On pragmatic rulers and subjugated nations
Pre-modern despots could be quite tolerant towards conquered peoples. About idols taken hostage, Roman exceptionalism, and the tolerance of Genghis Khan.
I don't want to suggest anything, but imagine yourself as a power-hungry tyrant. You started your career as a chieftain, and you gradually managed to win over other tribes. Now you are the leader of a powerful nation, but you’re still not satisfied. Your greedy eyes turn to the neighbouring country, which you would like to add to your empire. In the neighbouring country they are less keen. They prefer to have their own tyrants and chieftains, and they like to continue to worship their own gods. Suppose you succeed in subduing the neighbours militarily, how to proceed?
Over time, countless despots around the world struggled with this problem. And colonial powers also had this problem. There are some options.
Wipe out the entire population. That is a messy business, and in the end you have a piece of land, and not much else. Usually that's only an attractive option if your country is struggling with severe overpopulation itself, enough to take over the other country's economy.
Dethrone the local ruler and the local administrators and replace them with your own. The locals need to know who's in charge now, so you destroy their temples and enforce religious allegiance. The population will also have to pay taxes to you from now on. Expect considerable resistance, so heavy repression is required. For a long time, probably generations, you need a large occupying force. Because the resistance will be formidable, with civil disobedience, terror cells and perhaps a guerrilla war. That's inconvenient, because you prefer to use those troops to expand your empire even further.
You estimate which chieftains and local administrators are flexible enough. They can keep their position; you only replace the unyielding ones. You demand loyalty. The population can continue to worship its own gods, the temples remain untouched. The tax regime is lenient. Assuming skilful management, you can count on hesitant support among the local population. You can probably get by with fewer troops, and you might even be able to convince the locals to join you in the fight. But your grip on the land is not nearly as firm; loyalty remains conditional and unstable. You can never completely trust them.
There can be all sorts of good motives for toleration. The most interesting ones are ethical motives. But cultures that have not developed ethical toleration can also be tolerant. Out of pragmatism: toleration is sometimes the path of least resistance, or it simply leads to the desired result.
In this newsletter we will take a closer look at how various pre-modern empires dealt with subject nations, especially their religions. The common thread: until the advent of Christianity and Islam, religious toleration never really was a big issue. Before monotheistic religions came along, pragmatism was the norm.
Religious toleration in premodern empires
What characterises a pre-modern alien nation? Especially culture, language, religion, history, legal system and native administrators, I would say. Language, legal systems and indigenous administrators could usually be dealt with. History can hardly be tampered with. But in pre-modern empires, religion was more prominent than we can imagine. In the event of an invasion by a neighbouring empire, the controversy often centred on religion
Two Chinese sociologists, Yanfei Sun and Dingxin Zhao, have examined the religious toleration of pre-modern empires. They arrived at the following classification.
1: Religious toleration
Empires in this group had a wide variety of religions. There was no systematic suppression of any religion, and no attempts were made to impose their own religion or gods on conquered peoples:
The Achaemenids, the Persian empire founded by Cyrus the Great (550 – 330 BCE). Will be discussed in detail in this article.
The Persian Parthian empire (247 BCE – 224 CE) was religiously syncretic: Persian and Greek gods lived side by side, along with Zoroastrian priests. Jews, early Christians and Buddhists had plenty of freedom.
The Mongol Empire (1206 – 1259 CE), see below, and its continuation in China, the Yuan dynasty (1271 – 1368 CE).
2: Religious toleration, but not unlimited
This group is similar to group 1, but they set boundaries against specific religions that they perceived as undermining:
The Roman empire (5 BCE – 476 CE), see below.
The Chinese dynasties of Ming (1368 – 1644 CE) and Qing (1644 – 1912 CE) were Confucian with a strong ancestral culture. Former emperors had an almost divine status. In the Chinese empire there were all sorts of religions allowed: Buddhists, Taoists and Muslims. Catholic missionaries were also welcome, until the early 18th century when the church disapproved of imperial ancestor worship. Much was possible within Confucianism, but a limit was drawn at sects that propagated debauchery.
3. Religious toleration only in the conquered territories
The Persian empire of the Sassanids (224 – 641 CE) forms group 3. At the core of the empire, Zoroastrianism was the state religion. Rival religions were actively suppressed. But in the conquered territories, the local religions were left undisturbed, so long as they did not make a showy effort to convert others to their beliefs.
