Philosopher-Kings of Antiquity 9781472540843, 9780826434753

Citation preview

To the memory of my grandparents, Jerome and Eilís, Hannah and Eugene

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 5

05/10/2011 07:05

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 6

05/10/2011 07:05

Abbreviations In abbreviating author names and book titles, I have followed the conventions of the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edition, ed. S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (1996), with the following exceptions: D.L. = Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers FRLP = “Fragment of a Letter to a Priest” by Julian (trans. W. C. Wright)

All translations of Plato, Isocrates, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, the Historia Augusta, Julian, Ammianus and Macchiavelli are by Jowett, Norlin, Dryden, Long, Magie, Wright, Hamilton and Marriott, respectively, unless otherwise noted. All other translations are my own, unless otherwise noted.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 9

05/10/2011 07:05

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 10

05/10/2011 07:05

1

Fundamental Themes: Kingship and Wisdom Jim and Huck met all sorts as they floated down the Mississippi River, but they had never met anyone quite like the Duke and the King. One day two wandering tramps scrambled onto their raft to escape a posse, and they quickly took over. For it turned out that these gentlemen were not tramps at all, but none other than the rightful Duke of Bridgewater and the Dauphin of France, “Looy the Seventeenth, son of Looy the Sixteen and Mary Antonette”. Fallen from such eminence, and forced to con their way through the ramshackle towns of Arkansas, these personages soon have Huck and Jim in thrall, giving up their mattresses, waiting on them and bowing before them as “Your Grace” and “Your Majesty”. Meanwhile the two “nobles” spend their time playing cards, drinking whisky, cursing, scheming, and behaving so shamefully that even Jim begins to lose patience and sighs, “Huck, dese kings o’ ourn is reglar rapscallions; dat’s jist what dey is; dey’s reglar rapscallions.” Huck for his part is more philosophical. He has read all about kings in books and knows, for example, how Henry VIII “used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning”, with no more compunction than if he were cracking eggs, so by comparison, “Bilgewater” and the Dauphin are really not so bad. Still, Huck can’t help agreeing with Jim, and he too hopes that they might one day “hear of a country that’s out of kings”. In the meantime, they float down the river and in each town they pass, the two charlatans disembark to ply their crafts as Shakespearean actors, temperance-preachers, dancing-teachers, elocution masters and whatnot. By and by their luck runs out, and Huck’s last glimpse is of them sitting astride a rail, tarred and feathered, at the head of an angry mob. Twain tells a good story, and one that is almost an allegory on the institution of kingship itself. Two conmen commandeer a raft as it floats down a half-wild river, lording it over the two “commoners” and defrauding decent folk with their costumes, histrionics and high talk of England and Europe. In them seems to be embodied the folly of the Old World, with its crowned heads and snobbish jostling for titles of nobility. But out there, on the river, a somebody can be free of all that fake “sivilizin’ ”: on a raft out west, a boy and runaway slave are the equals, and indeed moral superiors of any self-styled dukes or kings. The reign of the Duke and King takes up a full third of Huckleberry Finn, and all through it, Twain seems to ask sardonically: What is a king? Why are there kings at all?

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 1

05/10/2011 07:05

2

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

What is a king? Twain’s allegory reverberates with centuries of democratic theorizing. The American Revolution, the French Revolution, Jefferson, the philosophes, Locke, Hobbes and other voices speak through the tribulations and aspirations of Huck and Jim. To give a composite sketch of this tradition: in the state of nature, as on the Mississippi River, all people are free and equal; the individual is the basic political unit, source of power and moral authority; and the people, with their collective power, can make and unmake all dukes and kings. Leaders may talk themselves up as if they were Leviathans, and strut and fret about the “raft” of state, but beneath the bluster, they are human beings like any others and become preeminent only through the resources and gullibility of those others who raise them up on high. As the hallowed phrase has it, “power comes from the people”, and so kings are kings only by the will and grace of the people. Such ideas came to maturity especially in England after the Glorious Revolution, but they had historical precedents in the elective monarchies of the Anglo-Saxons and early Germanic tribes, for instance: part of the mythology of the democratic West has been that it was destined from the start to be the home of liberty.1 Of course, Locke and early democratic theorists did not see themselves as makers of a new mythology, but as rational critics of old superstitions. They wrote to refute the likes of Robert Filmer, Richard Hooker, Bishop Bossuet, James VI of Scotland and Jean Bodin, who understood kingship very differently. The theory of kingship by divine right is associated most with Europe of the Protestant Reformation, but its historical precedents reach back to early antiquity, most notably those passages of the Old Testament where God chooses a king for His people. Saul, David, Solomon and later Hebrew kings were the “anointed ones” (christoi) of the Lord—and the spiritual ancestors of Byzantine emperors, Holy Roman Emperors, Russian Czars, Popes and even present-day English monarchs who are still “ordained” and anointed to office. More abstract justification for the Divine Right of kings also derived from Scripture and theology. “Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King” (Psalms 149.2). God is Creator and providential King of Creation. From Him come all blessings, and therefore kings can claim to rule “by the grace of God”, for power comes not from the people, but from God the omnipotent. According to this early modern absolutism, therefore, to disobey the king is to rebel against the Almighty: the king is accountable only to God.2 Such notions of sacred, God-made kings seemed ludicrous to a Twain, Voltaire or Locke, and they could only turn a withering scorn upon the ancient pretensions of monarchy. Yet, their jaundiced views were not definitive, and the “self-evident truths” from which they reasoned have been shown to be relatively provincial in origin, by no means inherently compelling assumptions.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 2

05/10/2011 07:05



F u ndamental T hemes

3

Later scholars and thinkers turned a more nuanced, sympathetic imagination to the institution of kingship, and seminal here was the work of the classicist and early anthropologist, James Frazer, who developed an entire philosophy of history to explain one peculiar ancient institution. At Nemi, near Rome, there was a sacred grove. Here a slave presided as priest of Diana and “King of Nemi” (Rex Nemorensis) until such time as he was killed and usurped by another runaway slave. To explain this odd institution, Frazer argued that mankind has progressed through three ascending stages: the magical, the religious and the scientific. In his theory, primitive peoples misapplied the laws of thought, associating phenomena naively by similarity and contiguity, with the result that each person set himself up as “his own magician”. The more intelligent and quick-witted were soon honoured as public magicians, as they seemed better able to protect the community from the mysterious powers surrounding it. Ancient records can therefore speak of rain-makers and witch-doctors as “kings” over winds, rains, crops, the sun and disease. With time and cunning (Frazer argues), these public magicians gradually became “real” kings, with the status and power to give commands, dispense rewards and punishments, collect tribute and so forth. Thus for Frazer, public magicians were the first monarchs, just as monarchy was the first political institution.3 Among the evidence that Frazer marshals are rituals and statements from the Greco-Roman world. Figures like Aeolus, “king of the winds” or Empedocles, who claimed to control the weather, become examples of the early “departmental kings of Nature”, while a classic passage from the Odyssey shows how the presence of a good king somehow sanctifies nature, ensuring its prosperity: to the blameless king who maintains justice like a god, the black earth bears wheat and barley, and the trees bend down heavy with fruit, the healthy flocks breed, the sea provides fish—all due to the king’s benefaction—and the people thrive under him.4

Frazer’s attention to such “sacred kings” proved influential, even though his synthesis as a whole was quickly abandoned. The research of Indianists, Africanists, Asianists threw up varieties of kingship and patterns of social organization too disparate to be crammed into Frazer’s neat thesis. Thus Frazer gave impetus to the recognition that sacred kingship has been the most widespread and deeply-rooted institution in world-history. Later researchers moved even further from the view that kingship was simply the ruse of some “rapscallions” that needed to be exposed in the natural light of reason, and brought down to size by solid common sense. On the contrary, Hocart writes, the “religion of the king” (religio regis) is the oldest documented religion, a “faith” that began to ebb only the day before yesterday, as it were.5 Egyptian

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 3

05/10/2011 07:05

4

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Pharaohs, Sumerian, Babylonian and other Mesopotamian kings, the Hittite, Minoan and Mycenean kings, Phoenician and Hebrew malakim (‫)ַמְלָאׅבים‬, the Achaemenid and later Persian Shahs, the ríg of Celtic Ireland, the present-day Japanese tennō, the divine emperors of China until 1912, the many kings of India, kings of Bali, Malaysia, Java and Polynesia, the Incan sun-kings, and priest-kings of the Maya and Aztecs, the Hellenistic “saviour-kings”, Rome’s Augusti, Byzantine Christ-kings, Czars of Holy Mother Russia and myriad varieties of kings in Africa: such examples amply confirm the propositions that kingship has been “the most common form of government known, worldwide, to man”;6 and, furthermore, that “kingship everywhere and at all times has been in some degree a sacred office”.7 Monarchy as a political force really went out only in the twentieth century, but the divine aura of kings lingered long into the modern age: the belief that the touch of a king’s hand could cure scrofula (“king’s evil”) faded only in the nineteenth century; Lenin’s Mausoleum still draws pilgrims; the spectacle around the British monarchy can still draw forth enthusiasm akin to the religious; and (on a less sublime note), I myself have witnessed worshippers thronging around the Bier Koning of Leuven, and jubilating unsteadily in those golden times every few years when he returns, and when, before his beneficent presence, the beer-taps flow with free Jupiler and Stella.8 Frazer’s search for the grounds for particular institutions like the Rex Nemorensis set the agenda for other attempts to ground kingship in deeper psychological and biological realities. One prevalent line of thinking is that kingship is the most natural institution: human animals live in hierarchically structured groups, and so have an innate desire for leaders. Whether known as monarchs or alpha-males (or females), these leaders gain authority because they have some means (e.g. physical strength, cunning, charisma, ancestral mana, magic or other knowledge) that can keep the forces of chaos at bay and provide a sense of security. Thus, they provide protection from outside enemies; they give encouragement by their own reassuring presence; they offer guidance as to what to do, and by example or outright orders, they help check the disorder within as well as without, for the demons of the free mind can be as terrifying as any external foes.9 Few have the courage to be free (the general argument goes), and so leaders are needed, whether political leaders, or parental figures, role-models, heroes or gods real or constructed. In this perspective, hierarchies always develop over time, oligarchies always form according to the “iron law”, messianic hopes bubble beneath the surface, and sometimes great leaders do actually arise, accruing to themselves powers monarchical, even in contexts hostile to kings: so Pericles was regarded as effective monarch of democratic Athens; Augustus Caesar assumed kingly powers as he pretended to restore the Republic; George Washington, revolutionary general, served regally as

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 4

05/10/2011 07:05



F u ndamental T hemes

5

America’s first president, and later F. D. Roosevelt “reigned” for 16 years, on a quasi-socialist agenda. The longing for a leader surfaces in even more unpromising conditions: anarchists will group instinctively around a charismatic figure, and even such an egalitarian faith as Christianity adopts the common religious metaphor that God is “king”. Curiously, it is this generalized psychological theory, and not Frazerian, democratic or biblical ideas, that runs closest to Greco-Roman notions of kingship. One might call the dominant Greco-Roman understanding of kingship a Homeric one, and this is not surprising, for Homer set a keynote that would resonate throughout Greco-Roman antiquity. What is a king? In the Iliad and Odyssey, the king is somehow “the best” of his people—the best at fighting, speaking, advising, planning. He is the best on the battlefield (like Achilles and Diomedes), or in council (like Nestor and Odysseus), or in status (like Agamemnon and Priam). In valour, eloquence, birth and wealth, he shows that human beings are not equal, that he is better than most and that he should lead therefore and others follow. The aristocratic ideal seems self-evident to these Homeric peoples, although Homer recognizes how difficult it may be to apply in practice. For it is not always clear who “the best” is. Who is the better fighter, for example, Ajax or Diomedes? Or, how can one judge between qualitatively different talents? Is Odysseus’ cunning better than Ajax’ strength, or Achilles’ unruly prowess than Hector’s loyal courage? The question “who is the best?” pervades the Homeric poems, not least in the fact that it motivates the start of the Iliad, as Agamemnon and Achilles quarrel over precedence, each parading their claim. Agamemnon claims to be “more kingly” and “better” (pherteros), because as ruler of golden Mycenae, he commands the most men and ships. But Achilles is “stronger” (karteros) and a far better fighter—ultimately the deciding factor in a martial society that prized heroic prowess above all else.10 Achilles is vindicated in the end, but more generally, the notion that the leader should be the “best of the Achaeans” seemed so simple and natural that it would pervade much literature for centuries to come. Moreover, the phrase “best of the Achaeans” highlights basic assumptions adopted throughout Greco-Roman literature. This is a point that must be emphasized, or we may risk projecting our contemporary convictions onto the ancient data. To paint in broad strokes again, modern thinkers tend to postulate that the thinking subject is autonomous and sovereign, that it delegates power to governments which are “instituted among men” provisionally to represent their will, but which have no authority beyond that: thus, government is by, for and of the people, conceived of either as a collection of distinct individuals, or a single, organic whole.11 Greek and Roman thinkers do not privilege the sovereign individual but tend rather to emphasize that somebody must lead and that the leader (or leading group) should somehow be “the best”. Rulers are necessary,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 5

05/10/2011 07:05

6

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

and they should be “better” than their subjects. The Iliad thus explores who is the “best” of the Achaeans, while later historians and philosophers tend to ask: who should rule, who should be ruled and what virtues are needed in each? Through poetry, history and moral philosophy, this ruler-ruled relationship is discerned in the most disparate phenomena: father and family, captain and ship, general and army, shepherd and flocks, doctor and patient, farmer and plants, magistri bibendi and symposiasts, masters and slaves, strong and weak, old and young, wise and foolish, soul and body, reason and passion, deity and temple or city, God and world. For Plato and Aristotle, the relationship is so pervasive that it informs fundamental ontology: Ideas rule particulars, Forms shape matter, actualities rule potentiality. This metaphor of “ruling” reinforces the prejudice that men should rule women, and Greeks barbarians. And it accommodates itself easily to more republican and democratic perspectives: a citizen body may love its freedom (i.e. abhor being ruled by a tyrant or exclusive cabal), and yet insist on the need to rule its women-folk, slaves or conquered subjects. The idea is pervasive enough to inspire humorous caricature: in an anecdote in Plutarch, Themistocles said the Greeks were ruled by the Athenians, the Athenians by Themistocles, Themistocles by his wife and his wife by their young son, with the logical conclusion that Themistocles’ son was the “most powerful of the Hellenes”.12 The joke calls attention to how prevalent was the assumption that there must be rulers. The assumption is hardly ever questioned, and debate tends to focus instead on the secondary issue of the proper virtues of leaders and followers. This, then, is one context for the frequently moralistic tone of much Greco-Roman philosophy, historiography and political ideology, especially from the fourth century BC: “virtue” was the buzz-word, the idée fixe, the cliché that was on everybody’s lips. Rousseau’s generalization is still insightful: “Ancient politicians talked incessantly about morality and virtue; our politicians talk only about business and money.”13

Functions of ancient kings The virtues required of leaders should be commensurate with their functions, and so if one may indulge in further generalizations about the ancient Mediterranean world as a whole, it would be to suggest that its kings typically had three main functions: to fight, to judge and to sacrifice. Ideally at least, ancient kings stood before the army, tribunal and altar, as the “best” of their people in all of these roles.14 Of the three functions, the first was most obvious, and Homer’s kings are obviously paradigmatic.15 For their “heroic code” demands that they lead their soldiers, fight in the front ranks as promachoi

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 6

05/10/2011 07:05



F u ndamental T hemes

7

and rush in “where the fighting is thickest”, thus giving example to others, avenging fallen companions, enriching henchmen with plunder and winning honour and “glory imperishable”. Ever central to a Greek education, the Iliad and Odyssey exerted influence in myriad ways, not least in perpetuating the heroic ideal. Most dramatically, they helped to fire Alexander with a “yearning” (pothos) to become a second Achilles, and Alexander’s example in turn inspired Pyrrhus, Demetrius, Caesar, Antony, Trajan and others down to Julian, whose own battlefield heroics in the East were celebrated by Ammianus in Homeric style.16 Few leaders had the personal valour of an Achilles or Alexander but Spartan kings, Athenian generals, Hellenistic monarchs and Roman consuls and emperors were expected to be leaders of armies in some capacity: some even fought in the ranks.17 This admiration for the strong man seeps out in all directions: in myth, Zeus is “king of gods and men”, who hurls the thunderbolt in battle against Titans and Giants.18 Or, in philosophical circles, Plato suggests that the first function of his Guardians, or philosopher-kings, will be to fight; they are to prove themselves in the Critias by fighting an epic war against the empire of Atlantis.19 Greeks and Romans were not alone in admiring their fighting leaders. The citystates of early Mesopotamia were often at war, and so their Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and other kings often boasted mightily of their conquests. Assyrian kings immortalized themselves on vast sculptured reliefs, besieging and sacking walled cities. So too Egyptian Pharaohs appear in monumental sculptures as god-like figures, towering over their armies and smiting their puny foes. In time, the Persian Achaemenids inherited all Middle Eastern titles and boasts hitherto, and proclaimed themselves conquerors in the name of Ahura Mazda, kings of the Four Quarters, Kings of Kings, kings of Babylon, great kings, kings of Persia, Elam, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, Lydia, the Greeks, Media, Armenia, Drangiana, Bactria, Arachosia and sundry lands. It is in this Near Eastern context that the early Hebrews cried to Samuel as they struggled with the Philistines: “No! Give us a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with the king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”20 So the Hebrew kings went out with the Ark of the Covenant, leading the hosts of Yahweh, God of Battles. Fighting was their central function, and so when David kills Goliath, he effectively usurps Saul’s kingly role, and rouses his mortal envy. Similarly, later prophecies of a Messiah inspired hopes for a great soldier-king who would drive out the Seleucids or Romans: few expected that David’s heir would be a carpenter and King of Peace, whose Kingdom would not be of this world. The desire to be led by the biggest and toughest may be as deep-seated as it is common, and Machiavelli may tap some fundamental instinct when he writes that “A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules.”21

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 7

05/10/2011 07:05

8

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Yet Machiavelli may overstate the case. For if the people must be defended from external enemies, they may need to be protected from each other too. Thus, as if rejecting Machiavelli’s proposition that “where there are good arms, there are good laws”, Justinian’s Institutes begins by juxtaposing arms and laws: an emperor must not merely conquer, but must give a coherent code of law. Thus, a second function for kings was the administration of justice, both retributive and distributive. Homer’s kings are, again, somewhat paradigmatic, as they distribute rewards to followers and punish insubordination. Agamemnon for instance divides the prizes (gera) among the army and holds the sceptre—associated with Zeus’ divine ordinances (themistes) and used by Odysseus to beat down rebellious soldiers.22 Hesiod also makes much of kings’ duties as judges, and rails against local basileis who take bribes to give “crooked judgements”, contrary to the justice of Zeus.23 In Macedon, citizens could appeal directly to the king, and even Alexander spent time listening to cases. Roman citizens had their own right of rogatio, even to the emperor himself. This ideal of the king as lawgiver and upholder of justice was even more the norm in Near Eastern civilizations. Herodotus’ story of Deioces as judge and first Median king may reflect some vague hearsay of the many “wise legislators” of the East: the Sumerian king Ur-nammu, the Amorite Lipit-Ishtar, the Babylonian Hammurabi, the Assyrian Tukulti-Ninurta I, the Hebrew Moses and others, all known for their law-codes.24 One common feature of these codes is their religious preambles. Hammurabi, for example, that “mighty monarch, sun of Babylon, whose rays shed light over the land of Sumer and Akkad”, writes how he was called by Anu and Bel “to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evildoers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten the land, to further the well-being of mankind”.25 The assumption here that law is not man-made but divine, and that it upholds the cosmic order as much as the human community, was fundamental and dominant. To take just two examples: Pharaoh was the preserver of Ma’at, at once human justice and cosmic order, and after Moses received the Law on Mount Sinai, the Hebrews’ prosperity rose and sank with their wavering faithfulness to Yahweh’s covenant. They prospered mightily under King Solomon, for he was wise both as the Preacher and a righteous judge. The notion of sacred, god-given law is less prevalent in Greco-Roman attitudes, but it is present nonetheless, particularly where the authority of myth is respected. So Homeric and Hesiodic kings receive their just ordinances (themistes) from Zeus, Minos got laws from Zeus, Lycurgus received his laws from Apollo in Delphi, to take the most cited examples.26 Later Hellenistic kings used such myths to bolster their own image as “living law” and vehicles of the divine. In Roman legend, Numa received his laws from the nymph Egeria,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 8

05/10/2011 07:05



F u ndamental T hemes

9

while later still Roman emperors became at once sole makers of law, and quasidivine objects of worship in their lifetime, often joining the pantheon of gods after death. As we will see, there are philosophical analogues of the common association of kingship, law and divinity: Plato in his last work defines law as the “distribution of nous” (divine mind)—a reflection of the natural patterns by which God rules the world. The third most common function of kingship is not unrelated to the other two. The conquering warrior and wise legislator are each in their respective spheres impressive and awe-inspiring. Whether rampaging over their foes in the fury of an aristeia, or penetrating to the heart of a case and legislating for a whole society down to the most minute details, kings wield now a ferocious power, now a startling intelligence. It is as if some uncanny power moves them, some mana that is strongly felt, though not fully seen. Equally capable of raising up or razing to the ground, source of good and evil alike, the king inspires admiration and fear together. This is that paradoxical emotion of awe that Otto places at the heart of elemental religious experience: the king is an awesome figure, filled with numinous power at once threatening and alluring. Before him, therefore, as if before the arbiter of his being, the vulnerable subject trembles, feeling himself to be in the presence of some mysterium tremendum et fascinans. Many have felt this awe before the rage of an Achilles or the tribunal of an Augustus, for the king’s wrath is like the wrath of Zeus, and his eye is as all-seeing as Apollo’s. In this elementary way, one might try to enter into the mentality that in so many cultures has given kings sacred status. From the pre-modern perspective the roles of conqueror and lawgiver are not inherently secular: the god and king fight against the forces of chaos, as Pharaoh triumphs over Seth, Marduk over Tiamat, Zeus over Titans and Giants, Persian kings over nomads of “The Lie”, Hebrew kings over Canaanites and Baal-worshippers, Attalid kings over Galatian “barbarians”, Roman emperors over German “barbarians”, Byzantine monarchs over heathen Bulgars and so forth. Or, again, law-giving brings order, and is therefore a sacred act, akin to the creation of the world. Breaking a law can therefore threaten the cosmic order itself, and so, to combat iniquity, the lawgiver claims to work under a god, as Hammurabi under Anu, Moses under Yahweh, Minos under Zeus, Constantine under Christ, Julian under Helios or Jefferson under his Deist God. Far from being just specialized workers, the military victor and god-inspired judge often have a sacred status.27 But the third function of kings is most obviously sacred: to offer sacrifice to the gods, and lead the accepted rituals and customs that secure divine favour for the people. Nothing is more alien to modern sensibilities than this, nothing more central to ancient kingship. The king is often said to be a mediator between divine and human realms, but this dualistic language is, in

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 9

05/10/2011 07:05

10

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

general, too strong: for pagan sensibilities, being itself is divine, so that there is no radical distinction between the divine and human, supernatural and natural. Nature is pervaded by divinity and “all things are full of gods”, but in this divine totality, some entities, places and people may be more divine than others. Therefore, there are spaces and implements sacred to this deity or that, and temples may be built on those spaces to house those implements. So too, kings can be the “most” sacred of the people, and it is this that makes them religious leaders, mediators with the divine, upon whose actions and very person depend the weather, rich harvests, health, victory in war, justice, peace, and prosperity and the fate of the people. Examples abound. In some cases, the king may be actually a god: Egyptian Pharaohs were the living embodiments of Osiris (and later of Horus); after their deaths, Roman emperors might be divinized and included in the pantheon for public worship. In other cases, the king is a descendent, representative or agent of god: Mesopotamian kings like Hammurabi were servants of their city-gods; Homeric kings bear the epithet diogenēs, “born of Zeus”, and offer sacrifices on behalf of their people;28 Achaemenid and Sassanian kings were agents of Ahura Mazda; Hellenistic monarchs boasted divine or heroic lineages, took titles such as “Saviour”, “Benefactor” and “God made manifest”, and were praised as “living law” for their subjects. Each of these traditions have their own peculiarities, but one should not forget larger commonalities: political forms are most often understood as grounded in a divine cosmos, so that the king becomes an image or even embodiment of a god, and the city or nation an image of the cosmic whole. Such general ideas will be reflected also in the most influential Greek philosophies of kingship: in addition to being warriors and lawgivers, Plato’s Guardians have the duty of framing the right customs and myths in order to draw their people towards the divine Good, while the Stoics speak of the cosmos as a single city of God and men, and make the philosophical sage the true “king”, for he alone attains the knowledge of God.

Kingship, Classical Greece and Republican Rome Through these brief surveys of the military, legislative and priestly roles of kings, one may have noticed how few examples were taken from Classical Greece or Republican Rome. Were not these cultures exceptional, one may ask: were they not “out of kings”? The spell of kingship does indeed seem far less potent here than in Egypt or Mesopotamia. In the Greek Archaic age, when the city-states begin to emerge into the light of history, they are ruled by aristocratic families. All through the Classical period, kingship is rare, limited in powers and banished either to the Homeric past, or to the barbarian fringes of the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 10

05/10/2011 07:05



F u ndamental T hemes

11

Hellenic world. Most exceptional was Sparta, with its two kings descended from the sons of Heracles: but there is only a hint of sacred monarchy here, for the Spartan kings were primarily military commanders, whose domestic powers were sharply limited by the gerousia, ephors and customary law. Argos too had kings (about whom little is known) down to 480,29 but for other examples, one must wander farther afield. The Thessalians had military tagoi. The Epirotes and Molossians in the rough northwest had monarchs, and there were Homericstyle kings in the Cyprian cities (e.g. Soli, Salamis) and in Macedonia. But all these were half-barbarian places, at the edges of “civilization”. More distant still were Thracians, Illyrians, Triballians and Scythians to the north, Lydians, Phoenicians and Persians to the east, and Egyptians and Ethiopians to the south. All these were ruled by kings, and in their cultural pride, classical Greeks tended to look down on them as inferior “barbarians”, who were either primitive or slavish. To be ruled by another is to be unfree. At the same time, leaders are necessary, and so Aristotle sums up Greek attitudes when he defines citizenship itself in quasi-democratic terms as “ruling and being ruled in turn”.30 Of such citizenship, barbarians remain incapable, because they are natural slaves and always need a master. Such Greek pride seemed justified by history. The free institutions of the agora, assembly and courts seemed to have shown their superiority in the greatest of tests, war. Had not the Athenians and Plataeans defeated Darius at Marathon? Had not the Greek allies blocked Xerxes at Thermopylae, and routed his “slaves” in Salamis, Plataea and Mycale? Had not Xenophon’s Ten Thousand embarrassed the King’s armies in the heart of Mesopotamia? Again, god-born kings stay aloof in order to appear awesome to their subjects. But the Greek city-states were too small, personal and invidious places to tolerate such pretensions for long: in the streets of Athens, one could more easily see that would-be tyrants like Alcibiades were just “rapscallions”. This sharp sense of Greek difference from Persians and “barbarians” in general is captured by a story of Plutarch, where Themistocles (the most Odyssean and free-spirited of Athenians) faces a Persian satrap, and hears him praise his King rapturously, as the very image of Ahura Mazda: “It is the habit of the Greeks, we are told, to honour, above all things, liberty and equality; but amongst our many excellent laws, we account this the most excellent, to honour the king, and to worship him, as the image of the great preserver of the universe.”31 Themistocles plays along but one doubts that he was taken in by the satrap’s talk of “sacred” kings. In an analogous way, Romans of the Republic are often regarded as having been too solidly pragmatic to be bamboozled by royal ideologies. So, as is so often stated, after the expulsion of the Etruscan tyrants and establishment of the Republic, the very word rex was hateful to Romans. Patricians and plebeians alike guarded their liberty jealously, and over time developed institutions to prevent any hint of monarchy. The king’s power was

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 11

05/10/2011 07:05

12

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

divided among censors, praetors, consuls and other magistrates, and as in Greek cities, collegiality and short tenures were widely adopted: there had been one king, but now there were two consuls, numerous praetors, aediles and so forth, while dictatorship was an emergency measure to be adopted for specific purposes or six months. And as in Greece, liberty was seen to triumph on the battlefield: Roman citizen-soldiers defeated the mercenaries of Hannibal, and Alexander’s successors—first Pyrrhus, later the Antigonids, Seleucids and Ptolemies in turn. Contact with such monarchs and the incorporation of their kingdoms into the empire made later Roman generals effective kings in their own right, with their own armies, clients and client-provinces. So Marius become consul seven times, Sulla dictator “to restore the Republic”, Caesar dictator for life and Octavian Augustus brought history full-circle by effectively usurping many of the military, judicial and priestly powers of the ancient kings. And yet, none of these strong men dared to style themselves reges, so deeply-seated, it seems, were republican attitudes. Looking at facts like these, one is tempted to speak of Greek and Roman exceptionalism. “Let observation, with extensive view, survey mankind, from China to Peru”, and in most major pre-modern civilizations, one finds sacred, glittering sun-kings. But the rough mountains of Greece and the feverish plain of the Tiber gave birth to a new spirit of liberty, conceived in competition, and devoted to the proposition that all, or at least some, people are free. In this old argument, it is as if the selfgoverning city-states of Greece and Rome first developed and bequeathed to modern Europe its secular ideals of individual liberty, material prosperity and rational progress. The argument is a powerful one and cannot be easily dismissed. At the same time one should not be too quick to project modern norms onto either Classical Greece or Republican Rome. Their political institutions were enormously different from those of Pharaonic Egypt or Achaemenid Persia. Nevertheless, they were not unaffected by the pervasive legacy of sacred kingship. This is true even of Athens’ radical democracy which had its elected “king archon” (archōn basileus) who seems to have inherited the ancient kings’ religious duties, including that of overseeing trials for crimes against the gods, like murder, miasma or impiety. It was this archōn basileus who, on behalf of the dēmos, first heard the deposition against Socrates when he was accused of impiety. Other duties included presiding over state prayers, sacrifices at the Eleusinion and festivals like the Lenaia and Dionysia where choral dances and dramatic plays were performed for the honour and enjoyment of the gods. Analogously, Republican Rome had its Domus Regia, vestal virgins, colleges of priests, rex sacrorum and pontifex maximus. The last was a very important magistrate, since religio and the proper observance of rituals were thought to secure divine favour, and were thus accepted as the basis of the state. Many

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 12

05/10/2011 07:05



F u ndamental T hemes

13

magistracies therefore had a religious aspect. Consuls offered sacrifice and took auspices, and when they or other generals went out to battle and returned, religious awe attended them as imperatores: the Gates of War were flung open, the sacred spear was thrown into enemy territory by the fetiales, the legions were marshalled on the Field of Mars, and, when the war was won, they returned to triumph along the Via Sacra, winding through the city towards the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. As he rode in his chariot with his face painted red like the war-god, the imperator might hear the slave behind him saying “Remember you are only mortal”—though then again, with the deafening adulation of the crowd, he might not. Certainly the triumph placed the imperator on high as the “best” of the Romans, and closest to the divine powers. Eventually, the Roman emperor combined the roles of imperator and pontifex maximus, and one of his most important tasks was to offer sacrifice on behalf of the empire. More informally, Republican Roman attitudes towards kingship were often in fact deeply ambivalent. A belated study of Roman attitudes towards kings casts serious doubt on the univocal assumption that Republican Romans detested the very word rex. Erskine (1991) argues that the nomen regium became intolerable only from the second century BC, when Rome fought the Hellenistic kings, and especially later when Caesar had imposed his dictatorship on all. In fact, as Erskine shows, Aeneas, Romulus, Numa and other legendary kings are treated quite favourably by historians, poets and orators. So too the popular plays of Plautus adopt an attitude similar to that of their Greek originals, and admire kings as the pinnacles of wealth and worldly success. But if Romans could be impressed by the “glamour of the eastern kings”,32 the Greeks were always vulnerable to the seductions of one-man rule. The sixth-century has been called the “Age of Tyrants”, but contemporaries referred to them as basileis or tyrannoi indiscriminately and without any pejorative connotation. Pisistratus, to take one example, associated his power with the divine: returning a second time with Athena herself, he established his home on the Acropolis, home of the former kings, and site sacred to the goddess. The allure of tyranny lingered throughout the Classical period, not least due to the interference of Persian satraps. In democratic cities especially, institutions like the popular courts, ostracism, collegiality, election by lot were brought in to contain would-be tyrants, while arguments like Xenophon’s Hiero or Plato’s Republic tried to deflate the erōs tyrannos, that rage to get one’s way, which to Plato seemed a part of human nature itself. Ambitious men like Themisticles or Alcibiades might therefore shrewdly eye the power and wealth of foreign potentates—the Persian king and his western satraps, Dionysius I and II in Sicily, Philip of Macedon and his successors and, eventually, Roman consuls and praetors who in their time surpassed the Hellenistic monarchs in wealth and power. So Cineas reserved the highest praise for the Roman Senate when he described it to Pyrrhus as an “assembly of kings”.33

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 13

05/10/2011 07:05

14

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Greek admiration for kings is even more prevalent in literature. In the Iliad, Agamemnon is praised as basileutatos, and the word basileus remains one to conjure with. Mythic monarchs of Argos, Mycenae and Thebes paraded across the tragic stage in classical Athens, while comedy found humour in exaggerating the wealth of the Persian King, or in crowning plebeian heroes like Agoracritus as “king” of the Hellenes.34 “All things reach a climax in kings,”35 says Pindar, and his proverb is reflected in many statements by the “wise”. In religion, Zeus is “king of gods and men”. In popular lore, the lion is king of beasts, the eagle king of birds, the oak king of trees, the bull king of the herd. Aesop tells stories of how the animals foolishly elected a Monkey as their monarch; or how the silly Frogs begged Zeus for a king, and were given in turn a log, an eel and, finally, a stork, who ruled over them all too well. In biology, Aristotle and others thought that those marvellously well-organized creatures, ants and bees, were ruled by “kings”—not queens, for in this the ancient scientists did not escape their patriarchal assumptions.36 In history, Herodotus at least recognizes that when Cyrus and Croesus came to the throne, “the world was old”:37 his lists of Lydian, Median and Egyptian kings tell of the vast antiquity of the East, and may echo distantly the first annalistic histories;38 his stories of Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes and Greek tyrants were clearly composed to fascinate popular audiences. Finally, in philosophy, many thinkers flirted with the language of kingship. As we will see, Socrates and Plato sought out the “kingly craft” of politics, while the Cynics and Stoics claimed to be alone rich, powerful, free and wise, and therefore alone “kings”. The notion that “the wise” exercise more power than emperors returns in the concluding judgement of one important account of modern philosophy and science: The moral of the tale is the power of reason, its decisive influence on the life of humanity. The great conquerors, from Alexander to Caesar, and from Caesar to Napoleon, influenced profoundly the lives of subsequent generations. But the total effect of this influence shrinks to insignificance, if compared to the entire transformation of human habits and human mentality produced by the long line of men of thought from Thales to the present day, men individually powerless, but ultimately the rulers of the world.39

Philosopher-kings and assorted wise rulers This concluding sentence of Whitehead’s Science and the Modern World consciously harkens back to the central idea of Plato’s politics. Different functions call forth various virtues in leaders, as soldiers, legislators or priests. But few would agree that might makes right, and that the strong do or should

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 14

05/10/2011 07:05



F u ndamental T hemes

15

rule simply because of physical strength alone. Likewise, it seems mere superstition to let the well-born rule, as if a baby could be born to dominion over others, and it would be even more frivolous to give power to the most beautiful, the tallest or the best jumpers.40 What is the real justification of power? Plato’s Republic offers one well-considered judgement. Power is justified when it is used well, that is for the greatest good. But what is the good, and who knows it? The wise—for to be wise is to know what is truly important, and to act on that knowledge. At the centre of the Republic, therefore, is the judgement that in an ideal state, it is not mere soldiers, merchants, bankers, politicians or priests who should have power, but those men and women who are wisest. In the Platonic scheme, the “best” in wisdom will not be the poets or fast-talking sophists, or anyone other than certain well-trained philosophers. Therefore, Socrates concludes, in an ideal city philosophers will rule, and indeed they will have a virtual monopoly on power: This society we have described can never grow into a reality or see the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed, my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings, or till those we now call kings and rulers become true philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands. . . This is what I have hesitated to say so long, knowing what a paradox it would sound. 41

Socrates might indeed fear that his proposal sounds paradoxical. For, as he stresses, his ideal philosopher-kings will be gentle to friends and fellow-citizens but fierce to foes, at once peacemakers and fighters.42 The paradox deepens as Socrates explores the education of his leaders. As philosophers, they will spend their time in pure mathematics, dialectical argument, essential definitions and contemplation of pure, timeless Ideas, such as the Idea of the Good “beyond essence”, and so they will abandon their souls to academic questions, with no obvious bearing on the “real” world. Plato knew well that many would look askance at such philosophers: they seem useless, if not downright corrupt, and surely dreamers and eggheads like these should be the last people to be in charge? The paradox is even more pointed given the demands of kingship, and the common ancient expectation that kings be generals and even warriors. Yet, Socrates courts the paradox flagrantly, as he depicts his Guardians as professional soldiers, who live almost like hired mercenaries of the state. Fighting philosopher-kings? It might seem that such a strange proposal could have no history, not even in the mind of a single person. Such has been the view of many Plato scholars: it was an idealistic dream from which Plato gradually awoke and which he at last abandoned in writing his more “realistic” Laws. And yet a complex of related ideas—the “royal art” of politics, the cosmic Demiurge,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 15

05/10/2011 07:05

16

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

the divine king and a philosophical system of law—are explored tentatively in the Timaeus, Statesman, Laws and a host of other dialogues, suggesting that Plato did not at all abandon his ideal but rather explored different ways of approaching it. Plato’s deeper ideal was rule by “the wise”, whether this ruling wisdom be construed as the wisdom of God (Statesman), of philosopher-kings (Republic) or of a philosophical system of law (Laws). In addition, Plato made at least two serious efforts to educate the tyrant Dionysius II in philosophy, and he founded the Academy partly with a view to bringing some higher enlightenment to Greek politics, if not to educating actual philosopher-kings. Chapter 2 will explore all this in further detail and in the process will suggest that Plato’s political proposals, far from being idiosyncratic, offer a rationalistic variation on the religio regis so pervasive in pre-modern cultures, including GrecoRoman antiquity: in addition to being soldiers and legislators, his Guardians are also priests of sorts, mediators between the divine Good and the human city. It is partly due to this wider hospitality to sacred kingship that Plato’s central political ideal did not die with him. Quite the contrary: even his specific proposal for philosopher-kings would be revisited again and again, in the most varied contexts, both academic and practical, from the Hellenistic courts down to the age of Justinian and beyond. This book will explore in detail some of these “footnotes” to this proposal. First, through the Hellenistic age, Greek kings consulted philosophers, patronized learning, were flattered as philosophic rulers and on some occasions actually lived up to the flattery. On the other hand, philosophers such as the Cynics, Stoics and neo-Pythagoreans appropriated the language of royalty and argued that philosophers are the true “kings”, because they are “best” in virtue. Many of these intertwined themes of political rhetoric and moralizing philosophy are summed up in the works of the “middle” Platonist, Plutarch, and particularly in his magnum opus, Parallel Lives of Greeks and Romans. Plutarch’s Lives will therefore form the core and culmination of Chapter 3. Plutarch’s death took place at about the same time (c. 120 AD) as the birth of the future Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius whose name is always invoked in relation to Plato, as if Plato’s dream became solid reality in Marcus. As a Roman emperor and Greek-style Stoic, Marcus united in his person much of GrecoRoman civilization, and he has often been labelled the perfect philosopher-king of antiquity. To what extent is this assertion true? With a view to answering this question, Chapter 4 will explore Marcus’ education, philosophical Meditations, political accomplishments and enduring image as one of the best of emperors. In fact, the title of philosopher-king might be more appropriate for the hero of Chapter 5. Julian the “Apostate” was nephew of Constantine, Roman emperor for 18 months, a Neoplatonic thinker after the manner of Iamblichus, and indeed an ideologue who was determined to rule in the light of his philosophy.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 16

05/10/2011 07:05



F u ndamental T hemes

17

So he portrayed himself as the agent of the ancient gods, preserved and trained in order to restore paganism and purge the empire of the new religion that threatened it, Christianity. In this he failed, and his death symbolizes in some respects the end of Greco-Roman antiquity and the beginning of the medieval period. Yet centuries before Julian, Plato’s talk of philosopher-kings had taken root in the different cultural soil of Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity. Philo is the most prominent of the Jewish writers who depict Hebrew patriarchs, kings and, above all, Moses as the perfect Platonic leader. Similar appropriations of Platonic thought would appear for the next 1,500 years in Muslim, Jewish and Christian writers, as when Eusebius, for example, envisioned Constantine as the perfect Christian prince, wise in his revelation of God. Beginning with Philo, Chapter 6 attempts to summarize some of the complex discussions that informed the Eusebian image of Constantine and, by extension, later Christian kings like Justinian or Frederick II of Sicily—at once generals, lawgivers, theologians and thinkers. From the Renaissance on, the medieval edifice would begin to totter, and a new individualism and scientific materialism seemed to toll the bell for the Platonic tradition of wise, sacred kings. And yet, although the most Christian king, Charles I, was beheaded in 1649, the dream of philosophically informed kingship lived on, even in seemingly anti-Platonic works like Hobbes’ Leviathan. So Chapter 6 continues on with a quick survey of some philosopherkings of modernity: “enlightened despots” like Frederick the Great of Prussia, the third US President Thomas Jefferson and the thinker-founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin, each of whom in his own way combined abstract philosophizing with practical leadership. The list of names could easily be multiplied, and each individual story could be extended infinitely, because (as Tristram Shandy, gentleman, exclaims) “there are archives at every stage to be looked into, and rolls, records, documents, and endless genealogies”. But the main thread of this history of philosopher-kings in antiquity and beyond is clear to see, and it demonstrates how Plato’s proposal has the rich simplicity of genius. His central political idea is deceptively simple: let the wise rule. But who are the wise? How are they found or trained? How can their wisdom be communicated through a society? How can it be transmitted to successors? Plato approaches these question differently in different dialogues, and in turn Plutarch, Marcus, Julian, Philo, Eusebius, Jefferson, Lenin and others have their own philosophical approaches, some of which differ vehemently from Plato’s. But some tentative generalizations may hold fairly true for all of them: wisdom is knowledge of what is real and most important, and as such belongs to God only, or, at least, to an intelligence beyond the human. Human wisdom seeks to approximate that transcendent intelligence, while acknowledging its own limitations. In particular, human wisdom represents

