There are many people who trace the concept of equality back to the ancient Greeks. But when you examine their concept of equality, you can see it was no such thing in practice:

“When it comes to discussing the origins of the concept of structuring society along the lines of equality Creveld takes us to ancient Greece. Greece is famous for its attempt to establish egalitarian societies. But while equality was an idea that the Greeks toyed with, it is something they never really achieved, in fact they did not even come close. For example, we are told of Agamemnon, a King during the time of the Illiad, that his “tents are full of copper and many choice captive women.” And while the city states of the classical period gave the population more rights and more of a say in the decisions of the city, they did not enfranchise the slaves, or the women, or even other Greeks. The Greeks may have invented democracy, but they did not really achieve equality. Let’s have a look at the two most notable attempts to do so, in the city states of Sparta and Athens.

The Spartan way of life was based on an extreme, almost monkish, form of equality among the Spartan warrior class; the Spartiates. From the age of seven to the grave their life was one of frugal living, devoted to military pursuits, and based on a harsh form of enforced equality.

“Such was the importance Lycurgus attributed to equality that it applied even to death. Not only did he prohibit any kind of objects to be buried with their owners, but tombs were not supposed to carry the names of their occupants. The only exceptions to this rule were men who had been killed in battle and women who had died in childbirth.”^[1]

I love that the Spartans regarded mothers as honourable as warriors, but, as with all other attempts at establishing a society based on equality, Sparta never really reached its goals:

“In all this, the major deviations from equality were the fact that private individuals could not speak in the assembly; that only old men could be elected to the Senate; and that the kingship was hereditary and limited to members of just two families, the Agiads and the Eurypontids. When somebody asked Lycurgus about this his response, presented as a typical example of “Laconian” brevity and pungency, was to tell the man to ‘go and first establish democracy in your own household.’”^[2]

Even the supposed lifestyle of frugal and brutal equality that the Spartan men enjoyed, if ‘enjoyed’ is the right word, rested on the massive slave labour force they were able to bring to bear to maintain their society. While the helots, the Spartan slave labourers, toiled in the fields, and the perioikoi toiled in the house, the Spartan men could dedicate themselves to military training.^[3] There is also their famous and disgusting treatment of infants they considered not “equal” enough, which were either killed or raised as slaves. Spartan equality really was not a form of equality at all, but a monkish military elitism, that placed one class of men much higher than everyone else on the hierarchy.

Athens, is the other notable example of pretensions of equality in the ancient world. Under a leader called Solon, the Athenians began to propose the idea of equality before the law, isonomia, even at one point setting all Athenians free from debts and servitude, in an attempt to bring more equality to the Athenian people.

“The move did not mean that slavery was abolished. Both Athenian individuals and the state could, and would, continue to own slaves. What changed was the fact that the slaves in question could not be Athenian citizens. From this point on, in other words, all Athenian citizens were, by definition, free.”^[4]

But even these free and “equal” citizens were not really equal. The Athenian people were separated into different classes by Solon, based on wealth and status, with only people of certain ranks being allowed to enter respective positions of power.^[5] Indeed, “…some modern historians have argued that, at this time, isonomia meant no more than equality among aristocrats.”^[6] Then, as now it seems, the elites used cries of “equality, liberty, fraternity” to gain more power for themselves, or to put it another way; equality for some but not for others.”

As you can see, the Greek concept of equality was really a form of elitism dressed up as equality. In reality, it was no form of equality at all, but was a system designed to maintain the absolute power of a small group of men, for their benefit, and what they may or may not have believed was best for their city or people as a whole.

Many philosophers and democracy advocates look back to the Greeks as the philosophical foundation of modern egalitarianism. Which you can really only do if you don’t honestly evaluate the way the Greeks actually structured their societies. Though modern elites do use equality as a pretext to secure power for a small group of which they are the beneficiaries, so there is that similarity.