4. Selective and discriminatory religious toleration
Islamic empires, such as the Abbasids (750 – 1258), the Ottomans (1299 – 1876), and the Mughals (1526 – 1857) form group 4. There was some variation, but fundamentally, Islam was the state religion, also in conquered territories. Apostasy and heresy among Muslims was fought harshly. Other monotheistic religions could continue to exist, but with limitations and discrimination. There was no tolerance for polytheists: they were severely suppressed, and converted by force.
5. Religious oppression
And finally the Christian empires, such as the Byzantines (ca. 330 – 1453), the Carolingians (750 – 887), and the Holy Roman Empire (962 – 1806). They formed group 5, with the least religious toleration. Christianity was the state religion. Apostasy and heresy were fought harshly. Pagans were forcibly converted. Judaism was tolerated, but with more restrictions and discrimination than in the Islamic empires.
The options of premodern pragmatic toleration
Viewed along the ladder of religious toleration, two factors stand out: monotheistic religions are less tolerant than polytheists and syncretists. And missionary religions, particularly Islam and Christianity, are more likely to clash with others. In a series on religious toleration we will discuss this in more detail.
From a pragmatic point of view, it makes sense to leave the religions of conquered areas undisturbed, as the Sassanids, the Romans and the Mongols did, for example. But there is a risk that cultural integration in peripheral areas falters. If you want to establish a lasting great empire, you want to ensure the lasting loyalty of conquered provinces; conversion is a suitable means to that end.
But an expansive ruler had more options:
He could also cause division in the peripheral provinces. Divide and conquer was a motto of the father of the Greek imperialist Alexander the Great for a reason. The motto was also actively applied in the Roman Empire, which was divided into prefectures and provinces. The Romans "played" with civil rights and giving away land to maintain control over their growing empire.
Another strategy is not to force one's own culture, but to make it so attractive that citizens of subjugated nations voluntarily embrace it. The Romans were good at that.
The ruler can also cast a fine web of bureaucratic control. The slightest rebellion can then be detected and suppressed. The Chinese dynasties had good experiences with this.
Below, we will highlight religious toleration in several empires. But first we need to delve into the practice of governing an empire. What was it like to be a ruler?
The pitiful ruler
In her enjoyable book Pre-Industrial societies (1989), the Danish historian Patricia Crone described the woeful position of kings in pre-modern empires. Of course, they were absolute rulers, their will was law. They were surrounded by courtiers, sycophants, and loyal bureaucrats. Materially, they lacked nothing. For all subjects they were the symbol of the state. Everyone knew who they were, they were on coins, often they had a semi-divine status.
But the reality was less lustrous. If you wanted to get something done as a ruler, you had to be pretty sturdy.
Means of communication were excruciatingly slow. It could take weeks for a courier to deliver your orders, or for a message from an army chief or governor to reach you. In the far corners of your realm you hardly knew what was going on.
Everyone you spoke to had an agenda; there were few people you could take at their word. Many monarchs therefore travelled from place to place incessantly to gather information or to put things in order.
You couldn't do without governors to run the empire, but they could rarely be trusted. For a governor, it was a piece of cake to fool you. For that reason, a governorship was often a lucrative position: the ruler did not need to know how the governor was extorting money from the population.
The mighty dragon is no match for the local serpent who knows all the ins and outs of the place.
Chinese wisdom
Of course you levied taxes, but that didn't necessarily benefit the state treasury. Local administrators and tax officials were invariably corrupt. Military campaigns weighed heavily on the state treasury, which was mostly empty. It was not uncommon for monarchs to have payment arrears on their armies, which then went home, defected to the opponent, or plundered the money from the local population.
The monarch also had little control over the elites. The clergy, for starters. Even if the ruler nominally also had the highest religious authority, like the Islamic caliphs, the real spiritual leadership was soon snatched from them by learned clerics. Especially when a hierarchical religious organisation arose, as in the Byzantine Empire, the ruler only nominally had control over religious matters. He could apply pressure, not much more. The ruler was also legally bound on all sides. There was customary law, legislation, case law, and usually an unapproachable caste of specialised interpreters of the law.
In order to govern his empire, the monarch basically had two options: a small central administrative apparatus, which limited his grip on the empire, or a large bureaucratic body around him, whereby the staff took all decisions. The ruler generally had no idea what his bureaucrats were up to. In the later Roman Empire, for example, it happened frequently that the emperor had to declare publicly that unlawful privileges were void, even if they had been signed by himself.
