Reference no: EM133228612

How has Greek warfare--especially the role of the hoplite--played a role in politics up to this point? Compare this to either the Assyrians or the Egyptians.

Excerpt from Aristotle's Politics (Book 5, part 11)

...These are, (1) the humiliation of his subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will not conspire against anybody; (2) the creation of mistrust among them; for a tyrant is not overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another; ... (3) the tyrant desires that his subjects shall be incapable of action, for no one attempts what is impossible, and they will not attempt to overthrow a tyranny, if they are powerless. It is in a tyrant's interests to impoverish those he governs, so that he can afford to keep his bodyguard and so that the people are so busy with their daily lives that they have no time for plotting. An example is the pyramids of Egypt and the dedications of the Kypselids and the construction of the temple of Olympian Zeus by the Peisistratidai, and the works on Samos owed to Polykrates (for all these achieved the same, the lack of leisure and impoverishment of their subjects); another method is the payment of taxes, as at Syracuse (for in five years under Dionysios the whole value of property there was paid in). The tyrant is also an instigator of wars, as this keeps his subjects busy and continuously in need of a leader. And while kingship is preserved through friends, the policy of a tyrant is especially to distrust friends, as, what all men want, these in particular have the ability to put into practice.