The term ‘leadership’ is as common as it can be elusive. We often tend to associate leaders with politics, but the concept of leadership is much more encompassing: a business manager is a leader; minor officials are also leaders; a mentor is a leader; priests, teachers and intellectuals are leaders; a man or a woman in the household can also be a leader. Are all these types of leader comparable? Is it possible to discuss leadership as a unified concept or would such an endeavour prove rather vain and doomed to fail?

It would be useful in the first place to observe in what contexts and for what reasons we choose to emphasise the issue of leadership. In a well-known article published in The Guardian, the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking made the following statement: ‘the world’s leaders need to acknowledge that they have failed and are failing the many’ (Hawking Reference Hawking2016). Is it telling that Hawking mentioned ‘the world’s leaders’ rather than ‘the world’s prime ministers’? When do we talk about ‘the president of the US’ and when do we opt to mention ‘the leader of the American nation’? When do we choose to refer to ‘the pope’ and what are the connotations of calling him ‘the leader of the Catholic Church’?

A closer examination of the above utterances reveals that the issue of leadership arises when we wish to make evaluative statements and, further, to evoke positive or negative emotions about leaders. From this perspective, phrases such as ‘the president of the US passed a law’ do not have the same effect as phrases of the type ‘the leader of the American nation underlined peace and safety in his speech’; the former are quite neutral, while the latter are loaded with emotional overtones. It thus becomes obvious that leadership is closely intertwined with a theory of leadership, a discourse on models of leaders, on the qualities a leader should possess and the practices he or she should avoid; and, of course, it is no wonder that nowadays a plethora of leadership theories have been proposed by political scientists and experts on administration.Footnote ¹

Interestingly, when we turn to leadership in the ancient world, we are confronted with similar issues which invite comparisons with the modern world. For example, as in our own time, we find in ancient societies a multitude of leaders (kings, pharaohs, emperors, tyrants, politicians, orators, generals, minor officials, intellectuals, etc.). This variety is reflected in the vocabulary as well: to take just one example from ancient Greece, apart from the terms describing specific offices or positions, such as βασιλεύς (king), στρατηγός (general), τύραννος (tyrant) and so on, we also find more generic terms, such as ἄρχων (ruler), ἡγεμών (ruler, leader) and δεσπότης (ruler, despot), denoting more generally what we would nowadays call ‘rulers’ or ‘leaders’. These terms in turn have different nuances, the term ἡγεμών pointing more precisely to the idea of leading (deriving from the verb ἡγέομαι-ἡγοῦμαι: to lead) and used more often for military leadership, ἄρχων referring to all kinds of power and δεσπότης usually encapsulating monarchical or even tyrannical attitudes. Leadership theories also have a long history: ancient civilisations developed various discourses on leadership, either in the form of sophisticated reflections (in Greece, Rome, China and Israel) or through models of leadership presented in monuments and material evidence (Mesopotamia and Iran).

Examining these different perceptions can yield fruitful results not only for the study (distinct or joint) of ancient civilisations but also for their possible relevance to our modern world. For instance, an important aspect of the ancient Greek discourse on leadership is that good leadership is independent of the constitution, an idea aptly expressed by Xenophon’s Socrates: ‘Kings and rulers … are not those who hold the scepter, nor those who are chosen by the multitude, nor those on whom the lot falls, nor those who owe their power to force or deception, but those who know how to rule’ (Xen. Mem. 3.9.10, trans. Henderson, my emphasis). Statements such as these could be viewed as disconcerting from a modern perspective: we would agree with Socrates about the valorisation of knowledge, expertise and competence for leaders, but we would perhaps be more reluctant to accept the full implications of his statement, which does not privilege any constitution, potentially accommodating the idea – albeit a utopian one – of a ‘knowledgeable tyrant’.Footnote ²

