Abstract
Authority and dissent are concepts that operate with reference to power—authority holds power, but dissent attempts to negate, neuter, or negotiate power. In this essay, I would like to explore the operation of authority and dissent with reference to power systems and social formation, seen through selected texts from Mediterranean antiquity—Paul of Tarsus’s first letter to the Jesus Movement community in Corinth, Cicero’s De Officiis, Plutarch’s Sayings of Kings and Commanders, and late antique Christian monasticism. My essential approach to these texts is to read for the kind of persuasive activity in which the creators engaged, either authoritative