Urukagina
State: Lagash
Author of the first legal code, including his revolutionary reasoning behind these reforms as a means to institute justice and equality, and to protect against corruption.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Urukagina
Though this is one of the oldest books period, it is not the oldest, in the 25th century BC, the oldest book from this region is a work on statecraft, largely pragmatic in outlook with formulaic empetical observation on the sociology of man, such as migration patterns during food shortages, but also to live in the village and not to fuck other people’s wives, as it obviously would threaten their dynasty. This work looks back to even older times beyond the reach of history, as it literally is the oldest work from mesopotamia.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_al-Jarf
thehistoryblog.com/archives/24683
Merrier was the subject of the earliest known biography if a real person. All he did was oversee stone being ported for the construction of pyramids.
This dig also reveled ownership seals for boats.
Similar seals are known in Mesopotamian and Harappi sites, though the Harappian civilization appears to be late commers who mimicked what the saw in Mesopotamia, and generally didn’t quite immediately grasp what they were aping (they obviously figured it out after a while, a lot sooner than most societies to boot).
The Chinese abscribe their earliest history to mythological Emperors and Snake/Fish Goddesses, but I recently did a survey on this subject, looking over the major works on Chinese Mythology in English, and found they early on imported the Cosmogony that Eusubius’ Sanchuniathon took from, preserving the yearly gods and functions, but adapting other hero’s and inventor of things into state offices. The Gods, including The Great You, are western in origin, and according to Eusubius, Mesopotamian in origin.
Another recent discover I made that should be of interest to you, was that King Zhou… the despotic final king of The Shang Dynasty, is also one and the same with Sardanapullas, the despotic ruler of the Assyrian Dynasty. I spotted several dozen parallels between Ctesias’ Persica and the earliest texts from the Zhou, and have confirmed the text Ctesias was using in the Royal Persian Archives, 70 years after Confuciys’ death, was of a much earlier tradition than Confucius. I have more or less rewritten early Zhou Dynastic history, and have more or less broken a nearby Confucian organization in proving to them Confucius’ arguments are wrong.
The reasons why the parallels are so strong are: Both Sardanspullas and King Zhou were the final, apocalyptic dynasts of their respective states, both were bisexual cross dressers who threw lavish orgies using expensive meats and wines, both had a rebellion lead by a alliance lead by a powerful warlord, who was unlisted in both cases by a Atstrologer/Magician who Aldo was a strategic mastermind, who could invoke heaven and guide him to victory. In both stories, King Zhou/Sardanapullas both found themselves surrounded unexpectedly after a battle, and built a tower in their treasury, lighting themselves on fire with their treasury, with their concubines inside. In the end of both stories, the prime minister becomes the head of Babylon/Wi, which was his home province to begin with. Both involve flood myths.
Just Sardanapullas until me was considered made up, and many historians largely denounced the work, as no evidence of Sardanapullas existed in Assyrian chronologies could attest to them. However, Ctesias was operating from the Royal Persian Archives, which was ran by the Zoroastrians. The Zoroastrian religion originated in Xanjiang, China. The Persian got the Cyrus Cylinder to China about the same time, so if goes to presume the Zoroastrian priesthood imported ideas both ways.
Confucius heavily based his ideas on Vice and Virtues on King Zhou/King Wu. Aristotle wrote a lot on Sardanapullas, taking him as a archetype for Vice. Basically Sardanapullas was the first Nietzschean, and did a lot to undermine Foucault’s Ship if Fools thesis. I have had a great time systematically slaying them on this, and its incredibly had to assert, as they as a collective group use far shabbier historical methods. It helps considerably to be a genius.
Moving on, to an era more accessible to you. (Forget that Catal law crap, no such thing, and besides, Gobeli Tepe did similar things, far older site). Romans had divided trades that a Roman could engade in, by political class, early on. Patricians couldn’t trade, Plebeians couldn’t enter into the senate. You were placed in a tribe by your wealth and weapons/armor, and your age determined your voting status, juniors could vote, seniors couldn’t. Seniors formed the basis of the veterancy and likely the origins of the strategic reserve. I just reviewed a rather inventive work that presumes this was due to Pythagoras, which is unlike directly, but the Pythagoreans may of influenced it. So they can enter into our basic formula here.
Roman classes regularly went on strike, sometimes Plebians, sometimes the Senate. A form of checks and balances arose. As Rome expanded into terrirories, laws and sometimes constitutions were enacted, allowing for various forms of citizenship. Most were disenfranchised. When Rome projected out of Italy, they had two separate sets of property laws, with different kinds of ceremonies attached to them. The Italic laws were archaic, such as transferring Italian Land, or Italian Donkies. The rules in the provinces varied. After the civil wars, Fought Between the Optimates, Equestrian, and Plebeians, Caesar’s faction, eventually lead by Augustus after he defeated Anthony began to systematically break down the checks and balances, slowly solidifying the powers of state under him. Not even until the last days of Rome in Trebazond in the 15th century was this quite ideologically pulled off, as Caesar and Augustus gained power by paying lipservice to the idea of a roman republic, and that the idea of a Roman King/Emperor wasn’t real. It wasn’t until the sixth century that a Neo-Platonist even got the idea that the Emperor should be legitimately based within constitutional law and appointed via elections. It took the Holy Roman Empire with its very limited electorate and the British Magna Carts to complete the task.
