Akropolis 3 (2019) 5-28 Otto Linderborg* Te Place of Herodotus’ Constitutional Debate in the History of Political Ideas and the Emergence of Classical Social Teory Abstract: Tis paper investigates the question of which place in the history of political ideas may be assigned to the Constitutional Debate in Herodotus’ Histories, 3.80-82. It is shown that the Herodotean debate represents the earliest extant example of a social theory, in which a variety of distinctly social ordering principles are weighed against each other with normative arguments and in isolation from all sorts of divine authorisations. Te article divides into three parts. Te frst part gives an account of the theoretical predecessors to the classical social theory frst evidenced in the Constitutional Debate. Te second part consists of an exposition of the socio-intellectual progressions clustered in the Herodotean debate, focussing on developments in constitutional thinking and argumentative evolvement. Te third part consists of a close reading of the argumen- tative and politico-social content of the Constitutional Debate. Te Constitutional Debate of Book III in Herodotus’ Histories is a dispute set at Susa in and around 522 B.C.E. Te debate involves three noble Persians, who, afer having lead a successful coup against the ‘false Smerdis’ – i.e., against the ὅμοιος εἶδος Σμέρδι (“the one looking like Smerdis”), posing as the brother of the deceased king Cambyses – consider whether to change the constitution in one of two ways, or to leave the political order unaltered. 1 Te three Persian aris- tocrats involved in the debate are Otanes pleading the case for democracy, Meg- abyzus for oligarchy and the future king Darius for the prevailing form of rule – namely, monarchy. 2 In the Herodotean narrative, the debate has been placed strikingly at the centre of the account of the history of Persia in its phase of tran- sition from the reign of Cambyses to that of Darius and the ensuing Persian Wars. 1 For the build-up to the debate, see Hdt., 3.61-3.79. For the debate, see Hdt. 30-82. 2 Apfel, Die Verfassungsdebatte bei Herodot (1958) is the hitherto only monograph on the Constitutional Debate. More recent scholarly output centred on the Herodotean debate include Dewald, “Te Question of Tyranny in Herodotus”, Pelling, “Herodotus’ Debate on the Constitutions”, Lévy, Edmond, “Les dialogues perses”, Allen, “Te Origins of Political Philosophy” and Lateiner, “Te Constitutional Debate”. * Department of Languages and Literatures, University of Gothenburg (otto.linderborg@sprak.gu.se)