Despite the pervasiveness (even ubiquity) of the phenomenon of leadership, the complex and multifaceted features of ancient leadership have only recently begun to attract scholarly attention. Previous studies were mainly devoted to specific categories of ancient leaders (kings, tyrants, pharaohs, emperors, etc.), exploring issues of both historical and literary representation.Footnote ³ At the same time, numerous biographies on great leaders have been and continue to be written, trying to tackle various political, biographical and historical problems.Footnote ⁴ It is only recently that questions have begun to be reformulated around the theme of leadership. To these studies belong the monograph by S. B. Ferrario Historical Agency and the ‘Great Man’ in Classical Greece (Cambridge University Press, 2016), which traces the rise of prominent individuals and the evolution of leadership theories from the Archaic to the Hellenistic era, as well as the recent translation (by J. Beneker, Reference Beneker2019) of Plutarch’s work How to Be a Leader. A limited number of collective volumes also attest to the emerging interest in the theme of leadership. Leadership in Antiquity: Language–Institutions–Representations, edited by J. Janik and A. Klȩczar (Ksiȩgarnia Akademicka, 2012), focuses on representations of kings and tyrants in Greek and Latin literature. Leadership, Social Memory and Judean Discourse in the Fifth–Second Centuries bce, edited by V. Edelman and E. Ben Zevi (Equinox, 2016), explores the ways in which the concept of leadership was shaped and transformed through social memory in ancient Israel.Footnote ⁵ Homer and the Good Ruler in Antiquity and Beyond, edited by J. Klooster and B. van den Berg (Brill, 2018), examines the influence of Homer on the formation of models of leadership from antiquity to the present day. Concepts of Ideal Rulership from Antiquity to the Renaissance, edited by G. Roskam and S. Schorn (Brepols, 2019), deals with treatises providing political advice in antiquity and their influence on later times, until the ‘Mirrors of Princes’ of the Renaissance. The most recent volume, Rulers and Ruled in Ancient Greece, Rome and China, edited by H. Beck and G. Vankeerberghen (Cambridge University Press, 2021), provides important insights into the topic of leadership by directing attention to the people (ruled) instead of focusing solely on rulers (empires).Footnote ⁶ Finally, the Blackwell Companion to Greco-Roman Leadership, edited by S. B. Ferrario and N. Sandridge, which is in preparation, is also expected to offer a systematic treatment of the phenomenon of leadership in Greco-Roman antiquity, including both overviews on broad themes and nuanced readings on specific issues.

The present volume follows and further responds to this resurgence of interest in ancient leadership. It does not aspire to cover all aspects of ancient leadership. Rather, its aim is twofold: first, to open up new perspectives in the study of the theme of leadership in antiquity by examining under-explored topics, posing new questions and revisiting old concepts. A major desideratum addressed by this project is to shift attention from constitutional issues stricto sensu (such as kingship, monarchy, tyranny, etc.) or, more productively, to prompt a re-examination of these issues through the lens of leadership. Second, this collection of essays aims to generate a comparative reflection on the topic of leadership in the ancient world. Building on previous important comparative works,Footnote ⁷ it is guided by the same belief which inspired those studies: that a collective investigation is indispensable, especially in our era of utmost specialisation, because it enables us not only to unravel possible influences, transformations and adaptations between different civilisations but also to evaluate the distinctive features of ancient cultures, ultimately contributing to a better understanding of our own culture.

Concerning the topic of leadership more specifically, we are interested in inquiring, for example, into whether some models of good and bad leadership are universal among ancient cultures or whether there are differentiations, whether and why a certain civilisation emphasises x leadership quality while another insists on y, whether and for what reasons some civilisations have (or have not) developed a theoretical discourse on leadership, and how each culture appropriates, defines and redefines (or reacts to) existing concepts of leadership.

