“Six hundred years before the birth of Christ absolutism held unbounded sway. Throughout the East it was propped by the unchanging influence of priests and armies. In the West, where there were no sacred books requiring trained interpreters, the priesthood acquired no preponderance, and when the kings were overthrown their powers passed to aristocracies of birth.”

—  John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

p, 125
The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

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John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton 112
British politician and historian 1834–1902

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