The people were ignorant of all this. To the average citizen, the ruler represented total control and justice. If the subject had been wronged, a long journey to the palace was his last hope, in the expectation that the monarch would put things right when he heard about it. Although this could be a good source of information for the monarch, he generally didn't have an appetite for that. In the 13th century, a Thai ruler announced that he had:
… hung a bell in the opening of the gate over there: if any commoner in the land has a grievance which sickens his belly and gripes his heart, and which he wants to make known to his ruler and lord, it is easy; he goes and strikes the bell which the King has hung there.
Rama Gamhen, Sukhothai Inscription One (1292)
Cyrus and the Achaemenids
North of present-day Hilla, in Iraq, are the ruins of ancient Babylon. In 1879, excavations uncovered a barrel-shaped brick completely covered in Akkadian cuneiform writing. The text was deciphered. It turned out to be a statement on behalf of the Persian ruler Cyrus (ca. 600 – 530 BCE), who had conquered Babylon in 539 BCE. The brick was placed in the foundations of the city wall, near the great temple of the city, dedicated to Marduk, the national god of Babylon. They sometimes did that, placing a brick with inscriptions in the foundations of temples and palaces. It was intended as a message to the gods or to posterity, similar to our practice of laying a foundation stone.
Cyrus was ruler of the Persian Empire, which under his reign had become the largest empire in history up to that point. It stretched from the Bosphorus to the Indus. The text on the brick is a bit swaggering. Cyrus pretty much had written on the brick that Nabonidus, the previous ruler of Babylon, was a dick. Nabonidus had come to power in a coup 17 years earlier. The priests had complained about him for not paying enough honour to Marduk, and Cyrus did not fail to have it mentioned on the stone. Cyrus had been personally designated by Marduk as the rightful ruler of Babylon, he wrote.
In conquered cities it was customary in those days to announce firmly who was calling the shots. Often, the city would be sacked, the women raped, the warriors impaled, and the children and loot carried off. That's how they'd done it for centuries in Mesopotamia, and Cyrus was no exception. But in the important city of Babylon, he took a different approach. Instead of returning home with the loot, he presented himself as the new ruler who wants the best for the city. A proclamation to that effect was read. In his conquests of neighbouring cities, Nabidonus had seized idols and taken them to Babylon along with a number of citizens. They often did that there.
The theft of idols was a good practice at that time. Citizens of a city or a nation strongly identified with their gods. Mocking and insulting each other's gods was the order of the day, and was generally seen as a grave insult by the offended party.
Athtaru is a pathetic god who has no loving wife to undress him at bedtime.
– The Canaanite weather god Baal, on cuneiform text from Ugarit, KTU 1.2:III.20
If a foreign ruler took the idols with him, it was a deep and ominous humiliation: the gods could no longer devote themselves to their own people. It also offered advantages for the ruler: once in their power, the stolen gods could well make an effort for their new owner. Marduk had also been held hostage on several occasions; successively by the Hittites, the Assyrians, and the Elamites, who, according to Marduk himself, had benefited greatly from his presence. But luckily for the Babylonians, he always came back to where he belonged.
Cyrus now announced that the images could return to their own city with their worshipers. Cyrus thought that was so important that he had the message written on the brick no less than three times:
From [Shuanna] I sent back to their places to the city of Ashur and Susa, Akkad, the land of Eshnunna, the city of Zamban, the city of Meturnu, Der, as far as the border of the land of Qutu - the sanctuaries across the river Tigris - whose shrines had earlier become dilapidated, the gods who lived therein, and made permanent sanctuaries for them. I collected together all of their people and returned them to their settlements, and the gods of the land of Sumer and Akkad which Nabonidus – to the fury of the lord of the gods – had brought into Shuanna, at the command of Marduk, the great lord, I returned them unharmed to their cells, in the sanctuaries that make them happy.
— Cyrus II of Persia, on the Cyrus cylinder (c. 538 BC)
The Cyrus cylinder took on a curious life of its own after its discovery. In the Old Testament there are a number of references to Cyrus, who is described favourably in the Bible. He is said to have brought the Jewish people back from captivity to Jerusalem and helped restore the Temple of Jerusalem. You see, said 19th century believers: the Old Testament is true from cover to cover: with the Cyrus cylinder we have now found historical evidence! But unfortunately for the believers, that was judged too quickly. The existence of Cyrus is a historical fact. But we've known that for a long time. However, the stone offers no indication that Cyrus had anything to do with the Jewish people or with Jerusalem.