Contributors to this volume were asked to address at least some of the following questions: what is the vocabulary used to describe leaders? Is it homogeneous or are there nuances? Is there an explicit or an implicit discourse on leadership in the civilisation under study (e.g. literary vs. material evidence)? Is there a specific methodology for studying leadership in a particular civilisation (presumably depending on the cultural, political and social context, the existence of literary or other evidence, etc.)? What are the most important qualities of a leader and what are the most despicable vices? Can we talk about generic (good and bad) features for leaders? Do leadership qualities evolve or differentiate over time and according to place or are they rather uniform? And what factors could contribute to uniformity? What is the relationship and interaction between different types of leader (political, religious, intellectual)? Can different types of leadership coincide in one person (e.g. political and religious leadership, political and intellectual leadership, etc.) and to what effect? What is the relationship between leadership and constitution: are good leaders associated with a specific type of constitution? What is the contribution of minor leaders? Do they share similar features with great men? Could the insistence on leaders and leadership discourse be ultimately demeaning for peoples or followers?Footnote ⁸ Is it possible to trace interactions between different civilisations (e.g. between Greece and Persia, Greece and Israel, etc.)? Can elements of leadership theory be traced in the sources studied? Do we have evidence of theory clashing with reality? Can modern leadership theories be useful for the study of leadership in antiquity?Footnote ⁹

The present volume offers a wide range of answers to these questions. It comprises nine essays on a variety of ancient civilisations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, China, Iran, Israel, Rome and the Late Roman Empire) which cover a vast time span, from the third millennium bc to the ninth century ad.

The essays are arranged in chronological order and cover three main thematic categories: (a) terminology and conceptual issues, (b) leadership beyond monarchy and (c) leadership theories and models.

The first important focus of this volume is the analysis of the vocabulary of leadership and related concepts, as well as the re-examination of old concepts through modern theories and methodologies. The essays of this volume unravel the great terminological diversity on the issues of leadership. Interestingly, in ancient civilisations, there was no single equivalent to our modern term ‘leader’. Moreover, sophisticated terminological distinctions are attested. Sebastian Fink points out that in ancient Sumerian there was a distinction between ‘ruler’ (designating a person holding an office) and ‘leader’ (meaning the person who leads the way). Fink also discusses other terms attested in cuneiform sources which denote a ‘female leader’, a ‘lord’ and a ‘city ruler’.

Juan Carlos Moreno García, drawing on a wide range of sources (administrative documents, inscriptions and archaeological evidence), provides rich evidence of several terms related to ‘minor leaders’ (authorities, mayors, magistrates) in ancient Egypt. His essay thus contributes to a more thorough picture of Egyptian leadership by underlining the role of local elites who surrounded the pharaoh. Persian society also attests to several forms of leadership, as the chapter by Reza Shaghaghi Zarghamee illustrates: apart from the Persian king, satraps occupied an important position in Persian hierarchy, while terms denoting other types of leader (such as the leader of the tribe and the commander of soldiers) or characterisations of leaders (‘the greatest’) are attested. Turning to ancient China, Yuri Pines remarks that rulership was not coterminous with leadership: the ruler in ancient Chinese thought represented the supreme symbol of orderly rule, while a leader could be a minister, who could be morally cultivated but did not always represent an ideal ruler. Pines also describes the complexities arising from the central role of wise advisors (i.e. intellectual leaders) who, in some aspects, could challenge political leadership. In his chapter, Marc Domingo Gygax unravels the close association between the concept of leadership and euergetism in fourth-century Athens. Beate Ego demonstrates how Jewish literature appropriated terms related to leadership from Hellenistic rulership (such as the titles of Hellenistic kings, ‘Soter’ and ‘Epiphanes’) and used them in order to underline the superior power of the God of Israel.

Ancient Rome also provides ample material on the vocabulary of leadership. Jonathan P. Zarecki highlights the importance of the Ciceronian concept of privatum consilium and analyses its role in the Late Roman Empire. He proposes that consilium (literally meaning good advice, counselling) can be translated as ‘leadership’. Georgios Vassiliades presents the variety of terms related to leadership in Latin literature (such as caput, magister, dux, princeps); his analysis focuses on the concepts of disciplina and consilium as they appear in Livy and Cicero. Finally, Bronwen Neil revisits the topic of leadership in late antiquity and Byzantium in the light of new evidence and updated methodologies, offering new insights into the concepts of ‘monarchism’ and ‘caesaropapism’.

