{{Short description|Equality of law}} {{redirect|Isonomy|the Thoroughbred horse|Isonomy (horse)}} {{distinguish|Insomnia}} {{primary sources|date=August 2018}} {{italic title}} '''''Isonomia''''' also '''''isonomy''''' (ἰσονομία "equality of political rights,"<ref name=henry>{{cite book |author1= Liddell, Henry George |author1-link= Henry George Liddell |author2= Scott, Robert |author2-link= Robert Scott (philologist) |title= A Greek - English Lexicon |place= Oxford |publisher= Clarendon Press |year= 1992 |url= https://archive.org/details/greekenglishlexi0000lidd_y0v2/page/n5/mode/2up |page=[https://archive.org/details/greekenglishlexi0000lidd_y0v2/page/838/mode/2up?view=theater 838] |url-access= registration |via= Internet Archive}}</ref><ref name=MorgenIsonomia>The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes", Mogens Herman Hansen, {{ISBN|1-85399-585-1}}, p. 81-84</ref> from the Greek ἴσος ''isos'', "equal," and νόμος ''nomos'', "usage, custom, law,"<ref name=henry />) is a word that means equality before the law.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia | encyclopedia=Oxford English Dictionary third edition |title=isonomy |url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/isonomy_n?tab=factsheet#40489329 |access-date=15 July 2025| date=December 2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia | encyclopedia=Merriam Webster Dictionary |title=isonomy |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/isonomy |access-date=15 July 2025| date= 2003 |edition = 11th |publisher=}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |chapter= s.v. isonomy |title= The Oxford English Dictionary: Being a Corrected Re-Issue of with An Introduction, Supplement and Bibliography of a New English Dictionary on Historical Principles |volume= 5 H-K |year= 1913 |place= Oxford |publisher= Clarendon Press |url= https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.99995/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater |page= [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.99995/page/n1033/mode/2up?view=theater 509] |via= Internet Archive |accessdate= 15 July 2025}}</ref> It was a word used by ancient Greek writers such as Herodotus<ref name=Herodotus3.80>Herodotus 3.80; {{cite book |author= |title= Herodotus, Books III and IV (Loeb Classical Library) |translator= Godley, A. D. |translator-link= A. D. Godley |volume= 2 |place=Cambridge, MA and London |publisher= Harvard University Press and Heinemann |year= 1921 |url= https://archive.org/details/herodotus-i-loeb/Herodotus%20II%20Loeb/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater |page=[https://archive.org/details/herodotus-i-loeb/Herodotus%20II%20Loeb/page/106/mode/2up?view=theater 106] |accessdate= 17 July 2025 |via = Internet Archive}}</ref> and Thucydides<ref>Thucydides 3.82.8, 4.78; {{cite book |author= Thucydides |title= History of the Peloponnesian War in Four Volumes; Books III and IV (Loeb Classical Library) |volume=2 |place= Cambridge, MA and London |publisher= Harvard University Press and William Heinemann |translator= Smith, Charles Forster |translator-link= Charles Forster Smith |year= 1920 |url=https://archive.org/details/thucydideswithen02thuc/page/n9/mode/2up?view=theater |page= [https://archive.org/details/thucydideswithen02thuc/page/146/mode/2up?view=theater 146] |accessdate= 17 July 2025}}</ref> to refer to some kind of popular government.<ref>{{cite web |author=Rhodes, P. J. |author-link= P.J. Rhodes |title= isonomia, 'equality of law' |date= 2015 |publisher= Oxford Classical Dictionary |url= https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.3347 |doi = 10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.3347 |accessdate= 18 July 2025}}</ref> It was subsequently eclipsed until brought back into English as '''isonomy''' ("equality of law"). Economist Friedrich Hayek attempted to popularize the term in his book ''The Constitution of Liberty'' and argued that a better understanding of isonomy, as used by the Greeks, defines the term to mean "the equal application of the laws to all."<ref>{{cite book |author= Hayek, F.A. |author-link= F.A. Hayek |title= The Constitution of Liberty |url= https://archive.org/details/constitutionofli00frie/page/n3/mode/2up |url-access= registration|pages= 164-165 |publisher= The University of Chicago Press |year= 1960 |place= Chicago}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author= Hayek, F.A. |author-link= F.A. Hayek |title= The Constitution of Liberty - The Definitive Edition; The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume XVII |url= https://archive.org/details/TheConstitutionOfLiberty/page/n3/mode/2up |url-access= |pages= [https://archive.org/details/TheConstitutionOfLiberty/page/n249/mode/2up 238]-239 |editor= Hamowy, Ronald |editor-link= Ronald Hamowy |publisher= The University of Chicago Press |year= 2011 |place= Chicago |via= Internet Archive}}</ref>
==Ancient usage== Mogens Herman Hansen has argued that, although often translated as "equality of law," ''isonomia'' was in fact something else.<ref name=MorgenIsonomia /> Along with ''isonomia'', the Athenians used several terms for equality<ref name=MorgenIsonomia /> all compounds beginning with ''iso-'': ''isegoria''<ref>Demosthenes 15.18</ref> (equal right to address the political assemblies), ''isopsephos polis''<ref>Euripides, The Suppliant Woman, 353. Ste Croix (1981) 285</ref> (one man one vote) and ''isokratia''<ref>Herodotus 5.92</ref> (equality of power).