In contrast with this mindset is that of the medieval jurists, whom I much prefer. Rather than being obsessed with equality,

“Medieval minds were fascinated, captivated by an alternate vision – the vision of hierarchy. In real life they were ruled by hierarchies of government in church and state. But beyond this they perceived the whole universe as a great hierarchal chain of being. From God authority flowed to an angelical hierarchy in heaven to an ecclesiastical hierarchy on earth…To medieval men, divinely ordained hierarchy seemed, not just an abstract theory, but an observable fact of nature.”^[7]

This most certainly is an observable fact of nature. Everywhere we go, amongst people or creatures great and small, we observe hierarchies in action, they are unavoidable. This is not an argument for absolute tyranny either. The medieval thinkers were onto something when they sought to establish God given or natural rights, and limits and responsibilities of power. There is much good in their arguments there, and we would be foolish to reject all of the grand nobility of medieval thought, just because we are quibbling with one very minor aspect of it. Chaucer captures the medieval understanding of why God ordained hierarchy, and shows us why it is a noble aspect of the world that should be preserved, not rejected,

“Now, as I have said, since it was because sin was the first cause of thralldom, then it stands thus: that all the while all the world was in sin, it was in thralldom and subjection. But certainly, since the time of grace came, God ordained that some folk should be higher in rank and state and some folk lower, and that each should be served according to his rank and his state… but in as much as the estate of Holy Church might not have come into being, nor the common advantage kept, nor any peace and rest established on earth, unless God had ordained that some men should have higher rank and some lower: therefore was sovereignty ordained to guard and maintain and defend its underlings or its subjects within reason and so far as lies in its power, and not to destroy or to confound them.”^[8]

The Greeks used the rhetoric of equality to justify a small segment of society holding all of the power. If this sounds familiar, it is because this is very much what modern elites do, as we noted above. They make pretensions of equality, but in reality, they are seeking to maintain their own positions of power and authority for their own benefit.

In contrast, the medievalists are open and honest about their preference for hierarchy, but they see in hierarchy both the image of God and the genius of God. God has ordained the strong that they may defend the weak, and he has ordained that we should honour those who are over us. Give honour to whom it is due, as Paul would say. It is not an accident that in hell no one is honoured.

Both the Greek and Medieval systems were hierarchies in practice. But the medievalist system is far more honest and open about hierarchy, puts forward the good reasons for hierarchy, and outlines why the powerful have to use their power for just ways. They may not have always done this in practice, no society is perfect, but at least the philosophy of the medievalists was that all people exist under God and will be judged by him for how we use our power. So, don’t deny power, but use it justly.

But this is also why it was the medievalists who developed the idea of human or natural rights, because these rights flowed out of the network of responsibilities connected to the roles people had in the hierarchy. Greek equality could not lay such a foundation. It did make use of slaves, though, of course. Notice how our modern egalitarian cultures are always chasing cheap foreign labour? That’s not a coincidence. The people at the top feel no loyalty to the people below. Whereas, a medieval Lord had a God given role to protect his charges. Many leaders took it seriously. And no, peasants were not slaves. They had rights.

We live in an age which despises hierarchy. To some degree we are all affected by this. Especially here in Australia, but also in other parts of the West. But the world was created to be hierarchical, any claims to the contrary are simply dishonest. Hierarchy is both observed and also a necessity for a healthy society. We should look more and more to the medievalists, we might learn some important things.

(Both large blocks of quotes in this article come from a new book I am writing).

[1] Van Creveld, Martin, 2015. Equality: The Impossible Quest. Castalia House, Finland. Kindle Edition. Chapter 2

[2] Ibid. Chapter 2.

[3] Ibid. Chapter 2.

[4] Ibid. Chapter 2.

[5] Ibid. Chapter 2.

[6] Ibid. Chapter 2.

[7] Tierney, Brian, 1982. Religion, Law and the Growth of Constitutional Thought, Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge; Pp42-43.

[8] Chaucer, Geoffrey, 2017, The Canterbury Tales, JKL Classics Publishers, Kindle Edition; p516