Moving the study of leadership beyond constitutional issues (such as kingship, tyranny and monarchy) forms the second crucial objective of the present volume. The essays of this volume provide evidence on a multitude of ancient leaders. Sebastian Fink discusses overlooked sources from ancient Mesopotamia which do not exalt the kings as the royal inscriptions do. These sources offer information about bad leaders and also highlight the potential for revolution in ancient Mesopotamia. Juan Carlos Moreno García’s chapter also moves beyond the pharaoh as sole leader, examining the neglected theme of local authorities (village chiefs and ‘mayors’) in ancient Egypt and their role in informal networks of authority. More specifically, Moreno García explores how mayors and informal leaders built their prominent local position, how this position changed over time (specially in periods of political turmoil) and how they mobilised their contacts, family networks, wealth and official duties in order to consolidate and transmit their privileged position to the next generations. Reza Shaghaghi Zarghamee revisits the connection between religious and political leadership in ancient Iran, arguing for a soteriological dimension of Achaemenid royal ideology. He suggests that the exaltation of the king as a priest and the combination of secular and religious functions in the royal person reflected, apart from age-old Iranian and Near Eastern ideals, actual political dynamics, such as a kind of competition between the military aristocracy and priesthood. Yuri Pines emphasises the importance of the ‘Great Man’ (the ruler’s guide) in ancient China, whose superior virtue (de) subverted the traditional ruler–minister hierarchy. Marc Domingo Gygax studies democratic leaders in classical Athens. By using the orator Demosthenes as a case study, he focuses on a mechanism for attaining political leadership that has received less attention: gift-giving to both individual citizens and the entire community. Jonathan P. Zarecki also focuses on an orator, Cicero, and his role as advisor and theoretician of leadership in ancient Rome. Finally, Bronwen Neil analyses the ‘new leadership agenda’ set by Christian emperors and shows how emperors in late antiquity (324–800 ad) had to cooperate with bishops in order to enforce Christian orthodoxy.

The third thematic category of this volume concerns theoretical reflections on leadership. Theories of leadership played a prominent role in ancient societies and also raise a series of questions: for example, to what extent was theory compatible with reality? Did the plethora of treatises with political advice have a positive impact on leadership practices? Sebastian Fink traces elements of leadership theory in ancient Mesopotamia, such as the comparison of a good leader with a good shepherd and the idea that a successful leader is a divine leader. In a similar vein, Reza Shaghaghi Zarghamee highlights the god-like nature of the Persian king. Yuri Pines explores the evolution of the discourse of leadership in pre-imperial (pre-221 bc) China. He shows that the formation of the ideology of monarchism was accompanied by a tension between the political leadership of the monarch and the moral and intellectual leadership of an outstanding minister or aspiring minister. Beate Ego examines how the Jewish literature of Hellenistic and Roman times reacted to divine kingship as represented by Alexander the Great. By drawing on a variety of sources, historiographical and Biblical (such as 2 Macc 9: the death of Antiochus IV; Est 3^LXX: Mordechai’s refusal to perform proskynesis before Haman; Josephus, Antiquitates XI, 8.5: Alexander the Great and the high priest in Jerusalem), she demonstrates the dissociation of Jewish literature from the Hellenistic world and its leadership ideologies, and the promotion of the uniqueness of the God of Israel and his power. Jonathan P. Zarecki focuses on Cicero’s leadership theory as it is exemplified by the concept of consilium. He posits that this term encapsulates the best mental and moral aspects of leadership as well as the actions and results of acting on behalf of the Republic. Georgios Vassiliades studies the leadership ideals in Livy’s Ab Vrbe Condita. He argues that the role attributed to the people and the leaders in Livy’s scheme reveals a close affinity with Cicero’s theory of the ideal leader as a moderator rei publicae as it is expressed in the De re publica. Bronwen Neil underlines the new leadership ideal in the Late Roman Empire, which encompasses both the religious and the political dimension.

