to consider questions of how to organize societies, as part of their more broad considerations of ethics and how to live the good life. In the intellectual golden age of the fifth-century Athenian democracy, Plato had the freedom to develop his ideas, although he nevertheless despised democracy, alongside all other then existing form of government. This was because Plato believed that the state should promote the virtues necessary for good living, but thought the existing political arrangements of monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy all promoted the interests of the people in power, who were ignorant of those virtues, and instead would only pursue honour and wealth, leading to conflict and injustice. To correct this, Plato proposed in the Republic for philosopher kings, who would know how to achieve the good life, to be in power instead. India In India, Chanakya (c. 4th century BCE) offered in Arthashastra practical advice on how to run government. He also believed that virtue in the leader and the merit of their advisers were important. Furthermore, he also argued that the end justifies the means, and that after using the best means available to defeat their enemies, rulers should "substitute [their] virtues for the defeated enemy's vices, and where the enemy was good [they] shall be twice as good". Prior to him, Manu wrote about similar topics in his Manusmriti. Post-classical political thought Europe The early-Christian philosophy of Augustine of Hippo was by and large a rewrite of Plato in a Christian context. The main change that Christianity wrought was to moderate the Stoicism and theory of justice of the Roman world, and emphasize the role of the state in applying mercy as a moral example. Augustine also preached that one was not a member of his or her city, but was either a citizen of the City of God (Civitas Dei) or the City of Man (Civitas Terrena). Augustine's City of God is an influential work of this period that refuted the thesis, after the First Sack of Rome, that the Christian view could be realized on Earth at all – a view many Christian Romans held. In the Medieval period, political philosophy in Europe was heavily influenced by Christian thinking. It had much in common with Islamic attitudes in that the Western church similarly subordinated philosophy to theology. Perhaps the most influential political philosopher of medieval Europe was St Thomas Aquinas, who helped reintroduce