Not only 19th-century Christians loved the corncob-shaped brick. The Shah of Persia also took a run at it. He liked to present himself as the latest member of an enlightened dynasty that had ruled the mighty Persian Empire since Cyrus. Cyrus' fame also rubbed off on him. The translation was tampered with and a replica of the stone was presented to the United Nations in 1971. It was called the first human rights declaration, no less than 2500 years old, and from a Persian monarch!
What Cyrus had done was unusual for his time, but not really unique. Cities were often not destroyed, gods were often sent back, and the cult of the conquered city was often maintained. One might say that Cyrus was especially savvy with his PR. Nor was Cyrus's religious toleration unique to his time: native religions were usually not systematically suppressed; at most, the victor's gods were forced upon the population to be included in their cult. Not that this was taken lightly: many gods were jealous by nature, and did not appreciate it if the people started to direct attention towards their rival. Divine wrath was lurking.
Still, as much as the Cyrus cylinder was harnessed to a purpose, it remains an interesting document about a ruler who consciously chose to win over the conquered populace.
The Greek historian Xenofon (c. 430 – 355 BCE), student of Sokrates, in his book Kyrou paideia, presented Cyrus as the ideal monarch and used him to explain his own views on education, political and military matters. For historical knowledge about Cyrus the work is of little value; for that, Xenofon lacked accurate knowledge and was too much guided by wishful thinking. But the work offers a good insight into the characteristics that an exemplary ruler should have in the eyes of the Greek intelligentsia from Sokrates' circles.
Xenofon loved powerful leaders. He admired Cyrus for his drive and for his ability to build an empire. It is not mere admiration that reigns in Xenofon's hagiography; he criticises his arrogance and Cyrus's judgement sometimes let him down. Most of all, Xenofon writes admiringly of Cyrus's ability to garner support, both among his soldiers and among the nations he subjugated. He motivated soldiers mainly by allowing them to serve of their own free will, out of respect for their ruler, who rewarded virtue. He gained and retained the support of conquered monarchs by not allowing cooperative monarchs to lose face and by giving them a role in the administration of his empire. He secured the support of conquered peoples by respecting their religions and customs and rebuilding their cities according to their own traditions.
If Cyrus's toleration was inspired by Zoroastrian teachings remains to be seen. It is more likely that Cyrus found out that a great empire is easier to manage by appeasing the conquered peoples and rulers than by antagonising them. And that this insight was later taken up in Zoroastrian texts. Later you will also find traces of this in Judaist and Greek philosophy. Zoroastrianism in Cyrus' time did have a rudimentary distinction between good and evil, and of course people were encouraged to do good. But it is unclear whether the appeasing of conquered rulers and freedom of religion were part of Zoroastrian ethics at the time of Cyrus. It is even doubtful whether Cyrus himself was Zoroastrian at all; it is more likely that this monotheistic religion only came to play a major role among the Achaemenids after his death. There are (weak) indications that religious toleration in the empire declined correspondingly. Furthermore, the grip of the Achaemenid rulers was so weak, and the empire so large, that a preference for this or that god could hardly be imposed throughout the empire.
Religious toleration in the Roman empire
Before its transition to Christianity, the Roman empire was polytheistic. The Romans themselves had embraced Etruscan and Greek gods and integrated them into their religion. Also in later conquests, new gods were sometimes given a role in the Roman line-up, such as the Egyptian Isis and the Persian Mithra. After conquests, local religions were left undisturbed, although temples dedicated to Roman gods would appear here and there. Roman citizens were expected to pay tribute to the Roman gods, but sanctions were rare.
Generally, the Romans weren’t hardliners concerning foreign religions. The line was drawn against what were considered immoral or subversive cults. Celtic druids practised human sacrifice, the Dionysus cult in Italy was too dissolute. Christians refused to pay tribute to the Roman gods, they tried to proselytise Roman citizens, and with their egalitarianism they undermined the Roman class structure. That went too far for the Romans.
For many, being incorporated into the Roman Empire was not a punishment, rather the opposite. Instead of being oppressed by this or that sloppy tyrant, you were now part of a mighty empire! The empire had allure. It was tightly organised, there was rule of law and a professional armed force. Long trade routes ensured a good yield for the products of your country, and the availability of products from other regions. If you lived in a city, you could look forward to modern amenities, such as drinking water, a house with roof tiles, theatres and bathhouses. Rome had a rich culture and loved to share it. As a city dweller, you were expected to show up at Roman festivities dedicated to this or that deity. If you also wanted to continue to worship your own gods, no one would take offence (although as a Roman citizen you would have to keep that a bit discreet). As long as taxes were paid and the people were not rebellious, subject peoples had little to fear from the Romans.