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 17

05/10/2011 07:05

18

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

the deepest understanding of man’s ends, capabilities and essential relation to the real. As a result, wisdom is both theoretical and practical: it can embrace religious revelation and scientific discovery; it informs action, whether the quiet retirement of the monk and contemplative thinker, the conservativism of the cautious statesman or the angry impatience of the revolutionary. Plato’s Republic, Timaeus and Laws give their own indications of what is most real and most humanly important; they outline an understanding of the cosmos and how man may best align himself with it. Their emphasis on contemplative dwelling within the eternal and within the recurrent regularities of nature sets a norm for much ancient and medieval thought. In addition, the notion of philosopher-kings, and wise legislators, is broad enough to accommodate those thinkers who, like Hobbes, Nietzsche or Lenin, scornfully reject Platonic idealism or quietism. Indeed, countless political systems have aspired to justify and improve the powerful by contact with some higher wisdom, whether it be the wisdom of magicians, prophets, priests, bards, nobles, generals, scribes, scholars, monks, lawyers, merchants, economists or whoever happens to be respected for possessing exceptionally important knowledge in a given society. Wisdom may be sought in the entrails of chickens or in sacred books, in the natural light of reason or historical precedent, in dialectical materialism or statistical surveys. In each case, Plato’s ghost can be still be heard: let the wise rule. With this, let us turn to the Republic and other dialogues in which Plato articulates an ideal that, far from being paradoxical, seems almost perennial. Archaic, it recalls the institution of sun-kings and sacred kings, who maintain their people’s harmony with the divine cosmos. Greek, it demands with Homer that leaders be the “best”, especially in wisdom and courage. Modern, it hopes for a political science and the application of disciplined thinking to the improvement of mankind. Our story then, like all histories, will be one of continuity through change. The idea of philosopher-kings changes in each of its exemplifications, some of whom appear as near saints, others as “reglar rapscallions”, corrupted and corrupting by their ideas. One cannot step into the same river twice, as Heraclitus says, and yet in its broad shape and flow the river seems ever the same.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 18

05/10/2011 07:05

2

Plato’s Dream According to legend, shortly before his death, Plato dreamed he had become a swan that flew high over the land. When people below saw the beautiful swan, they took aim at it with their arrows and missiles, hoping for a prize. Some came close but none struck home and so the swan sailed calmly on. The dream could be said to have proved prophetic in that Plato’s works have been studied and restudied, with different effects. They have acted as a “midwife” to creative thinkers as diverse as Plotinus, St Augustine, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Whitehead, all of whom have developed some of Plato’s ideas to the neglect of others. Scholars too have often failed to strike a direct hit and capture the man himself: despite books entitled What Plato Said, which claim to summarize the essence of Plato’s thought, his dialogues prove fruitful of new approaches, and so he has been regarded as Plotinian mystic, proto-Hegelian (Zeller), protofascist (Popper), dialogical thinker (Gadamer) and much else besides.1 Despite loathing Plato’s religious legacy, Nietzsche praises him as the “finest growth of antiquity”, and it is true that all Greece went into his making: a poet sensitive to Homer, Pindar and the tragedians; a hearer of Socrates, and the arguments of the great Sophists; a citizen of Athens with its orators, public debates, energetic citizens and cosmopolitan port; a patron of mathematics, only a generation before the first great synthesis by Euclid; and, most of all, a thinker open to ideas—et hical, juridical, sceptical, Eleatic, Heraclitean, atomistic, Pythagorean. Faced with a mind so many-sided, and so many various interpretations of him, one might despair of ever capturing the “thing-in-itself ”. Moreover, his “unwritten teachings” remain mysterious; of the 13 letters ascribed to him, only one is generally accepted as genuine; and though all his dialogues seem to have survived, Plato chooses to speak only indirectly, through a variety of characters. Here ideas are ventured, arguments made, often unsystematically, always provisionally. No single character, argument or theme threads through all the dialogues: Socrates fades away in the Timaeus and Parmenides and vanishes from the Sophist and Laws; talk about Forms burgeons in the “middle” dialogues like Republic and Symposium, but seems absent from works like Ion, Charmides, Theaetetus and Laws. On the other hand, through many dialogues characters reappear, similar themes resurface and patterns of argument recur. Artfully composed, the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 19

05/10/2011 07:05

20

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

dialogues seem to encourage the reader to search for some unifying core behind their apparent multiplicity. Traditionally, readers have isolated this core as “Platonism”: the doctrine that the physical world, body and even human mind are not fully real or knowable, but gain their structure and substantiality from Ideas or Forms that persist beyond time, change and perspective. Human life, in particular, goes on willy-nilly in the shadow of these Ideas: physical bodies are mathematically structured; conventional concepts of law or justice partially reflect the true Idea of Justice, for example; our highest longing is for an immortal, even eternal happiness, which is only partially realized in the pursuit of property, friendship, art, science, philosophy. Platonism, thus, explores the partial appearances of transcendent Ideas through different contexts: the logical search for essential definitions, the statesman’s legislation for an ideal city, the physicist’s application of mathematical patterns to physical phenomena, the longing to transcend human limitations to see reality whole. Plato does not explicitly endorse this doctrine of “Platonism”, and in fact severely criticizes the theory of Ideas in Parmenides. Nevertheless, many readers sense a “family resemblance” in the dialogues: neither parts of a single, unified system, nor so many disconnected thought-experiments, they are rather particular conversations, bearing the traces of the enigmatic Ideas that are ever present yet never fully grasped. Intimately related to these themes is the idea of philosopher-kings—or more generally, wise rulers. The Republic, Critias and Seventh Letter famously explore the notion of philosophers holding full political power. But supplementary ideas appear in the Ion, Charmides, Gorgias, Protagoras and Timaeus, while two later dialogues provide significant variations on the theme of wise rule. The Statesman flirts with the theocratic ideal: the best would be if an all-wise God governed the world directly. More pessimistically, the Laws abandons the hope that philosophers might rule in place of God, and replaces them with laws laid down by a wise legislator. Each of these dialogues has its own integrity and in the following we will try to understand each on its own terms. At the same time one must do justice to the thread of “Platonism” linking them all, a leitmotif that is a variation of the more widespread “religion” of sacred kingship: the physical city should be organized under a rational wisdom, just as the cosmos is organized under eternal Ideas. The ultimate proof that Plato took these ideas seriously is the fact that he crossed the sea two times to educate the tyrants of Syracuse; and that he founded an Academy to serve partially as a school of statesmen. Plato was not content to dream in words only.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 20

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

21

Early dialogues and the “royal craft” of politics Most important, however, were Plato’s ideas as expressed in the dialogues, so let us begin at the beginning with those “early” dialogues where Socrates wanders out into the streets and public spaces, questioning and speaking with people from all walks of life, cobblers, tailors, trainers, soldiers, rhapsodes, poets, orators, sophists, seeking to engage each in their field of expertise, so that he might garner a little of their “wisdom”. With Ion (a rhapsode) he speaks about Homer, with Laches (a general) about courage, with Gorgias (a Sophist) about rhetoric, with Euthyphro (a traditionalist) about piety, with Protagoras (a Sophist) about teaching virtue, and so forth. In particular, Socrates was a sculptor, son of a sculptor, and he probably spent most time in the company of fellow Athenian craftsmen. Not surprisingly then, he fastened on what was familiar, and meditated on the principles of craftsmanship, and its potential scope. If poetry is a craft that can be learned, should not the poet be able to write both tragedies and comedies? If only a few have the expertise to train a horse, will it not be true that only a few experts can educate the youth? Thus, the early dialogues are filled with analogies to the crafts. Some found this talk to be ridiculous, and called Socrates a bumpkin for his continual drivel about cobblers and tailors.2 But beneath the plebeian surface a line of thought emerges that is quite aristocratic. This argument can be summarized under three heads. (1) The crafts provide Socrates with a model for knowledge generally, and even for wisdom: craftsmen adapt general rules to their material in order to produce some desired end, as when a cobber shapes leather to make a customer shoes, or a navigator uses winds and currents to bring a ship to harbour, or a doctor uses medicine and exercise to heal the sick body. (2) Knowledge of this sort—which adapts generalizations to complex particulars in order to produce a good—is treated as the only legitimate form of authority, and by it a doctor “rules” patients, pilots sailors and artisans their customers.3 That is, the ignorant should voluntarily submit to the advice or command of an expert, in his area of expertise: the doctor qua doctor is always right, and not to do what the doctor orders is foolishness and against one’s own interests. On the other hand, orators, demagogues, Sophists, poets often make judgements about other arts, but they do so on a spurious authority and should be repudiated. (3) Such abstract judgements must be made. But who has the expertise to tell when soldiers should go to war, or when doctors or pilots are needed? It is a difficult business to judge other people’s business but if someone knew the relative worth of particular crafts, would he not possess a “royal art” presiding over all the others? Thus, whereas Descartes fastens on the geometric method as key to all science and progress, Socrates focuses on the crafts: there are arts of agriculture, navigation, medicine, architecture, war, persuasion, but society would benefit if

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 21

05/10/2011 07:05

22

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

some master art existed to oversee the individual arts, using them as its material to produce a general good for all involved. This “royal art” would (in the terms used by Sprague) be a second-order craft, deciding between the relative worth of different crafts in a particular situation, just as the cobbler at a lower level decides between the relative worth of different leathers for a particular shoe. A few dialogues toy with variations of the idea: in the Euthydemus, the highest, “kingly art” (basilikē technē) will be the “only one which knows how to use what it produces”: what it produces is unclear, perhaps good or wise people, though not people good and wise at cobbling, architecture and other arts; still, it becomes a theoretical candidate for the art that will bring happiness and good order to the city.4 Again, in the Charmides, Socrates flirts with the idea of “knowledge of knowledge” as the highest craft. Or, in more Sophistic terms, there is the technē logōn, the art of persuasion taught by several Sophists. The wily Socrates was himself thought to practise a technē logōn,5 and in works like the Phaedrus, Gorgias and Apology, Plato would seem to appropriate rhetorical proficiency to philosophical purposes: with superior knowledge and dialectical discipline, it is the philosopher (not the sophist) who is best able to manipulate words to persuade others, and with superior virtue, he uses rhetoric for good purposes. This line of thought continues in the Republic where the philosophical “craftsmen” arrogate to themselves all aspects of the technē logōn, as legislators, orators, myth-makers, while they remain content to oversee the “first-order” crafts like farming or shoe-making. The argument emerges fully fledged in Aristotle’s Politics, which begins by defining politics as the supreme technē, because it uses the productive arts, those of medicine, rhetoric, military science and the like, as so much material to be shaped for the virtue and well-being of the whole community. Before turning to the Republic, it is interesting to note that Xenophon’s Socrates also speaks of a “royal art”, by which “people become politicians, household managers, able to rule, useful both to others and themselves”. Indeed, for Xenophon’s Socrates, it is the art that brings happiness itself.6 The similarities in argument and wording lead one to infer that Socrates himself actually spoke along these lines, as he argued freely with his fellow craftsmen and citizens in the streets and agora. If so, we may witness how the Platonic tradition of monarchical thought had a curiously strong democratic strain in its ancestry: an Athenian stoneworker, citizen and patriot reckons that it would be best to be led by a person with an expertise as disciplined and productive as that of a cobbler. Political power is legitimate when exercised with political knowledge, that is with knowledge that employs all materials, resources and processes for the greatest good—whatever that good might be. Just as a reasonable person would happily obey a ship’s captain in matters nautical, so for one’s own good, one should obey the master “craftsman” in matters to do with the regulation of

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 22

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

23

the crafts. Nobody at the present time, he implies, neither democratic politicians, orators, sophists or the sovereign Dēmos, seems to have any inkling of such a master-craft, swayed as they are by passion, fashion, rumour and opinion. On the other hand, Socrates does not clamour for a conventional king, and speaks with bemusement about the Persian kings in their palaces out east; similarly, one doubts that Socrates would have allowed the “royal craft” to a Homeric-style warrior-king. In fact, in the Gorgias, Socrates muses that he is the only true politician in Athens.7 Extrapolating from such passages, one surmises that the historical Socrates sometimes argued that eccentrics like him should exercise the royal art: only he has the selfless patriotism, the broadmindedness and the wisdom garnered from interrogating many craftsmen to be able to harmonize them all into a social whole. More succinctly: did Socrates joke, with his detached irony, that he was the uncrowned “king” of Athens?

Guardians and demiurges: Republic, Timaeus and Critias The exact thoughts of the historical Socrates are probably irrecoverable. Yet the Republic does continue with Socrates’ search for a royal art almost from the beginning. The craft analogies begin immediately as Socrates plies Polemarchus and Thrasymachus with arguments: doctors treat patients, pilots keep passengers safe and, in general, craftsmen qua craftsmen work for the good of the customer, and not for themselves. By extension, Socrates argues, if the politician is a skilled one, he will exercise power for his subjects’ good. The focus on crafts continues into Book 2 as Socrates builds up a paradigmatic city “in words”. This kallipolis or “beautiful city” has ignoble origins, in the sense that like all communities it arises in response to human neediness. The human animal needs to eat, drink, be clothed, housed and perhaps shod, but is not selfsufficient to provide easily for all its wants: hence, a first “city” would include a farmer, tailor, builder and perhaps a cobbler, as they specialize in one craft to produce more and better products for the group as a whole. This, Socrates suggests, is the “healthy” and “true” city, yet he acknowledges that most would disdain it as a “city of pigs”. The appetite for novelties and luxuries is endless, he seems to recognize; desire takes myriad forms beyond necessities. As his city grows, therefore, it gives rise to new specialists: swineherds, hunters, actors, poets, rhapsodists, actors, dancers, beauticians, barbers, nurses, cake-makers, cooks, as well as doctors to attend to the ill health caused by the new intemperance.8 Unchecked, the city grows “feverish” in its activity. Its appetites grow. To satisfy them, it seeks out new sources of wealth (notably its neighbours’ territory) and a new class of specialists to get it—soldiers.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 23

05/10/2011 07:05

24

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Any craft can be applied for both good and evil, but skill in killing other human beings is qualitatively different from that of the productive crafts. The soldiers’ power is extreme and threatens to tyrannize all others. Moreover, the soldiers’ role is paradoxical in that they must be both gentle (towards fellowcitizens) and violent (towards enemies).9 But why would they not be violent towards all, and oppress rather than defend the people? Plato knew too well the problems of armed stasis and callous mercenaries; he would not have been surprised by the influence gained by the Praetorian Guard in Rome. But he chooses to formulate the political problem with the precision of a logical contradiction: “how shall we find a gentle nature which has also a great spirit, for the one is the contradiction of the other?”10 Socrates finds helpful the analogy that the soldiers will resemble guard-dogs, not wolves. Helpful also is the notion that philosophical training allows one to distinguish friend from foe. Concluding therefore that the notion of watch-dogs at once gentle and violent is not impossible and that there can be specialized “guardians”, Socrates proposes his solution: rather than being disciplined by counter force (e.g. faction, an armed citizenry), the soldiers of his city will be overawed by higher, ethical standards. That is, they must have something of a philosophical nature and training. As the conversation continues, then, the soldier class gives rise to another, more select group of soldier-philosophers, who are even more philosophical by nature and education. This group now takes on the name of Guardians, while the soldierly class becomes the Auxiliaries. Socrates’ tripartite city thus begins to take shape: productive craftsmen; Auxiliaries or military craftsmen who defend and police the city, honourably following orders from above; and the Guardians, who are at once soldiers and philosophers, leaders of the Auxiliaries and also “craftsmen” of a second order as they direct Auxiliaries and other first-order specialists towards the common good.11 As the dialogue progresses, this sketch is filled out in more detail. To the city’s complement of three classes (Guardians, Auxiliaries, Workers) correspond three virtues (wisdom, courage, temperance), three parts of the soul (reason, spirit, appetite), and even three parts of the body (brain, heart, stomach). Ideally, then, the city will be as unified and harmonious as an organic body: the political should mirror the natural. Well might a Greek call Socrates’ kallipolis beautiful, with its rational proportions and symmetries, though in the dialogue itself the parallelisms are not presented so schematically or systematically. More attention is paid to the education that preserves the city: the gymnastics, music, choral poetry and reformed mythology which promote health of body and mind, and which serve to select those who are “best” at their particular crafts. When Adeimantus challenges a stray remark, Socrates offers more detail about the peculiar culture that will inform his Guardian class: they will live as if in a single family, sharing husbands, wives, children, property, experiences and

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 24

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

25

emotions; they will live ascetically, receiving and desiring no reward other than lodging and food; and finally, they will be philosophers, lovers of wisdom in all forms. Socrates speaks of these as “three waves” which, he fears, will call down a torrent of abuse from the Greeks. The third wave is the greatest, and in the oft-quoted passage Socrates more clearly articulates the idea of a “royal craft” and wise rulers that had been implicit almost from the start: neither cities nor States nor individuals will ever attain perfection until the small class of philosophers whom we termed useless but not corrupt are providentially compelled, whether they will or not, to take care of the State, and until a like necessity be laid on the State to obey them; or until kings, or if not kings, the sons of kings or princes, are divinely inspired with a true love of true philosophy. That either or both of these alternatives are impossible, I see no reason to affirm: if they were so, we might indeed be justly ridiculed as dreamers and visionaries. Am I not right? – Quite right.12

Socrates in fact does not dwell long on the paradoxical nature of his proposal. In fact—and this fact is rarely noticed—Socrates speaks specifically of philosophic kings only four times in the Republic, and every time in the plural.13 This would make for a peculiar type of monarchy, unless one recalls how unsystematic Socrates is about constitutional details, and how inexact in defining his terms. In general, then, he speaks not of philosophic “kings” but of philosophical “guardians”, again in the plural. The very word has republican connotations, as there were “guardians of the law” (nomophylakes) and other magistrates called “guardians” in Athens, Larissa and elsewhere.14 Socrates, then, is less concerned with making one supreme philosopher king, but with giving an enlightened elite undisputed political power. Power must be wedded with wisdom, but that wisdom may be spread through a whole class; indeed it is prepared from the “bottom up”, and only a broadly based philosophical culture can produce and sustain skilled philosophers. The kallipolis will be a “monarchy” only in the metaphorical sense that the ruling Guardians are of a single mind, as it were, united in knowledge, which is singular. As long as that knowledge endures, the city will endure. When it declines, then the Guardians decline into the Auxiliary, soldierly types that most resemble them: the kallipolis degenerates into a timarchy, divided into ruling soldiers and ruled artisans. It is this combination of war and philosophy that makes Socrates’ specific proposal of “philosopher-kings” so paradoxical.15 As “kings”, they specialize in fighting, share more in the Auxiliaries’ lifestyle, and so Socrates has much to say about their education in gymnastics and the virtue of courage. He will also listen with delight as Critias relates how the evil empire of Atlantis was defeated by the 20,000 Athenian heroes of ancient times: in Critias’ description, these

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 25

05/10/2011 07:05

26

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

resembled Socrates’ Guardians, and thus seem to confirm his theory empirically. But at the same time, the wisdom the Guardians pursue is non-practical, abstract, even mystical. In the curriculum Socrates proposes, they will study the pure entities and relations of mathematics for ten years, in an ascending hierarchy of arithmetic, plane geometry, solid geometry, astronomy and music. So their minds will be freed from images and mere appearances, and will learn to discern the essences that exist through and beyond shifting particulars. After mathematics, five years of dialectic helps to purify the mind from uncritical attachment to any given hypotheses or assumptions. After 15 years of such “academic” pursuits, they then go out into “the world” as soldiers and administrators, perhaps thus to be reminded that the Good is not here, and that this physical world is not fully perfectible. But the goal through all this long education is to glimpse the Good “beyond essence”,16 an eternal, intelligible Good that exists beyond change, time, desire and all the shadowy realities of the Cave. To lose oneself in that radiance: such is the Platonist’s dream. But can the rational mystic who loses himself in the transcendent become a fighting king? Can a philosopher trained in pure mathematics pierce the dark appetites of the criminal soul, or sift the complicated details of inheritance cases, or distribute wealth peaceably among competing factions? Can he deign to sully the divine by overseeing sacrifice, myth and other imperfect religious forms which the unenlightened multitude seem to need? To the pragmatically minded, it would seem utterly impractical for Socrates’ mathematicians, dialecticians and mystics to become generals, judges and priests. In Socrates’ argument, however, knowledge of the Good is the basis of a true pragmatism. The Good is the most potent cause, for all things (at least in the intellectual realm) participate in it insofar as they exist and are knowable. The Good is the most real and pressing reality: all existence seeks it, but only “the wise” are able to seek it efficiently, for wisdom is knowledge of the Good. Furthermore, knowledge that there is an eternal order both rational and good would (in Socrates’ view) give the Guardians a moral strength that few others can gain from mere experience: not fearing death or pain as an ultimate evil, they are courageous; not hankering after temporary pleasures, profits and honours, they are temperate; regarding others as immortal fellow-travellers on a cosmic journey, they are just. As knowledge of the Good, therefore, wisdom entails all the virtues. Furthermore, in discussing the two main sections of the Divided Line, Socrates states that the Good “is king over the noetic entities and realm, while the sun is king in turn over the visible realm”.17 In the longer history of philosophical kingship, Socrates’ metaphor of an ontological kingship will inspire many “footnotes”, but in the flow of the dialogue itself, Socrates does not dwell on it, or link it with his other mentions of philosopher-kings. The notion that the Good “rules” beneficently over other Ideas, and indirectly

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 26

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

27

over lower existences; that the sun “reigns” over the visible realm; and that the human king should imitate the kingly sun, and the kingly Good—all this remains merely implicit, to be explicated at length by later Platonists like Philo and Julian. Nevertheless, Socrates says enough for one to recognize that he is effectively providing a rationalistic variation of sacred kingship: the Guardians are the “best” of their people in wisdom and virtue, closest to the divine Good, and they therefore mediate between the natural and eternal, helping shed “light” on their people, and guiding them by myth, example, custom and law towards their proper end.18 At the same time, Socrates’ own vocabulary is not heavily hieratic. The “philosopher of the marketplace” still steers close to the language of crafts and craftsmen. Once again (and one must reiterate the point, as it is rarely made), the Guardians are a special sort of craftsman, in a utopia designed to meet all human needs and aspirations. These Guardians appear first as workers in weapons, but as the dialogue progresses, they are educated to the more demanding “royal art” of deliberating, judging, overseeing and organizing the lower crafts, to bring them into harmony with the common good and the Good. Socrates draws frequently on craft metaphors: good leaders are like navigators, who study the stars, winds and currents;19 they are like doctors who maintain the right balance between political elements and so keep the bodypolitic healthy and just; they replace the poets as myth-makers and teachers; they replace the sophists too with their own technē logōn of mathematics and disciplined, morally serious dialectic; like all craftsmen, they have their own expertise, that is, their own special “wisdom” (sophia). Moreover, theirs is the most generally applicable wisdom: mathematics for a Platonist is the language of nature, dialectic can be harnessed to analyse any phenomenon or question, and so the Guardians are best prepared for the abstract tasks of “kingship”— comparing the worth of first-order crafts with each other and the needs of the city as a whole. The “best” in wisdom, philosopher-kings make the most natural leaders. Most striking of all Socrates’ craft analogies is the extended simile he draws between his Guardians and painters. They will approach the city (he says) as painters approach a painting: they will wipe the canvas of society clean, sketch the main outlines of its new constitution and then fill in the details, ever looking “up” to the Ideas of Good, Justice and the like, and then looking “down” to their particular community and its geographical and historical situation, framing and applying laws, organizing festivals, composing myths, shaping religious belief and in general arrogating to themselves all significant powers of persuasion and force, in order to enact the Good as much as possible in the imperfect materials of human life.20 Painters mix paints to get the most appropriate colours; philosopher-kings mix political elements to maximize the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 27

05/10/2011 07:05

28

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Good in a temporal order ever threatened by chaos and evil. In Socrates’ words, these political painters will be craftsmen (dēmiourgoi) of “justice, temperance and every civil virtue”.21 The word “demiurge” is a common one: here, again, one hears Socrates the sculptor speaking. At the same time, one cannot ignore the powerful resonance of this passage with the creation myth of the Timaeus, where another, divine demiurge looks towards the eternal Ideas as a paradigm, and proceeds to use persuasion and, where necessary, force to coax and hammer unruly matter into a beautiful, rational cosmos. In both contexts, Ideas are tailored to the limitations of the physical world: the divine Artisan cleverly find ways to infuse the disparate stuff of space-time with the concentrated unities of eternity; analogously, the demiurge of civic virtue wisely finds ways to make his people virtuous—that is, excellent and godlike. In both cases, the artisan seeks to guide inner potentialities towards their proper end and actualization: matter “longs”, as it were, for Ideas; all people yearn for the eternal according to their own capacity for it, gaining it partially through children and descendents, fame, art or the contemplation of mathematical and other timeless entities. Furthermore, if the Timaeus is written artfully to pick up where the Republic ends, then Socrates’ enlightened “kings” are political counterparts of the cosmic god: they imitate him, mediating between ideal possibilities and material limitations; their kallipolis is an image of the beautiful universe. This line of argumentation is nuanced and influential enough that one should dwell on it by stressing what the philosopher-kings are not. They are not public magicians, god-kings or rulers by the “grace of God”, conceived of as a personal being.22 Still less do they rule by right of conquest or inheritance. And even less are they tyrants who rule for their own narrow benefit. Rather, Socrates’ Guardians gain their position because they are “the best” at the royal craft and most qualified to exercise it. Like craftsmen, they work for the customer’s good, that is, for the good of the whole people or city.23 Here, the customer is not king; the customer is not always right, nor are the people able to articulate clearly what they really need and ultimately desire. Furthermore, as with other artisans, the Guardians’ knowledge is specialized. They may be “spectators of all time and existence”, and for this broad vision, mathematics is especially good training.24 But neither mathematics, dialectic nor the properly philosophical knowledge of the Forms gives an encyclopaedic knowledge of particulars or of particular crafts. As a result, the Guardians are not interfering know-it-alls. They will not presume to show the carpenter how to make a bed, or the farmer how to plough properly. The pride of omniscience is a vice of tyrants, but Platonic thinkers hold that the “shadows” of the changeable temporal cannot be fully known, and so omniscience is theoretically impossible. As a result, the Guardians will be little interested in arrogating for themselves the rough techniques that pass for “wisdom” among tailors and cobbers. Once again, like the Demiurge who

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 28

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

29

feels no envy, the Guardians will not envy the accomplishments of subordinate craftsmen, and they will “do their own task” in the spirit of justice, leaving others freedom to pursue their own work, so long as the public good is thus best served. This set-up will encourage all to be the “best dēmiourgoi of their own works”, and in one passage, the Guardians are even called “craftsmen of freedom”.25 In all this, however, modern readers should note that Plato’s intellectual-kings love pure science, and promote it, as Plato himself did. But this does not translate into a programme of technological innovation. The Guardians have no policy to encourage farmers to make better ploughs, or cobblers to develop shoe factories. Under such contemplative “kings”, the kallipolis is itself oriented towards a quiet existence, in imitation of the unchanging cosmos. Thus, it is distinguished by a disciplined attention to old ways in gymnastics, music, the arts and productive techniques; it has little taste for novelty and sensation; it has a positive distaste for trade, money-making and the vanity of military glory. Thus, Plato’s city will not be a busy trading-port, or centre of an expanding empire, or hub of a smart economy pushing aggressively to become “lord and master of nature”.26 In the Platonist’s scheme, physical entities are extensions through time and space of eternal originals, but as one “ascends” to the more real, entities become more unified. This progression is reflected in the class structure of the kallipolis. Its artisans are encouraged to lead concentrated lives, as they focus on one specialized craft, on their individual families and on traditional ways. Even more focused are Auxiliaries’ lives of training and honour, and even more singular still are the Guardians, who share meals, partners, children, education, jobs and ideas, in everything pursuing the wisdom of the Good, in whose light they unify their souls, others’ souls and the city at large. “God always does geometry”: those pure, intellectual unities exist beyond, but the ideal city seeks to imitate the divine as much as possible in its marriages, work, festivals, rituals and all the necessarily disparate activities of human life. To bring about such a city, everything depends on finding and educating the right philosopher-“kings”. Much of the Republic, therefore, deals with the natural talents and education of the ideal philosopher. Socrates lists the qualities necessary: intelligence, memory, magnificence, apprehension, courage and (facetiously?) physical beauty.27 Several of these cannot be easily reconciled: the intelligent, for example, tend to be flighty and impatient,28 and consequently, a true philosophical endowment will be rare. Furthermore, culture and natural instinct tend to militate against the philosophical ascent towards the Forms. As if following natural instinct, many societies value honour, wealth, pleasure, power as the highest goods: this makes absolute power such an alluring prize, and so in unphilosophical cultures the most talented are often those most vulnerable to the glamour of tyranny. Their very talents corrupt them as

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 29

05/10/2011 07:05

30

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

they use their intelligence and courage to amass wealth and power, and this worldly success hardens them even more to any rubbish about a “Good beyond essence”. As Socrates states, the amoral or immoral tyrant is often a failed philosopher, who has come to despair of ever finding a reality beyond the Cave. Thus, enlightenment requires talents that themselves tend to quench longing for the light: paradoxes again. Socrates sees two main ways out of this impasse. Solitude is one solution: isolate the would-be philosopher from conventional ambitions, either by exile, poverty or ill-health (the “bridle of Theages”), a Socratic daimōn or happening to be born into a backwater whose petty politics can be easily despised. A happier solution is provided by the genuinely philosophical state: here an enlightened culture actively encourages the best to rise up beyond the Cave.29 The attention paid to the Guardians’ education, and to the four types of imperfect states, reinforces the sense that philosopher-kings will be very difficult to find or train, and that even when they are, their wisdom will be difficult to pass on to later generations. Who is wise? Who is a true philosopher? In individual cases, it can be difficult to tell, and merely clever speakers attract swarms of disciples, who follow their chosen sophist like some god-inspired guru. With time, such doubts seem to have deepened in Plato’s mind, and later dialogues express greater reserve regarding human perfectibility. Only God is wise, people cannot truly know the Good, and in this world there will never be respite from evil.30 Nor would philosopher-kings bring salvation, because any king, even the enlightened despot, will become hybristic and unjust. The Laws especially is burdened by a sense of man’s ineradicable evil,31 and here Plato (or at least his character, the Athenian Stranger) explicitly abandons the hope for direct rule by the wise. Long before Lord Acton, Plato recognized that “power corrupts”, and that even the most virtuous—and even those who know the common good—cannot escape corruption when given absolute power: Mankind must have laws, and conform to them, or their life would be as bad as that of the most savage beast. And the reason of this is that no man’s nature is able to know what is best for human society; or knowing, always able and willing to do what is best. In the first place, there is a difficulty in apprehending that the true art of politics is concerned, not with private but with public good. . .. In the second place, although a person knows in the abstract that this is true, yet if he be possessed of absolute and irresponsible power, he will never remain firm in his principles or persist in regarding the public good as primary in the state, and the private good as secondary. Human nature will be always drawing him into avarice and selfishness, avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure without any reason, and will bring these to the front, obscuring the juster and better; and so working darkness in his soul will at last fill with evils both him and the whole city. For if a man were

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 30

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

31

born so divinely gifted that he could naturally apprehend the truth, he would have no need of laws to rule over him; for there is no law or order which is above knowledge, nor can mind, without impiety, be deemed the subject or slave of any man, but rather the lord of all. I speak of mind, true and free, and in harmony with nature. But then there is no such mind anywhere here, or at least not much; and therefore we must choose law and order, which are second best.32

One conjectured reason for Plato’s abandonment of the dream of philosopherkings is his own experiences in Sicily. It was after the death of Socrates in 399 BC that he went travelling, and in his travels he crossed from Italy to Syracuse where he met the then-tyrant Dionysius I (r. 405–367). He returned to Syracuse in 388 and befriended Dion but had little success in impressing Dionysius with the good of philosophy.33 Twenty years later, having founded the Academy in the meantime, he returned to Sicily again in 367 and 361, at the invitation of Dion of Syracuse, Archytas of Tarentum and other enthusiasts, who hoped that Plato would educate the new tyrant, Dionysius II, and so help reform the politics of perhaps the most powerful of the Greek cities. The story can be pieced together tentatively from the Platonic Letters (especially the Seventh Letter), passages in Diodorus, and the lives of Dion by Plutarch and Nepos (in Chapter 3, we will return to Plutarch’s Life, the most significant source). The enterprise failed. Dionysius II was already too old and probably not of the right stuff, too given to enthusiasms, too prey to the slanders raised by his courtiers and ultimately too ensconced in the tyranny created by his father for him ever to have become an ascetic Guardian. The tyrant was at first thrilled to have the famous Plato at hand, but court politics soon poisoned the atmosphere and on both occasions, Plato had to give up. In 358, Dion set out with 800 mercenaries and some fellow Academicians to “liberate” Syracuse and establish a wiser constitution. He gained military victories, but did not capitalize on them fully. Alternately welcomed as a liberator and rejected as a potential tyrant, he was eventually betrayed by his own associates and assassinated in 354. Plato may well have loved Dion as one of his own, and regretted his fate, but at the same time, Dion’s career and that of other would-be “philosopher-kings” may have increased his scepticism about wholesale reform. For, as we will see below, there were many other aristocratic young men who passed through the Academy, nursing hopes of returning to their own cities as philosopher-kings, or tyrants. Sad experience may thus account for the darker vision of the older Plato, and his explicit rejection of philosopher-kings in the Laws. Yet, the deeper ideal remains unchanged: a single, human person cannot be both wise and all-powerful, but the union of enlightenment and power might be achieved in other ways. The myth of the Statesman expresses this high ideal in its purest form: if only God in his wisdom would rule the world directly, providentially

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 31

05/10/2011 07:05

32

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

caring for each little detail! Closer to the imperfections of human life is the Laws, where an Athenian Stranger details a code of philosophical laws that could serve as a sort of wise monarch to a city. Together, then, the Statesman, Republic and Laws outline a hierarchy of utopias, each of which is ruled by wisdom in some form: best of all is when God rules, second best when godlike philosopher-kings rule, and third best when there is “rule” by philosophical laws.

The direct rule of God: Statesman Let us turn briefly to the Statesman, a complex dialogue where a method of dialectic, by dichotomies, is applied to distinguish the true statesman from his phoney rivals. In it the main interlocutor, “the Stranger”, arrives at various definitions of the statesman or king. In one, “the king is clearly the shepherd of a polled herd, who have no horns”, distinguishing him from shepherds of sheep or goats.34 Again, as if reviving Socrates’ style of argument, the ideal of a disciplined craft suggests the analogy of a “royal craft” and political rule becomes the highest form of specialized, goal-oriented, productive knowledge. That there is a royal craft becomes for the Stranger a premise which is bisected successively, yielding ultimately the definition of the true king as a herder of hornless, pedestrian, featherless animals. So, by a curious dialectical path, one arrives back at the Homeric epithet: the king is a “shepherd of men”. But the Stranger’s search does not end here. The definition is not sufficient, for many might claim to be the best leader of the herd of rational animals: the merchant, farmer, trainer, physician will all make their claim, the Stranger suggests.35 Other ages might add that the shepherd ought to be, say, Pope, dialectical materialist or political economist. More influential than the dialectical part of the dialogue is its central myth. This tells of two ages of the world: in one age, the god Cronus rules the world directly and minutely, life springs up in spontaneous abundance and all is well;36 at other, less happy times, God withdraws his beneficent hand, the world spins away from providential control, death enters in, with war, crime, division and “all our woe”. But during the golden age, Cronus rules as an utter superior to mankind and other life forms, and this gives a clue to the superiority that marks the true king: the king must be qualitatively better than his subordinates, and for this reason gods should rule humans, as humans rule animals. For the same reason, one human being cannot strictly be a “shepherd” king over his fellows. That is, the true king must not be merely “the best” of his kind, but must be raised to a higher level altogether. Here Plato seems to anticipate later attitudes: that God is the true king, and that kings are virtuous beyond superlatives will

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 32

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

33

become unquestioned assumptions in panegyrics of Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors, and in later Judaeo-Christian adaptations of Platonism. The Statesman is not easy to summarize, and the relation between its myth and dialectic, as well as its tone and purpose as a whole, have divided readers. Granted that it seeks primarily to recommend its method of dialectic, does it also implicitly criticize contemporary kings of the day, like Philip or Jason, who are little different from their subjects and so have no right to rule? Or does it look down with gentle, divine irony on all the herds of “rational animals”, as they trot behind this hero or that “god-king”, who are likened now to pig-drivers? Or does it look down with divine superiority on humanity, cranes and all organisms alike, each proud in its peculiar wisdom, recognizing how each would choose their kings according to different assumptions?37 Whichever of these interpretive possibilities is best, they agree in implicitly raising the dialectician above the king, and all continue to hold up divine kingship as the ideal. As Jowett remarks in his Introduction to the Statesman: Plato here “is still looking for a city in which kings are either philosophers or gods”. That is, Plato is still looking for some form of wise rule. Here he finds it in direct divine rule, for in comparison with an omniscient God who can direct each situation minutely, rule by laws appears clunky and inflexible, and in fact any written laws need wise interpreters to apply them to particular facts and events. The dialogue therefore contains a remarkable critique of states in which laws are obeyed as if they were a holy writ, thus stifling spontaneity, imagination and innovation. Here the writer of the Statesman is keenly aware of the dangers of the legalistic mind: the law is a blunt instrument, and the “rule of law” can be as tyrannical as the “rule of men”.

