A man and his rights in the concepts of ancient representatives of philosophical and legal thought

Emergence of the idea of human rights in V- VI centuries BC in ancient policies and emergence of the principle of citizenship became a major step on the way of humanity towards freedom and progress. The idea and practice of freedom and human rights was given to the world by the most famous of all ancient civilizations - Athens in the views of Heraclitus, Democritus, Protagoras, Antiphont, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, etc. Ancient Greek ideas about human rights formed as a part of mythological views that the polis or the city-state and its laws are of divine origin and are based on divine justice. Further development of socio-philosophical and political-legal concepts of human rights in Ancient Greece occurred in search and substantiation, along with the divine origin, of objective natural-legal basis for the existence of the polis, its laws and social existence of people. Natural-legal ideas of ancient Greek thinkers about freedom and equality of all human beings further developed in Ancient Rome, and especially in the philosophical and legal views of the Stoics Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Cicero, the ancient Roman thinker, philosopher and orator. In their teaching on human rights, the natural-legal idea of freedom and equality was extended beyond the narrow polis and ethnic framework and was expanded to all members of the humankind as fellow citizens of a single cosmopolitan state. According to the results of the conducted research, the author notes that the ancient thinkers, prominent representatives of philosophical, legal, and political thought of that time laid the foundations of the doctrine of human rights, which was further developed in the medieval beliefs of medieval representatives, especially in the views of the authors of the liberal world outlook of the New times. The English and American Age of Enlightenment, French bourgeois-democratic revolution have become a new important milestone and a new stage in theoretical development and practical realization of the centuries-old aspirations of people about their rights, freedom and equality of all people on the Earth.