Democratical Gentlemen and the Lust for Mastery

Abstract

Neorepublican treatments of Hobbes argue that his conception of liberty was deliberately developed to counter a revived and Roman-rooted republican theory of liberty. In doing so, Hobbes rejects republican liberty, and, with it, Roman republicanism. We dispute this narrative and argue that rather than rejecting Roman liberty, per se, Hobbes identifies and attacks a language of liberty, Roman in character, often abused by ambitious persons. This is possible because Roman liberty—and, by extension, Hobbes’s relationship to it—is more complex than neorepublican authors have allowed. Drawing on Roman sources, along with Hobbes’s major works, we argue that Hobbes’s theory of liberty owes much to his engagement with Roman sources, and that this theory speaks to the egalitarian elements in his political thought.