Editing Republic (section)

=== Classical republics ===
{{Main|Classical republic}}
[[File:Republica Romana.svg|thumb|left|upright=0.9|A map of the [[Roman Republic]] in 45 BC]]

The modern type of republic itself is different from any type of state found in the classical world.<ref>Nippel, Wilfried. "Ancient and Modern Republicanism". ''The Invention of the Modern Republic'' ed. Biancamaria Fontana. Cambridge University Press, 1994 p. 6</ref><ref>Reno, Jeffrey. "republic". ''International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences'' p. 184</ref> Nevertheless, there are a number of states of the [[classical era]] that are today still called republics. This includes ancient [[Classical Athens|Athens]] and the [[Roman Republic]]. While the structure and governance of these states was different from that of any modern republic, there is debate about the extent to which classical, medieval, and modern republics form a historical continuum. [[J. G. A. Pocock]] has argued that a distinct republican tradition stretches from the classical world to the present.<ref name="Ideas2099"/><ref name=Pocock>Pocock, J.G.A. ''The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition'' (1975; new ed. 2003)</ref> Other scholars disagree.<ref name="Ideas2099"/> Paul Rahe, for instance, argues that the classical republics had a form of government with few links to those in any modern country.<ref name=Rahe>Paul A. Rahe, ''Republics, Ancient and Modern'', three volumes, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1994.</ref>

The political philosophy of the classical republics has influenced republican thought throughout the subsequent centuries. Philosophers and politicians advocating republics, such as [[Niccolò Machiavelli|Machiavelli]], [[Montesquieu]], [[John Adams|Adams]], and [[James Madison|Madison]], relied heavily on classical Greek and Roman sources which described various types of regimes.

[[Aristotle]]'s ''[[Politics (Aristotle)|Politics]]'' discusses various forms of government. One form Aristotle named ''politeia'', which consisted of a mixture of the other forms, [[oligarchy]] and [[democracy]]. He argued that this was one of the ideal forms of government. [[Polybius]] expanded on many of these ideas, again focusing on the idea of [[mixed government]] and differentiated basic forms of government between "benign" [[monarchy]], [[aristocracy]], and democracy, and the "malignant" [[tyranny]], oligarchy, and [[ochlocracy]]. The most important Roman work in this tradition is Cicero's ''[[De re publica]]''.

Over time, the classical republics became empires or were conquered by empires. Most of the Greek republics were annexed to the [[Macedonian Empire]] of [[Alexander the Great|Alexander]]. The Roman Republic expanded dramatically,  conquering the other states of the Mediterranean that could be considered republics, such as [[Carthage]]. The Roman Republic itself then became the Roman Empire.