Indirect rule by a wise legislator: Laws This, however, is when the laws are bad, as well as the magistrates who enforce them. But when tailored to particular conditions and to human nature, when interpreted and applied by sensible magistrates, and respected by an educated populace, then rule by law is highly desirable. The Laws follows this option and offers another utopia, third best after theocracy and the kallipolis. Once again, the ideal is to unite power with wisdom, and the central sentence of the Laws echoes the key proposal of the Republic: “And this may be said of power in general: when the supreme power in man coincides with the greatest wisdom and temperance, then the best laws and the best constitution come into being; but in no other way.”38 But what is a law? The Laws offers answers at several levels. At the fundamental level, law is divine. God orders the natural world as thoroughly as

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 33

05/10/2011 07:05

34

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

possible, and natural patterns reflect the supreme order of the divine mind. Laws of nature thus represent the extension of divine rationality through time and space, and the Athenian Stranger makes a pun on nomos and nous to define law itself as the “distribution of Mind”.39 A positive law, therefore, is a true law to the extent that it harmonizes with the divine reason that orders the cosmos. As a result, good laws are not mere categorical imperatives, but contain rational preambles to justify their commands or prohibitions. This dual structure of law reflects the cosmic ordering: preamble is to command and persuasion is to force, as soul is to body and God to nature. In other words, a law is an imperative backed by force and grounded in knowledge of divine good. It follows that laws can issue only from minds more attuned to the cosmic order and good, and in the Platonic scheme at least, such minds would be trained in dialectic and Socratic-style philosophy. Or, to approach the question from yet a different angle, legislation is a craft like medicine or navigation in that it adapts general principles to cooperate with natural conditions: it unites theoretical knowledge with practical finesse, and is thus a form of practical wisdom. From this angle, law was compared in the Statesman to a doctor’s prescriptions. It would be ideal to have a doctor at hand for every emergency, but failing this, at least let the doctor leave some written notes for the patient to follow in his absence.40 Analogously, the ideal is to have wise leaders (God, philosopher-kings) to attend to the body politic, but if they be absent, or if that ideal proves too high for human societies to maintain, then let some written image of their wisdom be left: let them leave good laws for the people to obey for their own good. General legislation is far broader in scope than medical prescriptions, of course, and therefore framing particular laws ultimately involves a whole philosophical outlook.41 From yet another perspective, human beings are like puppets, pulled this way and that by passions and circumstances. But if one can control them by the “sacred and golden cord of reason” that links up to the divine order, then there is some hope.42 In all, the Stranger argues from several angles that laws must issue from a comprehensive philosophy, that the good legislator must participate in the rational wisdom of God, and that, like God, he can create a harmonious whole out of the imperfect material of human capacity. The notion that laws should codify higher wisdom is both old and prophetic, recalling the divine dispensation of a Hammurabi or Moses as well as looking forward to Hobbes, Jefferson and other natural law theorists who would ground law in a philosophy of nature, and even in God’s nature. Many other aspects of the dialogue highlight the debt of law to wisdom. The scene is the outlying, conservative island of Crete. Three old men, a Spartan (Megillus), a Cretan (Cleinias) and an Athenian Stranger are walking out from Cnossos to the mountains, to that very cave where, it is said, Zeus gave laws to King Minos. On their way to the holy mountain, these three “lovers of laws” pass their

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 34

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

35

time in some “serious play”, talking about laws both past and possible. They speak about the origin of law from family custom; about the laws of Dorian cities like Cnossos, Sparta and Tarentum; about the Athenian democracy and Persian monarchy; and about laws of peoples as disparate as Scythians and Egyptians.43 Drawing on their combined experience, they proceed to articulate laws that will organize both a notional city “drawn in wax”, and an actual colony which the Cretans are preparing to establish, with Cleinias as one of its ten legislators.44 The Laws, then, reflects the utopian thought-experiments that occurred naturally in the Greek world, where even down into the Hellenistic period, new colonies could be sent out. Then, when whole new communities were conjured into existence, fundamental questions were asked: where should the colony be sited? What occupations should the people pursue – farming, fishing, trading or war? How rich should they be and how should wealth be divided? Who should rule, how should offices be organized? What gods should be worshipped? Organizing a whole society requires both breadth of vision and precise information, wisdom both theoretical and practical. Such breadth and detail of knowledge are evident in the Athenian Stranger, as he echoes and adopts ideas of earlier Platonic dialogues, and seems in fact to sum up much of Plato’s own intellectual experience.45 Many of these ideas are new to the Spartan and Cretan. They are amazed to hear about Sophistic notions, for example, have hardly heard of atheism and have never experienced dialectic, with its torrent of questions.46 Yet they too are part of the dialogue and the Stranger respects them as representatives of ancestral tradition, with its quiet acceptance of old myths, old customs and all that has proved itself fit over generations of time. If so, the Laws resembles the Republic in attempting to blend Ionian intellectual innovation with Spartan discipline and traditionalism: the Stranger brings ideas, laws and institutions from his own Athens into the less volatile setting of Dorian Crete. It is as if the best of Greek innovations are to be codified in law, and then preserved zealously in a conservative, inland city, that in its perfection mirrors the unchanging harmony of the heavens. This city of Magnesia (as it is called) is to have a mixed constitution, structured around its laws and its magistracies, which represent what in the Athenian Stranger’s view are the two fundamental constitutions, monarchy and democracy.47 In Magnesia, the law is king: its reach is as extensive as possible, and it is obeyed, preserved, honoured and even revered as quasi-divine.48 In turn, as many citizens as possible are drawn into the administration of the laws, both by electing magistrates in popular assemblies, and serving as magistrates themselves, “ruling and being ruled in turn”: this is the democratic element, and the Athenian Stranger takes pains to multiply magistracies to ensure maximum participation, either by holding office or voting. The treatment of both laws and magistracies is astonishingly detailed, and the Laws stands as

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 35

05/10/2011 07:05

36

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

one of the most remarkable of legislative proposals, even if it was never put directly into practice. First, the Stranger offers a vast array of laws, governing all aspects of life in as much detail as possible, leaving minimal room for later legal innovation and judicial prerogative: imitating divine providence, true law aims to be as comprehensive and exhaustive as is possible. And so we read of laws about sexuality, births, family, education, labour, property, finance, trade, travel, war, music, drinking, sports, festivals, sacrifice, prayer, the inner life and desires of the soul. Categories lead to subcategories, and the Stranger delves down into fine points of harvests, rights of way, epitaphs and treasure troves. The detail is dizzying, and the principle de minimis non curat lex is thrown to the winds. For like God, true law does care about the smallest detail, and the best laws would be the most far-seeing and fine-grained. Furthermore, gritty detail is combined with a royal breadth of vision: many laws come complete with philosophical preambles, justifying them as means to promote citizens’ virtue, and thus their well-being, happiness and harmony with each other, their true nature and the gods. For example, because procreation is the means by which the human animal participates in immortality, marriage is prescribed as a duty akin to piety. Men and women should marry at the optimum age, between 30–35 and 16–20, respectively, and for similar reasons, only procreative sex is condoned.49 Or, to promote mutual respect and solidarity, all adult citizens, men and women alike, must attend a common table and both sexes will train for war. Or, to promote health, mutual cooperation and a harmonious disposition akin to the motions of the heavens, all citizens must participate in gymnastics and the communal choruses. The Stranger lays much stress on these choruses as the mainstay of education and the city, but perhaps of more interest to modern readers would be the economic laws. These are justified not as a means of increasing production and facilitating consumption, but as ways of promoting diligence, discipline, temperance and other virtues of soul. Citizens will earn their living from the land (worked by supervised slaves), rather than by trading and chicanery. To this end, each family will own an inalienable plot of land of equal productive value, cannot acquire four times the wealth of any other citizen, will produce goods for the sake of necessary consumption, not export, and so will use a local, non-precious currency, and go to market only on specified days. External wealth is to serve the body’s good (e.g. health), and the body is to serve the immortal soul within. Therefore, to discourage excessive attention to wealth and luxury, imports will be limited, citizens cannot become traders or merchants, merchants must live outside the city, metics can stay for 20 years only, lending at interest is outlawed, the giving of dowries is forbidden and, most revealing of all, the city is to be set inland, far from the “corrupting sea”.50 Self-sufficient, it will not need imports or exports much, and in order to protect citizens from

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 36

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

37

distracting foreign influences, only selected citizens can travel abroad to attend the panhellenic shrines and games, or to study foreign laws and customs.51 But to the Athenian Stranger, economic provisions are subordinate to the religious laws governing sacred spaces, rituals, sacrifices and citizens’ attitudes towards the gods. A whole philosophical outlook lies behind this privileging of religion, and the theological discussion of Book 10 is offered as “best and noblest of prelude of all our laws”.52 For the Stranger, the fundamental scientific and moral truths are that the gods exist, care for mankind and are just and cannot be bribed (e.g. with sacrifice). If this were not so and the cosmos was reducible to the mindless combinations of inert matter, then law would become the product only of human artfulness and cunning, an instrument of power, so that the “highest right [would be] might”. Materialism can only lead to an atomistic society where laws and customs are followed out of mere habit or self-interest, and here there can be no real unity, virtue or law. That is, atomism cannot support universal laws, but without them, one can only contingently satisfy moral duties such as keeping contracts with foreigners, not abusing the weak, suffering for justice and the like.53 Some form of idealism, therefore, and recognition of the primacy of mind and soul, is the preamble to real morality and legislation. The Athenian Stranger fears that such a preamble is all too necessary today, when so few are pious: now most believe that the gods do not exist, or are indifferent, or venal.54 To those who refuse to be rationally persuaded that the gods exist, love mankind and are just, force can be applied. Thus, to be consistent to his theological axioms, it would seem that the Stranger should criminalize superstition, the denial of special providence and atheism. As it happens, however, he only seeks to discourage magic, superstition and religious enthusiasms, knowing how easily they seduce weak souls.55 Stronger measures are adopted for private religions, which are outlawed completely: everyone must worship at the public altars and temples, in the prescribed fashion, which in many cases is the ancient fashion, in keeping with the Stranger’s reverence for ancient myths.56 But atheism is severely condemned as the most pernicious private religion. These arguments have alarmed modern readers such as Mill and Cornford, who wonder whether the free-thinking Socrates of Plato’s Apology could have survived or even developed in Plato’s Magnesia. But the effective ban on private conscience, and the systematic protection of state religion as a source of social solidarity and the supreme expression of a shared destiny, should be seen rather as a systematic version of the polis’ devotion to its tutelary deities: the traditional city-state did not set any value on freedom of religious conscience in the modern sense,57 but expended much energy and care on its festivals. The Laws is thus a conservative text. At the same time, it distantly foreshadows Julian’s persecution of Christianity, a religion more of conscience than public sacrifice,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 37

05/10/2011 07:05

38

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

as well as Christian discouragement of pagan practices, even in the privacy of the home. More distantly still, it has been regarded as foreshadowing modern totalitarian states, in which the individual is regarded as an integral part of a communal, historical, sometimes even cosmic whole. The comparison is apt, but to his credit the Athenian Stranger prefers to use persuasion more than force in extending the reach of King Law: he tries to mould the individual’s inmost beliefs, by shaping the “unwritten laws”, or ancestral customs, that largely determine the ethos of a society and the spirit of its written laws. That is, laws must be written in the soul and not on stone only, and it is the inner religious disposition that is the real “bond of the state”.58 Many other provisions seek to strengthen this bond. Sharing religious beliefs and practices, the citizens also share communal meals, choruses, festivals, military training—all in the effort to make them active lovers of the law. In an ideal state, it would seem that citizens would follow their laws gladly, and that courts, prisons and other dark institutions of correction would be unnecessary. But alas! Human nature has a radical evil, the Stranger reflects, and there will always be the irrational, ornery, perverse and downright criminal among us. The laws will sometimes need to be backed by force, and therefore magistrates are needed.59 These magistracies are modelled largely on those of classical Athens, and as in Athens, their sheer number and variety are impressive. Magistrates will guard every inch and function of the state, enforcing the laws in their jurisdiction: there will be elected 37 guardians of the law, 3 generals, 10 taxiarchs, 2 hipparchs, 10 phylarchs and other military officers, 3 wardens of the city, 5 wardens of the agora, 60 wardens of the country, as well as treasurers, directors of gymnasia and music, judges, examiners, 360 councillors, an unspecified number of priests and priestesses and others. Given the numbers involved, it is clear that a significant part of the population will have served as magistrates at some time, “ruling and being ruled”, in a way clearly reminiscent of Periclean Athens, where every citizen was a public person to some degree, corralled into the assembly, boulē, courts and other instruments of government. In addition, citizens are encouraged to be active guardians of their laws and teachers of public virtue: they are to watch out for crime, inform, accuse, initiate public trials and serve as witnesses and jurors. Here the frequent repetition of the Athenian formula ho boulomenos for the private initiation of suits highlights the pervasive democratic spirit of Magnesia, and as in Athens, citizens will take pride in not considering themselves “wiser than the laws”.60 The myriad magistracies underscore the almost socialistic ethos of the city and are designed to wed the people seamlessly to law, their “king”. The laws direct their lives from cradle to grave, and they in turn uphold them, jealously and reverently, as their benefactors and saviours. But if Magnesia knits monarchy and democracy so seamlessly together, it is the more aristocratic Solonic democracy to which it harkens back. First,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 38

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

39

greater political power and responsibility are given to the higher two of the four property classes. Certain magistrates are more important than others, notably the guardians of the laws, director of education, examiners and Nocturnal Council. The 37 “guardians of the law” will be at least 50 years old and will hold office until age 70, keeping citizen-registers, maintaining the number of households, punishing excessive wealth and in general “guarding” the laws by enforcing them and protecting them from change. One notes that “guardians” (phylakes) is the same term as that of the philosopher-rulers in the Republic, and that they too enter into their guardianship at age 50. Even more influential is the director of education, who oversees the all-important choruses, and thus the shaping of citizens’ souls: in a way, he is a guardian of the “unwritten laws”. Equally important are the “examiners”, citizens of superlative virtue elected to oversee the other magistrates. These are the ultimate human authority, the guards who will guard the guards, though unlike philosopher-kings, they in turn are beholden to the laws and can be called to account, for being human they too can manifest the “wickedness of human nature” and abuse their office.61 Exercising a similar function is the “Nocturnal Council”, so-called simply because it meets early in the morning before the regular business of the day.62 In fact, it is designed at least as an instrument of enlightenment. At once monarchic and democratic, it is composed of old men who deliberate, and young men who act as their “eyes” and “ears”.63 This is the supreme deliberative body, and “will tell what is the aim of the state, and will inform us how we are to attain it”.64 In fact, the Stranger compares it to the head and mind of the body-politic, just as the Republic’s guardians also represent the community’s intelligence, and its comprehension of the Good. Here, for all their institutional differences, both Magnesia and the kallipolis share an idealistic orientation, and are agreed in their aversion to luxury, wealth and imperial expansion. Magnesia too is a sacred city: its citizens dedicate themselves to virtue and self-perfection, under the tutelage of laws, which are themselves expressions of human wisdom as it strives to imitate the divine nous. In sum, the Laws is a complex synthesis of many considerations, moral, political, religious, metaphysical. Its key themes are ones that had haunted Plato before, and which will be taken up again and again by later Hellenistic and Roman thinkers. One dominant theme is virtue. Like so many later GrecoRoman moralists, the Stranger never tires of repeating that virtue is the aim of life and of legislation alike:65 the citizens’ work, festivals, relationships and so forth are geared towards the attainment of all the virtues, and virtue is all-important, bringing well-being for the individual, friendship and harmony for the community. For the Stranger, the means to this highest practical end is enthusiastic obedience to wise laws. Such laws are articulated by a philosophical legislator, and in turn they seek to mirror the law by which God draws the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 39

05/10/2011 07:05

40

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

material universe into a single, beautiful whole. Thus, service to the laws “is also the service of the gods”:66 in the end, piety is the highest virtue. Another dominant theme is mimēsis: the past is a model for the present; the magistrates, especially the higher ones, are exemplars of virtue to their fellow citizens; the choruses imitate the calm movements of the stars; the arts generally, even music, imitate reality; philosophical law is an imitation of divine law; and the city has multiple spatial symmetries as if imitating the infinite, circular symmetries of the heavenly bodies, and the even more concentrated unity of God.67 A related theme, then, is that of harmony, as different parts are brought towards an ideal unity: citizens live in harmony with citizens, ruled with ruler, inner self with external law, the living generation with ancestors past, bodily needs with spiritual aspirations and so forth. This stress on harmonious unity would be fundamental for later Neoplatonists, as would the Stranger’s statement that “God ought to be to us the measure of all things”.68 Splendidly isolated in inland Crete, free from external wars and alliances, small and self-sufficient, with citizens dedicated to the “work” of self-perfection and to theologically-based laws, Magnesia might well be summed up by a slogan: this is to be a “conservative republic of virtue, under God”.69

Plato the activist Such an ideal would be revisited in different ways by Julian, with his vision of a Roman empire defended by ancient valour and favoured by ancient gods; by Jefferson, with his vision of a self-sufficient, agrarian democracy, guided by an educated elite, and the “rule” of law grounded in the providential order; and, more generally, by jurisprudential traditions that value both tradition and moral objectivity. The Laws, thus, has great political resonance as an early work in natural law. It would be extraordinary if an aging Plato had written such a long and detailed dialogue for his own academic amusement. Posterity was surely his audience, and if he did hope to leave it as a prescription of political wisdom for future generations, Plato shows how into his last years he scorned to be remembered solely as a “theoretical man”.70 Key ideas in his dialogues make praxis an ethical, even an ontological imperative: the Good overflows itself like the sun, and spills out its light to benefit others; God is not jealous but gives generously to others; the philosopher must return to the Cave to help others; the lover of Beauty must descend to create truly beautiful images for others; and searchers should be like Socrates, open, friendly and interested in others. The Platonic sage may sometimes struggle alone towards the light, and Socrates sometimes meditates in solitude. But the desert and the wilderness do not figure largely in the education of the Platonic sage. Ever in conversation, he is not a hermit, and

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 40

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

41

he performs his highest service when rational debate leads to the formation of a better community. Thus, the conceptions of wisdom that motivate the Republic, Statesman, Laws and other dialogues may also have inspired Plato himself to intervene in Sicilian politics, to frame laws for various cities and to establish the Academy partly with a view to influencing Greek politics. In addition to his activities in Sicily, then, we are told that Plato was invited to frame laws for Cyrene and for the new federation of Megalopolis. Both requests he declined, citing the peoples’ reluctance to accept his guidance on economic equality and simplicity.71 Another tradition has him helping Philip to the throne of Macedon.72 It is difficult to assess the import or accuracy of later testimony like this. But regarding the Academy, there is enough evidence to suggest that Plato did exercise some indirect influence as a result of his reputation as a teacher and “wise man”. The Academy is generally thought to have been founded around 387 BC on the outskirts of Athens, after Plato’s second visit to Sicily. The Republic was written in the same decade, and one approach associates the two events to argue that the Academy was “the first concrete actualization of [the] essentially visionary plan” for philosopher-kings in the Republic.73 The Academy did dedicate itself to mathematics and dialectics but the association between the school and a single dialogue should not be overstated. Nor should one overstate the political dimension of the Academy, and assume that through it and its students, Plato indulged a will-to-power to shape the Greek world in indirect ways, since he could have little sway over his own Athens, as unphilosophical as it was democratic. It is more likely, I would suggest, that the Academy was a somewhat unsystematic place, with its public peripatos, its lack of precise schedule, political manifesto or even definite intellectual credo: individuals from different cities, of differing backgrounds and philosophical commitments might attend lectures, join conversations and drop out again. If so, one may seriously doubt Chroust’s hypothesis that the Academy was the epicentre of a philosophical empire, whose “political activities . . . were manifold, reaching nearly every part of the Hellenic world”.74 The school did attract ambitious, often aristocratic young men who went on to manifold political activites. But such men would not be beholden to an old Athenian schoolmaster. Indeed one wonders how many of them went forth “steeped” in the practice of dialectical division, or how seriously many took Plato’s ideas of a “Good beyond essence” Hermippus, for example, compiled a list of Academicians who “turned exclusively to politics”.75 Such doubts seem justified by the mixed record of those political figures who were later associated with the Academy as sometime students of Plato. Some of these figures became legislators, others served cities and monarchs as advisors or generals, while still others set themselves up as rulers of their cities, alternately praised as philosopher-kings or condemned as tyrants.76 For

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 41

05/10/2011 07:05

42

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

example, Plato “sent” Aristonymus to the Arcadians, Phormio to the Eleans and Menedemus to the Pyrrhaeans in order to arrange their respective constitutions. The mathematician Eudoxus wrote laws for his fellow Cnidians, as did Aristotle for his Stagirites.77 Leodamas was sent by the Thasians to the Academy for advice on founding a new colony.78 The Athenian generals, Chabrias and Phocion were one-time “hearers” of Plato, as was the orator Lycurgus.79 Erastus and Coriscus returned from the Academy to their own area near Lesbos, to act as advisors to the tyrant of Atarneus, Hermias, whom they persuaded to study geometry.80 Under their influence, he is said to have grown less autocratic, more “mild” and popular and so was able to extend his rule over other cities nearby. In gratitude he awarded the two philosophers the city of Assos: it was to this philosophically governed Assos, and Hermias’ patronage, that Aristotle went in 347 after Plato’s death. Another Academician, Euphraeus of Oreus, went to advise the Macedonian king Perdiccas III (r. 364–359), but he acted so “regally” and was so strict in demanding that all Perdiccas’ associates study geometry and philosophy, that when Philip succeeded to the throne, he had Euphraeus killed.81 Indeed, let there be no royal road to geometry! Other Academicians were not content to work behind the scenes. Some were lovers of liberty, like Python and Heraclides who in 359 assassinated Cotys, tyrant of Odrysis. Two others, Chion of Heraclea and Leon of Byzantium in 352 assassinated the ruler of Heracleia (on the Black Sea), the tyrant Clearchus, who had himself been in the Academy.82 Again, the lectures of Plato and Xenocrates had little effect on Chaeron of Pallene, who returned to tyrannize his city, kill or exile the aristocrats and settle the slaves on their property and in their marriage beds.83 Another Academician, Euaeon, unsuccessfully tried to become tyrant of Lampsacus. More dedicated students of philosophy also engaged in politics. Plato’s nephew Speusippus went with him to Sicily. Xenocrates served as Athenian ambassador to Philip, to Antipater in 322, and for Alexander the Great wrote Elementary Principles of Monarchy, in four books.84 Delias of Ephesus, a friend of Plato, advised Alexander. Aristotle too had impressive political connections, to which we will turn briefly in the next chapter. If one catalogues the various stories like these, the Academy might seem to have been a veritable hotbed of political intrigue. Certainly, Plato’s enemies cited the likes of Clearchus and Chaeron in order to slander him as a corrupter of youth, friend of tyrants and so forth: this calumny has continued into the present day, particularly due to Popper’s critique of him as an “enemy of the open society”.85 But such muckraking conveniently ignores central aspects of Plato’s thought: his ferocious satires of tyranny;86 the association of true kingship with God and divine wisdom, and not with bullies and manifestoes; the reticence to articulate what the Good is, and dialectical refusal to be doctrinaire and dogmatic; the recognition that Ideas and definitive knowledge are

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 42

05/10/2011 07:05



P lat o ’ s D ream

43

not of this world; the awareness that a subtle, demiurgic cunning is needed to adapt an ideal vision to ever-shifting temporal actualities; the appreciation of the depth of character needed to legislate for mercurial human beings; the sad awareness of man’s evil and ability to twist the best ideas into their opposite; the quiet consciousness of how circumstances can transform virtues into vices; how the best can often become the worst, and how even “divine philosophy”, when not studied properly, can corrupt ardent idealists and make tyrants of them.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 43

05/10/2011 07:05

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 44

05/10/2011 07:05

3

From Plato to Plutarch Plato was not alone in his dream. Contemporaries like Xenophon, Isocrates and Aristotle also developed ideas of uniting wisdom and power, and these influential writers would be followed by Cynics, Stoics, middle Platonists, Neopythagoreans and others who idealized kingship along philosophic lines. Plato was thus anticipating a tradition of monarchical thought, and in another way he anticipated the dominant institution of the Hellenistic age. This period can be taken as stretching roughly from the death of Alexander in 323 BC until the battle of Actium in 31 BC when Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra, and thus effectively ended the last of the Greek kingdoms, Ptolemaic Egypt. Throughout this period, monarchy was the ascendant political form across the eastern Mediterranean, and though Greek cities often preserved their assemblies and senates, they were either subservient, or dominated by the kings—Antigonids in Macedonia, Seleucids in Asia, Ptolemies in Egypt, Attalids in Pergamum, as well as others in Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pontus and as far away as Bactria. There was at times a special relationship between philosophers and kings. Many treatises entitled On Kingship were written; philosophers sometimes advised kings who for their part bolstered their image as cultured philhellenes by patronizing art and learning. Odes and encomia attribute to the king every virtue, as philosophers too glorify their sages as “kings” with every excellence. From Plato to Plutarch, there are no philosopher-kings as such. Yet the ideal lurks beneath the surface. Thus when Plutarch looks back over the span of Greek culture, he interprets several of its figures in the light of Plato’s ideal, and finds “philosopher-kings” of sorts: virtuous, effective leaders who were able to promote higher ideals like harmony and love, and so contribute to the providential ordering of the world. It is a long span of time with which we will be dealing, but much of the material provides variations on a quartet of interrelated ideas: virtue, philosophy, kingship, divinity. Philosophy now is typically equated with ethics: to be a philosopher is to attain virtue, aretē, excellence. At the same time, the king is distinguished by his virtues, and superlative virtue in turn makes one “godlike”. Different connections between these ideas can be stressed or ignored, as the author pleases. Together they coalesce into the radiant ideal of the pre-eminently good and wise, semi-divine king—an ideal which haunts the Hellenistic period. In pursuit of this spectre, we will proceed

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 45

05/10/2011 07:05

46

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

chronologically, beginning with the monarchical ideas of Plato’s near contemporaries; moving onto idealizations of the great Alexander as a “philosopher in arms”; surveying then the ideology of Hellenistic kingship; and finally jumping ahead to selections from Plutarch’s Lives, which reflect the political and spiritual aspirations of the preceding centuries, and show that the ideal of philosopher-kings was a living ideal for Plutarch in his own time under the Flavians and “good Emperors”.

Plato’s contemporaries: Xenophon, Isocrates, Aristotle Xenophon, Isocrates and Aristotle belong officially to the “classical” period and did not live to feel the full effects of Alexander’s career. Yet in some ways they anticipated Hellenistic concerns, not least, its interest in kings. Xenophon of Athens (c. 430–354 BC) was strongly influenced by Socrates, records some of his conversations about the basilikē technē and after a military career wrote works like the Hiero, Agesilaus and Cyropaedia. The first is an imaginary conversation in which the poet Simonides tries to persuade Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, that no tyrant can be happy and that only virtue can bring happiness and increase the city’s power: such a thesis clearly parallels ideas in Plato’s Republic. The biography of Agesilaus, king of Sparta, is moralizing in a different way. It begins with his lineage and birth, moves onto his exploits and settles down then to illustrate the “aretē of his soul”—his piety, justice in handling money, temperance in pleasures, courage in war, “wisdom” in tactics and strategy, patriotism, love of Hellas and all the myriad virtues that make this king a paradigm for all Greeks.1 Moralizing themes are broadcast on an even grander scale in the Cyropaedia, which romanticizes the life of Cyrus the Great. Cyrus was a conqueror who propelled the Achaemenid Persians to empire, but the Cyropaedia prefers to consider him as a model of all practical virtue: hardworking, hardy, brave, prudent, lawful, munificent, righteous, kind, humane, this Cyrus has all the philoponia, karteria, andreia, pronoia, eunomia, euergesia, eusebeia, eunoia and philanthropia that one could ever demand in a Socratic sage or excellent king. If philosophy is the pursuit of happiness and virtue, then Xenophon’s Cyrus is a philosopher-king, and he presides over a happy state. The book had an illustrious afterlife. Cyrus’ behaviour (e.g. royal gift-giving) anticipates the self-presentation especially of Alexander and the Ptolemies.2 Among philosophers too, Cyrus’ virtue led Cynics and Stoics to rank him along with Heracles as one of the best of kings. Thus, Panaetius’ student Scipio Africanus always kept the Cyropaedia with him, and Panaetius may stand behind Cicero’s judgement that Cyrus was the iustissimus sapientissimusque rex.3 The cloud of

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 46

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

47

superlatives with which Xenophon wrote thus inaugurated a long tradition of moralistic praise of the conqueror. Plato too may have known the book, but if so his response in the Laws is more equivocal: the Stranger praises the old Persian monarchy, with its open-minded, populist kings, but adds wryly that Cyrus was just a soldier and cared little for education.4 Xenophon brought a lifetime of exciting experience as traveller, soldier and general to his writing of biography, history and philosophical dialogues. Isocrates (436–338 BC), by contrast, concentrated on historico-political tracts, and he opened a school in Athens to train statesmen to serve his panhellenic ideals. Long experience of the confused wars and shifting alliances of fourthcentury Greek politics convinced Isocrates that the highest good would be for some leading power to inspire concord (homonoia) among the Greeks, both in a patriotic war against the Persians, and in a shared love of Hellenic paideia, with its triumphs of poetry, oratory, history, reasoned discourse and thinking—in a word, the logos that is the essence of Hellenism and civilization itself.5 With his Panegyricus (380 BC), Isocrates first sought a champion of Panhellenism in Athens, or rather in an idealized Solonic Athens. A generation later, in 356, he turned to the Spartan king Archidamas. Later still, in his “Cyprian” orations, he courted Evagoras, Nicocles and Demonicus, kings of Cyprus.6 His final pitch was in 346 when he wrote to Philip of Macedon to convince him to use his power for the good of Hellas.7 If Philip were to lead the Greeks against Persia (Isocrates argues), he would ride the tide of Fortune that had briefly raised Athens, Sparta and Thebes to the hegemony of Greece, only to cast them down again as mere pretenders to a status for which Philip was so obviously destined, with his descent from Heracles, his royal birth, his great nature and unparalleled success.8 Heracles was not merely strong but filled with phronēsis, goodwill and generosity: virtues of soul rather than body inspired his victories, won him endless honour and raised him to the level of the gods. So too is it with Philip: he too is not obsessed with mere wealth and power, but is far-seeing and great-souled, and Isocrates had even heard that he “has a share in logismos and philosophy”.9 He too would seek honour above all else, as a benefactor to the Greeks and a scourge of the barbarians, knowing in his greatness of soul that honour is only potentially infinite, and not a fully divine good. With such words Isocrates appeals to Philip’s better nature, and he is not shy or pessimistic about his own wisdom either: the speeches of popular orators, the Laws and Republics written by sophists are useless in comparison with his more considered writings, for certainly his Panegyricus “enriched those who make philosophy their business”.10 Indeed his advice to Philip is “inspired by the divine” and as a result, Philip would do well to follow enthusiastically where Fortune is leading.11 In all, Isocrates’ Philip is powerful, high-minded, reasonable, virtuous and wise, ever ready to listen to those even wiser than

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 47

05/10/2011 07:05

48

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

he, and to enlist power in service of Hellenism. Thus Philip reworks themes that Isocrates had embroidered in his Panegyricus, Archidamas, Evagoras, Nicocles and Demonicus, and which surface also in open letters to Archidamas, Dionysius, the Sons of Jason, Timotheus, the Rulers of Mytilene, Philip, Antipater and Alexander.12 The Philip reflects Isocrates’ mature conception of “philosophy”. Was he a philosopher? Understandings of the word differ, of course. For his part, Plato alludes wryly to Isocrates’ promise as a philosopher,13 and may refer to him even more equivocally as occupying the mere “border-ground”, that is the no-man’s land, between politics and philosophy.14 Isocrates was not classified as a philosopher by later generations, and so has come down to us as one of the Attic orators. Yet he often prefers to call himself a philosophos, and can dismiss rivals as mere “sophists”.15 More important than labels is his conception of what knowledge is most important, and how it is acquired. Wisdom (Isocrates states) is not attained through geometry, astronomy, dialectic: these are either useless or downright corrupting, producing logic-splitters, eristic nay-sayers and searchers after the will-o’-the-wisp of exact knowledge.16 Far wiser is to gain a broad-minded appreciation of large vistas of time and space, i.e. the grand course of panhellenic history, and to learn to deal flexibly with probabilities and with generally accepted customs and ways of thought.17 Both are required in a statesman, and both come most naturally to those who acquire experience through study of the “real” world, as mediated through literature, history and thoughtful political oratory. For Isocrates, there is no technē logōn, and virtue cannot be taught: shades of Aristotelian phronēsis here. Yet in practice, he holds that his students will progress towards both virtue and eloquence if they study the poets, historical exempla and model speeches—not least his own. His immediate students included Timotheus (Athenian general), Isaeus, Lycurgus and Hyperides (Athenian orators), Nicocles (Cyprian king), Ephorus and Theopompus (universal historians), a list of names illustrious enough for Cicero to quip that Isocrates’ school was like the Trojan horse, out of which came only princes.18 A school of kings? Or should Cicero have said: Isocrates’ was a school for philosopher-kings? Isocrates does not speak in these exact terms, yet like Plato Isocrates did seek to educate statesmen (and even kings like Nicocles and Philip) in his own “philosophy” of paideia and the rhetorical logos. Indeed Isocrates’ humanistic programme would have more indirect influence than Plato’s Academic curriculum of mathematics and dialectic. His model of a liberal education in letters would dominate later Hellenistic and Roman education, thereby infiltrating political life, as well as historiography and philosophy. To take just a few prominent examples: Cicero’s orator is Isocratean,19 as is Plutarch’s style of moral history; philosopher-kings like Marcus Aurelius and Julian went through an essentially Isocratean school rather than a Platonic regime of mathematics and dialectic. Stories cluster around the early Academy

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 48

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

49

about Academicians such as Erastus, Coriscus and Euphraeus who tried to teach mathematics to tyrants, and reflect the distinctive programme of royal education in the Republic.20 Such an education was not the norm in antiquity. Even within the early Academy, opinions could vary: certainly Aristotle criticized what he perceived to be an excessive attention to mathematics there. But Aristotle too flirted with monarchical ideas of his own, and sought to educate actual kings. As a student in the Academy, he wrote the Protrepticus around 350 BC to persuade one Themison of Cyprus to “turn towards” the philosophical life.21 Little is known about this Themison but a plausible hypothesis is that he was one of the Cypriot kings. If so, was Aristotle – and the Academy – trying to gain a convert in territory where Isocrates was so active?22 Regardless of speculation about the Protrepticus, it is clear that Aristotle’s involvement in practical politics was not to be dominated by Plato or the Academy. As son of a court physician, Aristotle had some standing in Macedonian ruling circles, and this is reflected in the fact that he served as ambassador between Athens and Macedon; persuaded Philip to refound Stagira; and, most dramatically, was appointed in 342 BC as tutor to Alexander and served as such until Alexander became regent in 339.23 Our lack of knowledge about this relationship only invites learned conjecture. What did Aristotle think of the young prince, and vice versa? What did he teach him: was it metaphysics, ethics, medicine and Homer (as Plutarch states), or useless eristic (as Isocrates insinuates)?24 The two would remain in contact until their deaths, not least because Aristotle’s nephew Callisthenes went to Asia as a court historian in Alexander’s entourage. One can only speculate about their continued relations. Did Aristotle advise Alexander to act as leader (hēgemōn) to the Greeks but a master (despotēs) to the barbarians, treating the first as friends and familiars, the second like lower animals—as Plutarch writes?25 Is there any kernel of historical fact in the five spurious letters that “Aristotle” wrote to Philip and Alexander, reminding them of the power of fortune, the need for philosophy and the like? To turn to aspects of his political theory, Aristotle loudly criticizes the Republic in Politics II, yet beneath the bravado, his own political preferences resemble Plato’s in many ways. His ideal “polity” is, like Plato’s Magnesia, a republic of citizens devoted to law and virtue, ruled and ruling in turns, supported mainly by slave-labour and secondarily by trade conducted by carefully monitored metics. Such a state would seem to be second best, however, for in another passages, Aristotle proves that he too “contains multitudes”, when he speaks categorically about an even higher ideal: If there be one person, or more than one. . . whose virtue is so pre-eminent that the virtues or political capacity of all the rest admit of no comparison with his or theirs, then he or they can no longer be regarded as part of a state; for justice will not be

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 49

05/10/2011 07:05

50

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

done to the superior, if he is reckoned only as the equal of those who are so far inferior to him in virtue and in political capacity. Such a one may truly be deemed a God among men. . . for [these] men of pre-eminent virtue, there is no law: they are themselves a law. Any one would be ridiculous who attempted to make laws for them: they would probably retort what, in the fable of Antisthenes, the lions said to the hares, when in the council of the beasts the latter began haranguing and claiming equality for all. . . What is to be done with [the person pre-eminent in virtue]? Mankind will not say that such a one is to be expelled or exiled; on the other hand, he ought not to be a subject—that would be as if mankind should claim to rule over Zeus, dividing his offices among them. The only alternative is that all should joyfully obey such a ruler, according to what seems to be the order of nature, and that men like him should be kings in their state for life.26

These richly suggestive sentences look both backwards and forwards. Aristotle­equivocates between idealizing one king or a group of “kingly” aristocrats: one recalls how Socrates spoke of Guardians and philosopher-kings in the plural. Again, the notion of good rulers being above the law recalls the divine ruler and doctor-legislator of the Statesman,27 as well the philosophical rulers of the Republic, for none of these are bound by particularized prescriptions. This same phrase looks forward to the key Hellenistic metaphor of the king as “living law”: in his superlative virtue, the highest human legislator gives a paradigm for his subjects to imitate. And like these future kings, as well as kings from the Homeric past, Aristotle’s ideal leaders are semi-divine because of their heroic virtue: powerful as lions (“king” of beasts), they are somehow closer to Zeus. Virtue, kingship, divinity—the fourth member of our “quartet” is missing, but one doubts that Aristotle’s king(s) would be unphilosophical. For Aristotle, the political art is the all-inclusive practical art, and one requiring a broad sensitivity to human nature. One reasons, therefore, that Aristotle’s god-like leaders would be “best” not in the theoretical wisdom (sophia) of mathematics, physics, metaphysics and theology, but in the practical wisdom (phronēsis) that is the crown of worldly virtues, and that enables one to adapt one’s actions proportionately to changing situations. Elsewhere Aristotle does in fact demand phronēsis of a statesman: and he even produces Pericles as an example of one who had it.28 Plato’s dream of wise rule is thus not entirely absent from Aristotle’s corpus, but one must be sensitive to differences in emphasis. Plutarch, for example, will make much of Pericles as a model of Aristotelian phronēsis, but one has to search through Aristotle to find the precedent. Again, Aristotle writes that the king should not become a philosopher but should merely listen to philosophers: should this fragment be assigned to Aristotle’s (lost) On Kingship?29 Even less Platonic is Politics V and Economics which offer Machiavellian advice on

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 50

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

51

how autocrats can appropriate money and hang on to power. Such passages suggest that Aristotle did not really share his teacher’s preoccupation with philosophic kingship, or even the union of wisdom and power. Aristotle seems to emphasize more their disjunction: contemplative philosophers, like the divine Self-Thinking Thought, stand aloof from practical activities, while the preferred political form is the polity, composed of actively engaged citizens. The great-souled man may well be an attempt to mediate between these ideals, between the intellectual and practical virtues, but Aristotle’s main thesis is that theoretical knowledge is not necessary for moral or political excellence.

Alexander and the Hellenistic age Xenophon, Isocrates and Aristotle each look forward to aspects of the Hellenistic age. In particular, Aristotle’s tutorship of Alexander symbolizes an ideal that continued to beckon through the next centuries, but was never fully realized. This brings us to Alexander himself, whose career and image haunted so many later kings and emperors. A complex figure, he was denounced by some as vainglory personified, but others admired him as a champion of Hellenic enlightenment.30 For these admirers, Alexander’s education by Aristotle set him on the path to philosophic kingship and his person and career provided much material for panegyric: his extraordinary talent, his love of honour, his greatness of soul, his scorn of petty pleasures and petty conquests, his vision of world-empire, his purported aim of promoting Greek paideia and advancing the brotherhood of man, his interest in philosophers from Egypt to India, his pothos for something infinite, his godlike virtue and who knows? perhaps his actual divinity—all this was fodder for Alexander’s flatterers. So Onesicritus has him praised as the “only philosopher in arms” who thus set the standard for all rulers.31 The idea returns full-blown in Plutarch’s De Fortuna Alexandri, a conventional exercise in epideixis which extols Alexander’s empire-building as the culmination of Greek philosophy: Plato, Zeno and other thinkers only wrote books and dreamed dreams, but Alexander brought Sophocles and Euripides to the most distant barbarians; from the Nile to the Indus, he established 70 cities, while previous philosophers never even founded one, not even in Greece. If philosophical arguments (logoi) should be realized in deeds (erga), and wisdom made manifest in the world, then surely Alexander was a philosopher.32 Or, if philosophers take the greatest pride in taming and correcting the fierce and untutored elements of men’s character, and if Alexander has been shown to have changed the brutish customs of countless nations, then it would be justifiable to regard him as a very great philosopher.33

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 51

05/10/2011 07:05

52

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Indeed, Plutarch’s impetuous argument would make Alexander the very greatest of philosophers, for in describing Alexander as a god-sent governor and mediator of the world, [who] overcame by arms those he could not bring over by persuasion and brought men together from all over the world, mixing together, as it were, in a loving-cup their lives, customs, marriages and ways of life,34

Plutarch idealizes the wedding feast at Susa, and shows Alexander to have seen farther than the provincial Aristotle; he goes even further by implicitly comparing his hero to the Platonic Demiurge, who “mixes” triangles in the matrix of time and space, and so coaxes and forces errant matter into a beautiful whole.35 Like God himself, this Alexander unified the world in love. It is a beautiful portrait, and one that has not failed to inspire: even accomplished historians like Tarn and Hammond have worshipped at the shrine of Alexander, regarding him not as an exemplar of vainglory, but a champion of that tremendous idea, the unity of mankind.36 To others, this beautiful portrait seems incompatible with the horror of imperial conquest. Plutarch points the way here too, at least in the sense that his Life of Alexander offers a less flattering, more tragic story. Philosophical kingship hovers as an ideal before this Alexander also, but he progressively falls away from it. Early on Plutarch tells the story of how a young Alexander tamed Bucephalus. All the horse-trainers had failed, but Alexander saw that the horse was afraid of its shadow, turned it towards the sun, and was able to mount it with ease. So the thinking prince used persuasion rather than force, and the wild animal was made useful; the story is almost a Platonic fable.37 At the same time, the prince was being tutored by Aristotle, and this education stayed with him later, for as Plutarch carefully notes, through his campaigns, Alexander took time to consult philosophers of different countries, Diogenes in Corinth, Psammon in Egypt, the gymnosophists in India. Similarly, Plutarch’s Alexander is a patron of learning, and brings philosophers, historians, botanists and other scientific researchers along with the army.38 In Egypt, he initiates the building of Alexandria, one of the great centres of culture subsequently, and his founding of cities provided a model for later Hellenistic colonization. Moreover, his practical wisdom is reflected in his concern for his men, his sharing of their hardships, his generous gift-giving, his reconciliation of friends (e.g. Hephaistion and Craterus) and cities and his attempts to promote concord (homonoia) and friendship (philia) between Macedonians and Persians, not least at the feast at Susa. Nor was Plutarch’s Alexander so foolish as to be intemperate: for example, he did not rape Darius’ women after Issus, was not a drunk until his very last years and was considerate in his judgements. He had tremendous courage—that

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 52

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

53

is, both bravery and physical valour—to the degree that he seemed semidivine.39 But as he travels east into Dionysian barbarism, Plutarch’s Alexander degenerates from his early promise: he drinks more, grows temperamental, kills Cleitus, quarrels with Callisthenes, bullies the gymnosophists, gradually loses touch with his Aristotelian education and dies of a drunken fever, a tyrant in Babylon.40 Thus running through Plutarch’s Life of Alexander is the Platonic motif of a great man and potential philosopher-king corrupted by power, circumstances and even his own misdirected talent. More recent scholars have tended to cast a colder eye on the Macedonian. Bosworth, for example, argues that modern idealizations of Alexander stem from Plutarch’s De Fortuna Alexandri, not realizing that this “ingenious. . . literary jeu d’esprit” was an unserious piece itself stemming ultimately from court flattery around Alexander. Bosworth suggests that courtiers like the philosopher Anaxarchus worked up quasiAristotelian notions of the all-virtuous king and so began to create the belief in Alexander as invincible, far-seeing, a “living law”, son of Zeus and even god incarnate. To Bosworth’s more sceptical eye, all this is “full-blown fiction41 for Alexander’s wars (he says) were “pursued wholly for gain and glory under the specious pretext of revenge”.42 In this perspective, Alexander was the scion of a half-barbarian fighting aristocracy—surely no philosopher. Yet such was the power of rhetoric that Isocrates could make a “philosopher” of his father, Philip, even though he had fought all his life for power and dominion, lost an eye in the siege of Byzantium, and bore the scars of battle all over his body. Alexander was even more of a brute, a veritable demon of destruction, yet through the power of rhetoric and the general penchant for hero-worship, he has too often been elevated as a conscious champion of higher civilization. Placed side by side like this, the extreme idealistic and cynical interpretations of Alexander only highlight the complexities of the man. Machiavellian cynicism may not in fact be attuned to some seemingly true aspects of Alexander, notably his pothos and intense admiration for Homer’s Achilles. Both speak of a soul that had aspirations higher than simply killing others: Alexander longed for “glory imperishable” as if that heroic “Good” could alone make him immortal. Indeed, in the Iliad Achilles is the most meditative of characters—even the most philosophical one might say, for he alone really questions his society’s fundamental values. Nevertheless one stretches words to breaking point if one were to call Alexander a “philosopher”. Similarly, one cannot point to any Hellenistic king who was recognizable as a philosopher.43 Antigonus II Gonatas, friend of several philosophers, comes closest but he did not claim to be one himself; later figures like Juba II of Mauretania and Herod the Great had intellectual interests and have been dubbed “scholarly kings”, if not philosophers.44 For in general, the kings’ ambitions and activities seem quite

