[Essay] Power Structures: Nephites and Hellenites

            King Mosiah, writing in Mosiah 29, demonstrates that he was a student of history. He clearly learned from the examples of King Noah (Mosiah 29:18) and of the Jaredites (Mosiah 29:7, Ether 7:13-15). We can find confirmation of his theories in the history we glean from writings left by the ancient Greeks: individual rulers accomplish great good but also great difficulty, and although democratic governments can improve the situation somewhat they are not perfect. We can also find that there is nearly always a single person in charge, which often makes for a good story.

Oedipus and the Sphinx

            Although Sophocles wrote from the standpoint of Athenian democracy, in a time where the common man had a say in the affairs of the people, the events of Oedipus Rex hinge almost entirely on the decisions of the king: Laius in his choice of exposing his newborn son and Oedipus in his decision to pronounce a curse upon the killer of Laius. Other characters merely follow orders and trust in the king: the people and even priest ask Oedipus to solve the cause of the plague (Sophocles 13), and Oedipus completely expects to take charge of events (Sophocles 11). In the end, Oedipus learns that the plague was caused by his own accidental regicide, which confirms what Mosiah has to say about improper rule: “one wicked king” was all it took to bring about “great destruction” (29:17), “abominations”, and eventually “bondage” (29:18). And despite his sincere attempts at serving well as king, in his lament (Sophocles 62) he lays out some of the “trials and troubles of a righteous king” Mosiah describes (29:33).

Agamemnon's death mask (possibly)

            We fined in Homer’s writings an alternative to absolute kingship. The Iliad and the Odyssey were composed some hundreds of years after the time they describe (“Homer”, para. 8), so it can be difficult to evaluate exactly how historical the details of the narrative may be. However, the society it describes still allows us to illuminate some of the realities experienced by Homer and his audience, as a good storyteller draws on the past and the present. For Homer, the people who mattered the most to the development of the story of the Iliad are heroes and leaders: Agamemnon, Achilles, Priam, Hector, and other influential men. Each of these individuals exerts significant influence over the course of the war. Although we hear precious little about the soldiers who spent the most time fighting and dying, we have the sense that the fighting involves large armies: the comparison to flies around milk pails at Sarpedon’s corpse in book 16 (Lombardo 167-168) is one simile which seems to tell that there are many more people involved than are actually mentioned, while also informing us that for the sake of the narrative, they simply fought without turning any tides. The story Homer recounts pivots on the decisions of individuals: Agamemnon’s decision to take Achilles war prize in book 1, Achilles’ prayer to the gods in book 9, and Achilles’ decision to return to the fight in book 18 all have outsized effects on the tide of battle. A handful of individuals—especially Hector and Achilles—essentially decide amongst themselves the fate of the people.

            This sort of council is somewhat analogous to the structure King Mosiah lays out for his people, with a small group of judges who handle many of the affairs of the people and higher judges who make decisions binding on the lower judges. However, Mosiah’s system is built on the “voice of the people” (Mosiah 29:25), rather than by the capacity of individual judges to take power. Importantly, although there is a spiritual foundation for these judges—“it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right” (29:26) —there is no claim made to any direct intervention on the part of divinity. Achilles is the son of a man and a god (Homer 11-12), and maintains some amount of power through that claim on authority. Zeus, Hera, Thetis, and Aphrodite all make direct contact with humans to interfere in their affairs, implicitly putting a stamp of approval on the leadership offered by their handful of leaders. In the Odyssey, Athena provides counsel directly to Telemachus, urging him to take power as his father would have. Mosiah, on the other hand, does not assume that all kings have God’s approval (Mosiah 29:16-17), but neither does he assume that God will automatically remove evil kings from power (29:22). For this reason, he opposes continuing even his own dynasty, which none of Homer’s heroes seem inclined to agree with.

