As early as the Hellenistic period but more widely in the imperial age throughout the Roman Empire, we observe consecrations and dedications both to deities known by other theonyms and to a power in its own right, named Panthe(i)os in Greek and Pantheus in Latin. Faced with this formulation, scholars have emphasised the ‘quantitative’ force of the Greek pas, pasa, pan (translated as ‘total, universal’), interpreting this god as reflecting a process of gradual translation from the multitude of gods of Greco-Roman paganism to a ‘total’ and thus ‘universal’ god, which would thereby pave the way for Christian monotheism. The analysis of this term and its contextual applications shows that Panthe(i)os/Pantheus does not portray an abstractly ‘total’ and therefore ‘unique’ god, but a ‘super-god’ with exceptional powers called upon for the sake of pragmatic efficiency, on a religious horizon still fully perceived as plural. By choosing this name, the worshippers thus displayed their privileged relationship with the deity from whom they expected protection in a particularly effective manner.

Chapter 1 focuses on the practices and policies of music instituted in the earliest days of Venice’s empire in the eastern Mediterranean, and on the wide-reaching ramifications of music’s use as a technology of political representation on the island of Crete, the largest, longest-held, and most commercially profitable of Venice’s maritime colonies. Records from the first century of Venetian rule in Crete document the use of song as a bureaucratic tool, in which the singing of laudes—a genre with ambivalently political and liturgical usage—legitimized state contracts of taxation, transfer of property, and vassalage. The starting point of this chapter is a document known as the Concessio insulae Cretensis, drawn up by Doge Pietro Ziani in September 1211, one of the earliest records of Venice’s investment in music as an element of statecraft, and the origin of the laudes ritual on the island. This chapter uncovers the enormous and long-lasting importance of the laudes within the Venetian imperial enterprise, arguing that it served as the sounding image of the state’s claim to romanitas on which its legitimacy as an empire depended.

This chapter examines how different democratic decision-procedures – voting, majority rule, compromise, consensus, and public deliberation – relate to claims for recognition and democratic respect. Via a contrast with Rousseau and an explication of majority rule as a principle that regulates political decision-making over time, the chapter challenges the common view that populism is characterized by its unequivocal adherence to democratic principles of popular sovereignty and majority rule. The second part of the chapter discusses compromise as an attitude one can take when making decisions with one’s fellow citizens. Populists regard compromise as a form of betrayal, weakness, and defeat, while this chapter defends it as an important aspect of democratic respect. Political theorists have discussed whether the reasons for compromise are only pragmatic or whether they can also be principled. Populism’s principled rejection of compromise shows why our defense of this practice must be principled. The last part of the chapter connects the spirit of compromise to the notion of solidarity sketched in Chapter 2 and argues that compromise can be seen as a form of solidaristic inclusion of people with whom one profoundly disagrees.