Rethinking Pharaonic Government: Constitutional Lessons from Ancient Egypt
- Alexandre Loktionov
- Jun 22, 2021
- 15 min read
Updated: Mar 30
Conventional wisdom tells us that the first civilisation to be governed in a manner comparable to our own was Ancient Greece—the world’s first democracy.[1] Such discourse has contributed to popular belief that earlier civilisations, of which Egypt is probably the best-known example, might be interesting in myriad ways but surely have little to offer scholars of modern government. Egypt, according to established narrative, was an absolute monarchy, where Pharaoh did as he pleased and all else fell into place around this.[2] Yet was this really so? In this article, it will be demonstrated that the reality was not so simple, with the Ancient Egyptian framework for government and justice being based on far more than the will of one man. This argument for Ancient Egypt having what may be termed an early constitution—however embryonic it may have been—rests on four key premises: evidence for the distinction between the notion of ‘State’ and ‘Government’; the rule of law; the right of appeal; and the separation of executive and judicial power. Each of these shall now be briefly discussed in turn, with the article then concluding with a discussion of the implications of such observations for studies in constitutional history going forward.
The distinction between state (Pharaoh) and government (Vizier)
Almost everybody knows that Ancient Egypt was reigned over by Pharaohs, but to what extent was it actually governed by them? In theological terms, the monarchy was indeed absolute—Pharaoh was a living incarnation of the god of kingship, Horus, seen by his subjects as the ‘good god’ (ntr nfr) occupying the middle ground between this world and the next and ex officio serving as the high priest of every cult in the land.[3] He was the supreme guarantor of right order (M3c.t), tasked with defending Egypt from all enemies foreign and domestic. And yet, the practical task of overseeing the daily running of the country in fact fell to a different individual: the Vizier.[4] This high official was appointed by Pharaoh as a de facto head of government, not unlike the appointment of a Prime Minister by a modern-day head of state. According to the Installation of the Vizier, a text of the fifteenth century BCE setting out royal expectations at the time of a new vizieral appointment, a Vizier could expect to be told the following by his sovereign:
Look to the office of the Vizier, be vigilant concerning all that is done in it, for it is the mainstay of the entire land. Now as for the Vizierate, it certainly is not pleasant; indeed it is as bitter as gall. See, he is copper enclosing the gold of his master’s house.[5]
Thus, this text paints a picture where Pharaoh appreciates the unpleasantness of the job of governing the country, and offloads it onto his Vizier—the metaphorical ‘copper’ which serves to protect the ‘gold’ which is Pharaoh himself. In so doing, Pharaoh presumably freed up time which could be spent on his other prerogatives, such as foreign conquest, building work, and religious observances. However, this did not mean that the work of Pharaoh and Vizier became disjointed, with the latter being duty-bound to regularly report to the former. Clear evidence for this can be found in another text of the same period, the Duties of the Vizier, which states that a Vizier was obliged to act as follows:
