Nicosia symposium traces despotism from classical Athens to Montesquieu and Hume on 4 November

An international symposium on despotism, from the Greek city-states to the twentieth century, meets at the University of Cyprus on Wednesday 4 November 2026 from 10.00. "Rethinking Despotism: Classical Antiquity and Its Afterlives" is organised by the Cyprus Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts, through its Research Unit on the Reception of Greco-Roman Antiquity, with the university's Department of Social and Political Sciences. According to the Academy's announcement, anyone interested may attend.

The programme

After a welcome at 10.00, six papers fill two sessions, with a coffee break at 12.10 and the last paper ending at 14.30. Kyriakos Demetriou (University of Cyprus and Cyprus Academy) chairs the first. Christos Kyriacou (University of Cyprus) opens with Spinoza on natural rights and democracy. Hugo Toudic (Sorbonne University) argues that Montesquieu, in The Spirit of the Laws, moved the source of corruption out of the ruler's character, where the ancient idea of tyranny had put it, and into the structure of the regime itself. Mikko Tolonen (University of Helsinki) follows how eighteenth-century British and American writing on monarchy drew on ancient authors, tracing reused passages by Mandeville, Hume, John Adams and Adam Ferguson through large digital collections of printed books.

Spyros Tegos (University of Crete) chairs the second session. Tamás Demeter (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) speaks on Hume's argument that absolute government stifles curiosity and science, and on his explanation of why philosophy arose among the Greeks, as against the Persians. Filimon Peonidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) turns to classical Athens. The word δεσποτισμός (despotism) does not occur in the Greek texts that survive, so he proposes a definition an Athenian democrat could have accepted: subjection to one ruler or a group of rulers who govern by their own interest and their own judgement. Panagiotis Christias (University of Cyprus) closes with the exchange between Leo Strauss and Alexandre Kojève over whether a philosopher should advise a tyrant.

The programme, with a summary of each paper, is on the Academy's site.

Evagoras of Salamis and the Persian king

No paper on the programme is about Cyprus. The master-and-slave language behind the word despot does appear in a Classical episode of the island's history. Diodorus Siculus records the peace that ended the Persian war against Evagoras I, king of Salamis, probably in 381 BCE. The Persian commander Tiribazus required Evagoras to obey the Great King as a slave obeys a master. Evagoras accepted every other condition but refused that one, offering to submit as a king to a king. Under the next commander, Orontes, the settlement was made on his terms: he kept Salamis, paid the yearly tribute and obeyed the king's orders as a king [1, p. 436]. The Persian background is set out under the Cypro-Classical period.