Plato, The Republic: Books VI-X, trans. Paul Shorey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942), 298–99 (560d–e). See also Filonik, “Living as one wishes.”

34. See Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea, 8, 13; cf. Roberts, Athens on Trial, 97ff.

35. Robert W. Wallace, “Personal Freedom in Greek Democracies, Republican Rome, and Modern Liberal States,” in Balot, Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought, 164–77.

36. See, for example, Raaflaub, Discovery of Freedom in Ancient Greece.

37. Roberts, Athens on Trial, 97–118, 158–61.

38. See Jonas Grethlein, The Greeks and Their Past: Poetry, Oratory and History in the Fifth Century BCE (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

39. Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Regina libertas, 55.

40. Cf. Goodin, Pettit, and Pogge, Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, 729–35, 842–51, passim; Salkever, Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Political Thought, 271–300. For an overview of modern studies of the history of republicanism, see William J. Connell, “The Republican Idea,” in Hankins, Renaissance Civic Humanism, 14–29, Knud Haakonssen, “Republicanism,” in Goodin, Pettit, and Pogge, Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, 729–35, Nadon, “Republicanism.”

41. See, for example, “The Dream of Scipio,” in Cicero, On the Republic, On the Laws, trans. Clinton W. Keyes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928), 260–83 (Rep. 6.9-29). Cf. Coleman, History of Political Thought, 276–80.

42. For a brief overview of these debates, see Chandran Kukathas, “Liberty,” in Goodin, Pettit, and Pogge, Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, 685–98, 694–96. For the debate on Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between negative and positive freedom, see Charles Taylor, “What’s Wrong with Negative Liberty,” in The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin, ed. Alan Ryan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 175–93; John Gray, “On Negative and Positive Liberty,” in Pelczynski and Gray, Conceptions of Liberty in Political Philosophy, 321–48 (originally published in 1980 in Political Studies 28); and Gerald C. MacCallum Jr., “Negative and Positive Freedom,” in Liberty, ed. David Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 100–122.

43. Cicero, Pro Quinctio, Pro Roscio Amerino, Pro Roscio Comoedo, On the Agrarian Law, trans. J. H. Freese (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930), 480–81 (2.102: libertas in legibus [consistit]).

44. Cicero, Pro Lege Manilia, Pro Caecina, Pro Cluentio, Pro Rabirio Perduellionis Reo, trans. H. Grose Hodge (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927), 378–79 (Clu. 146: legum… omnes servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus).

45. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (1690), ed. Richard H. Cox (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson 1982), 34 (6.57).

46. Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Regina libertas, 85ff., 101–2.

47. Wawrzyniec Goślicki, De optimo senatore libri duo (Venice 1568), 10–12.

48. Aaron Alexander Olizarovius, De politica hominum societate libri tres (Gdańsk 1651), 152–59, 144–46, 198–99.

49. Andrzej Maksymilian Fredro, “Responsum in gratiam cujusdam sermonis privati, bonone fiat Reipublicae Polonae, ubi non pluralitas vocum, verum consensus ponderatur,” in Scriptorum seu togae et belli notationum (Gdańsk 1660), 181–91.

50. See Pisma polityczne z czasów rokoszu zebrzydowskiego 1606–1608, t. II: Proza, ed. J. Czubek (Kraków 1918), 403–9.

51. Aristotle, Politics, 320ff., 108ff., 204ff. (1294b.13ff., 1266a.26ff., 1279a.21ff.) et al.; cf. Christopher Rowe, “Aristotelian Constitutions,” in Rowe and Schofield, Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, 366–89. See, for example, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), 488ff. (1160a31ff.).

52. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 488ff. (1160a31ff.); Aristotle, Politics, 326–35 (1295b–96a).

53. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 4–7 (1094a26ff.); Politics, 96f. (1264b17ff.); cf. Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, “Justice and the Polis,” in Rowe and Schofield, Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, 344–65.

54. Cf. Wallace, “Personal Freedom in Greek Democracies, Republican Rome, and Modern Liberal States,” 191ff. See Polybius, The Histories: Volume I, trans. W. R. Paton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1922), 2–5 (1.1.5), Volume II, 2–3 (3.1.4), Volume III (1923), 268–69, 292–93 (6.2.3, 6.10.11).

55. Coleman, History of Political Thought, 232. Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Regina libertas, 27–28.

56. See “The Dream of Scipio,” in Cicero’s Republic (see n. 41 above); cf. Coleman, History of Political Thought, 276–80.

57. Cf. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea, 79–87.

58. See Aristotle, Politics, 8–9 (1252b.29–53a.1); cf. Nicomachean Ethics, passim; cf. Rowe, “Aristotelian Constitutions,” 372.

59. See, for example, On the Republic, 70–71, 102–5 (1.45, 1.69). Cf. e.g. On the Republic, 104–7, 166–69 (1.70, 2.56); cf. On the Laws, 398–99 (2.23).

60. On the Republic, 78–81 (1.52); cf. Atkins, “Cicero,” 490; see also n. 59 above.

61. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea, 80–83; cf. Coleman, History of Political Thought, 285–86.

62. Cf. Coleman, History of Political Thought, 279, 286.

63. Gr. eleutheria and isonomia, cf. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea, 9–12; see Cicero, On the Republic, 70–73 (1.47), cf. Livy, Books III and IV, 104–5, 30–35 (3.31.7, 3.9).

64. Cf. Cicero, On the Republic, 66–69 (1.43), Livy, Books III and IV, 188–89 (3.56.10); an idea which was already prevalent in Greek thinking.

65. See Sallust, The War with Catiline, The War with Jugurtha, trans. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 30ff. (Cat. 7ff.).

66. Atkins, “Cicero,” 481.

67. Cf. Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, Regina libertas, 32, 256.

68. See Livy, Books I and II, trans. B. O. Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 60–61, 208–19 (1.17.3, 1.60.3–2.1.2). See Stanisław Śnieżewski, “Libertas w dziele Liwiusza. Płaszczyzna prawno-socjalna i polityczna,” Prace Komisji Filologii Klasycznej PAU 27 (1998): 55–88 (with extensive notes).

69. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea, 160.

70. Tacitus, Histories: Books 4–5, Annals: Books 1–3, trans. Clifford H. Moore, John Jackson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931), 242–45 (Ann. 1.1.1–2); cf. Histories: Books 1-3, trans. Clifford H. Moore (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), 30–33 (1.16).

71. Jakub Pigoń, W kręgu pojęć politycznych Tacyta: libertas – moderatio (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1994), 30ff., 80ff.

72. Tacitus, Agricola, Germania, Dialogue on Oratory, trans. M. Hutton, W. Peterson, rev. R. M. Ogilvie, E. H. Warmington, Michael Winterbottom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), 104–7 (Agr. 42).

73. Cf. Tacitus, Dialogue on Oratory, 340–45 (40).

74. Cf. Roberts, Athens on Trial, 158.

75. Cf. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea, 136–37, 163.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Science Centre, Poland [grant number DEC-2012/07/N/HS2/00967].