We have several early treatise, as well as temple texts, princes mirrors and art of wars, legal codes and works on ethics, morality, and ethics. Augustus got his ideas in Egypt from Arius Didymus, who wrote several important treatise on ethics. From his Stoic Ethics we get a good insight into Zeno of Citrum’s insights. Those possessing Virtues were known by their controlled behavior, while those who were vice driven were known from behavior exactly paralleling the modern concept if ADHD… eerily exactingly. His ideas on the vices and virtues transfered to Chryssipys and Galen, and from there to the Church Father, a rather straight foreword evolution. He took the ideas for a cosmic state from Plato (Laws, Timeaus) and for the actual polity from behavioral based empiricism. Aristotle and his student Theoohrastus obvious was of influence, as they lived same era.
Diogenes and Thales the Cynic had much to say on this. I recommend finding a work entitled “The Cynic Epistles”.
Epicurians likewise built up a system, based around a prositute Leonides talking shit in a private garden surrounded by like minded men.
St. Augustine and St. Ambrose did alot to analyses old Roman laws and philosophies, especially Neo-Platonism and the Neo-Pythagorean ideas if thinkers like Numenius. A lot of our modern concepts come through them, as well as Scholia on Plato and Aristotle. Islam carried on alot of the philosophies, especially Cynicism (the Sufi evolved out of it), but also to a lesser extent other philosophical movements above mentioned. They more or less invented modern Empiricism (a stronger variety existed in India and Greece than that used today).
Hadiths were developed from the recollections of the sayings of Muhammed. When the Saracens conquered Sicily, they moved their ideas there. Normans conquered Sicily, got the idea for universities from them, brought it to England and France.
England and France in this era when through a era of enforced secularization by the papacy to weaken the power of the princes, by introducing munincipal government and starting to teach the catholic laymen. Hence the separation of church of state was designed to favor religion over political power, which is still very much in existence even today in Atheistic states, who’s ideology underlines many of the functions of religion. A good book on this subject is “Law and Revolution”.
From this point on, you can handle yourself. Never underestimate an era. We started off historically in a rather advance state, and the basic behaviors that lend themselves to ideas likely preceded our species.
Certain military and use if force contra constitutions have their early theoretical debates in the Platonist school, between realist and idealists. Realists assert an ideal of the greater good as the higher good, while realist try to find what is practical, such as Dicaearchus of Messana, who was a early powerhouse of this sort of philosophy in studying the history and fluxuations of history in terms of cause and effect. Philosophers and historians like Ibn Khaldun as well as myself follow this vein. Hardcore, scientific study and aggressive investigation. Cynics fall into this category, mixing their search of the highest goods with analysis of the motivations of society, their sense of selves and objects they seek after, and a quisitive testing of themselves along the way. Stoics straddle the grouping, but integrate themselves into hierarchies and presumption generally better. Hedonists and epicureans are better off being rich and isolated, and dying painlessly and in ignorance. Most groups fall somewhere along this spectrum.
A recent book I found that might interest you, giving you insight to just how wide of a topic this is:
amazon.com/The-Crafting-000- … 0226735842
It focuses on a late Ming Dynasty philosopher named Song.
I recommend systematically burning every presumption you have. Throw in all the books you have on Nietzsche, you’ll find the guy heavily borrowed (more like stole, plagerised) from the same books your about to discover. Several thousand books, I’ve hardly exhausted them all… And I’m speaking only of primary texts. You need to have a excellent command of history to the point that you can take any idea you come across, and place it in parallel to other eras, other cultures and find the cognitive mechanism that underlines these variables, and lust the brain regions, monoamine transmitters involved, ceainial nerves, his the feedback loops functions, and how philosophers and ideas from later or earlier eras necessarily thought differently. Essentially, you build yourself up to become the penultimate repository of interpreative knowledge, and can break it down rationally and logically upon demand to anyone asking you spur of the moment to the depth they require. It requires literally knowing everything, and everything depends upon you knowing, as you are the fountainhead upon which new ideas flow. If someone in power asks, you are to have already the diagnostic capacity to interprets, and formulate a response of superior insight and clarity. You can save hundreds, millions, or just one… or you can lose far more.
That’s all you gotta do if you take this course in earnest. Know every text is vital, and take is seriously. Learn how to identify them, and the hermeunetics underlying each society’s approach. Seek out new ideas, whatever the cost to safety or self respect. When your beaten and tired, read more, walk a little farther, and study man a bit more. No idea or principle is isolated, completely rational, or completely opposite another idea. Pay attention to dialectics. And whatever youbdi, don’t bow in subservience… carry on after dispensing.
If you can do this, you might grasp in times the basics of the philsophy of all philosophies.