An effective tool in the promotion of Roman culture was Roman citizenship, which was by no means available for everyone. Roman citizenship offered considerable advantages: one had better legal protection, one had some political say, one had to pay less tax, one had better access to education and health care, one could travel freely throughout the empire, and it gave status, including on the marriage market. But becoming a citizen wasn’t easy. The quickest way was through military service. That’s how the Roman legions were filled. Marriage to a Roman citizen was also an option. If those options were not available, you had to make sure to become prosperous and provide considerable services to the empire. Then you could befriend a ranking Roman administrator, who might intermediate into acquiring citizenship.
This model worked fine. But after a few centuries, the system got stuck. Entire libraries have been written about the causes of the decline of the Roman Empire. Let’s not get into that. But the decline had nothing to do with religious toleration or Roman exceptionalism. Either way, the faltering empire played into the hands of the rise of Christianity. The Jewish diaspora and missionary activities had already created Christian communities scattered throughout the Roman Empire. In the third century CE, the decline of the empire became palpable. Hostile tribes invaded the empire, lured by the higher living standards of the Romans, where there was a lot of plunder. Trade routes were disrupted, resulting in frequent famines. Hardships like those made Christianity more attractive, with its promise of consolation and redemption in the afterlife.
Emperors felt compelled to pull the strings. In 212 CE, emperor Caracalla had already decided to grant citizenship to all male inhabitants of the empire, mainly to fill the coffers of the empire. Religious toleration did not thrive with this measure: the Roman cult now became the norm for everyone. Christians who refused to cooperate were now actively persecuted. Against the oppression, the Christian communities grew: Christianity was now the talk of the town, and their martyrs appealed to the imagination. Members of the Roman elite also joined.
A century after Caracalla's decision, emperor Constantine crossed the Rubicon. The eroding empire had become appallingly divided. The monotheism of Christianity offered the desperate emperor a chance to restore unity to the empire. As time passed, the strings became tighter and tighter. Christianity became the state religion, and from the end of the 4th century worshipping other gods was punishable. Roman religious toleration worked fine, but it had no defence against the missionary monotheism of Christianity in its waning days.
Genghis Khan
The Mongol ruler Genghis Khan (1162 - 1227), whose real name was Temüjin, founded the largest contiguous empire in world history in terms of area. At its widest, it stretched from the Sea of Japan to the Danube. And he managed to do that in just under twenty years. Temüjin, who started out as a Mongolian chieftain, was a genius tactician. He owed his empire to a brilliant game of alliances and treachery, an efficiently built army and unparalleled logistics. Where necessary, he acted ruthlessly, for example by murdering entire cities, but that was nothing special in his time.
He preferred to let the conquered rulers sit on their thrones, provided that they submitted to his authority. Temüjin preferred administrators from the area itself. He tackled the governor problem by always putting a member of his own extended family in the vicinity. So they kept an eye on each other. Family ties counted heavily in Temüjin's world.
Characteristics of the Mongol Empire were fast trade routes and extensive cultural exchange between the conquered areas. If conquered peoples had useful technology, it was quickly adopted. Talented artists were given jobs at court. The Mongols adopted the alphabet from the Uyghurs and brought the technology of movable type printing from China. This allowed history to be recorded and legislation to be disseminated.
Mongols like Temüjin were shamanistic: a nature religion with rituals and contact with the spirit world. He had no desire to impose his religion on conquered peoples. Everyone could continue to believe what they wanted, whether they were Buddhists, Muslims, or Christians. This also applied to the monarch vassals in the empire. Priests regardless of their denomination were given a privileged status, and even religious debates among religious officials were organised. Everyone was allowed to build their own temples, and proselytism was allowed. Temüjin believed in the free play of forces, be it in technology, religion or succession issues.
As quickly as it was built, so quickly the Mongol empire crumbled. After Temüjin's death it was divided into four parts among four of his children. Family ties between the children were supposed to bring unity, but soon the four khanates started to fight each other, instead of the outsiders. The family ties and the Mongolian culture were ultimately not strong enough to keep a world empire together. It is an open question whether this would have worked better if more religious coercion had been imposed throughout the empire.
