The formation of human rights and freedoms in the teachings of philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome
Authors: Т. Kotenko 
Published: August 2020

The article deals with the historical stages of the creation, development, and formation of a human rights institute. The ideological and theoretical heritage of Ancient Greece and Rome, which is the basis for the study of ideas about justice, social equality, and human freedom, is analyzed based on the analysis of the fundamental ideas of the most famous thinkers of antiquity. It was the philosophers of antiquity who initiated the concept of "natural law", which was formed over the centuries by the desire of man to understand the world, determine his place in society and politics. From the time of antiquity, the concept of human rights gradually began to emerge; Subsequently, the concept of equality, freedom of person, person, and citizen were formed.
Ancient philosophers came up with the idea of law in general and the idea of human rights under the requirements of their time and conditions of social development.
Over time, the ancient perception of social equality, justice, dignity, independence, and freedom of man became the starting point and benchmark of European political culture.
The early period of the development of political and legal doctrines in ancient Greece is associated with the time of the formation of ancient Greek statehood. It was at this time that an attempt was made to give rationalist ideas about ethical and legal order in human affairs and relations instead of mythological ones.
It should be noted that ancient Greek views on human rights were formed in mythological ideas about the origin of policies and divine justice. That is why rights come from the divine order of justice, which became the basis for the category equality. Only what corresponded to the concept of equality (within the concept of justice) was understood as right. In ancient Greek politics, customs and mono-norms gradually transformed towards protecting the dignity of citizens. The polite democracy gave impetus to the emergence of freedom, which promoted the emergence of equal political rights among the citizens of this policy. In the Greek city-state, the law first emerged as a specific phenomenon, and the life of the policy began to be compulsory for everyone.
Subsequently, the Pythagoreans (VI –V centuries BC) formulated an important role in shaping the idea of legal equality and justice, using numerical proportions, that is, the ratio of certain parameters. The provision that "fair is to pay another equal" essentially introduces the coupon principle. Subsequently, this reflected Solon (7th-6th centuries BC) in his reforms. It eliminated debt slavery and, as a result of the compromise between nobility and demos, introduced a moderate censorship democracy in Athens. All citizens of the policy should equally be protected by the law and obey its mandatory rules (1). Recognized the law as a requirement of legal equality of free citizens of the policy, slaves did not apply the legal rules. Equality was considered in two respects: equality in law and equality before the law.
Developed by Roman lawyers provisions in which a person acts as a subject of law, determine the legal status of a person, establish the freedom and formal equality of people under natural law, define Roman citizenship as a special legal status of a person, the distribution of the right to private and public, etc. contributed to the awareness of legal the importance of human rights in the context of the systematic doctrine of the legal nature of the relationship between the individual and the state.
Roman law, extending to a state which it regarded as the object of its study along with positive law, ensured a legal relationship between the state and the individual, which was crucial for the development of the institution of the protection of individual rights in the world at that time (14, p. 119). In relation to individuals, the state was not above the rule of law, but directly its component part, which has all the basic properties of a law. The basis of a just and legal relationship between the individual and the state recognized the law, not the state. The individual and the state must be law-abiding subjects of legal relations, that is, act according to the rules of law.
Conclusion. To sum up, we can point out that the first theoretical developments and statutory provisions of the law go back to ancient times. The thinkers of Ancient Greece and Rome initiated the basic concepts of justice, equality, autonomy. It was then that ideas about political rights, lawmaking, democracy, and the personal responsibility of citizens were formed. However, freedom was not universal, it did not belong to slaves, and they were not the subjects of relations in the policy. The population of the policies was divided into different social and ethnic groups and accordingly had different legal status. Such inequality was the norm, so the priority was given to a policy or state that was enshrined in legislation. However, in Ancient Greece, there were also certain individual rights of citizens such as the right to speak; private property rights; the right to participate in government; the right to hold office; to participate in national meetings; the right to participate in the administration of justice; the right to appeal against illegal acts, etc. In Ancient Rome, this list was supplemented by the right to bargain, freedom of movement, the right of the people's tribune to veto, the ban on torture, the adversarial process of the lawsuit, etc.
Keywords: Antiquity period, city-policies, human rights, legal equality, society, justice.