Greece and Rome. The use of contract by the
Greeks, whilst not having the significance it was later
to acquire, does at least indicate the comparatively
secular nature of their political thought. Being notable
constitution framers, idolizing the great lawmakers,
they were easily convinced that laws were the work
of man rather than of the gods. Contractual views were
certainly not widely held, but they were prevalent.
Among the better known accounts of contract is the
version in Plato's Republic (359a); Glaucon suggests that
“men decide they would be better off if they made
a compact neither to do wrong nor to suffer it. Hence
they began to make laws and covenants with one
another.” In Plato's Crito, Socrates informs us of a
practice that was later to become closely connected
with contract theory: he presents the device whereby
contract theorists allow for the consent of those citizens
dwelling in the state in the period after its inception.
This consists of the notion of tacit consent, in which
all people dwelling within the state are assumed,
merely by their continued residence within its bounda-
ries, to consent to the laws that have been made.
Further hints of contract can be found in the writings
of the Sophists, the school of Diogenes (the Cynics),
Epicurus, Xenophon, and occasionally in Roman writ-
ings of the fourth century, but on the whole such
sporadic use of the term is of interest mainly on ac-
count of later developments. Thus far the contract was
used as a means of reinforcing obedience to law. That
it might also provide the basis for resistance against
the state was not yet apparent.
It is worth pointing out that those occasional writers
who maintained a belief in contract were referring to
a contract of government, rather than one of society.
The latter only emerged from the later postulate of
natural individualism, which neither the Greeks nor
the Romans held. With Aristotle, they regarded man
as naturally social, as the conscious instigator of gov-
ernment, but not as the creator of society.