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 53

05/10/2011 07:05

54

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

unphilosophical: their jostling for titles, loud luxury, conspicuous euergetism of grain-giving and monument-building, the frenetic arms race that recruited large mercenary armies, trained battle-elephants, built ever-bigger ships of war, invented torsion catapults, flame-throwers and other weapons and launched all this apparatus of power in an endless patchwork of wars.45 It would seem that the Antigonids, Seleucids, Ptolemies, Attalids and so forth were very worldly men. They wanted wealth, power and, at best, the honour of preeminence; they betray little yearning for a “Good beyond essence”. The scramble for power after Alexander’s death only seems to reinforce the sense of disjunction between actual politics and contemporary philosophical theories about contemplative happiness. So too does the jostling for titles. The title of “king” gleamed with the reflected glory of Alexander and was jealously reserved for the Argead dynasty until Olympias (his mother) and Alexander IV (his son by Roxane) were killed in 309. Shortly afterwards in 306, following a victory over Ptolemy I, when he seemed set to wrest control of the whole empire, Antigonus I “The One Eyed”, proclaimed himself and his son Demetrius “kings”. Not to be outdone, Ptolemy began calling himself “king” in 305, and in turn Seleucus, Lysimachus, Cassander and even Agathocles in Sicily followed suit. Suddenly the Greek world was awash with kings, and like Twain’s “rapscallions” on the raft, they were not quite happy about the others’ pretensions. Demetrius’ courtiers, for instance, flattered him by saying that he was the only real king: Seleucus was just a “Ruler of Elephants”, Ptolemy an “Admiral of the Fleet” and Agathocles a “Lord of Islands”.46 Behind such flattery there hovers the spectre of Alexander again. Who would dare claim his place at head of the whole empire? Could anyone just declare himself a “king”? If not, what distinguishes the “true” king?47 Practically speaking, the last question was answered by recourse to arms. Force justified the claims of Antigonus and others, until more settled conditions after Ipsus in 301 made dynastic legitimacy an important factor again. Alexander, once more, exemplified the right of might. Arrian, for example, has him write to Darius: “If you wish to lay claim to the title of king, then stand your ground and fight for it.”48 Similarly, Antigonus and Demetrius took the royal diadem after their victory over Ptolemy, and Ptolemy followed suit only after he had gained a victory in turn. Pyrrhus was admired because in him seemed to glint “a reflection and imitation of Alexander’s dash and fire in battle”, and emulating Alexander’s valour, he made war “all his thought and philosophy, as the most kingly part of learning”.49 Attalus I assumed the title “king” because of his triumph over the Galatians. Antiochus III took to calling himself “the Great”, after his successful campaigns as far east as India.50 Overwhelming force allowed the Ptolemies in Egypt and Seleucids in Asia to adopt the ornamental titles of the Pharaohs and Achaemenid monarchs, respectively.51 Such examples

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 54

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

55

may lie behind the statement of the Suda: “it is neither descent nor legitimacy which gives monarchies to men, but the ability to command an army and to handle affairs competently. Such was the case with Philip and the Successors of Alexander.”52 And yet, practically speaking, brute force is not so simple a phenomenon as it seems. Victory in battle can be said to prove the king’s courage, ability and favour with divine Fortune. That is, victory is a sign of his innate “virtue” and even his closeness to the gods. Thus in coins and sculptures, the Hellenistic king is often portrayed as charged with a quasi-divine energy; like Alexander, the king often appears as a young man, clean-shaven, with thick tussled hair and muscular, athletic body, with an air of restless energy and noble ambition, even to the point of having Alexander’s upturned head and melting gaze, as if filled with infinite yearning (pothos). Such overflowing energy is godlike, and so the king may adopt the attributes of a young god: Alexander himself had favoured Heracles and Dionysus, while the Antigonids inclined to Heracles, the Seleucids to Apollo and the Ptolemies to Dionysus.53 At the same time, kindred notions of the godlike king were exploited for the benefit of non-Greek subjects: let the Egyptians know that it is still Horus who reigns in the person of Ptolemy; let the Babylonians be reassured that Nebo, son of Marduk, favours Antiochus. If the divine is powerful, then powerful kings have a hint of divinity, and not only militarily. For when the king practises munificence, giving gifts, bestowing favours and binding the people to himself in love, he is honoured as an euergetēs (“benefactor”). Or, when he donates life-giving grain, defends a city from conquest, or abstains from razing it himself, he is honoured as a sōtēr (“saviour”). Bringing tangible benefits, and threatening obvious force, some even go so far as to trumpet themselves as “Thunderbolt” or “god manifest”, or the “New Dionysus”:54 that is, they are visible gods, bathing their subjects in the light of some more distant glory. From one perspective, these divine titles can be seen as merely political: they elevated the king above his subjects and subject cities, bolstering his power by playing on some people’s naivety. But at the same time, these ideas took root tenaciously. It is in the Hellenistic environment that Euhemerus propounds his theory that originally the gods were kings, the “best” of their times, divinized by subjects grateful for their beneficent virtues. So the primeval god Uranus becomes for Euhemerus “the first king, an honourable man, beneficent and versed in the movement of the states and who was the first to honour the heavenly gods with sacrifices”. This Uranus is beneficent and pious: indeed, he is a veritable astronomer-monarch (shades of Plato’s mathematician Guardians). Uranus is succeeded by Cronus, and then Zeus, who was once “king over the whole world”.55 In this way, old saws are adapted to new circumstances: Hesiod’s maxim that “all kings come from Zeus” was

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 55

05/10/2011 07:05

56

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

exploited by Theocritus in his 17th Idyll, as by Callimachus when he wrote a Hymn to Zeus, praising the exploits and virtues of the high god—and, by happy association, those of Ptolemy also. Euhemerus associates virtue with kings and gods. Other thinkers would go further to add the fourth element of our “quartet”. Here the Cynics are most mischievous, and paradoxical. Living wisely according to nature’s minimum requirements, the Cynics claimed that they were uniquely self-sufficient. Knowing no want, careless before adversity and prosperity alike and having no incentive to crime, they were therefore wealthy, “invincible” (anikētoi) and just. With virtues like these, the Cynic can scoff at diadem and purple as so many deceptions, and he pities mere monarchs who cannot, like Diogenes, roll about joyfully in a pithos, but need their land, treasures, advisors and armies to be happy. And so through cities of the Hellenistic period, Cynic tramps might loiter on the streets and shout at passers-by, “I alone am king!” According to this conceit, inner virtue makes sages and kings alike. Moreover it becomes significant for some Cynics that Diogenes’ name means “born of Zeus”, and that diogenes was the epithet of Homer’s heroes. Thus, while at first sight it seems strange that a Cynic “dog philosopher” could claim to be “king”, the larger cultural context lends their rhetoric a certain curious logic.56 Nor was this logic confined to some marginal discontents. Zeno, the first Stoic, was at first a student of the Cynic Crates, and as a result Stoicism never lost its core message of Cynic indifference to externals, or the conceit of philosopher-kings. On the contrary, it made even more extravagant claims for its sages. In the Stoic argument, just as being is one, so too are virtues ultimately one, so that wisdom, for example, will in its fullness bring courage, justice, temperance and all the rest. Therefore, the wise man is “king”, because he alone possesses the virtues requisite for responsible rule. Or from a different angle, wisdom is knowledge, but if one has knowledge, then one has knowledge of law, strategy, navigation, the gods and indeed everything. Hence, the Stoic sage becomes judge, general, pilot, priest, orator, etc., and from Chrysipus to Musonius, Stoics can rhapsodize about the omni-competent “royal knowledge” (basilikē epistēmē) of the sage.57 In this, one detects little of the obvious irony of the Cynics or of Plato’s Socrates. For in Plato’s Ion, the rhapsode Ion seems to assume that his expertise in Homer should make him general, fisherman, chariot-driver and so forth; in the Euthydemus, two sophists argue that to know is to know, so that if one knows one thing, then one knows everything, because one cannot be knowledgeable and not knowledgeable at once. By this argument, the sage should also be acrobat and juggler and so Socrates ridicules Euthydemus. One might ridicule the Stoics in the same vein—yet Socrates need not have the last word. For Euthydemus’ line of thinking would be quite respectable given a monistic metaphysics like the Stoics’. Behind their seemingly

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 56

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

57

extravagant claims to be “kings”, therefore, there is a consistent outlook. To be wise is to know all, and to have all virtues, but probably nobody has attained this ideal, “royal knowledge”. For most Stoics, there is no living sage, and most probably only God is wise; by comparison with the divine mind, human beings are all fools and slaves.58 If the true king has all the virtues of a sage and God, then it is not surprising that the Stoics tended to be monarchists in theory—and absolute monarchists at that. For the Stoics, the best constitution is one in which the king is “living law”, embodiment of the divine reason (logos) and hence representative of God.59 If Nature, God and Reason are names for the same singular and unified whole, then human authority too should be singular, and based on them. With the constitutional debate resolved, the Stoics’ only difficulty was actually to find the sage with the prerequisite virtues and rational intuition of God or Nature. But alas! The ideal sage proved elusive, and while the search continued, the Stoics resorted to Plan B: if the monarch-sage is not available to be handed the kingdom, then some existing king should be educated up to virtue, or advised wisely, or, in the last resort, removed from the office he did not deserve. The Stoics had a long tradition, therefore, of advising kings, or berating them for not living up to Stoic standards of royalty. More names will be provided below, but among them four deserve preliminary mention, so as to highlight the longevity of Stoicism’s influence: students of Zeno advised Antigonus II Gonatas, who seems to have genuinely respected them; Cato berated Caesar for being a tyrant, not a king; Seneca held up a mirror so that Nero might see his better self in it; and the “Stoic Opposition” of Thrasea Paetus and others criticized the Flavians for not being better.60 Stoics were the philosophers most engaged in Hellenistic politics, but towards the end of the period, a more Platonic approach began to grow in popularity. For these “Middle Platonists”, a popular text was Plato’s Second Letter, and in particular the passage that speaks of the “king of all” upon whom “all things turn; who is the end of all things and the cause of all good”.61 Middle Platonists sought to relate this passage to other Platonic moments—the Good, the Ideas, the paradigm, the distant “Father of All”, the Demiurge, the first and second creations—and their discussions would eventually crystallize in Plotinus’ tripartite ontology of One, Mind, Soul. These ideas would provide the basis for the theocratic politics of Eusebius, Julian and Byzantine ideology, and it is from the same general philosophical orientation that there arose several partially extant Hellenistic treatises On Kingship. Attributed to the Pythagoreans Ecphantus, Diotogenes and Sthenidas, they are excerpted by Stobaeus as useful passages for anyone setting down to write their own compositions on kings or monarchy. These excerpts are quoted and discussed at length by Goodenough, and here we can only summarize his analysis, which remains a

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 57

05/10/2011 07:05

58

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

touchstone for scholarship on Hellenistic ideology. The passages differ in detail, but the overall message is of a piece: the “true” king is God’s representative on earth. In Diotogenes, for example, God rules the world by his wisdom and the king mankind by his justice; God harmonizes the elements into a cosmos, the king unifies citizens into a city. For Diotogenes also, the king’s three domains are war, administration of justice and, most important of all, service to the gods. Ecphantus and Sthenidas develop their own variations of this divine kingship: God is “king” of the world, and thus an exemplar for the earthly king, who in turn is exemplar for his subjects, because in his superior virtue and mind, his every action is admirable, inspiring, to be contemplated and imitated by others, from his “Friends” down to the humblest subject. In this, the king is like a law to his people, for they regulate their actions by watching him. Goodenough makes this—the king as “living law”—the central idea and describes it as the “official political philosophy of the Hellenistic age”.62 As he shows, the idea has roots in earlier writers (Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle), but blossomed under the Hellenistic monarchies and on into Roman times, surfacing not only in Pythagorean treatises but also, albeit more diffusely, in Archytas of Tarentum, Musonius Rufus, Cicero, Plutarch, Arrian, the pseudo-Aristotelian Rhetorica ad Alexandrum and elsewhere, often where one least expects it.63 Cicero, for example, describes the magistrate as a “speaking law”, Plutarch speaks of Zeus as the “oldest and most perfect of laws” and Clement of Alexandria calls Jesus the nomos empsychos.64 It seems somewhat random that Stobaeus chose selections from Pythagorean treatises, written in Doric, rather than from the many other philosophical books that might have offered commonplaces (topoi) on the subject of monarchy. In his section “On the notion that monarchy is best”, Stobaeus includes quotations from Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, Euripides, Democritus, Plato, Isocrates’ Nicocles (at length) and so forth, but apart from the texts of Sereneus, Crispinus and the three Pythagoreans, all his passages are pre-Hellenistic.65 From this list, one might not guess how wildly philosophical books titled On Kingship proliferated under the Hellenistic monarchs. Plato’s Statesman was also called On Kingship, and books of this name were attributed to Eucleides, Antisthenes, Xenocrates, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Euphantus, Strato, Zeno, Cleanthes, Sphaerus, Persaeus and many others, even Epicurus. Together these names represent the four major Schools (even the generally apolitical Epicureans) as well as the Megarians and Cynics.66 Moreover, the proliferation of the title On Kingship indirectly reveals how kings often aspired or claimed to be patrons of culture. In Plato’s Academy, one of Aristotle’s nicknames was the “reader”, and his private library may have been the first significant one ever. Indeed his Lyceum may have directly inspired the Library and Museum in Alexandria: though Theophrastus refused

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 58

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

59

Ptolemy I’s invitation to Egypt, he sent Demetrius of Phalerum in his place, and one anecdote has Demetrius advising Ptolemy to collect books on kingship and read them, arguing that “advice which friends dare not give to kings, is written in books”.67 Demetrius is seen as a key Peripatetic influence behind the creation of the Library and Museum. Obviously the Library was not built just to house books on kingship, and the Alexandrian Library and Museum together became the great institution of higher learning in the ancient world, though a focus for poets, historians, scholars and scientists more than for Platonic metaphysicians.68 Nevertheless, patronage of philosophy remained one way in which a king could show that he was a philhellene, a creature of paideia and the logos. In cultivating this image, having a book of sage advice “on kingship” was all very well, but having a living philosopher at one’s right side was even better. It was fairly common practice, therefore, for Hellenistic kings to keep philosophers in their entourage, as companions, friends, advisors and entertainers. Again, Alexander provides the model: tutored by Aristotle, he brought Anaxarchus and Aristotle’s nephew Callisthenes along to Asia, and during his travels sought out wise men like Diogenes and Calanus. Even if his motives here remain inscrutable, he provided enough facts for admirers to depict him as an enlightened king, or at least one respectful towards his philosophical superiors. So too, Pyrrhus was advised by the Epicurean Cineas; Antigonus I “The One Eyed” was tutored by the Megarian thinker Euphantus of Olynthus; Cassander was advised by Euhemerus; Lysimachus patronized Onesicritus (historian and admirer of the Cynics), the Peripatetic Olympiodorus and (perhaps) the Peripatetic Dichaearchus; Antigonus II Gonatas was tutored by Menedemus of Eretria, but he reserved the greatest regard for Stoics, especially Zeno’s student Persaeus, who rose so high in Antigonus’ esteem that he was given Corinth to rule and defend, one of the so-called “fetters of Greece” and strategically crucial.69 Ptolemy I took in the Peripatetic Demetrius of Phaleron and also kept the historian Hecataeus, who discerned Platonic institutions in ancient Egypt;70 Ptolemy II Philadelphus was tutored for a time by the Peripatetic Strato of Lampsacus, third head of the Lyceum;71 his successor Lycon of Troas resided for a time with Eumenes and Attalus of Pergamum, and was courted by Antiochus II; in turn, Lycon’s probable successor at the Lyceum, Ariston of Ceos, served Antigonus III Doson for a time, as did another Peripatetic Prytanis, whom Antigonus commissioned to write laws for Megalopolis; Ptolemy IV Philopator asked for Cleanthes to come to Alexandria, but got Sphaerus instead.72 This Sphaerus (a student of Zeno, like Persaeus) had advised Cleomenes III of Sparta, when he vainly tried to restore a more egalitarian, Lycurgan regime. This is not an exhaustive list. To jump ahead to Philopoemen, the general who defended Achaean liberty against the Spartan kings—Plutarch makes much of the fact that he was educated by

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 59

05/10/2011 07:05

60

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Ecdemus and Demophanes (students of the Academic scholarch Arcesilaus), hopefully insinuating that this education was a condition of Philopoemen’s philhellenic virtue: Philopoemen becomes “the last of the Greeks” and Plutarch opines that “among their [Ecdemus’ and Demophanes’] best actions they themselves counted the education of Philopoemen, thinking they had done a general good to Greece, by giving him the nurture of philosophy”.73 Roman leaders inherited this respect for the political benefits of association with philosophers. If Cleomenes had his Sphaerus, Tiberius Gracchus had another Stoic, Blossius, who is mentioned as a close advisor for his populist agrarian reforms. After Graccus was assassinated (purportedly for aspiring to become king), Blossius fled to Asia to advise Aristonicus, as he established the so-called Heliopolis, or Sun-City, in Pergamum.74 The populist dimension of this revolt inspired Tarn and others in the early twentieth century to make Blossius a kind of Stoic Bolshevik, arguing that the dominance of Stoicism, with its doctrines of universal equality, not only influenced the communist utopias of Zeno, Euhemerus and Iambulus, but together with the revulsion at the vast inequalities during the latter Hellenistic period produced revolts against wealthy elites in Cleomenes’ Sparta, the Rome of the Gracchi and especially Aristonicus’ Sun-City.75 If Stoicism might have fired a Blossius to raise the red flag, it did not alienate the majority of philosophers, who remained on the side of the establishment, whether Macedonian or Roman. To continue our catalogue, in the late Republic, Scipio patronized the Stoic Panaetius, and Panaetius’ student Poseidonius was ambassador for Rhodes and friend of leading Romans like Cicero and Pompey. Cato the Younger went out of his way in Asia to befriend Athenodorus, a Stoic and librarian at Pergamum. Another Stoic, Athenodorus Cananites, was a sometime helper of Cicero and future tutor of Octavian. Cicero himself was friends with the Pythagorean scholar and politician, Publius Nigidius Figulus, whom he consulted especially during the Catilinarian crisis.76 Later still, Augustus respected the advice of the Stoic Areius Didymus almost as much as that of Agrippa; Tiberius was in the thrall of the Platonist and astrologer, Thrasyllus,77 and most famously the young Nero had his Seneca, whose De Clementia is very much a textbook about the philosophical virtues of the true king, and probably revisits themes from older Hellenistic treatises On Kingship.78 Almost all these books On Kingship are lost, so one is left to conjecture as to their contents. As in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, did Hellenistic thinkers preface their books with clever praise of the virtues, perhaps even the wisdom, of their royal patrons? This might explain Diogenes’ comments about the unique arrogance of Chrysippus: he wrote more than 700 books but dedicated none to a king!79 Again, one surmises that philosophers could not avoid some of the buzzwords of their Hellenistic surroundings: the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 60

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

61

king should be “a benefactor” and “saviour”, philanthropic and “toil-loving” (philoponos), like Heracles happily enduring labours for the happiness of his people; he should be a philhellene and patron of Greek culture; and should promote concord (homonoia) and friendship among his citizens and all Greeks, an injunction as old as Aristotle and Isocrates, but given new meaning now for the more disparate Hellenistic kingdoms.80

Plutarch’s philosopher-kings These ideas remained important for Plutarch also, and so when one turns to his oeuvre, especially the Parallel Lives, one finds an author deeply committed to the idea that the right philosophy ennobles politics. Indeed, Plutarch endorses a new variety of Platonic philosopher-kings, even though he recognizes that times have changed and that the small, autonomous cities that Plato knew are gone. The notion that there are philosopher-kings in the Lives might seem strange when one recalls how popular they were through the 1700s and in particular how Plutarch’s Brutus was revered among revolutionary republicans as the paradigmatic tyrant-slayer.81 But revolutionaries are not always careful readers, and even more cautious scholars may hesitate to generalize about Plutarch, so many-sided is he. His life (c. 40–120 AD) coincided with a time when Romans, at least in the upper echelons, were increasingly philhellenic. Plutarch himself moved between the Greek and Latin parts of the empire, was massively learned, and wrote prodigiously, producing an oeuvre that in some ways sums up the long tradition of Greek paideia, mingling poetry, history and philosophy. The Parallel Lives, in particular, are a tour de force, ranging from the mythic founders of Rome and Athens down to recent Roman emperors: an education in the history of civilization (as it was known then), and an initiation into the vicissitudes of political life. This series of 48 lives does not seem to have been planned systematically, or written with one definite agenda in mind, apart from the general one of promoting virtue. But for the moralizing Plutarch, this is the human good. There are other a priori reasons for surmising that the Lives feature philosopher-kings. Plutarch was a Platonist who quotes Plato over 600 times, more than any other author, and often from memory. He was also adamant that the philosopher should engage in practical politics, as he himself did. Born into an old, landowning family of Chaeronea, he was also awarded citizenship of Delphi, Athens and Rome. He held the archonship in Chaeronea, as well as other offices. Like many literary men from the Greek world, he served as a liaison between Greek cities and the Roman elites. Under the Flavians, he travelled to Italy and Rome probably as an ambassador for Chaeronea, Delphi, Athens and his

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 61

05/10/2011 07:05

62

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

region. He befriended many influential Romans, including Arulenus Rusticus, a follower of Thrasea Paetus, executed in 93; Avidius Quietus, governor of Britian, proconsul of Achaea, friend of Thrasea and Pliny the Younger; Herennius Saturninus, proconsul under Trajan to whom Plutarch dedicated his Against Colotes; L. Mestrius Florus, an associate of Vespasian, later proconsul of Asia, Plutarch’s main patron, who helped him to Roman citizenship and equestrian status; Sosius Senecio, a friend of Trajan, a general in the Dacian Wars, consul in 99 and 107, who may have introduced Plutarch to Hadrian, and was the addressee of Table Talk, Progress in Virtue and Parallel Lives. When Nerva came to power, Plutarch probably settled into provincial life more fully, holding offices in Chaeronea and Delphi, ultimately becoming epimelētēs of the Amphictyonic Council and one of the two permanent priests in Delphi, patronized by the Romans as the symbolic centre of the Greek world. He was even honoured directly by emperors: Trajan awarded him the ornamenta consularia, often given for literary distinction and Hadrian not only showered patronage on Delphi, but made Plutarch imperial procurator of Achaea.82 Despite all this extensive political activity, Plutarch regarded himself, and was regarded, as a philosopher, and in particular a Platonist. He studied with Ammonius in Athens perhaps around 66 and probably gave philosophy lectures while travelling in Italy. Later at Chaeronea, he led a philosophical group, and read and wrote prodigiously; most of his writing seems to date from after 96. As one of the later so-called “Middle” Platonists, Plutarch took with great seriousness Theaetetus 176b, that the goal of life is homoiōsis theōi, becoming “like God”. For the Platonist, the words “god” and “divine” have many meanings: they may signify the transcendent One and the Forms; entities like the Demiurge, world soul and daimons that mediate between the eternal and natural realms; the “visible gods” of the heavenly bodies and earth; or even godlike people—heroes, philosophers, statesman and all those elevated by virtue and greatness of soul. Plutarch was interested in divinity over this whole spectrum. He stressed the transcendence of the One, yet held that through various daemonic intermediaries, the divine worked to unify the world down to the micro-level, and that its providential will could be recognized through omens, prodigies and other apparent coincidences of Fortune (Tychē).83 More innovative is Plutarch’s tendency to imply that divine providence works through history, drawing human societies towards the better, even towards the happiness of the Pax Romana.84 Yet true to Plato’s lead, Plutarch thought that neither nature nor history is fully under divine guidance. As in the Timaeus the errant cause disturbs the work of the Demiurge, so in history tychē, the disorder in human souls, and perhaps also the disorder in the World Soul, all retain an independent power to stir up trouble, as during the Civil War of 69 AD.85 In the face of this, Plutarch holds that one becomes “like god” not only by rising

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 62

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

63

“up” towards transcendent knowledge, cultivating the divine nous within,86 but also by imitating the generous nature of the divine, which overflows itself “downwards”, and like a craftsman uses its power to shape hard material into a beautiful whole. Plutarch’s heroes cultivate the inner soul, but also descend back to the “Cave” to help their fellow human beings, whatever the circumstances. Certain Lives illustrate this “demiurgic virtue” as one might call it, but before turning to the Life of Lycurgus and others, let us dwell on Plutarch’s Platonic ideas about “what is to be done?” This is the question addressed especially by the Political Precepts, but also in Should an Old Man Engage in Politics, in To an Ignorant Leader, in The Philosopher Should Converse especially with Leaders and in the fragment On Government.87 The latter follows Aristotle’s sixfold categorization of constitutions, “obeys Plato” to select monarchy as the best of all and strikes the optimistic note that just as a skilled musician can make music with any instrument, the expert statesman will effect good in any constitutional arrangement. The Socratic notion that the statesman is a craftsman, who gets the best out of his materials, also underlies the Political Precepts. Here Plutarch advises Menemachus, an aristocrat from Sardis, to study the given character of his fellow citizens, before attempting gradually over time to change them for the better. To this end, he must first of all improve himself in all ways possible, for a leader is expected (often unfairly) to be superior in all ways, and political life does indeed call upon many talents. Virtue is the “rudder of the state” (801c), but it must be complemented by eloquence, which when mastered in its many forms enables one to hold the people “by the ears” and move them towards the good; here one may hear echoes of Plato’s Gorgias and Phaedrus, where rhetoric becomes a handmaid to philosophy. Furthermore, in dealing frankly with friends and enemies, in delegating tasks, in yielding to others so as to be ruled in some matters and so forth, the statesman will become a “master-craftsman and demiurge of order and justice”.88 Moreover, just as the “king of the cosmos” does not scorn little jobs, good leaders should remind themselves that every office, even the most lowly, is “sacred”.89 Therefore, even if appointed as public koprologos, one can bring a high-mindedness to the job and so lend it one’s own dignity and honour: this was the attitude of the great Epameinondas, general and Pythagorean, and Plutarch himself was happy to oversee the measuring of tiles or delivery of stones in humble Chaeronea.90 At the same time, even when imitating the cosmic “king”, the statesman should recognize his human limitations, not take on all tasks, but delegate and involve as many as possible in public affairs.91 This ability to match the right people to the right jobs (echoes of Republic’s principle of justice), and to promote unity of purpose between all citizens, is indeed the most important task. For friction between individuals can easily blow up into city-wide stasis.92 The Political Precepts ends with this call to the aspiring statesman to promote goodwill and peace between neighbours at

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 63

05/10/2011 07:05

64

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

the most local level. To do so is to complement the work of the Roman rulers, and Greeks can thus participate in a small way in advancing the marvellous Pax Romana. Here Plutarch is typical of his age: Dio, Aelius Aristides, Epictetus and other leading Greek voices often advise cities and individuals to learn homonoia and stop bickering. But in Plutarch, this political appeal has a deeper metaphysical backdrop. For when virtuous leaders inspire friendship among their neighbours, they do the work of God himself; imitating the Demiurge, they bring reason and calm to local disputes, and even into the souls of the partisans. A virtuous leader who respects office as a sacred duty, who uses power to moderate his people’s desires and who inspires them to friendship, homonoia, philanthrōpia and even euergesia: this is an ideal that pervades many Lives, both by its presence or regretted absence, and one recognizes it as the ideal of the philosopher-king, now modified by the concerns for universalism that had deepened under the Hellenistic monarchies and Roman empire. Again, it seems paradoxical to make Republic 473c–d a key text for Plutarch’s Lives, for there are no obvious philosopher-kings in them. Yet if one searches more carefully, they are there. One notes first of all that Plutarch wrote a Life of Crates, his only biography of a philosopher. Crates was not a king (except in the unconventional Cynic sense), yet anecdotes speak of him as a peacemaker and healing presence who was welcomed by locals in Thebes and Athens as a “good daimōn”. Such moral qualities were dear to Plutarch and might have qualified Crates in his eyes as a true “king”.93 This is the second preliminary point one may note: the abiding concern of the Lives with the royal, and the true nature of kingship. Many of Plutarch’s figures have a royal birth or royal descent, as if pedigree were one possible sign of a fine nature.94 Several others have the “royal look”. Pompey, for example, looked every inch a king: handsome, kindly, noble, with his lion-like anastolē and melting eyes, so very like Alexander the Great—Plutarch writes with delicate irony.95 But, as Plutarch often sermonizes, clothes do not make the man; crowns, diadems, sceptres, even armies and fleets and treasuries do not make a king, because only the virtuous can use them properly. Plutarch therefore decries the revolution of the late 300s BC that purported to turn brutish mercenary commanders into kings: in Plutarch’s judgement, Antigonus, Demetrius and the rest only played the part of kings, as on a stage, and the usurpation of the title made them even more arrogant and less humane than they had been.96 In Dion, similarly, the protagonist convinces Dionysius II that for all his external paraphernalia, he has no philosophy, his soul is weak and ignorant, and so he cannot be a real king or a worthy image of the Demiurge, who shapes brute chaos into a beautiful cosmos.97 Thus for Plutarch the Platonist, mere appearances are at best a shadow of inner virtue, which is the real source of power. Indeed, the virtues of soul can raise one above humble background,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 64

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

65

circumstances, physical ugliness or deformity to the very pinnacle of worldly success. Thus, a fair number of Plutarch’s heroes are said to have the power of the greatest kings, even though technically they are often elected magistrates.98 If the Lives do in fact have many “kings”, Plutarch also shows an abiding interest in his subjects’ education. He tends to take seriously (perhaps too seriously!) any sources that link his heroes with philosophers, and he both insinuates and states openly that these contacts gave his “kings” their virtue and high-mindedness. Virtue generally is understood by Plutarch in Platonic and Aristotelian terms: it is a mean between extreme emotions, appropriate to the circumstances (Aristotle), and so it represents the soul’s bridling of its lower, irrational passions by reason (Plato, Phaedrus). In other words, it represents a demiurgic shaping of inner passions and emotions into a beautiful whole (Republic, Timaeus).99 In this framework, important virtues for Plutarch are greatness of soul (megalopsychia) and public-spirited ambition (philotimia); scorning anything so low as personal wealth, pleasure, status, popularity or power, the great man seeks lasting honours, and for these and to do his city some lasting good, he is willing to sacrifice himself, endure personal hardship and suffer the mob’s fury. In addition, Plutarch most praises those “best” in practical wisdom, who are able gently to steer present realities towards a distant ideal which others are apt to forget. His favourite figures therefore are men of phronēsis. They are not bound by ideological formulae, and though they may not have had a vision of the “Good beyond essence”, they still do philosophical work by guiding their people through a welter of contingencies towards the highest political goods: individual well-being, homonoia between citizens, philanthrōpia between cities and peace generally. In pursuing these ethical goals, Plutarch’s heroes lead most by personal example. Like Aristotle’s spoudaioi, they become a kind of “living law”, able to discern the right way through particular circumstances which do not easily allow for rigid prescriptions. A related leitmotif of the Lives, therefore, is the Platonic one that written laws and constitutional machinery are of little use unless respected by an educated, virtuous citizenry: laws are best “written in the soul” and not on stone only.100 All this brings us to the Lycurgus, the account of the legendary Spartan legislator whom Plutarch unashamedly praises as history’s most accomplished philosopher-king.101 In discussing selections from selected Lives, I will not attempt to assess their historical accuracy (which can be dubious). Rather I will use them as symptoms of Plutarch’s mentalité: with vast erudition, he synthesizes much of the historical record, but gives it a Platonic colouring of his own, thus finding in Sparta, Athens, Rome and elsewhere a new sort of philosopherking, who advances his times by promoting ideals of concord, philanthropy and virtue.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 65

05/10/2011 07:05

66

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Lycurgus’ birth was royal and when his elder brother Polydectes died, power devolved to him. But when it was discovered that Polydectes’ widow was pregnant, Lycurgus declared that he would act only as regent for the child if it were a boy. When the queen offered herself and the kingdom to him if he killed the child, Lycurgus pretended to play along so that she would not cause a miscarriage. But when the boy was born, Lycurgus said to the magistrates, “Men of Sparta, here is a king born unto us.” Then, after a regency of only eight months, he left Sparta to travel, thus showing that (like Plato’s Guardians) he did not want power for its own sake. He went to study in Crete, with its sober Dorian institutions and its poet Thales, whose songs praising obedience and harmony made him one of the unacknowledged legislators of the world.102 He then moved on to Ionia with its luxury and self-indulgence, redeemed only by its politic poet Homer whose works Lycurgus first collected and promoted. Finally he went to Egypt where he witnessed their wise custom of separating out the soldier class. Plutarch distrusts reports that Lycurgus went to Spain, Africa and India gathering wisdom from the gymnosophists and others—but certainly he did return to Sparta a wise man. The Spartans at home acknowledged him as such, and even regarded him as the rightful king, because though their kings had name and title, they lacked Lycurgus’ commanding nature and ability to lead (Lyc. 5.1).103 On his return, he acted very much as the power behind the throne. Like a doctor curing a patient, he set about reforming the constitution, and under the auspices of Delphic Apollo he managed to effect a bloodless revolution. He established the Senate to mediate between the kings and people and made sure that it was filled with the wisest and best men (26). The ephorate was an innovation that came later, but (in Plutarch’s judgement) it was in the spirit of Lycurgus. Together these institutions of a balanced constitution would give Sparta peace, stability and continuity for 500 years, down to the time of Agis. By contrast, the chaos of Argos and Messenia, which took different paths from sister Sparta, shows “how truly divine a piece of good fortune for the Spartans was this man who balanced and mixed a constitution for them”.104 Political reforms led to socio-economic ones. The land was divided up, with 30,000 equal lots for perioikoi, 9,000 for the Spartans. Each lot was to maintain a family in necessities, and this strict economic equality was designed to remove the corrupting influence of money, ridding society of envy, hybris, crime, lawsuits, and making aretē the only way to gain preeminence (8). Similarly, the use of iron obols as money and the prohibition of “unnecessary crafts” discouraged theft, bribery, foreign trade and all luxuries: So there was now no more means of purchasing foreign goods and small wares; merchants sent no shiploads into Laconian ports; no rhetoric-master, no itinerant

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 66

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

67

fortune-teller, no harlot-monger or gold or silversmith, engraver, or jeweler, set foot in a country which had no money; so that luxury, deprived little by little of that which fed and fomented it, wasted to nothing, and died away of itself.105

This reform induced Spartan craftsmen to concentrate on making beautiful beds, cups and other tools of daily life. Thus, Plutarch’s Lycurgus exercises the “royal craft” of overseeing the other crafts, banishing the useless trades and stimulating the productive artisans to work better, all to the common good. Similarly, like Plato in the Laws, Plutarch dwells long on the institution of common tables, calling them “schools of temperance”106 where boys learned from their elders, and where all citizens (including kings) were disciplined by the gaze of all and each, reminding them that they were parts of a larger, ordered whole, and that the goal of life is not to “fatten themselves in corners, like greedy animals”, slaves to their cooks.107 Most Platonic of all is Lycurgus’ concern for education, which he promotes as systematically as the Athenian Stranger of the Laws. Lycurgus recognizes that external laws have no real power unless written “on the soul” by education and lifestyle. There is a rhetra (oral constitutional decree) expressly forbidding the written codification of law; there are few laws because “men of few words require few laws”;108 and judges are given much prerogative.109 Much of the Life is taken up with details of the “laws” by which Lycurgus established Spartan customs, in marriage, births, festivals, women’s exercise, the public education of children, foreign travel and so forth. The underlying principle throughout is homonoia, and state unity: individuals belong to the state, and not to themselves.110 But unanimity of mind and purpose is enjoyed most by philosophical types, and so Plutarch draws a rosy picture in which Sparta becomes a city of moral philosophers, dedicated to the pursuit of all virtues, as they gain sound minds and sound bodies through gymnastics, music, choral dances, festivals, martial exercises and reasoned dialogue (24). The crown of it all is the contemplative leisure to which Spartan elders can look forward. Plutarch envisions the old men of Sparta sitting around the marketplace like so many Socratic sages, contemplating life and discussing virtue with a light-hearted detachment: They spent their leisure rationally in conversation, not on money-making and market-prices, but for the most part in passing judgement on some action worth considering; extolling the good, and censuring those who were otherwise, and that in a light and sportive manner, conveying, without too much gravity, lessons of advice and improvement. (25.1–2)

Lycurgus himself was filled with the spirit of spoudogeloion (in best Socratic style), and dedicated a little statue to Laughter. In none of this does Plutarch

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 67

05/10/2011 07:05

68

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

strike one as being in the least ironic: “philosophizing was more a part of being Spartan than exercising”, he writes gravely (20.6). Such statements seem to be a serious effort to discredit the criticisms of Plato, Aristotle and others that Sparta was obsessed with war and the virtue of courage. On the contrary, Plutarch seems to say, Sparta was a city of enlightenment. Not only did its citizens have the leisure to cultivate the virtues of temperance, courage, justice, wisdom, piety (as in Plato’s Magnesia), in addition they provided an example for the rest of Greece. That is, Lycurgan Sparta was an education for Greece, because its laws, internal stability and power abroad were admired, envied and even emulated. Here Plutarch tacitly corrects Thucydides: it was not Athens that was the preceptor of Hellas, but Sparta, and it often sent out “teachers” to instruct grateful allies and subjects. Or (Plutarch’s alters his metaphor) king-bees were sent out to different hives, as when Sparta sent Gylippus to the Sicilians, Brasidas to the Chalcidians, Lysander, Callicratidas and Agesilaus to the Ionians.111 But an education should culminate in philosophy, and so Plutarch writes towards the end of the Life that Sparta even educated the wise men of Greece, including Plato: All those who have written well on politics, as Plato, Diogenes, and Zeno, have taken Lycurgus for their model, leaving behind them, however, mere projects and words; whereas Lycurgus was the author, not in writing but in reality, of a government which none else could so much as copy; and while men in general have treated the individual philosophic character as unattainable, he, by the example of a complete philosophic state (e)pidei¿caj oÀlhn th\n po/lin filosofou=san), raised himself high above all other lawgivers of Greece. And so Aristotle says they did him less honour at Lacedaemon after his death than he deserved, although he has a temple there, and they offer sacrifices yearly to him as to a god. (31.1)

Supremely just and wise, the legislator for Sparta, educator of Greece and its philosophers, a political demiurge who took delight in making his city as virtuous, self-sufficient, beautiful and long-lived as possible (29.1–2), Lycurgus joins together virtue, kingship, philosophy and divinity in a striking way. Nor is all this mere rhetorical show, as in De Fortuna Alexandri. History is proof of Lycurgus’ divine wisdom: his wise laws guided Sparta for 500 happy years, until victory in the Peloponnesian Wars brought a mass of wealth into the country, divided the Spartans, corrupted their leaders, hollowed out their customs and made Lycurgus’ regime a mere memory.112 There are moments in Lives of later Spartans (esp. Agesilaus) where philosophical virtue is joined with regal power, but it is clear for Plutarch that Sparta in its perfection could not be improved. To the quasi-divine laws of Lycurgus Plutarch parallels the innovations of Numa, second king of Rome. After Romulus died, the kingship was voted to

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 68

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

69

Numa, a Sabine. But he was so devoted to philosophy that he at first recused himself. His virtues were unsuited to public life, he said: he knew how to farm, herd, help his neighbours and worship the gods, but what did he know about leading armies, fighting, plotting and slandering? Eventually however he yielded, when persuaded that the kingship was being offered to him not by the people but by the gods themselves: it was to be accepted not as a means to wealth and fame but as a “divine gift” and a “service to God” (Num. 6.2). So as a “holy king”, Numa served the gods, and the sick society of early Rome, by bringing in many necessary healing religious innovations. For if ever there was a “fevered city” as described by Plato, it was Rome in the years after Romulus (8.1–2). The legacy of his wars had filled it with soldiers, adventurers, gamblers and half-savage violence. The divine medicine that Numa applied came in the form of processions, sacrifices and choral dances, which he often led himself. He called attention to omens and divine signs, wore impressive clothes and generally behaved with grave solemnity, to impress upon his subjects that there was a reality higher than their own momentary desires, and that the crucial human relationship was with the divine. To further this education of the people, he instituted several of Rome’s colleges of priests, including the flamines, pontifices, Feciales and Salii (12). Some of this Plutarch regards as politic manipulation of popular superstition (8), but his Numa is clearly religiously inspired, and no charlatan. Aware (in Pythagorean fashion) that God is purely spiritual and known only by nous, Numa prohibited images of the gods as well as blood sacrifices (8.7–8). It was on a Pythagorean pattern too that he modelled Rome, for if Pythagoras placed immortal fire at the centre of the universe, at the centre of Numa’s Rome were the sacred, unquenchable fires, tended by the Vestal Virgins, watched over too by the Regia (the “king’s house” where Numa lived) and protected by a circular temple (11). His love of rational limits led also to the establishment of a temple to Terminus, and the determination of Rome’s boundaries, which she should not seek to extend by unjust wars.113 Similarly, Numa honoured Janus, a liminal figure who brought mankind from barbarism to civilization: he made January the first month and ensured that the gates of Janus remained closed for all 43 years of his reign. During this time a profound peace radiated from Numa himself throughout Rome and environs and even across all Italy.114 After Numa died, Rome became militaristic once more, and the gates of War were closed only twice again. In all this, Plutarch’s Numa was directly inspired by “philosophy”, and for Plutarch Numa was a philosopher and indeed a sort of intuitive Pythagorean. He was virtuous, pious, rationally disciplined his passions and was devoted to the theōria of divine nature (3.5). This love of theōria inspired him to refuse the kingship and reform the calendar, and it lay behind the many myths that associated him with the gods. According to these stories, Numa was beloved by

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 69

05/10/2011 07:05

70

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

the nymph Egeria, spoke with the Muses and captured the demigods Piccus and Faunus, from whom he learned to control thunder and perhaps even to bring Jupiter down from the heavens. A Frazer would find traces here of the first magician-kings, and Plutarch too suggests that Numa overawed a superstitious people by claiming divine authority. But Plutarch prefers a different rationalization: like other wise legislators Zaleucus, Minos, Zoroaster and Lycurgus (4.7), Numa too communed with the divine, but the divine here was not any anthropomorphic god, but the impersonal, cosmic order of the Pythagoreans. Pythagorean in spirit also was Numa’s decision not to promulgate his laws in writing: he went to his grave with the sacred books he had consulted, thinking it more important that they be “written” in the souls of the priests, so that they truly understand them. These and other resemblances with Pythagoreanism clearly fascinate Plutarch, though ultimately he discredits any direct historical link. Nevertheless, whether inspired by Greeks or not, Numa’s wisdom and virtue issued forth in public benefactions that set Rome in the right direction for centuries: “The love of virtue and justice flowed from Numa’s wisdom as from a fountain, and the serenity of his spirit diffused itself, like a calm, on all sides.” His virtue was infectious, his inner calm gently educated the Romans to piety, and in this he was not merely a philosopher, but a philosopher-king, a living example and verification of that saying which Plato, long afterwards, ventured to pronounce, that the sole and only hope of respite or remedy for human evils was in some happy conjunction of events, which should unite in a single person the power of a king and the wisdom of a philosopher, so as to elevate virtue to control and mastery over vice.115

