want all kings to be able to claim the mantle of righteousness, as well as cultivate a reputation for being distinctive: "my deeds are not equaled; [I want] to bring low those that were high [and] humble the proud, [and] to expel insolence" (Code). This ethos was aimed at a practical goal: survival in a difficult physical environment.
The interests of Athenian Greece appear to have moved beyond subsistence agriculture and become preoccupied with honor and glory, if Pericles' Oration is any guide. Pericles valorizes democracy as Athens' governance achievement, whereby it serves as an example to the world, a society built not on oligarchic or aristocratic ideals but on the ideal of meritocracy, "the reward of merit" (Thucydides 2). Indeed, "Athens is the school of Hellas," says Pericles, which makes a claim for Athenian exceptionalism. Winning the war against Sparta is therefore essential; losing would amount to the loss of civilization itself. Yet Pericles also valorizes Athenian aggression: "We have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valor, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity" (Thucycides 3). This rationalization of Athenian exceptionalism cannot be reconciled with honor. It is as if Athens is engaging in conquest as a policy but calling it something different. The fact that the quest for privilege is sanctioned for the democratic many instead of the aristocratic few of Babylonia is beside the point.
A dynamic similar to that of Athens can be discerned in republican Rome, inasmuch as, internally, Rome appears to have sought to cultivate the salutary benefits of representative rather than despotic government, but it also looked outward to conquest as a matter of national right, and after all, there must be a ruling class. That helps explain why Polybius says that monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy were fused in Roman governance. As a practical m...