When Herodotus invents a debate among the Persians over what sort of government they should have, he has Otanes speak in favor of ''isonomia'' when, based on his description of it, we might expect him to call the form of government he favors "democracy."
<blockquote>The rule of the people has the fairest name of all, equality (''isonomia''), and does none of the things that a monarch does. The lot determines offices, power is held accountable, and deliberation is conducted in public.<ref name=Herodotus3.80 /></blockquote>
Thucydides used ''isonomia'' as an alternative to dynastic oligarchy<ref>Thucydides 4.78</ref> and moderate aristocracy.<ref>Thucydides 3.82</ref> In time the word ceased to refer to a particular political regime; Plato uses it to refer to simply equal rights<ref>Plato, ''Republic'' 563b</ref> and Aristotle does not use the word at all.<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/searchresults?target=greek&inContent=true&q=%E1%BC%B0%CF%83%CE%BF%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%BC&doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0057&expand=yes Perseus Project search]</ref>
Ancient Greek philosophy linked to ''isonomía'' with ''isegoria'' (prior equality in determining principles of law) and ''isocratía'' (equality in subsequent governance or application of law)<ref>[https://cibernous.com/ Spanish Ministry of Education resources website / Plato]</ref>
==Medical usage== 'Isonomia' was also used in Hellenic times by Pythagorean physicians, such as Alkmaeon, who used it to refer to the balance or equality of those opposite pairs of hot/cold, wet/dry and bitterness/sweetness that maintained the health of the body. Thus:
<blockquote>Alkmaeon said that the equality (''isonomia'') of the powers (wet, dry, cold, hot, bitter, sweet, etc.) maintains health, but that monarchy [one overruling] among them produces disease.<ref>Fragment 4.</ref><ref>{{cite book |title= Early Greek Philosophy, Volume V; Western Greek Thinkers, Part 2 (Loeb Classical Library) |editor1= Laks, André |editor2= Most, Glenn W. |place= Cambridge, MA |publisher= Harvard University Press |year= 2016 |page= 763}}</ref></blockquote>
==Later use==
According to economist and political theorist Friedrich Hayek, ''isonomia'' was championed by the Roman Cicero<ref name=Hayek>{{cite book |author= Hayek, F. A. |author-link= F. A. Hayek |chapter=The Origins of the Rule of Law |title= Constitution of Liberty |place=Chicago |year= 1960 |publisher= The University of Chicago Press |pages= 166-167 |chapter-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20010211045214/http://lamar.colostate.edu/~grjan/hayekrulelaw.html |url=https://archive.org/details/constitutionofli00frie/page/n3/mode/2up |url-access=registration |via= Internet Archive}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author= Hayek, F.A. |author-link= F.A. Hayek |chapter = The Origins of the Rule of Law |chapter-url= https://archive.org/details/TheConstitutionOfLiberty/page/n243/mode/2up|title= The Constitution of Liberty - The Definitive Edition; The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume XVII |url= https://archive.org/details/TheConstitutionOfLiberty/page/n3/mode/2up |url-access= |pages= 232-260 |editor= Hamowy, Ronald |editor-link= Ronald Hamowy |publisher= The University of Chicago Press |year= 2011 |place= Chicago |via= Internet Archive}}</ref> and "rediscovered" in the eleventh century AD by the law students of Bologna who he says are credited with founding much of the Western legal tradition.