Indeed, his politics was demiurgic, for he inherited a city chaotic, undisciplined and rent between Romans and Sabines. Plutarch praises Numa most for healing this ethnic divide, and for establishing new classes based on arts and crafts: Distinguishing the whole people by the several arts and trades, he formed the companies of musicians, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers, shoemakers, skinners, braziers, and potters; and all other handicraftsmen he composed and reduced into a single company, appointing every one their proper courts, councils, and religious observances. (17.2)

So by example and gentle persuasion, Numa harmonized differences, and out of many made the Romans a single people—an accomplishment that Plutarch praises as “great and divine” (Comp. 4.8). Like Lycurgus, Numa’s virtue raised

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 70

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

71

him to kingship and near divinity. But where Lycurgus’ laws endured, Numa’s example was too high for the Romans. In subsequent generations they fell prey too often to the temptations of power, money and pleasure. Plutarch did not live long enough to see the reign of Antoninus Pius, who was lauded as a second Numa.116 The ideal of philosophic-kingship seems more prevalent in some of the Athenian Lives than in later Greek or Roman ones, and we will limit ourselves mainly to these. To begin with the Life of Solon, in several places Plutarch compares Solon to Lycurgus, and it is perhaps not surprising that the theme of philosophic leadership surfaces in the life of one who was celebrated as a wise legislator, founder of a lawful democracy, writer of gnomic poetry and one of the Seven Sages. Plutarch’s Solon travelled as a young man to make money as a trader, or more probably to see the world (for polypeiria and historia), but Plutarch reassures his readers that trading was not a shameful activity in those times and in fact was an activity for nobles and philosophers: Thales, Plato and Hippocrates engaged in trade. In any case, Solon included himself among the virtuous poor, or certainly not among the corrupt rich, and he was a “lover of wisdom” all his life.117 What kind of wisdom did he seek? Solon’s philosophy concerned political aretē more than physics, and in this he resembled most of the Seven Sages who in the story showed their wisdom by refusing to call themselves “the wisest” and so passed around the prize tripod to another, until eventually it was dedicated to Apollo (Sol. 3.4–4.8)—for only god is truly wise. Solon conversed with Anacharsis and Thales: in one dialogue Anacharsis showed him the relative unimportance of written law compared to character, saying that laws were like spider webs: they catch the weak but are broken easily by the strong (5.4). Most of all Solon showed his practical wisdom as a judge, lawgiver and peacemaker. He arbitrated between the Cylonians and Alcmaeonids (12.1–5), and in the aftermath of this crisis, the purifications and religious innovations effected by that “god-beloved” sage, Epimenides of Phaestos, prepared the Athenians somewhat for Solon’s legislation (12.7–12). At the time faction was endemic in Athens: inhabitants of the coast, plain and hilly interior competed for a mixed, oligarchical and democratic government, respectively. Rich were set against poor, and Solon was put forth as the one arbiter acceptable to all sides. In fact he was “the justest and wisest” of the Athenians (phronimōtatos 14.6)—and fortunately so, for the powers he was given made him effectively an autocrat. Some of the common people mocked him for not making himself tyrant (14.9), and his friends too criticized him for “disaffecting monarchy only because of the name, as if the virtue of the ruler could not make it a lawful form” (14.7). But Solon refused to seize power for himself, either as monarch or tyrant. He ruled firmly but with pragmatic restraint. He did not revolutionize

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 71

05/10/2011 07:05

72

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

the city wholesale or bring in the theoretically best constitution (as Lycurgus did) but “melded force and justice” to give the Athenians “the best laws which they could receive” (15.2)—as well as the best that he could impose on them, given his limited authority (16). That is (in demiurgic fashion), he was “fitting his laws to the state of things, and not making things to suit his laws”.118 He cleverly coined a word for debt-cancellation—seisachtheia or “shaking off of burdens”, a euphemism that made their losses more acceptable to the rich. For all his care, however, his reforms did not escape abuse: some unscrupulous friends of his went into debt just before the new laws “shaking off ” debts came into force, thereby enriching themselves and embarrassing Solon.119 Nevertheless, Plutarch gives his general approval to Solon’s property classes, and his division of governmental powers into popular juries, assembly, Areopagus and probouleutic Council of 400.120 He expresses approval also of various laws, including those regarding public prosecutions by any concerned citizen; laws about inheritance, wills, marriage and dowries that tended to promote friendship above the profit-motive; laws moderating funerary expenses (and therefore class triumphalism); laws forbidding speaking evil of the dead—and of the living, in temples and other public places. There are economic laws about water-rights and planting. Other laws requiring that fathers teach their sons trades and that citizens prove their source of livelihood had the effect of encouraging industry and commerce, and were fitting for a poor land like Attica, even if, absolutely speaking, they were less desirable than Lycurgus’ arrangements (22). On the other hand, Plutarch is dubious about Solon’s laws concerning women (23) and the encouragement of economic immigrants (24.4). His political work done, the laws written, sworn to and enforced, Solon left on his travels. He went to Egypt, where he heard the story of Atlantis from the priests of Sais. In Cyprus he advised Philocyprus to move his city, which the grateful king renamed Soli in the philosopher’s honour, a name that remains to this day. He then went on to Lydia (Herodotus’ story is true), where he was not overly impressed by Croesus’ purple and gold regalia, and so he gave him sage advice not to count himself happy until the end; Tellus the obscure Athenian was happier, “having triumphed for his country” (27.6). The moral values expressed in Herodotus’ story are dear to Plutarch too, and so he cannot resist retelling it as accurate testimony of the megalophrosunē and wisdom of Solon (27.1). But Plutarch does one better, and tells how Aesop advised Solon to keep his speeches to kings “short or seasonable”, to which Solon quipped, “No, by Zeus! short or reasonable.”121 So this advisor of kings returned to an Athens once more rent by faction, and he was one of the few with both the wisdom to recognize Peisistratus as a potential tyrant, and the courage to oppose him (30.4). Despite this, Peisistratus respected Solon, visited him, took him as an advisor and so learned to moderate his rule (31). And it was in Peisistratus’ Athens that Solon

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 72

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

73

retired to write the logos or mythos about Atlantis. Plato inherited this for his Critias, but both he and Solon abandoned their epic enterprises because of old age (31.1–2). So the Life ends depicting Solon as the ancestor of Plato’s most monumental work about the philosophical guardians of ante-deluvian Athens. Through Solon’s manifold activities as legislator, de facto monarch, advisor to autocrats and philosophical poet, we seem to be encouraged at least to ask the question: was Solon not a kind of philosopher-king? The label would seem to ill-fit Themistocles, even though he was another Athenian statesman who wisely guided his unruly people through a period of trouble. At certain moments Plutarch does suggest the possibility. He chooses for example to allude to controversies about Themistocles’ early philosophical tutors: were they Anaxagoras and Melissus, or Mnesiphilus, who followed Solon and the archaic sages, blending rhetoric and politics like the Sophists later?122 And Plutarch reminisces how he himself studied in Athens with a later descendent of Themistocles, also named Themistocles. Whatever his more formal education, Plutarch’s Themistocles was naturally sagacious (as he had been for Thucydides and Plato): he recognized the Persian threat far in advance, and with a panhellenic vision well ahead of his time, was able to cajole and trick the Greek states into temporary unity (Them. 6.5)—a unique accomplishment in Greek history. Similarly, an owl once landed on his mast at a critical moment (12.1), a sign of his favour with the goddess of wisdom, perhaps. He was rightly awarded the prize as best of the Greeks during the Persian Wars, and so at the pinnacle of his career, Themistocles was the most powerful man in Greece, and the conqueror of the Persian King of Kings. This success was due to Themistocles’ natural intelligence, and Plutarch does not make any explicit link with Themistocles’ earlier study with Mnesiphilus. On the other hand, Themistocles’ later career—when he used his intelligence to act the demagogue, set Athens on the road to empire, then betray her and rush off to play the stooge to a Persian tyrant—might suggest that Themistocles’ many virtues would have benefited from more philosophical training. Led astray by his own immense talent and love of honour, Themistocles might be placed alongside Alcibiades, Demetrius, Antony, Dion, Cato, Brutus and other great souls who were corrupted by their very capacities. If Themistocles appears partially as a failed philosopher-king, his rival Aristides might be said to have a soul naturaliter Socratica, for his dedication to justice was absolute, as if he knew instinctively the transcendent benefit of a moral disposition. His acts of justice included not favouring friends or disfavouring enemies as an arbitrator (Arist. 4.3), scrupulous management of the public treasury (4.4–8), and not stealing any of the vast booty after Marathon (5.6). At the height of his career, he was assessor of the contributions to the Delian League, and although Greece “submitted, as it were, all her affairs to his

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 73

05/10/2011 07:05

74

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

sole management, [he] went out poor and returned poorer”. Indeed, he did his duty not only with justice but in a spirit of philia and panhellenic harmonia (24.2). The words of Aeschylus—that it is better to be just than merely to appear so, and that from such virtue arise the best counsels—were recognized by all as true in Aristides’ person; these exact words (as Plutarch surely knew) would be used by Adeimantus in the Republic.123 Like any good Socratic, Aristides did not covet power or status per se: he persuaded the other archons at Marathon to give over their day-long command to Miltiades, saying that “it is not dishonourable to obey and follow wise and able men” (5.2); he buried the axe to submit himself to Themistocles’ leadership at Salamis (8.3–4), and at Plataea he submitted himself and the Athenians to Pausanias’ Spartan command. All these acts of voluntary submission were unusual among the headstrong, contentious allies, and so Aristides’ interventions helped to save Greece. It was Aristides too who persuaded the Athenians to deliver their “amazing response” to Mardonius when he offered to make them leaders of Greece if they abstained from the war: no, they replied, they would not become the Persians’ stooges, but would fight on without surrendering, for wealth and status were of small worth compared to the liberty of Hellas (10.2–6). In such moments, Plutarch’s Aristides is as high-minded as any Cynic or Stoic follower of Socrates, even though he is not said to have studied philosophy. Was he a king? Obviously not, but Plutarch does edge towards the notion. Again, as assessor for the Delian League, Greece submitted “all her affairs to his sole management” (24.2). Or, in an earlier passage, Plutarch takes time to tell the story of what happened at Marathon. After the battle, a Persian prisoner saw the rich Callias with his diadem and manicured hair, mistook him for a king, and supplicated him. Callias took the man’s ransom—and killed him (5.7–8). Directly opposed to such brutality is Aristides’ behaviour after Marathon, and the episode rouses Plutarch to a short homily on justice as the divine and kingly virtue. Aristides, he writes, possessed himself of the most kingly and divine appellation of Just; which kings, however, and tyrants have never sought after; but have taken delight to be surnamed besiegers of cities, thunderers, conquerors, or eagles again, and hawks; affecting, it seems, the reputation which proceeds from power and violence, rather than that of virtue. Although the divinity, to whom they desire to compare and assimilate themselves, excels, it is supposed, in three things, immortality, power, and virtue; of which three, the noblest and divinest is virtue.124

Homily over, Plutarch returns to the “real” world of history, where, alas, among the shadows of the Cave, divine justice may be mistaken for its opposite. Although a true king by dint of virtue, Aristides fell victim to the machinations

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 74

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

75

of Themistocles, and to the envy and ignorance of the people. He was suspected of aiming to become tyrant, and was ostracized. Plutarch tells the famous story about the illiterate boor who voted against Aristides simply because he was tired of always hearing him called “the Just” (7). Aristides wearily helped the man to write his name on the ostrakon. But for all his high-minded virtue, Plutarch’s Aristides is also a pragmatist, who recognizes that rigid ideals can rarely be applied wholesale to actual situations. Aristides does not therefore abandon his ideals, but combines ethical conviction with a certain pragmatic flexibility, adapting available resources to promote the common good of Athens and/or Greece. Thus, before Plataea, he persuaded the Athenians not to bicker with the Tegeatans over who should hold the honourable right wing, asking whether this was really important under the circumstances (12, 16.1–3); about the same time, an antidemocratic plot was discovered in Athens, but Aristides only arrested eight and left many others go, showing that he was “willing to set bounds to his justice” in order to minimize public panic (13). He remained a force for unity after Plataea. In victory, the Athenians and Spartans squabbled over the prize of valour, until Aristides “advised and taught” them to leave it to a general vote of the armies (20.1–2). Plutarch gives one paragraph to Aristides’ willingness to turn the Delian League into an empire, and he seems to wink at this as an evil necessary for the good of Athens: reasons of state forced Aristides to this injustice, but in his private life he remained impeccable (25.1–3). Perhaps because he sought honour and justice in measures proportionate to circumstances, and was wisely flexible in his ideals, Aristides inspired the Athenian people for a while to become themselves “lovers of justice” (22.4). On a larger stage, many Greek cities deserted the Spartans’ leadership and turned to the Athenians, out of admiration for Aristides and Cimon (23.1–2). In all this, Aristides seems positively a model of phronēsis, as well as the quasi-monarchical leader of Athens during the first years of its empire. What Plutarch stresses most distinctly, however, is Aristides’ poverty. With such high devotion to justice, he could never become rich. He lived and died poor, and the Life begins and ends on this note. At the beginning, Plutarch refutes Demetrius’ contention that Aristides belonged to the pentecosiomedimnoi. At the end, he quotes Aeschines the Socratic’s story praising Aristides over his rich cousin, Callias (25.3–8). He quotes Plato praising Aristides over Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles who “filled the city with porticoes, treasure, and many other vain things” rather than with justice (25.9). He disproves Craterus’ assertion that Aristides took bribes (26). And in the very last chapter he quotes a variety of authors (including Aristotle) to tell of how poor Aristides’ descendents were, how his granddaughter was taken in and married by Socrates, and how some of these descendents are still honoured by Athens, “justly”—a fitting last

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 75

05/10/2011 07:05

76

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

word for the life of Aristides the Just. In the synkrisis, Plutarch contentiously takes issue with Aristides’ poverty but eventually defends it as a sign of his greatness of soul. Cato, his Roman counterpart, comes out less well, yet for all his denunciation of Greeks and Greek paideia, Plutarch does note the effect the Pythagorean Nearchus had on him, and he compares Cato with Socrates, rough and ready on the outside, but with a divine core.125 It is surprising to think of Aristides as a “philosopher-king”, and it is surprising also to give the title to his contemporary, Pericles, another elected Athenian general. Socrates is not mentioned in the Life of Pericles, but other philosophers are. Plutarch notes how Pericles was taught by Damon the sophist, Zeno the Eleatic and most of all by Anaxagoras. Pericles was friends with Anaxagoras for many years, and Plutarch makes much of this friendship, insisting that it gave Pericles the high-minded idealism and mental strength that made him such a great statesman. Anaxagoras taught that the divine mind (Nous) structures the cosmos and so Plutarch argues that it was Anaxagoras who inspired in Pericles that gravitas in demeanour, gait and speech which earned him the epithet “Olympian” (Per. 4–6, 8). Pericles was Olympian in many ways, and in a style clearly reminiscent of Aristotle’s great-souled man: he had a grand manner, was effortlessly superior, reserved himself for the big occasions and did not fuss over details (7.7). Through all contingencies, he was as imperturbable as any philosopher, except at last when the plague took away his last legitimate son, and then, for once, he showed his humanity and wept (36.8). He often conversed with Anaxagoras, Protagoras and other leading intellectuals, in his house or the gymnasium, and these conversations cured him of superstition, about eclipses for example.126 At the same time, the pious Plutarch is careful to note how respectful Pericles was towards augurs, and how Athena herself once instructed him in a dream (13.3): Pericles was well versed in the latest science, but he was no atheistic sophist. Another source of enlightenment, if she might be called that, was Aspasia. Plutarch does not call her a philosopher, but he raises the possibility that Pericles loved her partly for her mind: she was both sophē and politikē, both wise and politically astute, and it was these virtues that also drew Socrates and his friends to her salons (24.5). Plato had touched on Pericles’ association with Aspasia and Anaxagoras with a light irony, but the irony disappears in Plutarch’s report. Is he happy to take those earlier rumours seriously, perhaps because they provide additional circumstantial evidence that Pericles was a wise leader, and even a sort of philosopher-king?127 One might think that a general elected every year by the unruly Athenian dēmos, and held to account every prytany would surely be as far as possible from being a king? But Pericles was nothing but regal, in his birth, nature and policy. Before his birth, his mother dreamed that she would give birth to a lion (king of animals). It is true, Plutarch acknowledges, that in his early career in

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 76

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

77

an increasingly democratic city, Pericles had to hide his royal manner, and it did not help that he actually looked like Pisistratus (7.3). So, to rival Cimon, he used public money to cater to the people’s wishes and distribute political pay. This drew down howls of “demagogue!” from Plato and other critics, but Plutarch prefers Thucydides’ mode of analysis: Pericles was not a demagogue who bribed the people but was their “first man”, a monarchical figure who used eloquence and a cunning populism to guide them for the best (8.9). When his last aristocratic rival, Thucydides, was ostracized, Pericles was left undisputed leader. Then finally he could show his hand. He turned to “aristocratic and kingly rule” (15.1), gathering all the power of the city and empire into his hands, serving as lead general for 15 years in a row and so becoming more powerful than many kings and tyrants (15.3). As “king” Pericles ruled with moderation and foresight. His international policy was controversial, of course, but Plutarch tends to take a sympathetic stance. He stresses actions that served panhellenic unity: Pericles enforced peace between Samos and Miletus (25–8), and did not massacre Samian prisoners, contrary to some reports; he called a conference to unite Greece against the Persians, and to police the seas in common. The call came to nothing due to Spartan machinations, but Plutarch includes it as yet another proof of Pericles’ greatness of soul.128 Plutarch reports less attractive rumours of how Pericles’ intransigence and self-interest caused the Peloponnesian War, but he chooses to remain agnostic, saying “the truth is unclear” (32.6). Less controversial for Plutarch is Pericles’ handling of domestic affairs. He worked his eloquence on the people’s hopes and fears in order to persuade them towards the best policy (15). This was true especially during the 430s BC and the early drift towards the war, when the prosperity of empire had begun to infect the Athenian dēmos with an “evil desire (erōs)” of conquest. People were starting to talk about raiding Egypt and Phoenicia, invading Sicily, Etruria and even Carthage, but Pericles discouraged these excessive hopes (20). Similarly, during the first Archidamian invasions and the plague, he was able to moderate their anger and despair (33.5). More generally, throughout his career he was able to divert popular energies for useful purposes: he established colonies, sent out yearly expeditions and drove through the works on the Acropolis. All this had the effect of uniting the population, and the Acropolis project in particular made many citizens co-workers in the city—as recommended in the Praecepta, and as proved by the impressive list of craftsmen involved.129 But though it provided employment, heightened Athens’ glory and honoured the goddess, Pericles had to promote his vision for the Acropolis over loud opposition, and at one point he had to threaten to continue the works using his own private money. His perseverance won out, and the wisdom of his vision was eventually vindicated. The Acropolis

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 77

05/10/2011 07:05

78

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

buildings made Athens the architectural rival of imperial Rome, Plutarch writes, and were the only reminder in Plutarch’s day that Greece had once been prosperous (12). Pericles’ Acropolis thus gave Athens imperishable glory, and the phrase may not be mere hyperbole for Plutarch. In a suggestive passage, he opines how the temples and art of the Acropolis seem at once both ancient and ever young, as if they were “untouched by time”.130 In the Platonic scheme, the eternal is what remains impervious to time, and so Plutarch’s implication is that in the Acropolis the divine itself descended to grace the work, and make the bare stones beautiful beyond mere stone. Here therefore is a dedication worthy of Athena, and worthy of Pericles who in his combination of far-seeing idealism and tough negotiation mediated between the gods and the immediate needs of the Delian League and the Athenian people. Using imperfect materials to beautify and bless his city, he manifests the virtues of Plato’s Demiurge and philosopher-kings. Thus the Life ends by praising Pericles as almost an image of the gods, who are kings of the world: Pericles was “rightly called Olympian, in accordance with our conceptions of the divine beings, to whom, as the natural authors of all good and of nothing evil, we ascribe the rule and kingship of the world”.131 Unfortunately, Pericles’ extraordinary virtues were really appreciated only after his death. Cleon, Hyperbolus, Alcibiades and other demagogues led Athens down to ruin and defeat, and then the Athenians longed once more for the wise “monarch” who had protected, disciplined and united them for over a generation. One might expect that Pericles’ ward, Alcibiades, would have provided material for a rich study to supplement Plato’s Symposium and his discussion of democratic and tyrannical souls in the Republic. Some of these elements do indeed work their way into the Life. For example, Plutarch notes how the causes of Alcibiades’ success were also his downfall: well-born, rich, handsome, eloquent, he was successful in whatever he did, but this made him arrogant and undisciplined, and made people suspect that whenever he in fact did not succeed, he was acting treacherously.132 Only Socrates saw through appearances to the beautiful soul beneath (Alc. 4). He befriended Alcibiades and the calming effect he had on him was astonishing, for the young aristocrat treated everyone else with hybris (4.4–5, 6). Still though, Alcibiades never got a “bridle of Theages”. Filled with the desire to be first, he was drawn inevitably into politics where his own popularity corrupted him further. At his worst, he gave off signs that he aimed to be tyrant: his munificence was overbearing, he wore purple and emblazoned on his shield was a sign of Eros holding a thunderbolt. If Athens had become a “tyrant city” (as her enemies called her), then in Alcibiades she found a fitting leader. He did most to fan the people’s mad passion to conquer Sicily, and even Carthage, Libya, Italy and the Peloponnesus; only Socrates and the astrologer Meton opposed the war.133 Alcibiades’ flight from prosecution

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 78

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

79

on charges of profaning the Mysteries launched him on a wild career that fluctuated between headlong exile and dizzying success. Here Plutarch wonders how he was able to change shape continually, like a chameleon: Whether with good men or with bad, [Alcibiades] could adapt himself to his company, and equally wear the appearance of virtue or vice. At Sparta, he was devoted to athletic exercises, was frugal and reserved; in Ionia, luxurious, gay, and indolent; in Thrace, always drinking; in Thessaly, ever on horseback; and when he lived with Tisaphernes, the Persian satrap, he exceeded the Persians themselves in magnificence and pomp. Not that his natural disposition changed so easily, nor that his real character was so very variable, but, whenever he was sensible that by pursuing his own inclinations he might give offense to those with whom he had occasion to converse, he transformed himself into any shape, and adopted any fashion, that he observed to be most agreeable to them. (23.5)

Here was a man without the constancy formed by consciousness of a “Good beyond essence”. Here was democratic versatility gone mad, and used in the service of an erōs for power. So in Sparta, Alcibiades gave advice that helped them win the war—and he seduced Agis’ queen, hoping to father a line of Spartan kings. In Asia, he charmed the Persian satrap Tissaphernes, who hated Greeks but so loved Alcibiades that he named his favourite paradeisos after him (24.4–7). Republic 8–9 speaks of the easy transition between democracy and tyranny. So too with Plutarch’s Alcibiades. A friend of satraps, when he returned from exile in Asia, the Athenians crowned him with gold and made him general by land and sea with full power (autokratōr, 33.2). And when he led the procession to Eleusis, he was so wildly popular that many of the dēmos clamoured to set him as tyrant over them. So Athens rose and fell on the whims of a single man, who perhaps had the talent and education to be a “philosopherking” like Pericles, had he not gone astray. The Life ends with the defeat of Athens and Alcibiades’ death: Critias and Lysander decided that they must kill Alcibiades if they were to kill off all hopes among the Athenians for the restoration of democracy (38.5). After the war, in Plutarch’s mind, Athens never fully recovered and the democracy degenerated further, as the people lost their public spiritedness. The Life of Demosthenes tells of the orator who tried to rouse them to their old patriotism, but for Plutarch, the life of Phocion was less equivocal. Here was a general who showed all the virtues, and was a voice of reason, amid a democracy in decline, when the defeats at Chaeronea and the Lamian War and the sudden eclipse of Athenian power vis-à-vis Macedon had made the people defensive, peevish, touchy and impossible to lead or advise frankly.134 In such unpromising circumstances, Phocion exercised a moderating influence. In his

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 79

05/10/2011 07:05

80

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

early years as general, he managed to restrain Chabrias from wilder enterprises. Subsequently, he always retained the trust of Athens’ allies, with the result that they often refused entry to other Athenian generals and their mercenaries, but received Phocion enthusiastically.135 A force for philia and homonoia abroad, at home Phocion had the courage (like Pericles) to often oppose the momentary passions of the people: for example, when news of Alexander’s death arrived, Phocion tried to persuade the Athenians not to vote for immediate rebellion, but to take their time in deliberating, for if Alexander were dead today, he would stay dead tomorrow. In this, he showed that he was no warmonger. More generally, he advocated peace and hence a policy of reconciliation with Macedon. Yet, if necessary, he was the first to serve his city in war, and never fled from battle as Demosthenes had. Thus, his career spanned the civic and military, and he hoped to return Athens to the old system where leading speakers in the assembly served also as generals in the field, and would not be so quick to beat the war drum if they were expected to match words with deeds. For Phocion, this was in the best tradition of Athens, home of the goddess of war and wisdom: Solon, Aristides and Pericles were both orators and generals.136 Phocion himself served into his 80s: he fought successfully against Philip in Euboea and Byzantium and defended Attica against Micion, even though he opposed the Lamian War as a whole. His success inspired the Athenians to elect him general 45 times, and always in absentia (Phoc. 8.2); he never stood for election and never courted popularity, thus showing how little he wanted power per se. Indeed, he was hardly made for democratic politics at all. Sharp-tongued, rough, somewhat imperious, he resisted the popular mood so often that Plutarch wonders how he ever got his epithet “The Good”. The answer seems to be that he reserved all his sternness for public life, but in private was affable and sympathetic to all, and treated nobody as an enemy (9–10): here indeed was a statesman who promoted philia at the most local levels. This reputation for virtue preceded him, and so even on the largest international stage, even his sometime enemy Philip admired him, as did Alexander. Plutarch tells stories of how Alexander read Phocion’s letter with respect, made him his guest-friend, listened to his advice and accepted his counsel that if he were to make war, he should do so against barbarians, not Greeks.137 This last piece of advice was cleverly well-adapted to Alexander’s innate love of glory, Plutarch comments, and it shows Phocion’s pragmatic ability to promote homonoia and panhellenic peace through varied circumstances. Phocion, thus, was a force of moderating reason, both in the Athenian assembly and in Greco-Macedonian affairs. Plutarch does not explicitly link his virtues with his knowledge of philosophy. But he does take time to record that Phocion studied with Plato and Xenocrates (4.2), and had a useful Academic friend in Leon of Byzantium (14.7–8). He also tells of how Phocion joined

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 80

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

81

Xenocrates on an embassy to Antipater, and in the negotiations proved a more successful negotiator than Xenocrates himself. For Xenocrates (leader of the Academy after Plato) was too virtuous and wise, and his presence only shamed and alienated Antipater (27.2–4). After the Lamian War, Phocion managed to mitigate the terms of surrender somewhat by persuading Antipater to appoint Menyllus as commander of the Macedonian garrison. Similarly, in the subsequent peace, Phocion used his influence to repatriate exiled Athenians, and to get educated men into positions of power (29). Plutarch thus takes care to give examples of how Phocion united public power with a wise pragmatism. And indeed Plutarch is happy to dwell at some length on Phocion’s wise sayings: Phocion’s maxims were pithy, austere and “steeped” in deliberation, in the style of the brachylogia recommended by Zeno for philosophers, a Spartan style that Plutarch so prized.138 Through all this, one implication is that Phocion had the virtues of a philosopher and the abilities of a king. He was peer to Xenocrates and Alexander alike. He grew old in both a patriotic, quasi-philosophical poverty and in an open friendship with kings.139 And the Life ends with a bow to Plato, calling Phocion a “guardian of temperance and justice”, and comparing his execution with that of another virtuous, patriotic Athenian—Socrates.140 To skim through a few Roman Lives, there are several figures besides Numa whom Plutarch praises as quasi-philosophical. In Pyrrhus, Fabricius astonishes Pyrrhus with his “greatness of soul”, as he refuses Pyrrhus’ gifts, is undismayed by the trumpeting of the elephant and disdains Cineas’ Epicureanism as the philosophy of weaklings and cowards. Impressed, Pyrrhus expresses the desire to make him, and all like-minded Romans, his friends.141 Plutarch was himself more impressed by Aemilius Paulus, descendent of Pythagoras, conqueror of the “fake” king Perseus V at Pydna, yet ever temperate, pious, a lover of education and therefore even a kind of Socratic figure.142 As for Lucullus, his library was famous: he not only owned many books, but read them too, and spent time “disputing with the learned in the walks, and giving his advice to statesmen who required it”. He was open to “all sorts of philosophy”, but was drawn most to ideas of the Old Academy, now being revived by Antiochus of Ascalon. In Plutarch’s view, Lucullus’ interest in philosophy was timely and beneficial: from the youngest age he had loved learning for its own sake, and after his military career was finished, it reminded him of higher realities, and so moderated his ambition for glory and honour, which he left to others.143 By contrast, Marius had dedicated himself solely to war. He disdained to study Greek as a ridiculous language fit only for Greeks and slaves. But this lack of education ruined his life: he was mad for glory, and despite seven consulships, longed for yet more glory in his dying days—never having learned the philosophical practice of reminiscence, and the wisdom of remembering one’s real, though limited, accomplishments.144

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 81

05/10/2011 07:05

82

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Not surprisingly, there is less philosophy in the Roman Lives than in the Greek. Yet of all Plutarch’s statesmen and generals, Cicero would seem to be the obvious candidate for the office of “philosopher-king”. A life-long student of philosophy, translator of Greek thought into Latin, a “new man”, who rose by talent and hard work to become incorruptible questor of Sicily, praetor and finally consul, who in his consular throne so used the power of words to avert civil war and promote the concordia bonorum omnium, and who was honoured (could one even say, crowned?) as pater patriae145—Cicero seemed to use power humanely and in ways that the aristocratic Plutarch might approve. And the Life does indeed include material that could support Cicero’s candidacy. It begins with rumours that Cicero’s family derived from Tullus Attius, the Volscian king, and that he was born on the same day on which state prayers and sacrifices are now made to the emperor. Later, the year of his consulship saw the birth of Octavian, the future monarch. So too Cicero was the first to recognize the monarchical ambitions of Caesar and was shown a dream in which Jupiter selected Octavian as king. Do these scattered coincidences and omens suggest Cicero’s providential connection with monarchy? Plutarch in fact makes little of them, but he does take time to record them.146 More attention is paid to Cicero’s philosophical pursuits, but here Plutarch seems firmly sceptical that he was a real philosopher. So he writes that Cicero as a boy was drawn to philosophy and had the wide-ranging curiosity demanded by Plato of his Guardians. But he immediately goes on to focus on how Cicero “rushed somehow too eagerly into poetry”, and how he continued to write poems as a man, despite his lack of ability, for they are almost all forgotten now.147 Cicero’s first serious philosophical studies were in Rome under Philo, head of the New Academy. Later fearing Sulla’s anger, he retired to Athens to study with the Stoicizing Academic, Antiochus of Ascalon. Then, when Sulla died, Cicero managed to resist the allure of Rome, and went from Athens to Rhodes where he studied oratory with Apollonius and philosophy with Posidonius.148 A good education, one might say, but in Plutarch’s view it was always overshadowed by the Forum: Cicero always hankered for the excitement of Rome. He used philosophy and oratory for political gain, rather than vice versa, and he settled down to really philosophize only when driven from the political arena, first by Sulla, later by Caesar. In Plutarch’s judgement thus, Cicero was a show-philosopher: the “good” that he really desired was attention and the popularity of the moment. This surfaces again and again in the Life: Cicero was always joking, and even at one point played the buffoon in his consular tribunal; he constantly boasted about his achievements as consul; he was never able to hold his tongue, or pass over a chance to appear better than others.149 In general, Cicero had a nature that was “unable to resist honour”.150 All this is deeply unphilosophical, and so even though Plutarch duly notes

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 82

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

83

Cicero’s accomplishments as a translator for Greek philosophers (finding Latin words for technical terms like synkatathesis), he goes on immediately to report how in his retirement Cicero also wrote 500 lines of verse a night, how he seemed to chafe at his seclusion and how he would go to Rome to court and flatter Caesar.151 Were these the actions of a philosopher? Plutarch seems to raise an eyebrow in silent query. Disapproval becomes explicit when he pictures Cicero moping and pitying himself during his exile: when put to the test (and in his case, exile was fairly light), Cicero showed that he had learned no philosophy. He wanted to be known as a “philosopher” rather than just another orator, but for Plutarch this is just another proof of the vainglory of a man whom long political life had infected with the “passions of the common people”: Cicero wanted all-too-common goods like power and fame, as no true philosopher or virtuous person does.152 And yet despite all these reservations, Plutarch redeems Cicero somewhat in the comparatio: as questor in Sicily, he remained incorruptible during a time of widespread corruption, unselfishly using the gifts of the grateful Sicilians to reduce the price of grain in Rome (8.2), and thus showing at once his “contempt of riches, his philanthrōpia, and goodness”. Similarly as proconsul in Cilicia, he did not oppress the provincials, brought peace without recourse to arms and didn’t cater to the mob in Rome by shipping back panthers. Most of all, as consul with near dictatorial powers against the brutish Catilinarians, Cicero managed to minimize the bloodshed. Certainly he used power far more humanely than the Triumvirs, who for Plutarch fulfilled Aristotle’s dark adage that “no animal is more savage than man, when he joins power to passion”.153 Cicero on the contrary joined power and virtue, and so in Plutarch’s final judgement, Cicero as questor and consul “attested the truth of Plato’s prediction, that then the miseries of states would be at an end, when by a happy fortune supreme power, wisdom (phronēsis), and justice should be united in one”.154 So after some hesitation, Plutarch rounds back on the Platonic ideal. In his moments of greatest glory, Cicero did live up to the norm of the philosopher-king. Plutarch is even more hesitant about two other men who would seem equally obvious candidates as philosopher-kings. Dion and Brutus are paired as students of the Academy for whose philosophic virtue Plutarch has the highest praise. To philosophy they joined lives of action as high-minded enemies of tyranny, and both reached the pinnacle of power for fleeting moments— Dion when he conquered Syracuse, Brutus when he led the assassination of Caesar. But the problem Plutarch finds in both is that they are too much the philosopher and too little the king: that is, they were exemplars of virtue, but too rigidly so. Without phronēsis, dogmatic in their idealism, they lacked the demiurgic subtlety to adapt their ideals to the power of circumstances. The

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 83

05/10/2011 07:05

84

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

tragic result was that in the complexities of actual affairs, their virtues became vices, and their legacy was further civil war, destruction and chaos.155 In Dion’s case, he had every advantage: well-born, well-connected, rich, intelligent, thoughtful, he became the star of Plato’s Academy. It seemed almost natural that he would spearhead the Academy’s most ambitious foray into practical politics—the attempt to “convert” the powerful tyrants of Syracuse. Yet when Dion first arranged a meeting between Plato and Dionysius the Elder, all Plato’s arguments in praise of justice and dispraise of tyranny only alienated his tyrannical ward, who had raised himself up by violence and cunning. Dionysius connived to have Plato sold into slavery, saying that the wise man should be happy in his virtue, regardless of circumstances: he had heard enough philosophy to be able to twist its idealism against itself. More promising was Plato’s second visit to educate Dionysius the Younger. This time Plato failed because he was too successful. Dionysius loved Plato and his passion would brook no rival—an unexpected twist on the ideal of Platonic friendship. Plutarch also records with marvellous irony that when Dionysius settled down to his studies, the whole palace was soon filled with clouds of chalk dust, as the tyrant’s courtiers rushed to take up geometry, aping their master’s latest enthusiasm. In such soil, “divine” philosophy could not easily take root. A third and final visit also came to nothing. Prudently, Plato gave up. But Dion did not. In 358 BC, he gathered together some Academic enthusiasts—and 800 mercenaries. After the rendezvous in Zacynthus, they crossed stormy waters over to Sicily, and delivered themselves over to the vicissitudes of Fortune. Dion was able to win victories in battle, but Syracusan politics proved too corrupt for him to succeed. Again, the problem was that he was too virtuous. He continued to act as if he were still a student in Plato’s school, and not among rough mercenaries who wanted pay, or among a Syracusan dēmos long brutalized by tyrants. Not wanting to commit any wrong, and dogmatically applying the Platonic principle that from good only good comes, Dion did not kill Heracleides (a demagogue and repeat traitor) even when he had opportunity and justification.156 Again, not wanting to pander to the mob, he did not relax his severe aristocratic bearing, and so the common people reasonably feared that he might be just another tyrant-in-waiting. Thus Dion had the right ideas, but not the demiurgic subtlety to adapt them to the material circumstances given him. His “virtue” therefore only brought more chaos: he was assassinated, and for the next ten years Syracuse was oppressed by stasis and a series of tyrants (including a re-ascendent Dionysius II, from 347–334 BC) until Timoleon brought his more pragmatic stance to bear, with Fortune’s blessing.157 The case of Brutus is similar. His motives in killing the tyrant were pure: he loved liberty, which he defended despite his real love for Caesar, and he had absolutely no desire for power or personal advancement. More generally, Brutus

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 84

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m P lat o t o P l u tarch

85

was the paradigm of virtue. He was learned in all philosophies, especially that of the Old Academy. But he was out of joint with the times. For (in Plutarch’s view) Caesar had acted like a doctor, curing Rome’s intestine wars, bringing unity and peace and so advancing in the human sphere the ends that the Demiurge accomplishes in the natural. As a result, the gods disapproved of Brutus’ tyrannicide, as shown clearly by the many portents and visions before and after the event. Caught thus between the purity of virtue and the gods’ will, Brutus is a tragic character. He acted from the best motives as he defends ancient liberties, and yet his love of the Republic and his refusal to kill Antony along with Caesar only led to another, more vicious Triumvirate, and over ten years of further civil wars.158 Plutarch criticizes Cato for similar reasons. Cato’s virtue was irreproachable also, but he was an ideologue, and Cicero was right when he quipped: Cato fancies that he is in Plato’s republic, not among the dregs of Romulus. Cato’s refusal to compromise drove Pompey and Caesar together, and his own rigid idealism initiated the process that would bring the ruin of his ideals.159 Thus, in Dion, Brutus and Cato, Plutarch treads carefully with the ideal of a philosopher-king, and even regards it as a potentially dangerous one. In fact, Plutarch’s own purposes may have been quite humble. That is, he would shake his head in dismay if he could hear Nietzsche cry out: “Feast your souls on Plutarch and dare to believe in your own selves when you believe in his heroes.”160 Plutarch’s caution may be due to his Platonic insistence on the irreducible plurality of reality: nobody is perfect, ideals are not of this world (pace Stoics), the rational is not the real (pace Hegel), and though they pervade nature and history, ideals always need to be adapted to the complexity of actual affairs, and this requires the wisdom of a Demiurge, the phronēsis of a statesman.161 History can be an education for this activity of philosophical politics because, Plutarch affirms, the contemplation of the past is a worthy philosophical pursuit. In Plato’s view, history records only shadows in the “Cave”, and the temporal is neither fully known nor valuable; for Aristotle too, history merely records discrete particulars, and is not very philosophical. Plutarch, like Isocrates, disagrees. In Pericles, he explicitly states that history is as worthy an object of rational contemplation (theōria) as are geometry and astronomy: like causes like, and the contemplation of the “godlike” virtue of past exemplars can inspire the same in us.162 Philosophical history thus becomes part of the soul’s education, part of the “way up” to the proper human “good”, virtue. Moreover, contemplating a series of lives from legendary times to the recent past may break one’s narrow attention to the present and impart a certain breadth of vision or greatness of soul. The “way down”, however, may be more dangerous than the ascent, for though history fires the imagination to emulate past heroes, Plutarch seems to

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 85

05/10/2011 07:05

86

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

warn that the past is past. What those “divine” men did may remain enshrined in memory, as impervious now to time as some Platonic Idea, but it cannot be repeated or simply copied in the present.163 He therefore warns readers of the Praecepta not to rush off to make themselves new Miltiades or Cimons, and to hanker to liberate Greece from the “barbarian” once more.164 The battles of Marathon or Eurymedon cannot be fought or won again; Brutus tried to imitate his ancestors by killing a tyrant, but he could not restore the Republic. On the other hand, Plutarch offers encouragement to his political readers, affirming that they can rival the heroes of the past by advancing the highest human ideals—virtue, friendship, philanthrōpia165—and thereby continue the best Greek traditions, contribute to the Roman peace and even imitate the harmonizing work of the Demiurge. This may have been Plutarch’s attitude at least, both when he projected his philosophic concerns onto the data of the past, and when he served in petty magistracies in Chaeronea, measuring tiles or overseeing the delivery of stones. One imagines Plutarch conscientiously checking that the right stone is delivered—and all the while his head filled with stories of the ancestors. Lycurgus, Numa, Aristides, Pericles, Dion, Alexander, Phocion, Timoleon, Cicero and the rest might now be dead. But they live on, changeless and radiant in memory, beckoning the present to the better. If at times they were able to use power wisely, get the best out of given circumstances, and lead their people closer to the good somehow, then surely a humble official in some obscure town of the empire could do the same. In the truest meaning of the two words, one can be a “philosopher” and a “king” almost anywhere.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 86