To conclude
An interesting ruler who has not been discussed here was Emperor Ashoka (c 304 – 232 BCE) of the Indian Maurya dynasty. After the usual martial life of a pre-modern ruler, he converted to Buddhism around 263 BCE. He renounced wars and focused on peace and prosperity for his country and people. It has been recorded in several edicts that he advocated toleration for all religions in his country. Yet Ashoka does not fit in, because the religious toleration he pursued seems to have been inspired by religious, ethical convictions rather than by pragmatic ones. We will be devoting a separate newsletter to Ashoka in the series about Toleration and Buddhism.
In this newsletter we have seen that pragmatic religious toleration was more or less the norm until the rise of Christianity and Islam. Forging a solid, stable global empire wasn't exactly at the top of the list of pre-modern world rulers: conquering and keeping it together was hard enough already. Exceptions to this were the Roman Empire and the Chinese dynasties. They weren't too concerned about religious diversity either: they had other ways to stabilise their empires.
Pragmatic religious toleration was largely lost when the proselytising, monotheistic religions of Christianity and Islam saw the light of day. They overran the religiously tolerant world empires and eventually took control of them. Due to their monotheistic nature, toleration for rival religions was very limited. Religious unity was an important element in their strategy to stabilise their empires.
Did the experiences of Cyrus, Temüjin and the Romans influence modern views on colonial and religious toleration? There are indications for that. Cyrus was praised by the Greeks, and the Romans certainly took notice. China claims to be indebted to Temüjin; religious toleration in the Chinese dynasties of Ming and Qing (1368 – 1912) was substantial. With considerable restrictions, a fair degree of religious freedom also applies in today's China after the cultural revolution. The experiences of the Romans certainly influenced the colonial ideas of England and France and possibly also the way the United States presents itself in the world today. The pax romana inspired the pax britannica and the pax americana. The French took a different approach, but were just as much inspired by the Romans:
Whereas the Ottomans and the Habsburgs and even the British would accept and even promote difference, for the French it seemed inconceivable that, once exposed to French culture, everyone would not wish to share in that culture to the fullest extent possible, to become, in a word, French.
– Krishan Kumar, Visions of empire: how five imperial regimes shaped the world (2017)
We will discuss European colonialism and pragmatic toleration in modernity in a short series later.
Read more?
The Cyrus Cylinder, British Museum
Philip Freeman, British imperialism and the Roman Empire, in: Jane Webster, Nick Cooper (ed.) Roman imperialism: post-colonial perspectives (1996)
Margaret Malamud, Ancient Rome and modern America (2009)
Jane Burbank, Frederick Cooper, Empires in world history. Power and the politics of difference (2010)
Bert van der Spek, Cyrus the Great, exiles and foreign gods. A comparison of Assyrian and Persian policies on subject nations. In: Michael Kozuh & al. (ed.), Extraction and control: studies in honor of Matthew W. Stolper (2014)
Miles Laval & al. (ed.), Cosmopolitanism and empire: universal rulers, local elites, and cultural integration in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean (2016)
Krishan Kumar, Visions of empire: how five imperial regimes shaped the world (2017)
Yanfei Sun, Dingxin Zhao, Religious toleration in pre-modern empires, in: Francesco Duina (red.), States and nations, power and civility: Hallsian perspectives (2019)
Marjo Korpel, Religious intolerance in the ancient Near East, in: George van Kooten, Jacques van Ruiten (red.), Intolerance, polemics, and debate in Antiquity (2019)
Jona Lendering, De Cyruscilinder, Mainzer Beobachter (2020)
This was the last episode in the series about the ancient sources of toleration. Here are the other episodes in this series:
Why we really can't know anything for sure
Classical sources of toleration, part one: epistemology and skepticism. About the doubts of Xenofanes, Plato, Sokrates, Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, Cicero. And their rediscovery in the Renaissance.
Why we need opposing views
Dialectics and free speech in classical Athens and Rome
Are our moral beliefs just illusions
Moral skepticism between classical Greece and the Enlightenment
Don't let it get to you
How our thinking about toleration is influenced by classical stoicism
Humanitas and forgiveness
Clemency and humanity as a source of toleration. About the biological tendency to forgiveness, the humanity of Cicero, the source of Jesus' forgiveness, and about repentance and retribution.
We don't owe our ideals of liberty and equality to Antiquity
Freedom and equality are quintessential in toleration. And the Greeks and Romans knew them too. But we hardly owe them this source of toleration.