The potential merits of the cross-cultural examination of ancient leadership proposed by this volume are several. Some essays in this volume comprise comparative observations about ancient civilisations (e.g. between the Hellenistic and the Jewish civilisation, between the Iranian and the Greek civilisation and so on). Cross-references between chapters of the volume also encourage readers to establish comparisons and to pursue their own reflection on ancient (and perhaps also modern) leadership. In order to further facilitate this endeavour, I will highlight some important issues about ancient leadership which I think this volume prompts us to ponder. A constant that seems to emerge from the studies of this volume is that all ancient civilisations had developed a more or less elaborate theoretical reflection on good (or ideal) leadership. Moreover, despite different emphases, the qualities of a good leader are quite similar (or universal): a good leader should possess a variety of qualities, moral (virtue, benevolence, kindness, piety), intellectual (intelligence, moderation) and military (valour). That said, the essays of this volume, by paying equal attention to both historical events and theoretical models of leadership, also often bring to light the tension (or even contrast) between historical reality and theoretical representation: historical reality is much more complex and diverse (e.g. there is not only one leader; there are interactions, competitions and conflicts among different types of leader; leaders are not always successful or ideal), whereas the theoretical representation (as it is expressed, for example, in theoretical texts, inscriptions or propaganda) appears much more uniform.

Another remarkable finding of the cross-cultural examination of ancient leadership is the frequent identification of leadership with kingship. It appears that in most ancient civilisations the king is considered the leader par excellence. This applies, for instance, in ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, ancient Iran, ancient China, Jewish thought and episcopal literature of the Late Roman Empire, as the chapters of this volume illustrate. It is also interesting that a presupposition (but also a corollary) of this identification is the strong religious dimension of leadership (i.e. kingship). The association between political and religious leadership (or kingship) can acquire a different form in each culture: for example, in ancient Mesopotamia the good king is the servant of the God; in ancient Iran the Persian king is the representative of a god (Ahuramazda) but also a priest; in Jewish thought the God of Israel is the true and superior king; in ancient China the good king incarnates Heaven’s mandate; while in the Late Roman Empire the religious and political authorities (emperors and bishops) cooperated closely and had power. Ancient Greece and Rome do not exactly fit this scheme, since these civilisations had experienced both governments of one-man rule (monarchy, kingship and tyranny) and constitutions (such as democracy, oligarchy and res publica) which involved the participation of collectivities and also valorised the power of the people; the chapters on ancient Greece and Rome provide good examples of leadership, in the framework of the Athenian democracy and the Roman Republic respectively, which are not concentrated on kings.

A third contribution of this volume is that it can trigger further reflection on the different conceptualisations of themes related to ancient leadership. To take just one example, I would like to dwell on the figure of the sage intellectual. Yuri Pines stresses the importance of the figure of the wise man (a minister or philosopher) in ancient China. He further notes that this person may be intellectually and morally superior to the political leader, thus subverting the ruler–minister hierarchy; as a result, this asymmetry created a tension in theoretical reflections on leadership in ancient China. Turning to ancient Greece, the motif of the wise advisor is also prevalent in ancient Greek literature: a poet and lawgiver, Solon, advises the Lydian king Croesus (Hdt. 1.29); a famous philosopher, Socrates, gives ample advice about politics to his fellow Athenians (including remarkable politicians such as Critias and Alcibiades), as Plato and Xenophon’s Socratic works describe; a poet, Simonides, advises a tyrant, Hiero (presented in Xenophon’s Hiero). In a similar vein, Cicero, an orator and philosopher, develops a detailed theoretical reflection on Roman politics and government. However, neither in ancient Greece nor in ancient Rome do we find a theorisation about the potential dangers an intellectual could pose to politicians or a tension in theoretical reflections on leadership. How might this difference be interpreted? Is it that ‘roles’ in ancient Greece and Rome were so well defined, that politicians did not feel threatened by philosophers or intellectuals? Or is it that the threat indeed existed but, for ideological reasons, was dissimulated in our sources? And what about our modern world? Does it more resemble ancient China or ancient Greece and Rome? This is an example of the rich connotations a comparative reading can offer. It is my hope that readers of this volume will have the opportunity to make several comparative observations and interpretations.

***

The topic of leadership is undoubtedly immense and multifaceted, raising many issues and containing, rather like a Russian doll, numerous and important sub-topics. The present volume puts forth new fruitful perspectives for the study of leadership in antiquity, thus increasing our awareness of its encompassing nature and its comparative potential. The insights offered by the essays of this volume are expected to serve as a further source of inspiration, triggering more responses and reflections on the theme of ancient (and also modern) leadership.