05/10/2011 07:05

4

Marcus Aurelius According to legend at least, the Romans hated kings. The last of the seven kings of Rome had been an Etruscan and a tyrant and so when Tarquin the Proud was assassinated in 509 BC, the king’s wide powers were gradually distributed among many magistrates: armies to the consuls, courts to the praetors, civic amenities to the aediles, auguries to the priests, in complex and shifting combinations. A short, one-year tenure of office, the principle of collegiality and eventually the authority of the Senate limited the magistrates’ power. The growth of empire eventually changed this. Consuls and praetors went out to far-flung lands to fight against primitive tribal kings and Hellenistic potentates alike. As imperatores with absolute control over armies and defeated peoples, they too became kings of sorts. Imperial power changed their vision of Rome. Marius was consul seven times; Sulla made himself dictator, then retired; Caesar declared himself dictator for life, and so gave Brutus and the other conspirators pretext to assassinate him as a “tyrant”. Octavian was more circumspect. After closing the gates of War and restoring the Senate to its dignity, he repeatedly acquiesced to accepting the burdens of office, for the good of the Republic, as he claimed: consul from 30 to 23 BC, in the later constitutional settlement of 27 BC he was granted proconsulare imperium over the imperial provinces and awarded the titles of Augustus and princeps senatus; in 23 BC came imperium proconsulare maius, the ius auxilii and the important tribunicia potestas; consularis potestas followed in 19 BC, and as a final seal, the office of pontifex maximus in 12  BC. Consul, censor, tribune, priest—in assuming these powers piecemeal, Augustus made a show of working within the old constitution, and was honoured as princeps senatus (“first of the Senate”), as if any other senator were his equal. But behind the Republican facade, Rome was now ruled by a king, for what the Republic had pulled asunder, Augustus united again. Wielding the powers of the old kings, he was legitimated in his position by many supports: by the gods, since he was first priest and Augustus; by auctoritas, as he was “first” of the Senate; by the people, whom as tribune he represented; and by sheer force, given that some 30 legions swore their loyalty to him personally. It was this basic Augustan system that Marcus Aurelius inherited as sixteenth emperor. He came to power with his co-emperor Lucius Verus in 160 AD, and

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 87

05/10/2011 07:05

88

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

from one perspective, he might seem to have wielded absolute power over one of the most effective empires in history. Yet in another sense, Marcus had little power. Some 2,400 km separated Rome from Hadrian’s Wall in northernmost Britannia, and it was another 2,600 km from Rome to Thebes in southern Egypt. Over such vast distances, travel was slow, communication intermittent. From arid Judaea to lush Burgundy, a population of possibly 60–70 million (estimates vary widely) sheltered a vast variety of languages, religions and customs. Rome, Alexandria, Carthage, Antioch and other great cities were cauldrons of humanity, teeming with bodies and ideas. In an age of papyrusrolls and awkward parchment books, what individual could hope to have precise knowledge of every region, people and industry? Local autonomy, conspicuous rewards and the threat of irresistible force were means by which the whole was held together. Regions and their magistrates were allowed a certain measure of local freedom, provided that taxes were paid, the peace maintained and loyalty expressed. The benefits of Roman citizenship (for discharged veterans or whole communities), bringing progression up the social scale, were material and tangible. By 160 AD, Roman rule over most of its provinces was over 200 years old, and the Pax Romana was accepted as a fact of nature, divinely ordained. Yet for all his seeming power, a Roman emperor could know little of the social conditions and sudden revelations that might throw up a new religion; or the shifts of tribal alliances that could send hordes welling across the border; or the mysterious powers that caused rivers to flood or dry up, pestilences to seep from the soil and the earth itself to shake, levelling imperial cities. Acts of the gods, Fortune or natural necessity—however named, an emperor could not predict or control them. This was true even when the emperor had the best education and wisest of advisors. Thus, it is perhaps part of Marcus’ wisdom as a Stoic emperor that he recognized his limitations, delegated powers and erred on the side of cautious conservatism. In his modified Stoicism and his respect for the Roman tradition, Marcus reconciled two elements that had at times been almost antagonistic—Roman power and Greek philosophy. One long-engrained Roman response towards Greeks was to distrust them, “even when bearing gifts” as seductive as Greek art and eloquence, for it seemed that the Greeks could play with arguments and ideas with such freedom that they threatened to corrupt the youth, or the people at large. So, for example, Cato feared the influence of the Greek delegation of philosophers in 155 BC; the mother of Agricola (Tacitus’ fatherin-law) feared he might carry his study of philosophy too far; Fronto frowned on Marcus’ philosophical interests. On the other hand, the Roman elite came to follow Greek tradition in making philosophy part of a complete education. So too, like their Hellenistic forebears, Roman emperors might keep philosophers as advisors and “friends”: Augustus had the Stoic Areius, Tiberius the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 88

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

89

Platonist Thrasyllus, Nero the Stoic Seneca, Trajan the sometime Cynic Dio of Prusa.1 Philosophy was not always so amenable, however. During the Flavian period, the “Stoic Opposition” of the senators Thrasea Paetus, Helvidius Priscus and others used ideas of freedom and the “true” kingship of virtue to criticize emperors for perceived shortcomings. In response, philosophers were exiled from Italy in 66, 71, 89 and 94 AD: affected by this last decree was Epictetus, Marcus’ spiritual teacher.2 The attention paid to philosophy only attests to its cultural importance for the Roman elite, and if Nero caused Seneca’s suicide, he had also been a rabid philhellene. Later, the appearance of the “Good Emperors” roughly coincided with a blossoming of Greek culture in the so-called Second Sophistic period. We have seen how Plutarch, as part of this blossoming, celebrated several figures from Greek and Roman history as “philosopher-kings” of sorts, and he focuses his reading of the past on key terms of his own day: philanthropy, cosmopolitanism, enlightened aristocracy. This theme harmonizes with a common role of the philosopher in later antiquity, as mediator between cities and emperor, and advocate of Hellenism.3 The Good Emperors too avowed concern for certain key ideas. Liberty becomes one of their watchwords; parrhēsia is tolerated, even cultivated.4 Ideally, such enlightened freedom would ensure that the “best” man be selected as emperor—a hope that harmonized both with Augustan ideas of the princeps, and the Stoic argument that only the virtuous sage is king. After Nerva, one might detect a rising momentum in the association of the emperor with philosophy. Trajan was the object of Pliny’s effusive panegyric (100 AD), which in keeping with its genre effectively attributes every virtue to Trajan, the “best princeps”: one must remember, however, that in this time philosophy was primarily ethical, even moralistic, and for Musonius Rufus, Seneca and other popularizers, to be a virtuous person was to be a philosopher. Dio Chrysostom’s Kingship Orations are more coy but similarly privilege the ethical above all else. Probably addressed to Trajan, they form yet another “mirror” in which a prince might contemplate his ideal image; they probably revisit the material of the many Hellenistic books On Kingship. Trajan himself was modest about his “philosophical” attainments, but Hadrian prided himself on his versatility. Soldier, traveller, poet, historian, Epicurean, philhellene and lover of Athens in particular, Hadrian set himself up as an example to the troops with his marches and physical regime, and he often effectively claimed to be “wiser” than sophists, architects and others in their own fields of expertise. Gibbon and Syme had the highest regard for him and Yourcenar presents her own sense of the mind of Hadrian in her Mémoires d’ Hadrien (1951), a long meditative letter written to enlighten the young Marcus Aurelius on the manifold tasks of ruling. The sense that here was a philosophic emperor is reflected also in the third-century composition, “Argument of Hadrian Augustus and Epictetus the Philosopher”,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 89

05/10/2011 07:05

90

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

a dialogue in which the king asks questions and the wise slave gives laconic answers.5 The quieter virtues of Antoninus also gave him the reputation of being a “philosopher” (i.e. a good man and pius), and Justin Martyr appeals to this in his first Apology. But it was Marcus who was most explicitly regarded as a philosopher, both in his lifetime and afterwards. Here was a virtuous man and “good” emperor, a reader of Epictetus and imperator, who symbolized the Greco-Roman synthesis as effectively as Hadrian. By tradition Romans may have hated the word “king” (nomen regium), but Marcus was one whom they came to admire for some two centuries, and one of the main reasons for this was that he practised the Stoic virtues that others so widely professed.

Marcus’ education Whether or not Marcus was serious as a child, he was certainly given a serious education—long, comprehensive, expensive.6 From the earliest age, his family hired a small army of tutors to teach him at home, in grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, law. He was also initiated early into public office—a more purely political education. And throughout his life, Marcus read (even while at the theatre or gladiatorial shows), wrote, went to public lectures and, like Solon, “grew old learning”. Years later as an old man writing his so-called Meditations, Marcus rehearses with gratitude the names of many of his former teachers. His education included some music and geometry, but it was primarily humanistic, with an emphasis on Greek and Latin literature. His tutors included the two foremost masters of Latin and Greek rhetoric, Fronto and Herodes Atticus, respectively. Fronto was lionized as “another Cicero”,7 and like a latter-day Isocrates, he advised the heir designate that rhetoric would be crucial for his future reign. Indeed, for all his outright power, Marcus still needed to address the Senate, assemblies, ambassadors and the army in the most varied circumstances, as when he pronounced Antoninus’ funeral oration from the Rostra, described the earthquake in Cyzicus to the Senate or informed the Danubian legions about Cassius’ revolt.8 Yet despite many years of tutelage, it is not for any rhetorical instruction that Marcus thanks Fronto: “from Fronto, I have learned what sort of things tyrannical jealousy, subtlety and hypocrisy are, and that most of our so-called patricians are somewhat lacking in human kindness”.9 In much of their correspondence, Marcus’ affection for Fronto seems enthuasiastic and spontaneous.10 In pointed contrast, Herodes Atticus is not even mentioned in the Meditations, let alone thanked. Other tutors, like Lucius Volusius Maecianus, taught him law, while tutors of consular rank, like Claudius Maximus and Claudius Arabianus, imparted by their mere presence something of that official world for which he seemed destined.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 90

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

91

Marcus hints that from an early age he was attracted to philosophy. Diognetus introduced him to philosophy and so fired was Marcus, then 12, that he wrote dialogues (the philosophical genre in antiquity), hankered after the leather cloak of philosophers and the “Greek regime” of sleeping hard, until his anxious mother intervened.11 Other tutors later introduced him to the major philosophical schools. Many of his tutors were Stoics, including Sextus, nephew of Plutarch, but most influential of all was Quintus Junius Rusticus.12 A demanding teacher, he initiated Marcus into the discourses of Epictetus, the thinker who would influence him most. It was probably by a gradual process that Marcus grew dissatisfied with his other studies, notably rhetoric, but Rusticus seems to have done most to persuade Marcus to devote himself to Stoicism and “not to be led astray to sophistic emulation, nor to writing on speculative matters, nor to delivering little hortatory orations. . . and to abstain from rhetoric and poetry and fine writing. . . and to write my letters with simplicity”.13 So Marcus was “converted” to the Stoic hairesis, and Rusticus’ ideal of open simplicity was one that Marcus never lost.14 While pursuing his literary studies, Marcus enjoyed sports as a young man and was good at boxing, wrestling, running, ball playing, riding and hunting. He was also receiving an insider’s political education. At six, due to Hadrian’s influence, he was enroled among the Knights; at eight, among the Salian priests, where Marcus zealously learned all the archaic formulae and rose to become chief priest of the college. At 15 he assumed the toga virilis, and at 16 was appointed by Hadrian as prefect of the Latin festivities in Rome (137 AD). Then suddenly, the crowning glory: on 25 February, 138 AD, after the death of his first heir, Lucius Ceionius Commodus, Hadrian designated Antoninus Pius, with the proviso that Antoninus in turn adopt Marcus and Lucius Commodus the younger. Thus at age 17, Marcus had the status of future emperor. He was made quaestor in 138, sevir turmae in 139 and in 140 consul at the age of 19. But Antoninus proved surprisingly long-lived, and for 20 years (141–60 AD), Marcus served the emperor as his helper, advisor, friend, spending only two nights away from the emperor’s presence15 as they jointly ruled the empire from Rome and Lorium. Those 20 years filled a third of Marcus’ life, yet we hear of no resentment or impatience, let alone plots or poisons. Pius died peacefully, giving the watchword “Equanimity” to Marcus, as well as a golden statue of Fortuna, and in turn, Marcus would revere Antoninus next to the gods. Meditations I ends with an extraordinary paean to his adoptive father, praising his consistency, simplicity, traditionalism, generosity, freedom from jealousy, patience, diligence, good humour, quasi-Stoic detachment from wealth and pleasure as “preferred indifferents”, respect for philosophy and, in a word, his many-sided virtue that was worthy of Socrates himself. The older Marcus here describes himself as still Antonius’ “student in all things”. Detailed studies tend

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 91

05/10/2011 07:05

92

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

to corroborate Marcus’ judgement: there is clear continuity between the two emperors’ policies, in administration, law and respect for the Senate.16 Educated by tutors from across the empire, formed in the hallowed traditions of the universal city and daily guided by one of the so-called Good Emperors, it would seem (to paraphrase Conrad) that all antiquity went into the making of Marcus, so excellently prepared was he for the exercise of power. But was he? At his accession, Marcus had never been outside Italy. In contrast to a Hadrian, he had no first-hand knowledge of the provinces. He had never been on campaign or even served in the army, a serious deficit in an imperator: only Nero before had had such a record.17 Was not Marcus wholly unready for the Persian and Marcomannic Wars? On the other hand, a Platonist might regret Marcus’ relative lack of higher scientific studies. Writing antilogiai and arguments in utramque partem for Fronto may have given this philosopher-king one kind of dialectical training,18 but how much geometry and astronomy did he learn? That said, Marcus does seem to have acquired what Plato highly desires in a ruler: indifference to wealth, status and all the glitter of power. Marcus’ biographer states that he had to be “forced by the Senate to assume control of the state after the death of divine Pius”.19 Such diffidence had precedents in Augustus, of course, and Tiberius at first claimed that “only the mind of divine Augustus was capable of such a burden” as supreme command.20 Yet Tacitus’ cynicism might be inappropriate here. Marcus’ Meditations and conduct as emperor almost everywhere testify to his indifference to power per se. Similarly, his whole life seems a clear refutation of the cliché that power corrupts.21

Challenges of Marcus’ reign: plague, wars, revolt It is unclear whether any emperor would have been ready for all the difficulties of Marcus’ reign. After years of tranquillity under Pius, few could have predicted the torrent of crises that would burst upon the Roman peace—flood, rebellion, foreign wars, plague.22 First, in autumn 161, the Tiber overflowed, flooding parts of the city and Latium, bringing fever, malaria and even famine to the huge population that Roman leaders had already strugged to feed. Marcus and Lucius (whom he had made co-emperor immediately on accession) gave the problem their “personal care and presence”.23 Other crises proved more troubling. In the north, war was brewing: threats to Britain; incursions of the Chatti into Raetia and Upper Germany; rumours of more trouble to come.24 And in the East, under the ambitious Vologaeses IV, the Parthians invaded the Roman client-kingdom Armenia, defeated an army, captured Elegia and pushed on into Cappadocia. This war would last for five years (162–166 AD), and though Marcus did not go to the front in person, we are led to believe that

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 92

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

93

he helped to orchestrate the campaign from Rome, sending out Lucius with an experienced military staff as well as elite troops drawn down from the Danube and Rhine. Unofficially, the leaders on the ground were generals like Statius Priscus and Avidius Cassius, under whom the armies won a string of victories. Armenia was recaptured, Mesopotamia overrun, the Parthian capitals Seleucia and Ctesiphon sacked. In 166, Cassius even penetrated Media, a land so far east that sensationalistic writers of the time claimed he had invaded India, like some new Alexander.25 But officially, Lucius was commander. With each victory the armies gained, he claimed his title: imperator, Armeniacus, Parthicus Maximus, Medicus. He urged Fronto to compose a history commensurate with his glory and Fronto diligently complied, comparing him in the Principia Historiae to Trajan, and extolling him in his letters for his amazing endurance and energy.26 Marcus for his part shared most of these honours, but only later, reluctantly, as he had not participated directly. The two celebrated a joint triumph on 12 October 166, were honoured each with the civic crown and the title pater patriae. This victory did not close the gates of War however, and indeed the Parthian victory only brought fresh disaster. For it was thought that in Mesopotamia some soldiers contracted the plague, which was spread with the army’s return throughout the empire from Egypt to the Rhine, causing great mortality, and flaring up at various later dates. Ancient accounts paint a picture of devastation, speaking of farms abandoned, towns deserted, so that “from the very borders of Persia to the Rhine and Gaul, all was polluted with contagion and death”.27 When the plague recurred in 180, it killed 2,000 people a day in Rome, according to Dio. For Galen, it was the “great plague”, and has gone down in history as the Antonine Plague, after Marcus’ adopted name. Its precise nature (smallpox? bubonic plague?), extent, duration and mortality remain controversial: Gilliam (1961) estimates it killed one per cent of the empire’s population, the Littmans (1973) revise this up to 7–10 per cent, while detailed demographic studies lead Boak (1959) to insist that its effects were devastating on areas around the Fayyum, and that the ancient accounts were not necessarily exaggerated. Did it, as Niehbur (1849) claims, mark the start of the empire’s decline, bringing population loss, weakness before German and Parthian invaders and demoralization? Whatever its long-term consequences, its first victims included two emperors: it claimed Lucius Verus in 169, and Marcus in 180. Marcus’ reported last words are: “Why are you weeping for me and not thinking rather about the pestilence and mortality everywhere?”28 Plague thus ended Marcus’ German campaigns. It also caused trouble at the start of these wars. Trouble had been intermittent for years in western Dacia, Pannonia and the German provinces, and these movements and border raids were aggravated by the shifting of troops to the Eastern front to meet the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 93

05/10/2011 07:05

94

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Parthian threat. And so when after 167, an assortment of Victuali, Marcomanni, Quadi and other northern adventurers crossed the Danube and defeated an army, they were able to penetrate Moesia, Pannonia and even cross the Alps to besiege Aquileia.29 The “Gallic Terror” had long been a part of the Roman legend, and the patriotic victories of Camillus (390 BC), Marius and Catulus (101 BC), and Caesar (48–45 BC) had not entirely dispelled the fearful image of war-mad, blonde giants from the North. So, in 167, plague and invasion alike threw the city into a panic. Marcus responded in several ways. To appease the angry gods and allay popular fears, he led a solemn, seven-day lectisternium as pontifex maximus. He recruited German auxiliaries and two new legions, even pressing bandits, gladiators and slaves into service. These slaves were given the specific name Volones, after the slaves who were armed after Cannae.30 As for the gladiators, the joke went round that the Emperor intended to rob the people of their blood sports, and force them to take up philosophy.31 Another celebrated act was Marcus’ public auction of his own property to raise the funds for war—a feat of patriotism that Plutarch would have praised.32 Marcus would spend much of his remaining life campaigning against these northern tribes, little knowing that they were essentially the first wave of the great Völkerwanderung that would so strain the empire through the third century and after. The details of the first campaign (169–75 AD), in Hungary, the Balkans and along the Danube, are obscure.33 Here it suffices to note that the field of battle was complex and shifting, the fighting hard. A vast array of tribes entered the empire at various points; there were logistical challenges in providing for armies across a wide area; diplomatic challenges in dealing with peoples of very difficult cultures; and even military problems in fighting a diffuse enemy. There were no large-scale pitched battles at which the Romans excelled and the legionaries had to learn to split up into smaller vexillationes to fight smaller engagements.34 There was a novel battle on ice, against the Iazyges on the Danube River in the winter of 174–5. In all, it was a challenging war. Marcus’ biographer calls it “The War of Many Nations” because of all the peoples that fought Rome: Marcomanni, Varistae, Hermunduri, Quadi, Suebians, Sarmatians, Lacringes, Buri, Victuali, Osi, Bessi, Cobotes, Roxolani, Bastarnae, Alani, Peucini and Costoboci. For Eutropius too it was worse than any on record, apart from the Punic Wars.35 The view seems to have been shared by the Senate who in 176 voted Marcus a victory arch “because he surpassed all the glories of all the greatest imperatores before him, having wiped out or subjugated the most warlike peoples”.36 In the course of this first war, Marcus defeated the Marcomanni in 172 and took the title Germanicus. In 175, he was hailed as Sarmaticus and proclaimed imperator for the eighth time. By then, Marcus had begun to think of forming two new provinces, Marcomannia and Sarmatia, and when war broke out again in August 178, he seems to have made efforts to

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 94

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

95

carry this plan out. Dio refers to some 20,000 soldiers stationed in forts in the territory of the Quadi and Marcomanni, some with baths. New provinces in modern-day Slovakia and Germany would have shortened the line of defence, and enabled the empire to better weather the invasions of the 300s AD. What would have happened had Marcus lived longer?37 Framed in this way, it is a tantalizing question, and some have been tempted to accord Marcus a remarkable insight into the larger historical importance of his Germanic wars. The Marcomanni may have initially hoped to be allowed to settle within the empire, so as to escape other more powerful tribes bearing down on them.38 Some were indeed settled in Dacia, Pannonia, Moesia, Germania and Italy.39 Given this, Marcus may have reckoned that in the long term the larger problem could be resolved only if the empire were extended to these land-hungry peoples, so eager for the benefits of Mediterranean civilization.40 It is an attractive hypothesis, though one that cannot be proved given the scanty sources. Stanton, by contrast, fastens on a few sentences in Cassius Dio to conclude that Marcus’ plan was far less enlightened: in effect, he wanted to “exterminate the brutes”.41 In the end, neither happened, but the Parthian and German Wars were the most important events of Marcus’ reign, and a watershed in Roman history. To support the war effort, Marcus made consular provinces of Pannonia Inferior, Dacia and Rhaetia, while in Spain, Baetica was temporarily transferred to direct imperial rule, in order to deal with the Moorish rebels.42 One sees thus the beginnings of a process which would lead to the militarization of the empire in the third century, and even to the practice of hiring Romanized Germans to fight Germans.43 Of course, there were many other events that demanded Marcus’ attention during these years: we hear mention of minor revolts in Lusitania and Britain; the Chatti raiding Belgica; Moorish rebels raiding Baetica in 171; a serious, if short-lived, rebellion in Egypt in 172; political troubles on the ever-shifting Armenian front; bandits in Macedonia, Thrace and Dalmatia; disputes in the Greek cities; and so forth. There was also the task of staying in power. Historians speculate about the jealousy of subordinates like Statius Priscus, and ancient sources cite rumours that Marcus was not above assassination “for reasons of state”: did he personally poison Lucius Verus, for example, as he seemed almost too glad to be rid of him? More probably, however, the only serious challenge to his rule came in 175 when Avidius Cassius revolted, probably on hearing the rumour that Marcus had died. Whatever Cassius’ motivations (was he a lover of Faustina?), within three months he had been assassinated by his own officers and the rebellion collapsed. It had proved a non-event, but it was celebrated as showcasing Marcus’ clemency and Stoic imperturbability. In a speech in Dio, for example, Marcus refuses to march against Cassius, arguing that what is fated is fated: if Cassius is

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 95

05/10/2011 07:05

96

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

favoured by the gods, he will succeed, but if not, then the rebellion will fail on its own account, and what has Marcus done to alienate the gods? Here are Stoic sentiments, along with the Platonic conviction that injustice cannot pay.44 Stoic also was Marcus’ calm response to the aftermath of the revolt. Cassius’ head was sent to him, but Marcus refused to look at it and said only that he regretted not having the chance to pardon him. Faustina, Lucilla and the Senate bayed for vengeance on Cassius’ followers as well as on Syria, Egypt and cities like Antioch and Alexandria that had supported the revolt. But Marcus’ vengeance was mild. A few centurions were executed, the members of Cassius’ family were allowed to keep their lives and most of their possessions and Marcus ostentatiously avoided killing any senators.45 After the rebellion, one of Marcus’ most enduring legacies was his establishment in Athens of a chair of rhetoric, and a chair each for the four main philosophical schools. This may be seen as continuing Hadrian’s patronage of the city, but more commonly this and his virtuous conduct throughout his reign were attributed to his love of philosophy. Here was a philosopher-king indeed, it seemed. Certainly he was a Stoic and an emperor. But was he a Stoic emperor, and to what extent did his Stoicism inform his reign? That is, can he really be regarded as a “footnote” to Republic 473c–e—a king whose wise rule brought about a golden age? To explore this question, let us first turn briefly to the most important of Marcus’ ideas, as expressed in his Meditations.

The Stoicism of Marcus’ Meditations The Meditations as we have them do not seem to have been composed systematically, but their preoccupation with certain themes allows one to systematize some of the main ideas more concisely.46 Concisely, then, Marcus thought that being is single, good and beautiful, and as a result humility and universal sympathy are ethical, even political imperatives. First of all, following Stoic orthodoxy, Marcus regards existence as a single unity, which can be named in many ways, as the cosmos, the All, Destiny, the weavings of fate or chance, Necessity, Providence, Nature, Zeus and God.47 This totality is not merely material or a chance concatenation of atoms, but is pervaded by rationality, order and an intelligent providence that works solely for the good. Therefore, as Marcus aspires to believe, whatever issues from the mysterious workings of the whole is good: “That is good for every part of nature which the nature of the whole brings.”48 Moreover, all that happens is somehow beautiful. The cracking of baked bread, the bursting of a ripe olive or fig, the way ears of wheat nod their heads, the lion’s brow, the boar’s jaws, an old face:

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 96

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

97

these and many other things—though they are far from being beautiful, if a man

should examine them severally—still, because they are consequent upon the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they please the mind; so that if a man should have a feeling and deeper insight with respect to the things which are produced in the universe, there is hardly one of those which follow by way of consequence which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure.49

This is not quite an exuberant paean to the beauty of common things, for particulars gain their beauty, goodness and value from the value of nature or God. Yet Marcus’ intuition of a spirit of universal harmony, which makes each particular beautiful beyond itself, modulated Stoic ideas in a way congenial to some nineteenth-century Romantics, who took Marcus to be a soul-mate in pantheism.50 So the totality of which each particular is an inextricable part is overwhelmingly beautiful and good. Man too is part of the beneficent totality. Marcus never ceases to remind himself that he, and all individuals, are not isolated or self-sufficient but remain parts of the universal whole, and that from infinite time past a complex interweaving of natural events has led inexorably down to each particular entity, determining it as it is.51 With time too, each entity dissolves back into the elements it borrowed from the whole. Thus, nature or God runs on through the ages, differentiating itself into particulars, and reabsorbing all particulars back into itself. Sewn into the fabric of the whole, each individual entity is also intimately related to every other: each is a “seed” and “joint cause” of all others, so that between any two entities there is a bond of sympatheia.52 Given this relation between whole and parts, and between parts and parts, Marcus delights in comparing nature to a living organism, and to a city.53 In an organism, each part benefits and is benefited by the others, for they are “made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth”. Or, the cosmic city, the “city of Zeus”, comprises gods and human beings (that is, all rational beings) who as equal citizens “participate in the same intelligence and the same portion of divinity”: living under the same laws of nature and reason, all are fundamentally equal in the divine order.54 A person is thus primarily not a Roman or Athenian, but a kosmopolitēs, a “citizen of the cosmos”, who can be at home anywhere. All these ideas and metaphors are typical of Stoic monism,55 but Marcus does not merely copy hackneyed phrases: he uses technical words and alludes to arguments without much explanation, showing how well he had assimilated the lessons of his tutors; and he makes the fundamental metaphors vivid again, as when he imagines that willful separation from the whole as a “rebellion against nature”, or when he pictures unvirtuous individuals as “tumours” (phymata) on the cosmic animal, or (even

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 97

05/10/2011 07:05

98

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

more vividly) as diseased fluxes (aporroiai) flowing out of it—a kind of pus or excrement, that is both a part and not a part of the whole.56 Thus, a sharp sense of evil can trouble Marcus, but it is the postulated unity and goodness of being that pervade his moral outlook. He draws at least three inferences from these assumptions of cosmic oneness and value: personal integrity, apatheia and sympatheia, as the sage unifies his own self and looks out on all with the self-same disposition of detached love. First of all, since nature is one, so the person should be unified. Marcus constantly and variously exhorts himself to remember this: be innerly one, simple and consistent in your desires; stay focused on the present moment; go slow, do not hurry, be calm and careful and deliberate, suspend judgement, do not be carried away by fast-talkers, or distracted by frivolous novelty; do not dangle like a puppet on every chance breeze, for in all such circumstances, you forget the whole. Furthermore, let a core inner unity pervade all aspects of yourself, so that the outer self is an image of the inner, undivided mind. Appear to others as you are: do not appear to be what you are not; be truthful, and do not lie (except rarely, and for the public good); speak freely, simply, frankly, with parrhēsia rather than with affectation and pretentions of erudition. By the same token, accept others as they seem to be: do not suspect them of bad intentions, or fret about their unstated opinions; recall how even the criminal is like you, easily forgetful of the whole and quickly seduced by the misapprehension that a little wealth or fame are good in themselves; encourage others to speak their minds freely and to be as simple and open as oneself; by being true to oneself, one may thus come to understand others also.57 The second inference of apatheia is quintessentially Stoic. Marcus makes a practice of meditating on vast stretches of time and space: thinking on how the earth is but a point in the cosmic immensity; reflecting on his own life, or the whole line of emperors, or the whole history of Rome, and seeing with the mind’s eye how they are just drops in the ocean of time. Such meditations, Marcus suggests, will help one to rise up to the cosmic perspective, from whose heights one can serenely look down on one’s country, life, body and so forth and recognize them as small things, without much importance or worth.58 That is, one can look down on them from the perspective of Nature or God, and recognize that they are indifferent with regard to value. They are neither good nor evil in themselves alone and so one should feel nothing towards them, as nature feels nothing. Nature flows serenely on through the generations, without desire, fear, anger, pain or pleasure, giving of herself and taking away, selfsufficient, careless. The sage therefore imitates God or Nature, needing nothing external, indifferent to particular events, rolling easily along, always the same in prosperity or adversity, joyful in his wisdom. For him, there is no tragedy and he is always cheerful, as Antoninus was.59 Contemplation of the totality leads

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 98

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

99

to a wise apatheia, a passionless acceptance of all that occurs: power, weakness, wealth, poverty, fame, ignominy, health, plague, long life, life itself, death—what are all these but “works of nature” that simply occur, and are neither to be desired or avoided? A bubble forms, a bubble bursts, and this bubble may be a life, an empire: what matter?60 Towards the indifferent the sage is indifferent. But at the same time, nature is good, all her works are derivatively good, and therefore wisdom brings a certain sympatheia along with apatheia. That is, the sage sees how all events issue from the matrix of the universal whole, are bound together in it, and redeemed by its goodness. All that nature brings is good, and before all that happens, the “student of nature” feels his own quiet joy: the joy of God or nature itself.61 Moreover, this joy is allied with an almost boundless love. The cosmic goodness pervades all particular events and entities; others are part of oneself, equal products of the whole; the sage identifies himself with the whole, and comes to love everything that is in accordance with the whole. Thus monistic convictions lie behind Marcus’ effective invocation of the Golden Rule: love others as yourself, because in a monistic universe, they are you, and their life is intimately bound up with yours. Marcus therefore exhorts himself to transcend narrow self-love to love his family, neighbours and indeed all rational natures, including “the busy-body, the ungrateful, the arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial”. Sometimes he flirts with the notion of loving the criminal, or even one’s enemy, for these too are citizens of the cosmic “city”.62 Indeed, the sage loves as the cosmos loves, and so Marcus wishes that he could cry out to the universe: “As thou lovest, so I too love.”63 It is remarkable how many of Marcus’ entries sound the exhortation to love, and to a politics of sociability. If nature is like a single city, then the highest virtues are social and civic: kindness, forbearance, pity, sympathy, clemency, hard work for the sake of others, justice, avoidance of divisive emotions like anger, jealousy and pride. Marcus’ sage is not an eremite but is fully immersed in society, as a child, friend, spouse, parent, citizen and, in Marcus’ case, emperor and pater patriae. Meditations I expresses his gratitude to the important people in his life, but it is not simply a catalogue of virtues and ethical examples. More, it strives to be a record of love, for particular people, as for the divine whole from which they issued so mysteriously forth. Therefore he ends the book by thanking the gods for “good grandfathers, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good associates, good kinsmen and friends, nearly everything good”.64 If such words were indeed written “Among the Quadi”, or “At Carnutum”, or “on the Granua”, in the midst of war, plague and frontier wilderness, then they speak wonderfully to Marcus’ heroic effort to discern the divine good through so much apparent evil. Now all these professions of monism and universal sympathy may be very noble, one might object, but do they have any bearing on Marcus’ conduct as

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 99

05/10/2011 07:05

100

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

emperor? In fact Marcus himself seems aware of the paradox of being a philosopher-king—“do not hope for Plato’s republic”, he writes—and perhaps it is the tension between an ideal wisdom and worldly realities that is key to appreciating the Meditations fully. Sub specie aeternitatis, all that happens may be right, but that redemptive cosmic vision is known to Marcus only abstractly. He struggles to realize it in himself, acknowledging that he is not wise, and that the ideal unity of self within the unified totality is not an immediate reality but must be won and maintained by effort. Marcus’ entries therefore mix the dualistic language of protreptic with the monistic language of the accomplished sage.65 Like Socrates in Theaetetus 176a–b, Marcus reminds himself that immediate realities are not absolute, but relative and fairly unreal: he reminds himself to flee from an imperfect here to a perfect there, and “to become like god” by contemplating a distant truth. The difference is that Marcus does not seek to transcend nature, but to gain a higher perspective on it, in order to appreciate its unity, beauty, divinity. The point is worth repeating and ultimately bears on Marcus’ actions as emperor. Readers sometimes misconstrue the Meditations’ often dark and bitter language to conclude that Marcus was a misanthrope, pessimist, even a nihilist.66 If it were true, one could appreciate why: a cultured man from the sunny Mediterranean, now grown old and ill amid the brutalities of a northern war. But at a deeper level it is simply untrue that Marcus was a philosophical pessimist. He does meditate wearily on how here all is Heraclitean flux, death, imperfection, rot. Yet immediate appearances are themselves “indifferent”, relative and not absolute. The truth is the whole, and so it remains Marcus’ hope and faith that there, under the dispensation of Nature or God, all is calm, perfect, good, even beautiful. One rarely senses that Marcus attained peace at journey’s end; he remains (as Hegel said) “an unhappy consciousness” who never looked fully upon the “sun” of his Stoic god. But neither did he return to the “Cave” as a tyrannical nihilist, and he never denies his faith in a higher redemption. Thus, he wavers resolutely in the middle, ever straining “upwards”, often bitter at the sufferings of life, yet never despairing. His ultimate vision remains astonishingly optimistic: death and suffering are not evil, but somehow everything that happens is good. Half of the passage below is often quoted to illustrate Marcus’ pessimism. But if one reads the whole, it is clear that he does not revile human life as a vain passage from sperm to ash. While speaking with shocking parrhēsia, he also longs to bless existence, naming it as divine, good beyond conventional notions of goodness: One man after burying another has been laid out dead, and another buries him: and all this in a short time. To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus tomorrow will

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 100

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

101

be a mummy or ashes. Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.67

Marcus himself points to a solution to the tension between the imperfections of immediate life and that cosmic vision: cut off everything, retreat into yourself, and there, paradoxically, you will recover everything. For the inner self is an acropolis, a rocky promontory on which the waves break.68 It is the “ruling principle” (to hēgemonikon) or the will (proairesis), directing choice and aversion, radically free, and itself incapable of being coerced by anything but itself. In addition, the inner self, as mind and that which grasps and understands, is capable of apprehending all being.69 It can contemplate all that is, and accept or reject any particular within it. It is self-sufficient, free, is an end in itself, an absolute to which externals can be related, but related essentially only to itself. Such attributes are usually predicated of the divine and so Marcus, like Epictetus, calls the inner self a daimōn and “the god within”.70 One should honour this inner divinity, and become its “priest and minister” by cultivating one’s virtues.71 But this retreat within is not escapist, for in the depths of oneself one finds a spark of the god that is everywhere and everything. The divine recognizes the divine, and so the inner god can recognize itself in all natural events, for nature is God. That is, when one has attained self-knowledge, one can look out with divine eyes, seeing not random flux but the providential weaving of one event with all others. One sees all events as embodiments of the same divine principle; each is an emanation of the natural whole, a necessary thread in the complicated skein of Fate. The inner self that alone can say “I will this as my good”, can now recognize the goodness of external events, which issue from the same divine source as itself. The spindles of Necessity may produce flood, plague, war, betrayal, but the sage gives his “approving welcome to every experience the looms of fate may weave for him”.72 In prosperity and adversity alike, the sage is happy. He is on fire with god, and unquenchable: in one of Marcus’ startling images, the mind is like unwearied fire, hindered by nothing, but consuming all material, turning them into itself, and so becoming greater. Likewise, all experience is an opportunity to “exercise reason”; all situations allow one to show some appropriate virtue.73 Given this larger context, it is absurd to label the Meditations “escapist”. For monistic Stoics, there is no escape, and Marcus is often shocking because he fastens so brutally on certain inevitable facts of life. The cosmic perspective shocks him into humility but it also shocks him to struggle to see through partial evil to the universal good. This tension between immediate appearances and ideal wisdom may be key to appreciating Marcus’ philosophical reign, as well as his Meditations. The latter are a product of intense conviction, and on a priori grounds, it would

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 101

05/10/2011 07:05

102

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

be strange if they were entirely dissociated from Marcus’ conduct as emperor, as if he deliberated and commanded by day, and in the evening took up his philosophy books, like some sort of spiritual opium.74 The difference in size and complexity between Plato’s kallipolis and the Roman empire at its height is obvious, and so Marcus’ jotting “Do not hope for Plato’s republic”75 might be taken as proof that he was not, and did not hope to be a philosophic emperor. But a more significant passage invokes Plato to suggest that the imperfect here should be ruled in the light of the ideal there. This is a fine saying of Plato: That he who is discoursing about men should look also at earthly things as if he viewed them from some higher place; should look at them in their assemblies, armies, agricultural labours, marriages, treaties, births, deaths, noise of the courts of justice, desert places, various nations of barbarians, feasts, lamentations, markets, a mixture of all things and an orderly combination of contraries.76

Here Marcus does not subscribe precisely to Plato’s language of Ideas and the soul’s ascent beyond time, but his own essential idea is analogous. His sage would go even further than the readers of an Isocrates or Plutarch, to contemplate not just long periods of history, but all history and nature in their totality, and learn to treat each event as part of the universal whole. This cosmic totality is for Marcus “the Good”, and from contemplation of it flow the wisdom of indifference, greatness of soul, Roman strength, sympathy for others, detached love and all the virtues that might be desired in a ruler.77 So Marcus’ thought too implies that philosophy is the best training for kingship. On the other hand, the Meditations do not give a detailed programme for political action (as in Plato’s Republic and Laws) and in making almost no specific references to Marcus’ times, they seem political only on an abstract level. And yet Marcus’ biographer writes that “the sentence of Plato was forever on his lips: ‘Well was it for states, if either philosophers were rulers or rulers philosophers’”.78 In addition, one of Marcus’ more overtly political entries states: From my brother Severus [I learned] to love my kin, and to love truth, and to love justice; and through him I learned to know Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, Brutus; and from him I received the idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed; I learned from him also consistency and undeviating steadiness in my regard for philosophy; and a disposition to do good.79

The passage touches unsystematically on many ideas: the “cosmic city” ruled by natural law; the Augustan principate and constitutional monarchy; the Stoic

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 102

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

103

opposition, and moral exemplars who tried to bring philosophical enlightenment to political life. In particular, Dion, Brutus and Cato had impressed Plutarch as philosopher-kings of sorts, while Thrasea and Helvidius had been philosopher-senators championing Stoic and Republican liberty. Does the passage thus give a clue to Marcus’ administration: a princeps who guarded the laws, protected the Senate and people, and so guided Rome as the divine logos guides the cosmic “city”? If so, then Marcus’ entry hints at a Stoicized version of the religio regis. But perhaps more important for appreciating his reign in more detail is the final phrase of the passage, and its evocation of what was all important for a Stoic: the “disposition to do good”.80 For Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, Marcus and many others of the period, to be a philosopher was to be a good person. But to be “good” in Stoic fashion is to do one’s duty and keep whatever station one receives from God. Fate had made Marcus emperor, and all the indicators agree that he was conscientious, even punctilious in carrying out his duties. Courageous in crisis, temperate in administration, just in legislation and arbitration: the inner struggle for virtue that marks the Meditations can surely be linked up, at least tentatively, with the reports and praise accorded him by ancient writers. The wisdom of a sage he did not claim for himself—and wisely so. For by recognizing his own limitations and delegating power as best he could, he showed that his own intuitions were superior to some of the more dogmatic tenets of Stoic orthodoxy.81

Assessments of Marcus: a philosopher-king? Marcus had a bookish education, but when called to war, he did not demur and led both Marcomannic Wars in person. This in itself is a remarkable fact. Marcus was in his fifties (relatively old in antiquity), had a weak constitution and, indeed, a chronic chest or stomach condition (an ulcer?). The fighting was hard, the logistics costly. Here were good reasons to give up the war and return home, and Commodus did exactly this to return to the comforts of Rome.82 Marcus however persevered and refused even to let proxies lead the campaign. In the Meditations he never complains about the hardships on the frontier, scarcely even mentions the horrors of war.83 Here is impressive, selfless courage, an indifference to one’s own, merely personal condition that is akin to the Platonic Guardians’ fearlessness before death. Marcus did not fight in battle, or lead the legions and “auxiliaries” from the front, but he was there in person to give example, and so with good reason could coins of 172 be inscribed with the words virt. Aug.—virtus Augusti, the valour of Augustus.84 Here was the courage of a Stoic imperator. Through the Meditations, Marcus exhorts himself to “bear and forbear” like Epictetus, and this Stoic temperance finds parallels in aspects of Marcus’