Telemachus and Mentor

            Even in the Iliad and Odyssey, though, heroes do not govern alone. Agamemnon is not a powerful enough leader to make any decision unanimously, and in book 9 (92) is even forced by the council of Greek leaders to send a committee to apologize to Achilles and ask him to change his mind. In the Odyssey, even though Athena implicitly affirms that Telemachus ought to be ruling in book 1 (Homer 250) and the suitors as a council repeatedly demonstrate themselves to be bad guest as well as bad hosts (244-245), Telemachus is not powerful enough to rule alone where Odysseus would have commanded enough respect to rule Ithaca on his own.

Among the ancient Greeks, this shift towards more people having more of a say finds its fullest expression in the Athenian democracy. Pericles’ funeral oration as recorded by Thucydides offers some of its greatest praise: that the Athenian ascendancy could be attributed almost entirely to their individual freedoms (Finley 270). Herodotus’ account of Solon’s meeting with Croesus further lays out the happiness available to Athenians like Tellus due to the possibility of their individual influence for good (41). Mosiah observes that doing “business by the voice of the people” (29:26) will share the burden of governance among all the people and limit the possibility of one man corrupting an entire nation (29:23-24). However, although many modern perspectives emphasize that such a democratically elected government is the only government with a legitimate right to rule, such a government was not universally praised by contemporary writers. Thucydides himself went on to describe the plague that afflicted Athens, destroying their morals and happiness. Other philosophers as well criticized the system, arguing that democracy led people to misunderstand their purpose in life (“Athenian democracy”, sect. 1). Even despite his support for the concept, Mosiah acknowledged that the system was not infallible: if “the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that … [God] will visit you with great destruction”, at which point the freedom of democracy is no consolation at all.

Mosiah

And even with the liberty of democracy, the historians show us that human society nearly always winds up with one person who is visibly in charge. In the distinctly democratic structure designed by Mosiah, there is still a “chief judge” who may remain in power for a long time—from Alma to Nephihah to Pahoran, Mormon always feels it necessary to inform us who was the single chief judge when important political events happen (Alma 4:20, Alma 50:39-40). Athenian democracies had no single position for a leader to hold, but Pericles and Demosthenes both “dominated” the Athenian system for a time (“Athenian democracy”, sect. 2). Homer’s kind of virtuous hero, it seems, has a certain appeal even after a society has rejected the kind of political structure that requires individual heroism from its leaders.

Government and politics are thorny issues and very difficult to resolve, even after humans have had centuries of theorizing and practice. But even when it is difficult to declare one system better than all others, we can certainly identify strengths and weaknesses of varying approaches. As a student of his own people’s history, King Mosiah points out various pros and cons to democratic and monarchical society, and his observations are born out even in ancient Greek history. This commonality is a very good reason to believe that even now, in our very different society, we stand to benefit from his advice.

References

“Athenian democracy”. Oxford Classical Library, Oxford UP, 2005, www-oxfordreference-com.erl.lib.byu.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780198606413.001.0001/acref-9780198606413-e-2112#

Finley, Moses I., editor. The Portable Greek Historians. Viking Penguin, 1977.

Herodotus. History of the Persian War. Finley, Greek Historians, p. 41-44.

 “Homer”. Oxford Classical Library, Oxford UP, 2005, www-oxfordreference-com.erl.lib.byu.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780198606413.001.0001/acref-9780198606413-e-3138#

Homer. The Iliad. Translated and edited by Stanley Lombardo, The Essential Homer, Hackett Publishing Company, 2000, pp. 1-240.

Homer. The Odyssey. Translated and edited by Stanley Lombardo, The Essential Homer, Hackett Publishing Company, 2000, pp. 240-482.

Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. Translated by J. E. Thomas, Prestwick House, 2017 ed.

Thucydides. “The Funeral Oration of Pericles”. Finley, Greek Historians, p. 265-273.

Thucydides. “The Plague in Athens”. Finley, Greek Historians, p. 265-273.