Short answers, pulled from the story.
Many histories of Western political thought trace its origins to ancient Greece, specifically to Athenian democracy and the philosophy of thinkers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, with roots going back to around 600 BCE. Roman political philosophy, shaped by the Stoics and the statesman Cicero, also played a foundational role.
Chanakya was a 4th-century BC Indian political philosopher who wrote the Arthashastra, a treatise covering the science of politics for a wise ruler, foreign affairs and wars, the use of a spy state, and the maintenance of economic stability. He described himself as a descendant of a lineage of political philosophers, with his father Chanaka as his immediate predecessor.
Thomas Aquinas, considered the most influential political philosopher of medieval Europe, reintroduced Aristotle's works to Catholic Europe through translations that had arrived via Muslim Spain, accompanied by the commentaries of Averroes. He organized the philosophy of law into four kinds: eternal law, divine positive law, natural law, and human law.
The Prince was written around 1513 and published posthumously in 1532, after Machiavelli's death. It argued that the acquisition and maintenance of royal power depended on a prince's willingness to set aside conventional moral virtues when necessary, and was written for the Medici family though Machiavelli's own loyalties lay with the Republic of Florence.
Locke rejected Hobbes's argument that an absolute ruler was necessary, arguing instead that natural law, founded on reason, made such a ruler unnecessary. He also proposed a state-of-nature theory grounded in contractual obligation and believed that knowledge was neither innate nor revealed but subject to reason, tolerance, and moderation.
Ibn Khaldun, the 14th-century Arab scholar, defined government as an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself. The British philosopher-anthropologist Ernest Gellner considered this the best definition in the history of political theory.