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 103

05/10/2011 07:05

104

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

imperial image and policy. He tolerated and encouraged parrhēsia among his associates, senators and even writers of low satirical mimes; “it is the office of a king to do good, and be bad-mouthed”, he writes, echoing a saying of Antisthenes or Alexander.85 He did not exercise power in the spirit of anger: rather, he mitigated punishments, at least for lesser crimes;86 he spared enemies, such as German captives during the northern wars and Cassius’ supporters; and, like Antoninus before, he never put a senator to death. Most of all, he presented an image of old-fashioned Roman frugality. Antoninus had showed how to live in a palace without “guards or embroidered dresses, or torches and statues and such-like show”,87 and Marcus tells himself to “live as on a mountain”,88 that is, in simplicity. He set a symbolic example of patriotic frugality when he auctioned personal property to help pay for the German War.89 He seems to have tried to banish erōs tyrannos from his court, and set an example of sexual temperance: he was faithful to Faustina, was not promiscuous and abolished common baths for both sexes, in his zeal to “reform the morals of the matrons and young nobles which were growing lax”.90 No late Roman decadence for this philosopher-king! Marcus’ philosophical temperance is not inconsistent with his financial administration. Antoninus was criticized as a “cummin-splitter” because of his stinginess and following him, Marcus also disregarded the political wisdom that “man does not live on bread alone” but needs circuses also, not to mention pantomimes, gladiatorial combats, venationes and mock naval battles. Like Seneca, Demonax and many philosophers, Marcus disliked the games, particularly the blood sports. When he did go, he read, wrote letters, held interviews and conducted business (as Caesar had), and if he did watch gladiatorial bouts, he would (according to Dio) order that they use blunt weapons, to avoid needless deaths. He ordered nets put under ropewalkers so that they would not hurt themselves.91 Some might complain that this takes the fun out of it, but Marcus was an even worse spoilsport when he diverted money from these popular “luxuries” to “necessary” causes like flood-relief, the rebuilding of Smyrna after earthquake (161 AD) or the frontier armies.92 His “temperance” in this regard was notorious. When he enlisted gladiators at the start of the Marcommanic War, tongues wagged that he was trying to deprive the people of their pleasure and drive them to philosophy.93 Trajan’s triumph over the Dacians included 10,000 gladiators fighting; in Marcus’ triumphs after the Parthian and first Marcomannic Wars, there were none—a striking difference that may partially be due to Marcus’ own attitudes, and not wholly to lack of funds. We do hear of extravagant donatives to the army at his succession and the congiaria of eight golden aurei to each citizen in 176, marking the end of his eight-year absence from Rome,94 but these were special events and imperial propaganda could easily interpret them as proof of the emperor’s liberalitas.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 104

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

105

On another occasion, by contrast, Marcus resisted the soldiers’ request for a donative, stating that it could only come “from the blood of their parents and relatives”.95 Such passages remind one that while Marcus’ imperial “temperance” was consistent with a Stoic detachment from material things, it also reflects his sense of duty and responsibility. Plague and war had taken their toll on the imperial treasury, making certain luxuries inappropriate. Through all this of course, an emperor’s virtuous example could only do so much, and under Marcus the currency was debased.96 Marcus’ temperance is evident also in his attitude towards honour. Few themes are more prevalent in the Meditations than the denigration of fame and the Stoic indifference to others’ opinions. Historians may marvel at the grandeur that was Rome, but it is even more marvellous to hear Marcus placing Rome, and his own legacy, in their proper context. We possess neither past nor future (he often writes), and our lives are only a pinpoint in time. We occupy a corner of the earth, which is itself no bigger than a dot or geometric point (stigmē). What then is fame? This mortal life is a little thing, lived in a little corner of the earth; and little, too, is the longest fame to come—dependent as it is on a succession of fast-perishing little men who have no knowledge even of their own selves, much less of one long dead and gone.97

For Marcus, these were words to rule by. He did not court popularity by promoting the games. Nor did he yearn for a legacy: he regretted being named heir to Hadrian, had to be “forced” by the Senate to take power—either in imitation of Plato’s philosophers, or Augustus, or both—and his first act as emperor was voluntarily to elevate Lucius as co-emperor. During the Parthian Wars, he delayed sharing Lucius’ titles, probably because he had not personally merited them.98 Finally, like Antoninus, Marcus left few monuments to immortalize his reign: the Aurelian Column is one of the few, and its melancholy depictions of death and barbarian surrenders have none of the triumphalism of Trajan’s Column.99 Marcus is celebrated mainly because of his Meditations, yet here, away from the public eye, he records his own indifference to reading history books.100 Did he want to be read about in such books? Lucius commissioned Fronto to write the Parthian Wars, but one hears of no court historian, orator or poet following Marcus to observe and trumpet his victories. Rather one reads sardonic meditations like the following: The vain solemnity of a procession; drama played out on stage; troops of sheep or goats; fights with spears; a little bone thrown to little dogs; a chunk of bread thrown into a fish-pond; the exhausting labour and heavy burdens under which ants must bear up; crazed mice running for shelter; puppets pulled by strings.101

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 105

05/10/2011 07:05

106

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Parades, wars, donatives, triumphs—the pageantry of history becomes nothing but shadows on the wall, one bare event after another, signifying nothing unless illumined by the cosmic vision. Marcus had no desire for historians’ clamorous praise. Even the book that made Marcus famous was written “for himself ” alone. Everything about the man speaks of a quiet, self-effacing, temperate soul. More controversial are possible relations between Marcus’ Stoicism and the laws passed under his name. Since Augustus, the various Republican ways of making law—the edicta, mandata, decreta, rescripta, senatus consulta and plebiscita— were gradually usurped by emperors so that by Marcus’ time, after the Edictum Perpetuum of Hadrian, only imperial edicts and rescripts (letters answering legal questions) remained as sources of law. The emperor had become the supreme legislator and judge; his will and word had the force of perpetual law over all inhabitants of the empire. Of course, in practice, emperors delegated both legislative and judicial power, either entirely or partially. Some avoided the tedium of the law altogether: Nero, for example, never tried a case. Marcus himself augmented the judicial powers of the Senate102 and was the first to appoint praetorian iuridici across Italy. Moreover, in his own rulings, he relied on legal experts like Q. Cervidius Scaevola, L. Volusius Maecianus, P. Salvius Julianus, Ulpius Marcellus and Gaius, author of the Institutes.103 Yet though Marcus may have relied heavily on men like these, he still took his legal duties extremely seriously. He made 230 days of the year theoretically available for cases to be brought to him; he might sit for 12 days on a case, working into the night, consulting advisors and retiring to consider the matter himself.104 In one letter Fronto writes to him advising him to get more sleep and spare himself more from judicial work.105 A famous anecdote tells of how an old peasant appealed to him when he was in the countryside, and how he sat under a tree to hear her case. Here is the perfect image of a “prince of the people”, an Augustan citizen-emperor. Marcus’ personal involvement is evident in the many rescripta that are attributed to his hand. He himself expresses the desire to be “dyed”, steeped in virtue and justice: few have recognized that the image originally comes from the Republic, when Socrates is discussing the Guardians’ education.106 In the ancients’ judgement, he was indeed steeped in law and the spirit of justice. In the Digest, he is praised as “an emperor most skilled in law” and to Papinian he is “a most prudent and conscientiously just emperor”.107 Such praise of Marcus’ virtue of justice is not merely formulaic. Marcus seems to have recognized that laws and formal procedures are merely means for realizing justice, and imperfect ones at that, needing demiurgic skill to be adapted aright to particular circumstances. So he took pains to ensure that above all justice be done, especially in the area of intestate wills, where Marcus privileged the deceased’s known intention above legalistic quibbles.108 In his legal work, Marcus’ energy seems everywhere apparent. He introduced new procedures, such as the litis denuntiatio, to streamline operations.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 106

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

107

He made pronouncements on the law of commerce, finance, slavery, family, testaments and funerals, among others. Through all this, some commentators have detected certain recurring concerns, and even trends. Namely, many of Marcus’ laws focus on the selection of decurions for municipal councils, on inheritance, guardianship of orphans and minors and manumission of slaves.109 Each of these has been linked to Stoic ideas. Regarding decurions, for example, Marcus replaced praetorian and local judges throughout Italy with imperial iuridici under the emperor’s supervision: so local randomness was to give way to a single system of law issued by a supreme authority—analogous at least to the Stoic ideal of law in accordance with reason (logos) or God. Again, under Marcus, there were laws to limit the patria potestas and afford greater rights to children and wives vis-à-vis the pater familias; there were efforts to safeguard orphans’ inheritance, by provisions for public oversight of the appointment of guardians. In such measures, can one detect a greater concern for the freedom of individuals? Further laws seem designed to improve the lot of slaves: encouraging masters to bring offending slaves to court, rather than punish them privately; discouraging the practice of quaestio (judicial torture); facilitating the manumission of slaves in various circumstances; and so forth. Some interpreters argue that these laws stem directly from Marcus himself and reflect the emperor’s own humanitarian Stoicism, his concern for universal sympathy and kinship, and even his reverence for Epictetus, a freed slave. Hegel, for example, detects in Socratic ethics, and especially in Epictetus’ insistence on the “invincible” will undetermined by externals, the first seeds of subjective freedom which would take root under medieval Christianity and flower fully in post-Revolutionary Europe. Hegel’s eyes are on the longue durée but detailed reading of Marcus’ legislation by Watson and Noyen tend to confirm his intuitions: Watson, for example, argues that Marcus deliberately passed measures that would become “a first step towards the abolition of slavery”.110 It is an attractive hypothesis, and compatible with the Meditations’ insistence on the soul’s inalienable freedom. But on the other hand, it would seem that other legal initiatives of Marcus sharpened the distinction between honestiores and humiliores; he reinforced the ius trium liberorum to encourage aristocratic births, and strengthened the rights of masters to find and apprehend runaway slaves. Laws like these seem to contradict the noble ideals of Meditations 1.14. In these laws, Marcus does not seem to have advanced a community of equals before the divine logos: a conservative by education and temperament, he protected the class structure. In two articles (1954, 1955), Noyen takes the more idealistic approach in analysing Marcus’ legislation, arguing that Marcus promoted the freedom of slaves in all circumstances, with the result that Marcus should be considered the “greatest practitioner of Stoicism”. For Noyen, the inner freedom so insisted on

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 107

05/10/2011 07:05

108

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

by the Stoics was now recognized in positive law, and Marcus’ own cosmopolitan humanitas influenced the legislation enacted during his reign: Noyen finds 324 legal pronouncements, many dealing with humiliores like women, children and slaves. Noyen aims to bolster with concrete fact the long-standing custom of praising Marcus as a virtuous emperor, but if his work reflects a long, almost hagiographical tradition, it drew a sharp rebuttal from Stanton. Stanton finds political (rather than philosophical) contexts for many of the laws, and argues that Marcus mainly just followed precedents and trends begun by Hadrian and Antoninus, who were not Stoics. Moreover, Marcus relied heavily on senatorial and professional jurists, so that his personal Stoicism was less important to the passing of humanitarian laws than was the corporate “wisdom” of the system.111 In this view, Marcus was hardly a saint or Stoic apostle to the non-philosophic, shedding philosophical illumination on the masses; rather, he becomes just another emperor whose policies were largely shaped by precedent and historical context. Indeed, having proved to his own satisfaction that Marcus’ Stoicism had little real effect on his legislation, Stanton goes even further to try to deconstruct the myth of Marcus as a philosopher-emperor altogether. First, Stanton’s Marcus was not a philosopher. Stanton reduces the “philosophy of unity” in the Meditations to three ethical injunctions: act as a social being; accept whatever happens, submitting to “the reason and law of the universe”; and never blame either gods or men.112 Laudable precepts in themselves, Stanton grants, if only Marcus had lived up to them. Once again, Stanton claims that Marcus wanted to “exterminate” the Germanic tribes: if so, then Marcus he is surely not the best spokesman of Stoic cosmopolitanism and sympathy.113 Again, when Marcus groomed Commodus as his heir, he broke both imperial precedent and Stoic recommendations to choose the “best” man as king.114 Or when Cassius revolted, Marcus panicked: here too Stanton takes a single line in Dio to “prove” that Marcus was no Stoic.115 Finally, Stanton’s Marcus was well bred for political intrigue, and “paid considerable attention to prestige and status”, particularly that of the senatorial class.116 For the sake of argument, one could bolster Stanton’s case with other possible criticisms of Marcus, alleging that he was a bad judge of character, especially in the cases of Lucius Verus (playboy), Faustina (adulteress), Cassius (rebel), Commodus (monster);117 that he was superstitious, or at least excessively committed to ritual traditions;118 that he was not particularly intelligent; that he was stupid to follow Stoicism, a rigid philosophy, which, like a “shirt of Nessus”, poisoned his noble character; that he may have winked at, and perhaps even encouraged, the persecution of Christians, despite its shared ideals of cosmopolitanism and love.119 If one were to add up such criticisms, Marcus would emerge shorn of the virtues, snobbish, scheming, vindictive, hypocritical, a

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 108

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

109

“reglar rapscallion” as Jim might say and far from the “saint of pagan history” revered by Renan, Watson, Hadot and many others. But such character assassination runs the risk of substituting a cardboard villain for a plastic saint, and turning hagiography into mere vituperation. Stanton is right to emphasize the difficulties in mapping passages from the Meditations directly onto Marcus’ legislation, military campaigns, succession problems and even dealings with the Senate. One should be cautious in positing easy one-to-one correspondences between Marcus’ life and his book: actualities rarely match ideals. Yet, in the present argument at least, this disjunction was central to Marcus’ own outlook. Once more, the Meditations constantly contrast the ideal and actual, the rational and the real, the perfect realm there, where sage is happily at one with cosmic happenings, and the imperfect realm here were all is in flux, including one’s own soul.120 As McGlynn suggests, Marcus’ real wisdom is revealed in that he did not apply Stoic principles directly. It might have been ideal, of course, to look “up” to the cosmic whole and then look “down” to produce a Stoic society, in which all efface their individuality and see themselves as parts utterly integrated into the totality, equal to all other kindred, rational citizens of the cosmic city. Such a policy might be possible in the Republic of Zeno, in which everyone is a philosopher and coercive law unnecessary: so Marcus may “not hope for Plato’s republic”, in the (false) assumption that the kallipolis was populated wholly by philosophers.121 That might be an ideal, but it was not the Rome or empire Marcus knew, and a purely Stoic policy would violate his real duties as emperor. For example, externals such as wealth are “indifferents” to the Stoic, but this doctrine, strictly interpreted, would make nonsense of any system of retributive and distributive justice. Salaries, donatives, congiaria, exile, imprisonment or whippings are not typically doled out and received in the conviction that they are neither good nor evil. They become the sinews of government precisely because they are desired or feared: without them, how many soldiers would brave death, how many citizens would obey the laws? To take another example: the Stoic sage is a “citizen of the cosmos” (cosmopolitēs) and is at home everywhere, among all peoples, who belong to the same “city” of God or nature. But if this were interpreted strictly, then what need to defend the “borders” against “barbarians” or to fight to Romanize Germans? Such examples recall how Stoic ethics was derived from the anarchic Cynics and how, therefore, at its core it remained, politically speaking, fairly impractical.122 A truly Stoic emperor would thus be more paradoxical than Plato’s philosopher-kings for at least Plato takes pains to mediate between Ideas and particulars. The tentative links made above between the Meditations and Marcus’ virtues in office recall the fact that he did not share the austere Stoicism of Zeno or Aristo. Several passages indicate that he accepted the modification

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 109

05/10/2011 07:05

110

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

of Poseidonius and others, that externals like health, wealth, fame are “preferred indifferents”.123 This is already an accommodation to common sense, and to his duties as emperor. It could be used as a screen for hypocrisy, but a less cynical interpretation would be that Marcus adopted different attitudes in different circumstances. He himself strove for the cosmic vision and the “purer” Stoicism of detached love. This attitude may have informed to a lesser degree his personal dealings with associates, as well as some of his enlightened legislation and his refusal to pander to the Roman mob; even less could it shape his prosecution of the wars, though here for all his dedication to duty, Marcus was hardly a militarist. Namely, he demanded much of himself, set an example for others, but did not expect all to follow it equally. In some such way, Marcus may have hoped to be both a Roman and a Stoic, doing his duty in both the earthly city and the higher “city of gods and men”. Part of his wisdom is that he did not conflate the two. Another example of Marcus’ wise departure from Stoic “wisdom” was his ability to delegate power and choose good advisors and associates. According to Stoic orthodoxy again, the sage and king are one and embody the cosmic unity: the sage possesses all virtue, wisdom and knowledge, and is therefore judge, general, navigator, “king” and so forth. Marcus’ Meditations firmly dissociate himself from this ideal: he is not a sage and has no pretentions to an all-competent virtue.124 Wisely humble, Marcus recognized his own limitations, and was not jealous of others’ talents and expertise. So the ancient record unanimously states that he encouraged parrhēsia and consulted with experts.125 In the Meditations, he praises family, friends and tutors generously, and in fact he promoted former tutors to office: Herodes Atticus was consul in 143, and Fronto consul suffectus in 142; Q. Junius Rusticus was consul in 162 and praefectus urbi from 162–8; Claudius Severus was consul in 167 and 173; L. Volusius Maecianus served as prefect of senatorial treasury, and so forth.126 In law, Marcus relied on Gaius, Quintus Cervidius Scaevola and many others in this golden age of Roman law; in 167–9, he appointed as court doctor and personal physician Galen, the great authority of ancient medicine. The secretarial post of Latin correspondence (ab epistulis Latinis) had tended to be given to literary men, but in a time of war, Marcus recognized that other talents were now more appropriate and appointed soldiers like Varius Clemens and and Tarrutenus Paternus.127 During the Parthian War, he appointed an “exceptional number” of consular comites to serve the inexperienced Lucius,128 and in the Marcomannic Wars, while remaining overall imperator, he accepted the guidance of professional soldiers like Claudius Pompeianus, Macrinus Vindex, Bassaeus Rufus, Tarruntenus Paternus and Publius Helvius Pertinax. The last was the son of a Ligurian freedman, but Marcus promoted him on the strength of his military ability, making Pertinax consul in 175 (along with another future

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 110

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

111

emperor Didius Julianus) and even writing an encomium of him, thus deliberately ignoring the murmurs of senatorial snobs. Similarly, he chose Claudius Pompeianus as his son-in-law, a choice that proves him, in Birley’s judgement, to have been “no respecter of persons . . . He judged strictly on merit”.129 Marcus’ biographer sums up this aspect of his reign in no uncertain terms: “Always before making any move, he conferred with the foremost men concerning matters not only of war but also of civil life.”130 All this is a measure of the practical wisdom of a man who had to face unprecedented crises. Moreover, it shows how Marcus steered closer to Platonic than to Stoic practices: his awarding of merit follows Plato’s definition of justice in the Republic, and his ability to delegate widely while retaining overall authority recalls Plutarch’s Praecepta. If so, Marcus seems to have found ways to mediate wisely between Stoic ideals and practical necessities. This would indeed qualify him as a philosopherking, and like Plato’s Guardians, there is something paradoxical about Marcus, split as he is between his Stoic and public selves. Yet, as Plato makes the vision of the Good the basis of his Guardian’s administration, so Marcus’ own thoughts inform his own reign. The Meditations is an intensely private book, a sort of spiritual diary that has been compared with St Augustine’s Confessions, Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, Browne’s Religio Medici, Pascal’s Pensées or even Rousseau’s Confessions. It contains almost no allusions to contemporary events and its references to the past are fairly generalized.131 Though Marcus’ God is not as transcendent as Plato’s “Good beyond essence”, his Meditations still serve a function analogous to the Guardians’ dialectic and mathematics: here Marcus forms his soul, reaches out for a cosmic consciousness of the singularity and self-relationality of all being and from this vision strives to attain the sage’s dual virtues of apatheia and sympatheia. These virtues in turn have an inherent social and political import: they do not create eremites of the spirit, but demand that the emperor return to the “Cave” and all his many imperial duties. Thus, while Marcus may not have himself attained the sage’s disposition of detached love, his Stoicism was far from being a spiritual opium, or as Stanton describes it, “insulation against the discomfort of the Roman frontiers and the realities of Roman politics”.132 On the contrary, the Stoic striving to become a universal person, indifferent to one’s own pleasures, sufferings or honours, seems to accord well with Marcus’ performance as king. It reminded him of his smallness within the cosmic totality, and by so humbling him, made him a wiser ruler, less self-willed and dogmatic, more willing to delegate, to work within an inherited system, and to tailor distant ideals to the imperfect materials of his time.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 111

05/10/2011 07:05

112

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Marcus’ enduring image The degree to which Marcus was, or was not, a Stoic emperor, will remain controversial. But politically speaking, the image of Marcus was at least as influential as the man himself. From the time of his death, the “myth” of Marcus that endured well into the 1800s was that he was a philosopher-king, cultivated and humane, and that he combined Roman power with the best of GrecoRoman culture. At the start of this tradition, the ancient writers all name him a philosopher first, emperor second. Thus, among his contemporaries, Fronto disliked philosophy, yet he acquiesces before his student’s avowed preferences. After seeing two of Marcus’ children, for example, Fronto flatters Marcus for uniting the disparate roles of philosopher and king: I saw you not only opposite me but in more places than one, whether I turned to the right or to the left. They have quite a healthy colour, the gods be praised, and strong lungs. One was holding a piece of white bread, like a royal child, and the other a piece of black bread—clearly the offspring of a philosopher!133

The jesting continues in other letters, as Fronto echoes Plato’s Phaedrus and pretends to be Marcus’ “true lover”; in another note, Fronto warns his pupil that he cannot wear both the purple cloak of Caesar, and the woollen cape of Zeno.134 Beyond the imperial circle, Marcus’ image was well publicized: if it were not, then the Christian apologists Justin Martyr, Melito and Athenagoras would not have addressed their writings to him as a Stoic and a lover of all truth.135 Among later historians, the epithet of philosopher-king became fairly hackneyed, and the signal for much hero-worship. In Herodian, Marcus is the only emperor whom philosophy made learned, kind, temperate, pious and wise; his own example elevated others, and so “the age in which he lived produced a great many men of wisdom; for the subject always likes to live in accordance with the manners of his king”.136 Dio writes more sceptically that Marcus’ example alerted many to become “philosophers” as they scrambled for imperial patronage, yet this does not reflect badly on Marcus himself: for Dio he remains still “the philosopher”.137 Like Herodian, Aurelius Victor writes how Marcus’ example encouraged the liberal arts to flourish, “the glory of the times”.138 Aurelius Victor’s patron Julian was himself excellently versed in history and he too makes Marcus a philosopher-king after his own heart, especially in his Caesars.139 Finally, Capitolinus wrote a biography of Marcus in the reign of Diocletian.140 Capitolinus’ biography is generally trusted as reliable, but if so, it would be inconsistent to cynically dismiss its keynote: Marcus was “a man who philosophized through his whole live and who surpassed all emperors in the sanctity of his life”.141 The theme that philosophy informed Marcus’

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 112

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

113

actions pervades Capitolinus’ biography: his philosophic nature and education impressed Hadrian to make Marcus his heir; his Stoicism made him a harsh disciplinarian on campaign; he made a point of visiting sites of philosophical interest in his progress through the eastern provinces; and throughout his reign, he ruminated on Plato’s words, “that those states prospered where the philosophers were kings or the kings philosophers”.142 This image of a wise emperor who presided over Rome’s golden age endured for centuries after Marcus’ death by plague on the Danube. Nothing is more eloquent here than a catalogue of emperors in the third century who sought to bolster their power by association with the great man and so took the name Marcus Aurelius or Antoninus: Septimius Severus (r. 193–8 AD),143 Caracalla (r. 198–217), Elagabalus (218–22), Alexander Severus (222–35), Claudius the Goth (268–70), Quintillus (270), Probus (276–82), Carus (282–3), Numerian (283–4), Carinus (283–5), the usurper Carausius (emperor of Britain and Gaul, 286–93) and last of all Maxentius (306–12) who fell to Constantine at the Milvian Bridge. After Constantine, all the emperors were Christian (except Julian), and they began to look back to Moses, David and Christ as exemplars, and had less reverence for Marcus or his Stoic foolishness: indeed, Constantine is said to have called Marcus “absurd”. But before this sea change, Marcus remained a name to conjure with, especially among the Severans and the “philosophic circle” of Julian Domna.144 Later still, he was the main model for Julian in his attempt to return the empire to earlier social and religious conditions. By this time, Marcus’ image had long been included among the gods. Marcus’ biographer praises him for sanctitas, pietas and tranquillitas, and records that his statue still stood among the penates of many households, for the deified emperor could still inspire prophetic dreams to help the living.145 Even now he is called a god, which ever has seemed and even now seems right to you, most venerable Emperor Diocletian, who worship him among your divinities, not as you worship the others, but as one apart, and who often say that you desire, in life and gentleness, to be such a one as Marcus, even though, as far as philosophy is concerned, Plato himself, were he to return to life, could not be such a philosopher.146

If Capitolinus is correct, Plato might be seen as a mere prophet, a voice crying in the wilderness that states truly prosper only when ruled directly by a god—and so only preparing the way for Marcus’ golden age. But inspired as he was, even that dreamer of dreams could little suspect how one day all the cities of Greece and all the lands of the Mediterranean would be ruled by a Stoic king, or that this king would be deified after his death and worshipped as a tutelary deity for some two centuries. The worship of Marcus would be revived especially

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 113

05/10/2011 07:05

114

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

among the philosophes of the eighteenth century, and admirers like Renan in the nineteenth or Hadot in the twentieth.147 The “myth” of Marcus may have gained some of its potency from the fact that he seemed to mark the end of an age. With him the order of the Augustan Principate gave way to the chaos of the third century and its soldier-emperors. Marcus was born on the Caelian Hill in old Rome but died in a camp on the Danube. When serving Antoninus, he never left Italy, but during his last ten years, he was continuously at the front. With Antoninus, he presided over a period of peace, prosperity and culture, so often idealized as a golden age in which mankind was happiest,148 but his own reign would see plague, Parthian and German Wars, militarization and a return to succession problems, all of which would make the third century an unhappy time.149 Among Marcus’ subjects were many remarkable individuals: Galen (Marcus’ personal physician), Ptolemy (author of the Algamest), Gaius (author of the Institutes), as well as Aelius Aristides, Apuleius, Justin, Lucian, Tatian, Tertullian and others. Whether or not the “greatest figure” of these was Marcus himself,150 certainly he and his times were remembered as better than Commodus and his. Marcus consulted experts, promoted learning and was himself very cultured; Commodus liked to pass his days killing animals in the arena. Between Marcus’ birth in 121 and Commodus’ assassination in 192, an era seemed to have passed and so Marcus has been called “last of the Roman Stoics”, maybe even last of the old-style Romans.151 Circumstances thus helped to burnish Marcus’ image. Through the centuries, Rome faded from what it had been under the Good Emperors, but the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus continued to preside regally over the Lateran Hill and then (when Michelangelo moved it) the Piazza del Campidoglio—an image of calm strength, still “acknowledging the salute of legions who have been dust these eighteen hundred years”.152 Modern scholars like Birley and Stanton tend to react against the focus on “great men” in history, and prefer to see the individual determined by a nexus of political, economic and impersonal forces. Yet this was a view shared to some extent by Marcus who recognized that he was bound by the providential whole and that even as successor to Augustus, his active powers were severely limited. To be virtuous and a philosopher is to act within the limits prescribed by fate— and hence by one’s birth, education, forebears and imperial precedent. He thus exhorts himself not to hope for Plato’s republic, or some radical reorganization of the empire. Rather, his model is Antoninus, “that rooted man”, calm and deliberate, whom he praises in Stoic terms, and compares to Socrates. Marcus continued the work of that philosophic ruler, dedicating himself to the policies that the most skilled experts in their fields suggested as best for the empire. In all of this, Marcus was a philosopher-king in his own style and until the twentieth century the almost mythic image of Marcus has been more loved

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 114

05/10/2011 07:05



M arc u s Au reli u s

115

than hated. In a curious twist of history, he would be taken as a model by a very different sort of man—the confident, impatient and self-willed Julian, who had his own Neoplatonist ideas of what was to be done, and set about it with all his systematic cunning.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 115

05/10/2011 07:05

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 116

05/10/2011 07:05

5

Julian the Apostate In early November 361 AD, news came to Julian in Naissos, Thrace that his uncle, the emperor Constantius II had died. Suddenly, as if by divine providence, civil war had been averted. Julian would not have to fight to defend his title of Augustus: he was sole emperor of the Roman world. Strange indeed were the ways of the gods, and strange was the path that had led him to the heights of power. For it was this same Constantius who had killed Julian’s father, who had isolated and terrorized him as a youth, only to change course and appoint him in 355 to act as his Caesar and figurehead in Gaul. There, against all expectations, the studious young man proved himself an impressive leader. He won the loyalty of his troops and in the summer of 360 they raised him on a shield, crying “Julian, Augustus!” A soldier put a bronze neck-chain on his head by way of a crown, and later that night, this rough coronation seemed to be confirmed when the Genius of the Roman people appeared to Julian in a dream, revealing to him his destiny.1 The story of Julian’s “coronation” is an intriguing mixture of political traditions, and much about Julian is intriguing. Elected head-man by his mainly Germanic warriors, acclaimed Augustus by the exercitus Romanus, chosen by the gods to lead a holy empire – from different angles, Julian has been seen as military usurper, heir to the Augustan principate and god-anointed king. Julian himself looked back to Alexander, Caesar, Augustus, Trajan, Hadrian and most of all Marcus Aurelius, but others have regarded him as the mirror image of Constantine, and even looked on him as a proto-Byzantine king.2 At once a reactionary and revolutionary, revered and reviled as either saviour or antiChrist, Julian confounds all easy categories. And this, despite the fact that he reigned for only 18 months, died at the age of 32, and is the best documented individual from antiquity, along with Cicero. In modern literature, he has been labelled persecutor, anti-Christ, Romantic dreamer and pagan puritan, and even likened to a Lenin, Mao or John F. Kennedy. One label is both more obvious and more fitting: Julian was a philosopher-king, a Platonist emperor who in his talents, education and dedication to a “Good”, recalls many aspects of Plato’s Guardians. Plato’s philosophers rule in the light of a “Good beyond essence”, but Julian’s notion of the highest good was far more determinate: he feared that the empire was visibly declining, falling away as it was from the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 117

05/10/2011 07:05

118

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

ancestral gods which were in Julian’s mind the source of wealth, harmony, victory, culture and existence itself. Julian saw it as his task therefore to restore the “true faith” of polytheism and the municipal life that had nurtured it. To his great task he mustered all his many talents, in war, politics, law, literature and propaganda; finding different means to the same end, he kept to a general policy of using “noble lies”, edifying myths and philosophical persuasion, rather than brute force, in the crusade to make a more holy Roman empire. This overriding passion, this “Good” of Julian, may allow one to understand the multifarious activities of his reign as part of a single programme that was at once philosophical, religious and political. We will explore Julian’s career in four, roughly chronological sections: his education as a boy and youth (c. 337–355 AD); his first months as Augustus in Constantinople (December 361–May 362); his eight months in Antioch (July 362–March 363); and his final campaign in Mesopotamia (March–June 363).

Julian’s education One could say that Flavius Claudius Julianus grew up “fostered alike by beauty and by fear”. Fear came first: at aged five, he had his first lessons in political terror when Constantius adopted the “recognized royal first principle of safety”3 and eliminated his familial rivals. Several cousins of Julian were killed; soldiers rampaged through Julian’s house in Constantinople, cutting down his father and eldest brother, perhaps before the eyes of the young boy. Julian never forgot that day. As a man he would paint the events as the stuff of a Greek tragedy—a royal house rent by murder.4 Julian and his half-brother Gallus were young enough to be spared, but they were disinherited and placed effectively under house arrest for much of their youth. Julian was kept for five years (337–342 AD) in Nicomedia. Here his guardian was the local bishop Eusebius who would have ensured that Julian was educated as an Arian Christian, studying Scripture, and perhaps being baptized. Julian’s own memories dwelt on his daily tutor, Mardonius, a father-figure who was his main companion during these years. Julian had been banished from public life, and so was kept from the study of Roman law and sequestered from public venues like the hippodrome, pantomimes and theatres.5 In place of the actual world, Mardonius set before his caged pupil an ideal one. He introduced him to Homer, Hesiod, Athenian drama, philosophy and all that beautiful literature which he loved so ardently, and would associate so closely with the Greek gods under a new label “Hellenism”.6 Mardonius, Julian writes, was “of all men most responsible for my way of life”.7 He taught him temperance, diligence, love of learning; that is, Mardonius set him on the path to virtue and philosophy.8

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 118

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

119

The fear of death was never far away, however. After a possible stay in Constantinople in 342 AD, Julian was packed off to Macellum in the mountains of Cappadocia, to a fortress where in “glittering servitude”, with little company apart from that of watchful slaves and Gallus (who was sent with him),9 he spent six of his formative teenage years, aged 12–18 (344–50 AD). Julian may exaggerate his unhappiness in these years, yet one might well compare them to the political confinement of that later philosopher-queen Catherine the Great, who in her 18 years of marriage and semi-captivity read Voltaire’s Histoire Universelle and Bayle’s Dictionary.10 Julian also read. He was ordained reader in the church, and borrowed books from George, Arian bishop of nearby Caesarea, among which were many Neoplatonist tracts. When George was killed by a rioting mob in Alexandria in December 361, Julian took the books for his own library. There is little doubt that in Macellum, Julian went to mass, observed the holy days, fasted and lived a Christian life, at least outwardly.11 Julian himself came to look on his years in Macellum as a veritable “bridle of Theages”, that kept him from the transient evils of court politics, training him for a greater good. In a later autobiographical “myth”, he tells that when Constantius was closing the temples,12 Zeus looked down in displeasure and took measures to counter it. He ordered Helios and Athena to bring up a special child, cure him of his “disease” (i.e. Christianity) and bring him up to manhood. They did so, armed him with sword and spear, and even granted him a vision of the gods in their glory. At this, the young man yearned to stay with them, but they ordered him back to earth again, so as to “cleanse away all impiety”.13 Thus Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is reworked into a thin allegory of Julian’s own life. But before Julian would be definitively forced down into the murk of imperial politics, he was allowed to study further, first in Constantinople, then Nicomedia, Pergamum and Athens. It was in Constantinople and Nicomedia that Julian fell in with a group of Neoplatonists.14 At their encouragement, he went to Pergamum to Aedesius and his students Eusebius and Chrysanthius, and from them, pursuing further rumours of wisdom, he went on to Ephesus. In that city was to be found another pupil of Aedesius, the great Maximus, dialectician and theurgist, who could conjure the gods and make men divine—a sage who was himself so divine that “the very pupils of his eyes seemed winged”.15 This powerful personality overawed the young Julian as so many others. Maximus would become Julian’s guru in everything, his spiritual master to the very end.16 Maximus introduced him to the Chaldaean Oracles (a sort of Neoplatonic scripture). Maximus initiated him into the rites of Hecate and perhaps Mithras. Most important of all, it was Maximus who initiated him into the writings of Iamblichus, the “divine” Iamblichus “whom next to the gods I [Julian] revere and admire, yes, equally with Plato and Aristotle”.17 Thus, under the guidance of Maximus and Aedesius, Julian adopted an Iamblichean strain of the evolving Neoplatonic system. In particular, he

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 119

05/10/2011 07:05

120

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

subscribed to the importance that Maximus and others laid on religious cult as the means of reuniting the soul with the divine. The theory, in general, is that all natural entites are bound together in sympathy, and that particular objects contain traces of the lower gods, the higher hypostases and even of the most profound reality, the One. The true philosopher can recognize these traces, can “awaken” the divinity implicit in them and thereby make the god manifest. The most celebrated illustration is the story of how Maximus conducted rites in which he induced a statue of Hecate to laugh and her torches to blaze up spontaneously; under Maximus’ encouragement, the goddess “awoke”, was made present to the worshippers and even made one with them in a moment of sacred union.18 Thus, theurgists like Maximus insisted that sacred acts, properly conducted, had the highest philosophical efficacy; union with the divine is gained not by argument alone, but primarily by prayer and ritual motions. Iamblichus and his followers rejected Plotinus’ narrower concentration on argument and dialectic, and so too they rejected Plotinus’ notion of the “undescended soul”, by which the higher soul always remains in contact with Nous and the intelligible realm. On the contrary, they argued, the human soul “descends” in its entirety and is thoroughly enmeshed with bodily nature. No part of this soul is purely intellectual, and so the soul cannot be saved by purely intellectual means; it needs more tangible cures. Thus, the theologian may talk wisely about gods, but wiser still is the theurgist who “makes gods”, conjuring them into immediacy and making their human worshippers divine.19 Such ideas were manna for the ardent young Julian, and would inform some of his later ideas as emperor, author and pontifex maximus. The emperor’s religious role as chief priest and mediator with the divine had been recognized by Augustus, and once institutionalized the role remained ever part of the system he created. The need to secure divine patrons grew more urgent during the chaos of the third century: by the end of it, Aurelian is promoting worship of the Invincible Sun, and soon Constantine would court Apollo, Sol and, finally, Christ.20 But even in this religious age, Julian appears as an intensely religious soul. For him piety was no mere political mask. He would eventually pour out his heart in his corybantic Hymns to Helios and Hymns to the Mother of the Gods. Here and in his official acts, it is clear that the Iamblichean doctrine that all nature is pervaded by cosmic sympathy, that one event can foreshadow another and reveal the divine will, was not mere book-teaching to Julian. So too, throughout his life, he paid avid attention to portents of all kinds: dreams, flights of birds, shooting stars, an earthquake in Constantinople, the death of a lion, a thunderbolt, the fall of his horse Babylonius, the sudden deaths of associates with significant names, prophecies that he would die in Phrygia and in battle and so forth.21 There were various known means of interpreting such portents, and Julian attended to them all: flights of birds, entrails of sacrificed

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 120

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

121

animals, dreams, Sibylline and Tarquitian books, Etruscan diviners, naturalistic philosophers, as well as his own intuitions, for the gods sometimes gave him direct signs, most notably when the Genius of the Roman people appeared to him.22 Modern spectators like Voltaire have been quick to scorn all this as superstitious Schwarmerei. Yet Julian’s belief in portents and divination was standard (even among educated classes and non-mystical sorts like Ammianus) and his intense religiosity is less a sign of stupidity than of restless intelligence; not content with surface phenomena, he searched zealously for some deeper reality causing them. It is in this context that Ammianus speaks of Julian’s “omnivorous curiosity”,23 and his appetite for literature, rhetoric, Neoplatonic philosophy and polytheistic lore was indeed omnivorous. But it did not extend to logical, mathematical or scientific topics. Ever impatient, Julian was impatient of slow or indirect means to higher enlightenment. Thus he was not drawn to the more dialectical approaches of Plotinus or Eusebius, and he might well have balked at the Platonic Guardians’ ten preparatory years of geometry and mathematical astronomy. Little more than a teenager, he rushed straight at the mysteries, and it was during his period of omnivorous learning with Maximus that Julian placed his “conversion” to paganism, in 351 AD at the age of 20. Out of fear of Constantius, however, he kept his new convictions secret and ostentatiously acted out the role of a pious, even monkish Christian: the lion disguised itself as an ass, Libanius quipped.24 But the inner exaltation of those years was crushed when in November 354, Gallus was beheaded for misconduct as Caesar in the East. Suspected of collusion, Julian was summoned to court in Milan where he spent seven months in fear of his life.25 Eventually he was spared and again sent out of the way to study, this time in Athens. Here from July–October 355, he finished his more formal education, avoiding rhetoricians and anything political, and spending much of his time with the Neoplatonist Priscus, another great influence who would, with Maximus, become Julian’s closest advisor until his death. Priscus was another student of Aedesius, and through him also Julian deepened his reverence for the ancient traditions. Aedesius had studied with Iamblichus (250–325 AD), who in turn had studied with Porphry (232–305 AD), who studied with Plotinus (205–270 AD), who studied with Ammonius Saccas, and all these thinkers saw themselves as late students of the “divine Plato”, whose writings answered every question, if only they were read correctly. Plato had been an Athenian, of course, and Athens was the city of Athena, goddess of wisdom. Athens therefore would shine in Julian’s mind as the city of philosophy, and he would later write that he would have preferred staying a poor philosopher in Athens to all the pomp of the Caesars.26 A master rhetorician, Julian knew well how to lie and dissemble. But one should not be too quick to dismiss his constant assertions that his first love

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 121

05/10/2011 07:05

122

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

was philosophy, not power. To a bookish education, Julian brought his own passionate, restless imagination, and his enthusiasm for paideia never wavered, even throughout his busy reign. From 357 to 363 AD, as Caesar in Paris and Augustus in the East, Julian dashed off27 erudite and varied works that seem to have more to do with private edification and self-confirmation than with bolstering his public image. They were too erudite to appeal to any but a small audience of like-minded scholars, but to them Julian is happy to parade his impressive learning, his familiarity with much in the Greek tradition from Homer on, and his own clever adaptations of it.28 He was familiar with the Bible also, as shown by the long Scriptural interpretations in his three-volumed Against the Galilaeans. Nor was he ignorant of Roman traditions. Greek was his first language, but Latin was required in the courts and army, in both of which Julian was very active. He educated himself in Roman history in Paris and Vienne, where he read Plutarch’s Lives and Caesar’s Commentaries. Certainly his writings show some detailed historical knowledge: his Caesars is a clever history of the empire, and elsewhere he scatters his writings profusely with allusions not only to the Numas and Catos, but also to more obscure figures from the ancient Republic, like the Mucii and Curius Dentatus.29 One therefore suspects that Ammianus’ portrayal of Julian is true to character, as he plays the professor in his public speeches, haranguing hearers with moralizing comments and historical analogies, as for example in one speech where he lectures the soldiers about the glorious Eastern campaigns of Lucullus, Pompey, Mark Antony, Trajan, Lucius Verus and Septimius Severus, while glossing over that of Gordian, and omitting entirely the fatal march of Crassus.30 Many such examples prove that here was no illiterate Maximinus Thrax: well might Julian boast that he had “turned over quite as many books as any man of his own age”.31 In addition to his reading, Julian found time to produce a varied oeuvre of his own, including three royal panegyrics, two philosophical “hymns”, two orations, a symposium, a satire and letters to a wide range of recipients. Ranging from abstract argument to sublime prayer to witty spoof, these works show that Julian had literary ambitions of his own. Regarding philosophy, he modestly acknowledges that he takes his main ideas from Iamblichus and this has led many modern scholars to dismiss him as a derivative thinker. It is true that Julian was not a creative philosopher, but he was no mere copyist. He internalized the teachings of Aedesius, Maximus and Priscus, gave them a twist of his own and expressed them in his own idiosyncratic style, now systematic, now frenetic. In wide-ranging works like the Hymn to King Helios, Hymn to the Mother of the Gods, the Cynic Orations, Letter to Themistius, Caesars and Against the Galilaeans, Julian is not shy in propounding his own views about the gods, the cosmos, man’s place in it and “what is to be done” in the present juncture. Before turning to his first acts as Augustus in Constantinople, therefore, let us

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 122

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

123

dwell briefly on Julian’s more abstract works, and the metaphysical and political programme outlined in them. For despite Julian’s impatient, even frenetic style, beneath his digressions and weakness for allusion, there is a unifying vision which Julian was struggling to articulate systematically—for himself, but also for any with the patience to read him through.

