A new taxonomy for old models: ancient theories of forms of government in the Plutarchean De unius. For a politological reading

Starting from Herodotus, in Ancient Western political thought the forms of government were classified according to the number of people in charge: the tripartite partition monarchy, aristocracy, democracy – alongside its corresponding negative one – was conceived as the sole possible taxonomy of political regimes. Therefore, authors involved in the debate concerning the forms of government had to work within a predetermined framework and were only allowed to modify certain elements of a structure that had been taken for granted for a long time. That is why, if we look at the works of Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle and Polybius, we can find differences in the labels used to identify the various regimes, in their features and in the causes of their genesis, but not in the taxonomy as a whole. From this perspective, Plutarch’s De unius in re publica dominatione, populari statu et paucorum imperio is no exception. However, there is something worth stressing in his analysis, something that appears new and original. With a view to creating his taxonomy, Plutarch chooses to use certain elements found in the texts of Plato, Aristotle and Polybius that are devoted to this theme, and blends them into a new element that is both original (Caiazza, 1993) and deeply linked to the previous tradition of Greek political thought. Through a lexical analysis, the essay highlights the elements of continuity and discontinuity between De unius and its sources, stressing how Plutarch read and used them in order to support his political thought