The Phoenicians and the Origins of Collective Rule in Archaic Greece

Vanderkloet, Jacob Deboer

The Phoenicians and the Origins of Collective Rule in Archaic Greece

dc.contributor.advisor	Cassis, Marica
dc.contributor.advisor	Pownall, Frances
dc.contributor.author	Vanderkloet, Jacob Deboer
dc.contributor.committeemember	Bertolin-Cebrian, Reyes
dc.contributor.committeemember	Goldstein, Joshua
dc.date	2024-02
dc.date.accessioned	2023-12-18T18:04:50Z
dc.date.available	2023-12-18T18:04:50Z
dc.date.issued	2023-12-11
dc.description.abstract	Over the last few centuries, the ancient Greeks and their systems of government have been held in high esteem as they are routinely treated as the direct precursors to modern western democracies. For example, the contemporary historian Wilfried Nippel writes: Nowadays democracy is an unambiguously positive norm… it is a reminder of the great Athenian experiment and invites comparison with the inventers of this order. Athens remains contemporary… it is seen as a flame pointing to the future that has warmed the hearts of countless numbers of men and women striving for autonomy and self-determination. While such statements remain common in modern scholarship and political discourse, researchers rarely seem to consider whether the Greeks and their political institutions were truly unique in antiquity or if other people were also developing broad-based governments at around this time. My research here intends to challenge some of these Hellenocentric oversights by demonstrating that the Phoenicians were another Mediterranean civilization in antiquity that developed broad-based oligarchical governments. In fact, my thesis will demonstrate that the trend of establishing broader, more collective systems of rule appears to have begun several centuries earlier among the Phoenicians than the Greeks. From this, I will argue that the origins of broad-based non-monarchical forms of government lie, not with the ancient Greeks and the institutions they developed over the course of the Archaic Period, but with the Phoenicians and the governments that existed in their city-states from as far back as the late Bronze Age. I will also argue that because the Phoenicians began this process of broadening their governments earlier, had political systems that were quite similar to the ancient Greeks’, and were in constant contact with the Hellenes at this time, perhaps the Phoenicians and their governments in some ways inspired the political developments of the Archaic Period. By doing so, I will advocate that modern researchers should perhaps focus less on the ancient Greeks and more on the Phoenicians when discussing the origins of democracy, or at the very least, concede that the history of broad-based governments is far older and more complicated than is generally assumed.
dc.identifier.citation	Vanderkloet, J. D. (2023). The Phoenicians and the origins of collective rule in Archaic Greece (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1880/117718
dc.identifier.uri	https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/42561
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher.faculty	Graduate Studies
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject.classification	History--Ancient
dc.title	The Phoenicians and the Origins of Collective Rule in Archaic Greece
dc.type	master thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Greek & Roman Studies
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Master of Arts (MA)
ucalgary.thesis.accesssetbystudent	I do not require a thesis withhold – my thesis will have open access and can be viewed and downloaded publicly as soon as possible.