''Isonomia'' was imported into the English language from Italian at the end of the sixteenth century as a word meaning "equality of laws to all manner of persons".<ref>{{cite book |author = Florio, John | author-link = John Florio |title= A Worlde of Wordes, or Dictionarie of the Italian and English tongues |place= London |year= 1598 |publisher= Arnold Hatfield for Edw. Blount |url= https://archive.org/details/worldeofwordesor00flor/page/n13/mode/2up?view=theater |accessdate= 13 July 2025 |page = [https://archive.org/details/worldeofwordesor00flor/page/194/mode/2up 194] |via= Internet Archive}}; {{cite book |title= Queen Anna's New World of Words, or Dictionarie of the Italian and English tongues, Collected, and newly much augmented by Iohn Florio, Reader in Italian of the Soueraigne Maiestie of Anna ... |place= London |publisher= Melch, Bradwood, for Edw. Blout and William Barres |year= 1611|url=https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_queen-annas-new-world-of_florio-giovanni_1611/mode/2up |accessdate= 17 July 2025 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_queen-annas-new-world-of_florio-giovanni_1611/page/270/mode/2up 271] |via= Internet Archive}}</ref><ref name=Hayek /> Soon after, it was used by the translator of Livy Philemon Holland in the form "Isonomy" - which term Livy himself did not use<ref>{{cite book |title= Livy in Fourteen volumes (Loeb Classical Library) |volume= II (Books III and IV) |translator= Foster, B.O. |translator-link= Benjamin Oliver Foster |place= Cambridge, MA and London |publisher= Harvard University Press and Heinemann |year= 1922 |url= https://archive.org/details/livy0002unse/page/n7/mode/2up |page= [https://archive.org/details/livy0002unse/page/130/mode/2up?view=theater III.XXXIX.8 - page 130] |accessdate= 17 July 2025 |via= Internet Archive}}</ref> - to describe a state of equal laws for all and responsibility of the magistrates.<ref>{{cite book |url= https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A06128.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext |title= The Romane historie vvritten by T. Livius of Padua. Also, the Breviaries of L. Florus: with a chronologie to the whole historie: and the Topographie of Rome in old time. Translated out of Latine into English, by Philemon Holland, Doctor in Physicke |place= London |publisher= Adam Islip |year= 1600 |accessdate= 15 July 2025 |page= 114 |via= University of Michigan Digital Collections}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title= The Romane historie, written by T. Livius of Padua. Also, the Breviaries of L. Florus, with a chronology to the whole historie, and the topography of Rome in old time. Translated out of Latine into English, by Philemon Holland. To which is now added, a supplement of the second decad of Livy (which was lost), lately written in Latine by I. Franshemius, and now newly translated into English |place= London |publisher= Sawbridge |year= 1659 |url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t4dn4dk7n |page= [https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t4dn4dk7n?urlappend=%3Bseq=108 94] |via= HathiTrust |accessdate= 16 July 2025}}</ref> During the seventeenth century it was gradually replaced by the phrases "equality before the law", "rule of law" and "government of law".<ref name=Hayek />
Political theorist Hannah Arendt argued that isonomy was equated with political freedom at least from the time of Herodotus. The word essentially denoted a state of no-rule, in which there was no distinction between rulers and ruled. It was "the equality of those who form a body of peers." Isonomy was unique among the forms of government in the ancient lexicon in that it lacked the suffixes "-archy" and "-cracy" which denote a notion of rule in words like "monarchy" and "democracy." Arendt goes on to argue that the Greek ''polis'' was therefore conceived not as a democracy but as an isonomy. "Democracy" was the term used by opponents of isonomy who claimed that "what you say is 'no-rule' is in fact only another kind of rulership...rule by the ''demos''," or majority.<ref>Hannah Arendt, ''On Revolution'' (London: Penguin Books, 1963), p. 30</ref>
The public administration theorist, Alberto Guerreiro Ramos, reserved for isonomy a central role in his model of human organization. He was particularly concerned with distinguishing the space of the isonomy from that of the economy. Following Arendt, Guerreiro Ramos argued that individuals should have the opportunity to engage with others in settings that are unaffected by economizing considerations. The isonomy constitutes such a setting; its function is to "enhance the good life of the whole."<ref>Guerreiro Ramos, A. (1981). ''The new science of organizations: A reconceptualization of the wealth of nations''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 131.</ref>
==See also== {{columns-list|colwidth=30em| *Aristagoras *Athenian democracy *Classical Athens *Cleisthenes *Democracy *Egalitarianism *Equal justice under law *Equality before the law *Political egalitarianism *Isocracy *Anonymity (social choice) *USS ''Isonomia'' (1864) }}
==References== <references />
== Further reading == *{{cite book |last=Costa | first=V. |chapter=Osservazioni sul concetto di isonomia | editor1-last=D’Atena | editor1-first=A. | editor2-last=Lanzillotta | editor2-first=E. |title=Da Omero alla costituzione europea |location=Tivoli (Roma)|publisher=Edizioni Tored |date=2004 |pages=33–56 }} *{{cite journal|first=V.|last=Ehrenberg|title=Origins of Democracy|journal=Historia|year=1950|volume=1|pages=515–548 |jstor= 4434319}} *{{cite book |last=Karatani |first=Kōjin |title=Isonomia and the origins of philosophy |date=2017 |location=Durham |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-6885-4}} *{{cite book | last=Lévy |first=E. |chapter=Isonomia |editor-last=Bultrighini| editor-first=U. |title=Democrazia e antidemocrazia nel mondo Greco, Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Chieti, 9 – 11 aprile 2003 |location=Alessandria |date=2005 | publisher=Edizioni dell'Orso |pages=119–137}} *{{cite journal|last=Lombardini|first=John|title=Isonomia and the public sphere in democratic Athens|journal=History of Political Thought|date=2013|volume=34 |issue=3 |pages=393–420 |jstor= 26225837}} *{{cite book |last=Schubert |first=Charlotte |title=Isonomia. Entwicklung und Geschichte |date=2021 |location=Berlin; Boston |publisher=De Gruyter |isbn=9783110723663}} *{{cite journal |last=Vlastos |first=Gregory |title=Isonomia |journal=American Journal of Philology |date=1953 |volume=74 |issue=4 |pages=337–366|doi=10.2307/292054 |jstor=292054 |s2cid=246256631 }}
Category:Direct democracy