Julian’s ideas Julian’s age might be described as one of faith seeking system. Certain statements were largely accepted as true: the divine exists, providentially guides nature and human affairs, so that our task is to transcend temporal imperfections to return “home” to the divine source, to “become like God”, in the influential phrase of Plato’s Theaetetus. But which God, or gods? Which gods are most real, most powerful? How do they govern the world? How best to propitiate them? What words, rites, customs and ideas give the surest ways of approaching them? Thus religious questions dominated thought, and answers came burgeoning forth in wild variety, from superstitions of magic to abstract philosophical argument. The longing to systematize these responses, to separate more from less important, and true from false, was particularly strong among the Christian communities. Through the 300s AD, ecumenical councils were called, heresies debated and tensions moderated by emperors as Constantine, Constantius and others exercised their influence to bring about some uniformity of belief and allow the orthodox to say confidently: these books are inspired, this credo interprets them correctly, these prayers work. Among pagan philosophers too, the task of extracting the most valuable insights from the different schools and relating them together in a comprehensive framework had been advanced most of all by Plotinus. The Enneads are not systematically composed, but they clearly reflect his disciplined attempt to sum up ancient wisdom, particularly that of the Stoics, Aristotle and Plato. Plotinus’ ontological hierarchy of One-Nous-Soul was immensely important for late ancient philosophy, but in the 300s AD, it was Iamblichus’ embellishment of it that was most influential in the East. Iamblichus multiplied Plotinus’ three hypostases, adding more layers to the ontological hierarchy so as to find appropriate niches for the myriad gods, demigods, demons, heroes, myths, customs and magical practices that might elevate the soul to a higher level within the divine cosmos. The framework was expansive enough to accommodate “the whole pandemonium of the dying ancient world”,32 and to ground each local rite or god in a comprehensive intellectual system. Effectively, all the ancient deities existed; every myth hallowed by time was true; every hoary ritual had some power of salvation. There was chaos in Julian’s breast too as Homer,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 123

05/10/2011 07:05

124

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Plato, Christ, Helios and others jostled for attention. As he yearned for surety, Iamblichus and Iamblicheans like Maximus seemed to speak the healing word,33 and in works like the Hymn to King Helios, Julian tried to put order on the pandemonium within, and articulate a systematic creed by which to guide his life, both as a man and a Roman emperor. This Hymn begins with a bold declaration of faith: What I am now about to say I consider to be of the greatest importance for all things ‘that breathe and move upon the earth,’ and have a share in existence and a reasoning soul and intelligence, but above all others it is of importance to myself. For I am a follower of King Helios.34

In the long explication of this theologico-political statement, Julian follows the pattern recommended by Menander for an encomium of a king (basilikos logos): describe his origin and nature first, then his virtues and powers, and finally his benefactions to his subjects.35 So Julian proceeds to divide the universe along Iamblichean lines in order to explain the substance and attributes of his god. The One or Good or Supra-Intelligible or Idea of Being (he has many names) is “King of All”, and presides ineffably over the “intelligible gods” (i.e. Plato’s Forms), bestowing on them existence, unity, beauty, perfection, power.36 The manifestation and “offspring” of the One at the next lower level is Helios, who is appointed by the One to reign as “king” over the “intellectual gods”, that is over the major deities of the Greek and other pantheons. To these gods, Helios gives existence, unity, beauty and their proper powers, so that Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, Hades, Apollo, Egyptian Serapis, Horus, the Baal of Emesa and so forth are all different manifestations of the power of their lord.37 At a lower level still, the sun rules over the “visible gods” (earth, moon, stars, heavens) as their “king”, determining their orbits, as well as day and night, the seasons and all life and growth. Thus the Neoplatonic trinity of ontological domains is each ruled by its own “king” whose beneficent influence pervades each level, vivifying, unifying, beautifying. The One, Helios and visible sun have generous natures, and serve as unstinting patrons for their followers—as one might expect of any monarch. Helios (Julian argues) is the most important of these different gods for mankind because he mediates between the One and the intellectual cosmos, and the lower, physical realm—a belief that he breathlessly summarizes in several passages.38 Through Helios flows the blessing influence of the One, cause of unity and existence; through him as a sort of Demiurge, the “intelligible gods” or Ideas are instantiated into matter;39 and through him, the “intellectual gods” are set in motion, resulting in all that is good for mankind. On Helios the mediator and benefactor, Julian lavishes most attention, and among the many

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 124

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

125

benefactions this “king of all” bestows are the following: he created human beings and nourishes them; he educates them in astronomy, philosophy and much else; in his guise as Aphrodite, he instituted procreative sex; or as father of Asclepius “the saviour”, he provides medicine and health; as Apollo, he founded oracles and cities, gave laws and rituals and is thus (Julian argues at length) the ultimate archēgos of Rome, for Rome’s founders, customs and laws were originally Greek.40 Furthermore, Rome is the “royal, reigning city” and Julian has been placed by Helios into a “house that rules and governs the world in my time”.41 Implicitly, then, Julian places himself in an august line of kings both temporal and spiritual; as follower of King Helios, midmost god of the universe, mediator between the One and nature, Julian implies that he too should strive to link man and the gods, bestowing unity and other blessings “downwards” upon his subjects, and inspiring them to rise “upwards” to the divine that is their common source and destiny. The Hymn to King Helios is an intensely personal statement in which Julian justifies his own devotion by elaborating on familiar texts from Plato’s Republic and Timaeus.42 It does not dwell so much on its political ramifications, but in other works Julian does expand on his conceptions of philosophy, kingship and philosophical kingship. Let us first look briefly at the Letter to the Uneducated Cynics. The point of the Letter is to criticize some uncouth Cynics for assuming that Cynicism signifies nothing but cheap living, rejecting custom and mocking authority: this ignoble attitude launches Julian into a harangue about the nature and essential unity of all philosophy. “Even as truth is one, so too philosophy is one.”43 By way of proof, Julian sweeps through a gamut of definitions of philosophy—as art of arts, science of sciences, self-knowledge, “reforming the currency”, the “practice of death” and the attempt to “become like God”. All seem different, and the various philosophies seem just as divided by the different ends they seek: truth, self-knowledge, eudaimonia, apatheia, a “life according to nature” or, again, “likeness unto God”.44 But (Julian explains) to gain any of these fully is to gain them all: beneath the seeming diversity of phrases and sects, there is in fact one, true philosophy. To know oneself fully, for example, is to know the “god within”, and so to shuffle off this mortal “envelope”, and exchange the life of the body for that of the soul and even for that which “exists in us nobler and more divine than the soul”; thus, whether Platonist, Peripatetic or Cynic, the sage will live by nous and even beyond it, in a sort of “silent reason”.45 So Julian regards all the major philosophies as variations on the Neoplatonic synthesis. If this is true in general, it should be true of Cynicism in particular, and the second half of the Letter sets out to prove just that.46 Most important in Julian’s mind is that the early Cynics (and therefore truest representatives of their sect) were not raving scoffers like Oenomaus. Rather, they were servants

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 125

05/10/2011 07:05

126

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

of the gods. Crates’ poems are quoted to show he was a devotee of Hermes and the Muses. Diogenes is brought forth as one who made Apollo’s oracle the rule of his life.47 Thus, Apollo established Cynicism as a holy thing, “in some ways a universal philosophy”.48 Once again in Julian’s mind, Helios-Apollo becomes the “cause of all the blessings that the Greeks enjoy, the universal leader, lawgiver and king of Hellas”.49 In turn, Cynic followers of Apollo have a “regal magnanimity”: they disdain the mob with its love of pleasure and wealth; they cultivate the divine soul within; they chastise pretender-kings like Alexander; they even provide an example to true kings like Julian, who was known for his Cynic-like beard, frugality, parrhēsia and celibacy.50 In all this, Julian may project his own religiosity onto the Cynics: their asceticism becomes not antinomian, but otherworldly in intent. For Julian, following Iamblichus, the highest virtue is not self-sufficiency but the “unitive” and “priestly” virtue that binds one to the ineffable One: ultimately for Julian, the philosopher, even the Cynic tramp, is a kind of priest.51 Julian’s other piece on Cynicism, the Letter to Heraclius (c. March 362 AD) is even more partisan. It seems that Heraclius recited irreverent myths about Pan and Zeus in the court’s presence. The emperor fumed inwardly but kept his calm. Later he wrote this treatise to enlighten Heraclius on his errors. The Cynics are free speakers, Heraclius should remember, and therefore have no need to veil their words in myths. Among Julian’s many musings, those on the importance of myth are particularly interesting. Myth is a perennial human activity (he writes), an incipient form of wisdom, and a necessary means to enlighten the masses “who cannot receive divine truths in their purest forms”.52 Orpheus, Plato, Antisthenes, Xenophon all used myths to educate others morally and intellectually. So too Julian instructs Heraclius on how he might exercise his reason by discerning the inner truth of myths about Heracles and Dionysus. More interestingly still, Julian proceeds to try his own hand as a myth-maker, taking up Prodicus’ famous “Choice of Heracles” to make an allegory about his own reign.53 Once upon a time, a rich but ignorant landowner (i.e. Constantine) had many wives and sons, all as vicious as he. When the father died, they fought with each other, killed relatives, divided up the inheritance and went on greedily to strip the ancient temples of their wealth and to raise up “tombs” in their place. Zeus looked down on all this, and in his concern for mankind called upon Helios. He pointed to one child, a nephew of the rich landowner, and in fact the offspring of Helios himself who bore a spark of his divine being. Let Helios take this child aside from the chaos of the times, and with Athena educate him and “clothe him in might”. They did so, and after years of isolation, the youth was guided by Hermes through a desert to the mountain of the gods. There Zeus granted him a vision of Helios himself, radiant and bright. Helios took him still higher and showed him the whole earth, now ruled

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 126

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

127

by his cousin (i.e. Constantius II) who was surrounded by corrupt ministers and oblivious in his godless hedonism. Would the youth obey Zeus’ command and oust his cousin? At first the youth is afraid, but soon he obeys. He is given a torch, arms, a herald’s golden staff and much wise advice. He is told to avoid flatterers, find true friends, love his subjects as the gods love him, cherish his relation with them above all else and remember that he has an “immortal soul that is our offspring and that if you follow us you shall be a god and with us shall behold our father”.54 In this adaptation of the “Choice of Heracles”, Julian himself plays Heracles, trained by the gods to choose kingship and piety over pleasure and “atheism”. The allegory was a hallowed one, used by Xenophon, Dio, Themistius and Maximus of Tyre.55 Even more hallowed was the figure of Heracles, long taken by philosophers as their paradigm for virtue, and used also by royal propagandists as an exemplar for their “toil-loving” kings who happily endured labours to serve their people. Most recently, Diocletian had styled himself Jovianus and dubbed his Caesar Maximian Herculius, thus proclaiming that Maximian would execute the high designs of his Augustus, and clear the earth of dangers. Recently also, the versatile Themistius—Peripatetic, orator, senator and advisor to six emperors through the third century—had encouraged Julian to compare himself with Heracles and Dionysus, who “being at once philosophers and kings, purged almost the whole earth and sea of the evils that infested them”.56 Themistius was writing to Julian in his role as new Caesar, or new Augustus. Regardless, Julian’s reply in the Letter to Themistius offers another window on Julian’s understanding of the duties of kingship. To Themistius’ conventional flattery of him as a philosopher-king, Julian replies by dwelling on the demands of office. How could he rival leaders like Solon, Pittacus or Lycurgus?57 And, seeing how Fortune so confuses political events, should he not remember the fates of Dion and Cato?58 Given the power of fortune, political success requires powers more than human. Only god can really be king, and therefore for much of the letter, Julian comments on Laws 709b–c and Plato’s myth in the Statesman. These passages agree that it is best to be ruled directly by a divine mind, and so Julian infers that “even though a prince be by nature human, he must in his conduct be divine and a demi-god and must completely banish from his soul all that is mortal and brutish, except what must remain to safeguard the needs of the body”.59 Similar conclusions result from his meditations on definitions of law. For Plato, law is “distribution of mind”, and for Aristotle, “reason exempt from desire”.60 Both sages thus attribute true law to God alone—or to a god-like philosopher who has been purified of lower ambitions, who knows the “essential nature of justice” and can therefore make laws that are not ad hoc responses to individual events but rational rules with universal scope.61 Laws like this are extremely difficult to frame, and Julian recalls the anecdote told

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 127

05/10/2011 07:05

128

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

in Plutarch’s Life how even Solon, for all his wisdom, did not foresee how his friends might abuse his debt laws. The meandering Letter thus expresses Julian’s high conception of kingship, and his doubts as to his own capacities for it.62 The Letter to Themistius is an earlier expression, when Julian was yet unused to power. He shows far greater confidence in his Caesars. The dramatic setting here is the Saturnalia. Romulus has invited the gods to a symposium, and after dinner, as was customary, they have some sport and decide to see who was the best emperor of the Romans. In deliberating about such a competition, they recognized that they cannot exclude that great exemplar, Alexander; to simplify matters, they narrow the field down to the greatest warriors, Alexander, Caesar, Octavian, Trajan; and finally, at Cronos’ intervention, they agree to include one philosopher, Marcus Aurelius. The field is complete and the competition begins. To impress the gods, the warrior-kings swagger and boast but only Marcus keeps his speech short and reverent, and only he shows how he transcended the narrow ambitions of the other kings: Alexander’s goal was to conquer the world, Caesar’s to be first in Rome, Octavian’s to govern well (a goal he cannot define further), Trajan’s to rival Alexander and Constantine’s to “get a lot and give my friends a good time”.63 Thus Julian cannot resist a dig at the hated Constantine, as he proceeds to transform Marcus into an almost Neoplatonic emperor. Marcus’ ambition was to “imitate the gods”, that is “to have the fewest possible needs and do good to the greatest possible number”,64 an ideal quite compatible with Stoic professions. But Julian makes Marcus thin, ascetic, ethereal, effectively a holy man who in his likeness to the gods is above criticism, so that before him even Silenus loses his sneer. Thus Marcus wins handily. The symposium ends with each emperor choosing a guardian deity. Marcus chooses Zeus and Cronos, Alexander Heracles, Caesar Ares and Aphrodite, Trajan Alexander, while Constantine choses Pleasure, Incontinence and their crier Jesus. Julian himself is assigned Mithras.65 This final scene is reminiscent of a passage from the myth of the Phaedrus in which each human type finds the divine model best suited to his nature, and in fact, Julian himself compares Caesars to one of Plato’s myths:66 the details should be taken light-heartedly but not the serious truth beneath. In sum, the Hymn to King Helios, Letter to Themistius and Caesars offer various angles on Julian’s conception of kingship. Caesar, Augustus, Trajan and other emperors are to be admired, but Alexander’s courage and Marcus’ all-round virtue are especially exemplary.67 Onto Marcus, Julian projects his own Neoplatonic religiosity, but he retains Marcus’ admiration for parrhēsia and insistence on his own all-too-human status. The emperor is a human among humans, and yet the first of them, as he strives upwards to be a godlike mediator with the divine. None of these ideas are radically new, yet this is the first time they are fully articulated by an emperor.68 Moreover, Julian is the first Platonist to rule in the light of these ideas. Virtue is godliness, and

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 128

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

129

throughout his reign, Julian strove to present himself as a paragon of all virtues: as reformer and princeps of the Senate he exemplifies temperance; as judge he presents himself as justice incarnate; as pontifex maximus he embodies piety, perhaps even theurgical wisdom; and finally as imperator he is the “best” of the Romans in courage and valour. Not content as a scholar, writer and thinker, Julian frenetically attempted to be the complete emperor—legislator, priest, soldier.69 An excitable man, Julian may have become distracted in his goals and self-image. But another possibility is that his seemingly disparate activities were united by his self-understanding as a reforming philosopher-king: in his mind, he was a servant of King Helios, who had preserved him, educated him, given him a glimpse of the One from which all goods come and armed him as champion and priest, to restore the ancient temples and revive the piety of the “Hellenes”.70 To restore polytheism before its Christian critics became Julian’s one great “Good”, which he struggled to advance, by fair means and foul, in his short time as emperor in three places: Constantinople, Antioch and on campaign in Mesopotamia.

Constantinople In Vienne, before his final break with Constantius, Julian continued to conceal his polytheism, and went to Mass. But he secretly raged against Christianity as the root of all evil. The Christians denied the other gods, refused to sacrifice to wooden or marble idols and would not even eat the sacrificial meat that had been offered up to demons. Standing scornfully aloof from the culture of festivals, games and emperor-worship, they also sinned against Neoplatonic sensibilities that drew strict divisions between ontological levels. For Julian, any right-thinking person would agree with Plato’s maxim that “god and mortals do not mix”, and that mortals may become heroic and god-like, but not actual immortal gods. So Julian reasoned that Jesus, if he was not a magician, charlatan or sophist, might have been like Heracles, a man become god-like in his superlative virtue. So too, Julian assumed, Christian relics might have some divine power, as when the bones of the martyr Bibylas disturbed the oracle at Daphne near Antioch. But to transform Jesus, a mere man, into the highest divinity was shocking to Julian’s mind. Such theological errors were compounded by his own sense of hurt: he remembered Constantius’ reign of terror over his family; he regretted the closing of temples by Constantius, and desecration by Christian mobs of shrines long hallowed by time, and beautified by art and poetry. Given all this, Julian feared that the Christians’ “atheism” (as he called it) would alienate the old gods, stop up the flow of divine patronage and ruin the empire. He had seen ruin in Gaul; he thought he saw ruin emanating from the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 129

05/10/2011 07:05

130

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Christian courts of Constantine and Constantius. It is highly significant, then, that perhaps Julian’s first act as emperor was to drop the mask of the religion of his birth and family. He professed his polytheism openly, took the title pontifex maximus, led the army in sacrificing hecatombs of oxen and set about making “all things pure”.71 This process of purification continued in a different way in Constantinople where Julian reformed the royal court, curtailed government expenses and made attempts to decentralize power to a certain extent, and so breathe new life into the curials, the city-states and local civic patriotism. Since his time in Gaul, Julian himself had lived frugally,72 and as Augustus, he brought his philosophical austerity to the Court. In Constantinople, he dismissed thousands of the eunuchs, barbers, doorkeepers, cooks, courtiers, petty bureaucrats, spies and secretaries who Libanius says had swarmed about Constantius, as thick as flies in early spring. Here was a radical attempt at reform. In response to the military crises of the third century, emperors spent less time in Rome, more in Trier, Milan, Aquileia, Sirmium, Nicomedia, Antioch and other cities close to the threatened frontiers. With them went all the essential personnel of imperial government, now called the castra to commemorate its military origins. Diocletian surrounded himself with extraordinary pomp and ceremonial, and from his reign, the emperor was no longer princeps, “first” of the Senate, but dominus, “master”. In the empire now constituted as a “Dominate”, power radiated from the emperor through circles of advisors and courtiers—the praetorian prefects, chamberlain, bodyguard, eunuchs, barbers and all other hangers-on. Such concentrations of power and wealth could bring corruption, and Ammianus draws a lurid picture of Constantius’ court, arguing that the example of the imperial elite corrupted others, including the soldiers, who grew “brutal and greedy in their behaviour to their own people, and weak and cowardly in the face of the enemy”.73 Among Julian’s first acts as Augustus was to command his soldiers not to plunder fellow citizens as they marched through Dacia, and in Constantinople he shook the drones from their honey pots.74 Out went the eunuchs and barbers. In their place, he kept a few personal friends, such as Priscus and Maximus,75 his physician Oreibasius and Mardonius, his childhood tutor. His immediate entourage, then, was relatively small: he says that he entered Antioch with only six followers. This seems an exaggeration, but he clearly brought to office the public-spirited temperance of Plato’s “watchdogs”—living in relative poverty himself, and guarding the people’s wealth. A related move was his programme of economic austerity. He often resisted bringing in new taxes, and in several cases, remitted taxes and cancelled city debts altogether.76 The aurum coronarium was made voluntary, properties were restored to cities, the imperial courier system was more tightly regulated so as

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 130

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

131

to alleviate the cost to cities and so forth. While central administration was curtailed, the size of city-councils was increased, and various exemptions to serving on them were repealed. Among the latter were exemptions granted by Constantine to Church clergy, leading some wealthy men to become priests rather than city officials; Constantius reinstated exemptions like these, but the anti-Christian Julian largely ended them. Thus, while some of Julian’s measures may be explained as the largesse of a new emperor, more generally they indicate Julian’s desire to restore the empire of the Antonines, and the vibrant life of the cities which he recognized as the soil of classical religion, literature and art. For the growth of an imperial bureaucracy and an imperial Church was attracting talent and wealth away from the cities, and so draining polytheistic culture of its life blood. In a more centralized empire, the decurion class were finding it less honourable, and even less possible, to fund the festivals and sacrifices, the expensive leitourgia that had been the pride of the pagan polis.77 One cause, therefore, for the decline of polytheism was economic and social. If Julian recognized this long-term change, he was shrewd. Certainly, his attempts to decentralize and promote the old spirit of philotimia and civic euergetism seem designed to promote the conditions in which local pagan rituals could thrive again. The best evidence that this was part of Julian’s overall thinking is from his Misopōgōn and his hopes for Antioch, to which we will return shortly. In addition to theologico-economic measures, Julian prided himself on his competence as a judge and legislator, and his understanding of the need to be a servant of the old, true ways. Thus, in Constantinople, he modestly heard cases in the Senate house, and once fined himself for breaking official protocol.78 His pride is summed up in his fondness for the conceit that “the ancient goddess of Justice, who, according to Aratus, fled to heaven in disgust at the wickedness of mankind, had returned to earth during his reign”.79 The conceit would almost make Julian animate law, the law incarnate—and a potential tyrant. Ammianus, however, is emphatic in his praise of Julian’s conscientiousness. If he is a fair witness, it would seem that Julian did strive conscientiously to judge according to objective standards. Scrupulous and self-critical, he took time to ascertain facts, and tried to counteract his own impatience, excitability and hatred of Christianity so that the law might be justly applied, even when Christians were party to the case; only rarely did he bend the law to fit his own inclinations.80 If Ammianus’ praise rings true, it would seem that Julian did at least strive to live by his professions in the Letter to Themistius: a king ought to attain a godlike mind “without passion”. This brings us to his all-important religious legislation. In 356 AD Constantius had decreed that pagan temples be closed and the “madness” of sacrifice ended. Julian cancelled this law and set measures for the temples to be restored with public money, thus reversing the flow of imperial patronage

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 131

05/10/2011 07:05

132

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

away from Christian churches. In addition, he revived Constantine’s Edict of Milan and proclaimed general religious toleration. This included all Christian sects also, and so in a specific law Julian allowed all exiled Christians to return to their cities. Beneath the guise of toleration, Julian’s design may have been to exacerbate the schisms within the Christian communities, already troubled by heresy and doctrinal factions.81 If he thus sought to promote the conditions for polytheism (including perhaps a plurality of Christianities) in accordance with his Neoplatonic tenets, then he was not quite “without passion” in applying the law to the case of Athanasius. Athanasius had been exiled by the Arian Constantius, but under the new law he returned to Alexandria and was rapturously reinstated as bishop, to Julian’s consternation. Julian wrote a rescript arguing that the law allowed exiles to return to their city, but not to their former positions. So Athanasius went back into exile due to a legalistic quibble. Whether driven by fear, jealousy or sheer bloody-mindedness, Julian had bent the law to punish a single individual—hardly a just ruling. Ruses to divide and conquer Christians were paralleled by ambitious plans to provide amorphous polytheism with structured institutions of its own. Julian appointed regional “high priests” for various provinces, and in one letter, he seems to outline what effectively would be a pagan Church, complete with its own theology, creed, canonical texts, trained priesthood and pagan Pope.82 Julian here may borrow from Christian episcopal organization, but he is learned enough to find Greek and specifically Platonic colouring for much of what he says. The letter works systematically from first principles down to detailed directives for priestly education and conduct. Most basically then, God or Zeus is not a jealous god but loves mankind, and so following the fundamental duty to be godlike, people should practise philanthropy.83 This is the chief of the virtues, and in order to attain it fully, the priest should make himself perfect, inside and out. Very different from the more casual pagan priests of the past who might be elected to office temporarily and need not be distinguished morally, Julian’s priests are to be moral exemplars. They must have committed no crimes, must shun theatres and the games,84 think pure thoughts, avoid lewd authors like Archilochus and Aristophanes and steep themselves instead in factual histories, inspired hymns and approved authorities like Pythagoras, Plato and the Stoics.85 Plato had warned in the Republic that ideas and mental images affect external actions. Julian echoes the thought when he writes that “words breed a certain sort of disposition in the soul, and little by little arouse desires, and then on a sudden kindle a terrible blaze, against which one ought, in my opinion, to arm oneself well in advance”.86 To this same end of inner purity, priests should pray three times daily, or at least in the morning and evening.87 On holy days, they should avoid the marketplace and magistrates, read philosophy to ready their souls for the sacrifice, and then don magnificent apparel in honour of the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 132

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

133

gods whose shrines they are about to enter. On other days, the priest can wear ordinary clothes, go to the agora sometimes, advise magistrates, visit friends and even attend feasts of “persons of the highest character”.88 But they are to remain a people apart, appointed not for their wealth or family background but because of their exceptional love for the gods and mankind.89 This last, dual requirement is astonishingly reminiscent of Christ’s command, “love God and love thy neighbour as thyself ”. Indeed, Julian’s pagan pastors will shepherd their flock, sacrificing and praying “on behalf of all men”, and like their Christian doubles, they will enjoy high status. The people will revere them as closer to the divine, and the state too will honour its priests even more highly than civil magistrates: sacred law should guide political law as the soul guides the body.90 Uniting the roles of priest and magistrate is the emperor himself, as archiereus megistos or pontifex maximus.91 Plato’s Magnesia, too, was a kind of theocracy as was the kallipolis, though Plato’s Guardians, choruses and directors of education were arguably less pious in the hieratic mode of Julian’s ideal priests. But, mutatis mutandis, one recognizes a similar desire for a philosophical state that monopolizes mediation with the divine. In the same letter, then, Julian follows Plato’s lead in discussing the proper place of myths, rituals, temples and religious art, which need to be overseen if the distractible majority is to access the divine. For instance, Julian spends time discussing the ontological status of religious objects, a burning question of the day, both theoretically and practically. Iamblichus had stated that the divine is not actually present in physical statues, but followers like Maximus disagreed. More urgently, many shrines and statues had been destroyed under Constantius, and so it was asked: when their houses are burnt, do the gods also die, flee or otherwise disappear? Has Christ routed the old demons? Julian reassures his flock: statues are neither gods nor mere “stocks and stones”, but “symbols of the presence of the gods”.92 Their destruction does not harm the gods themselves but they should nonetheless be revered as a mediated form of divinity. Another form of mediation is myth. As we have seen, Julian became Platonic myth-maker in his Caesars and Letter to Heraclius. The Letter to a Priest implicitly defends such innovations with the Platonic argument that since only philosophers know the truth, only they can make true images of the divine. The corollary to this is that non-philosophical people, like the Jews, have not depicted God accurately. So in Against the Galilaeans, Julian thunders against the Jewish prophets for making Yahweh a jealous god. So be it, writes Julian, but then Yahweh cannot be the high god, for jealousy is wholly alien to the divine nature, as Plato in his greater wisdom knew. As for Christians, Julian was infuriated by their rejection of ancestral Judaism, their claims to possess the universal religion and their identification of the High God with a mere mortal. Here was an upstart religion of ignorant commoners who

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 133

05/10/2011 07:05

134

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

dared to substitute the Gospel for Homer, Hesiod and Plato. An intuitive propagandist, Julian sought to condense his critique into a single, scornful label: he refers to Christians as “Galilaeans”, to convey his notion that this religion was just the local superstition of some craftsmen and fishermen from a poor part of Judaea, so obviously to be disdained by respectable “Hellenes”.93

Antioch Such a half-reasoned, half-fanatical hatred of Christianity led Julian to proclaim a series of educational edicts, perhaps the most important and cunning of his religious laws. It was in Antioch in May and June of 362 AD that he issued two edicts, ruling that “all masters and teachers be patterns not less of morality than of eloquence”, and that they should be examined by the city councils and approved by the emperor himself. The edicts are short and rather cryptic, so further clarification was provided in Epistle  36. This rescript contains a long, philosophical preamble justifying the ban on Christians teaching pagan literature. Education (it asserts) aims not merely at eloquence and erudition but at the training of character. Its goal is virtue, that is personal integrity and harmony between one’s inner ideas and external actions. But those who have no integrity themselves cannot impart it to others. Therefore, Julian reasons, those Christians who teach Homer’s eloquence but anathematize Homer’s gods are hypocrites. They cannot be moral teachers, having shown themselves to be mere sophists, low retail-traders who will sell and say anything for a profit. The ideas Julian draws on are common ones, but his language has a Platonic tinge.94 [I]f in matters of the greatest importance a man has certain opinions and teaches the contrary, what is that but the conduct of hucksters (kapēloi), and not honest but thoroughly dissolute men in that they praise most highly the things that they believe to be most worthless, thus cheating and enticing by their praises those to whom they desire to transfer their worthless wares. Now all who profess to teach anything whatever ought to be men of upright character, and ought not to harbour in their souls opinions irreconcilable with what they publicly profess . . . . Was it not the gods who revealed all their learning to Homer, Hesiod, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates and Lysias? Did not these men think that they were consecrated, some to Hermes, others to the Muses? I think it is absurd that men who expound the works of these writers should dishonour the gods whom they used to honour.95

Unprincipled, mercenary sophists—such are the Christian teachers of pagan literature, in Julian’s view. The argument highlights his curious mix of rationality

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 134

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

135

and righteous self-deception. The Christian schools were not in fact churning out hypocrites, sophists and criminals; nor were Christians like Saints Gregory and Basil (who also studied in Athens) reducing the Greek classics to showy, rhetorical shells, empty of meaning. On the other hand, Julian asks rhetorically: “Was it not the gods who revealed all their learning to Homer, Hesiod, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates and Lysias? Did not these men think that they were consecrated, some to Hermes, others to the Muses?” The statement captures succinctly how closely Julian followed Iamblichus, and even Porphyry, in equating pagan polytheism with Greek paideia: wisdom and knowledge are divine gifts, and so the gods were the inspiration for the great poets, historians, orators and philosophers. For Julian, Homer sang the Iliad because he was a “priest” of the Muses, and Thucydides wrote his history under the inspiration of Clio. It is naive of course to take the pagan tradition as a consistent whole: Julian glosses over Hesiod’s wild stories of the gods, Thucydides’ studious avoidance of the divine, not to mind the severe philosophical criticisms of polytheism from Xenophanes down to Plato himself.96 All this is passed over in the righteous zeal to make polytheistic belief the sole basis of Greek literature and wisdom. Again, the gods are the source of all blessings, and Julian hopes that restoring the spirit of paganism to the schools will return citizens to the ancient pieties that inspired the classics and grounded every virtue. The rescript is a curious document, well-written, plausible, even reasonable at first glance. Together the education decrees demonstrate a remarkable mixture of political idealism and cunning. Julian probably reckoned that children of Christian families who studied with pagan teachers would be gently persuaded to love the old gods and the beautiful literature they had inspired, and so would eventually be educated in piety as well as eloquence. On the other hand, Christian children who were not sent to study the pagan classics but had “to betake themselves to the churches of the Galilaeans to expound Matthew and Luke” would be effectively barred from the education that conferred high status. Julian may thus have hoped to push the Christian faith back to the lower classes, among the carpenters and tent-makers where he felt it belonged. Julian opted for persuasion rather than the open force used by persecutors like Maximinus Thrax, Decius, Valerian, Diocletian, Galerius and Maximinus Daia. Nevertheless, the education decrees were feared by Christian contemporaries, and Julian has been reviled in Christian history as a persecutor, albeit a mild one.97 And persuasion was in fact Julian’s preferred policy. He argued in person with individual Christians, trying to make them see the error of their ways, and wrote fervent tracts to instruct a wider audience. In this, he acted only like Plato’s Demiurge, using persuasive reason and even “noble lies” to promote

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 135

05/10/2011 07:05

136

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

the good. The education decree, in particular, exemplifies the legal ideals he explores in his Letter to Themistius: here was a law grounded in first principles, enacted for all peoples and all times, by a legislator free of passion, who looked “up” to the “essential nature of justice” and to the reasonable demand that teachers be honest, and then looked “down” to find the best means of promoting the good amid the complexities of the 360s AD. This was not some mere ad hoc response to events but a law of universal scope, grounded in the very nature of things, intended to last as long as the cosmos itself. Again, all blessings (including Hellenic paideia) flow down from the gods, and so this law would ensure that the subjects of the empire would be educated in this great truth, or at least not be blinded to it. Julian was only preserving the gods’ proper honour, and promoting the good of his people, pagan and Christian alike: surely nobody could oppose the idea of integrity among teachers of the young? One can detect a similar strain of self-righteousness and sophistical pleading in that other remarkable piece composed in Antioch, the Misopōgōn. Julian was in Antioch from 18 July 362 until 5 March 363, a period of some eight months which he spent preparing for the coming Persian campaign, listening to law cases, legislating, overseeing the chicaneries of the grain market and furiously writing a series of astonishingly varied works, including the Hymn to King Helios. Most of all, Julian’s mind was bent on the all-inclusive “Good” of restoring pagan piety under an Iamblichean framework. Constantius’ decree of 356 had led to the closing of many temples in Antioch, including the temples to Zeus, Demeter, Tyche, as well as the famous temple to Apollo, built six miles from Antioch, on the very spot (it was said) where Daphne had escaped Apollo’s embraces by being transformed into a laurel tree. Julian had all these temples reopened. When he first went out to the restored temple of Apollo, the servant of King Helios was fervent with hope. The shrine was magnificent, the Arian tyrant was gone, people could worship freely again. Surely they would return, old and young, rich and poor, philosophers and plebs alike, in a show of solidarity and public-spiritedness, crowded around the altar of the god, who was their benefactor? Accordingly I hastened there from the temple of Zeus Kasios, thinking that at Daphne, if anywhere, I should enjoy the sight of your wealth and public spirit. And I imagined in my own mind the sort of procession it would be, like a man seeing visions in a dream, beasts for sacrifice, libations, choruses in honor of the god, incense, and the youths of your city there surrounding the shrine, their souls adorned with all the holiness and themselves attired in white and splendid raiment. But when I entered the shrine I found there no incense, not so much as a cake, not a single beast for sacrifice. For the moment I was amazed and thought that I was still outside the shrine and that you were waiting the signal from me, doing me that

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 136

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

137

honour because I am supreme pontiff. But when I began to inquire what sacrifice the city intended to offer to celebrate the annual festival in honour of the god, the priest answered, ‘I have brought with me from my own house a goose as an offering to the god, but the city this time has made no preparations’.98

Faced with such apathy, Julian tried to set an example in his role as pontifex maximus. He rushed from temple to temple, offering endless animal sacrifices, sometimes killing “a hundred bulls and countless other animals, as well as white birds, for which he combed land and sea”. He led the sacrifices himself, and was happy to do the most menial tasks, including gathering firewood for the sacred fire. In this, he was acting not only as chief priest of the empire, but also as chief Iamblichean philosopher, perhaps even hoping to imitate the theurgic practice of Maximus and bring the people to some deeper union with the divine.99 But most of the Antiochenes did not care, for various reasons. First, Antioch was one of the great centres of Christianity, along with Jerusalem, Alexandria and Rome. St Peter had founded the church here, St Paul had preached for eight years here (47–55 AD), and the intensity of religious argument here had given rise to several heresies. To early Christians, animal sacrifice to “demons” was particularly offensive, and so to Christian Antiochenes Julian’s actions were deeply provocative. At the same time Antioch was a rich, cosmopolitan city, with athletic games, hippodrome and theatre, and it enjoyed long notoriety as a pleasure-loving city. True to form, these irreverent Antiochenes had their fun with Julian. They jeered at him in the streets and marketplace. They called him a monkey, dwarf, goat (because of his philosopher’s beard); they mocked him for carrying sacred implements as if he were a servant priest; worst of all, they called him a butcher and axe-man for all his gory sacrifices.100 Emperors should be indeed closer to the divine, but for him to drench the altars and his person in blood was a dubious form of holiness. Julian’s vast sacrifices caused some to recall the lines once written to tease Marcus Aurelius: “The white cattle to Marcus. Greetings. If you win a victory, we are finished”. Disapproval spread even among Julian’s pagan admirers. Ammianus, for one, deplored how the sacrifices came at “a heavy cost hitherto quite unheard of ”, and how the only people really to benefit were the legionaries and auxiliaries, who gorged themselves on the free meat, and shamed themselves by drinking and fighting in the streets.101 Despite the open abuse, Julian did not take his revenge on the Antiochenes by sending in the troops.102 With a more philosophical restraint, he replied by writing Misopōgōn or “Beard Hater”, an idiosyncratic and highly original satire in which Julian refrains from mocking the Antiochenes in return and instead joins them in lampooning himself. Taking their side, he makes fun of his own beard, his austerity, his love of learning, his boredom at the games, his liberality,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 137

05/10/2011 07:05

138

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

his public-spiritedness in distributing grain and all the rest of his ridiculous philosophical virtues. At the same time, Julian has his own learned fun in assimilating the pleasure-loving Antiochenes to Plato’s libertine, “democratic men”, and their city to the “feverish city” sketched in Republic 2.103 So, in Julian’s portrayal, the Antiochenes are debauched with pleasure: they fill the city with theatres, mimes, horse races, dancers, flute-players and other unnecessary trades; they clamour for luxuries like shellfish;104 they gather in the marketplaces and theatres, shouting and clapping, as riotous as Plato’s democratic mob.105 They are no different, Julian writes, when he leads the sacrifices. They rush out to the temples to watch the show, shouting, clapping and showing no reverence for the occasion.106 In fact they have no reverence (aidōs) for any authority at all, whether gods, law, magistrates or Julian, the “guardian of the laws” (nomophylax).107 This spirit of license is so pervasive (Julian writes) that it has even infected the donkeys and camels, who wander around the porticoes, without masters to control them. So Julian cleverly adapts Socrates’ satire of democratic freedom to a trade city at the end of the Silk Road.108 In a word, Julian’s Antiochenes are intemperate, precisely in Plato’s sense of the word in the Republic, because they acknowledge no superior.109 Their intemperance is therefore akin to atheism. In this way one can see Julian’s associative imagination feverishly at work, as he underhandedly criticizes different groups under the same heading: the landowners who hoard grain and profit from their fellow-citizens’ need; the curials who shirk their civic duties; the mob who bay for handouts and spectacles; the psalm-singing Christians who mock the sacrifices—all these become hedonists and “atheists” in Julian’s mind, descendents of Antiochus the lecher-king, and as far from the Good as Plato’s hyperactive “democratic men”. For such an audience, Julian adapts his language and writes the Misopōgōn with as much light-hearted banter as he can muster, as if assuming that the best strategy would be to josh the frivolous Antiochenes back to nobler traditions. Persuasion over force again, but the piece does end with ominous ambiguity: Julian bids goodbye and hopes that the gods will give the Antiochenes recompense for the “honour” they showed him. He posted the Misopōgōn at the Tetrapylon of the Elephants, near the imperial palace where all might read it. On leaving, he appointed as governor one Alexander of Heliopolis, a brutal man who might well wink at pagan crimes against Christians, just as Julian himself had done when Christians suffered attacks in other cities.110 So Julian departed Antioch, leaving a satire and a thug as signs of his displeasure, and a warning of possible retribution to come. Recognizing the signs, Libanius hurriedly composed two orations, one to Julian, the other to the foolish Antiochenes, to try to build bridges.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 138

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

139

Mesopotamia What were Julian’s motives when he set out from Antioch on 5 March 363 AD, at the head of a huge army of perhaps 80–90,000 men, to invade the Sassanian empire, in obstinate disregard of Sassanian attempts at diplomacy? Revenge, adventure, glory was Ammianus’ guess, and the episode has perplexed historians ever since.111 Certainly Julian began the campaign conscious of many past victories. In Gaul, the bookish young Caesar proved a surprisingly brave and possibly shrewd general. Ammianus relays his battles in the “grand style”, as if they were the stuff of epic. The decisive battle took place in August 357 near Strasbourg. Here seven kings had assembled their armies, and leading the seven was Chnodomar, huge and tall, fierce in the memory of many victories, who “rode with a flame-coloured plume on his head before the left wing, where he thought the battle would be hottest”.112 For much of the day they fought shield to shield and man to man, the Germans wild with battle-fury, the Romans silent but staunch. The valley resounded with the shouts of men killing and being killed, and a great dust cloud arose.113 Suddenly, on the right, the Roman cavalry fled in panic, but just as suddenly there was Julian galloping to the scene, barring the way with his spear, from which the imperial pennant fluttered, emblazoned with a purple dragon.114 Julian’s bravery won the day. Victory brought peace to Gaul, secured the Rhine frontier for some 50 years and allowed Julian to take the offensive against the German tribes. Julian’s Letter to the Athenians proudly catalogues his accomplishments in Gaul, and trumpets how he crossed the Rhine three times and restored almost 40 cities.115 Readers might remember that Julius Caesar had crossed the river only twice. Here then was a man who to men like Ammianus was the “best” of the Romans. Success made Julian popular with his troops also. At first, they had called the bearded philosopher a goat, a talking mole, a “degenerate Greekling from Asia and a liar and a fool who pretended to be wise”. But he acted as a fellow soldier, a man among men, and so they soon came to obey him enthusiastically, and served without pay, out of “love for their commander”.116 By 360, they trusted enough in his abilities and good fortune to acclaim him Augustus. Along with personal bravery, Julian prided himself on combining speed with preparation, like Alexander and Caesar: witness his forays across the Rhine; his lightning march, with few men, against Constantius; his descent into Thrace when he “seemed almost to fly through the air like a second Triptolemus”;117 and later, in 363, the fast march south-east into Mesopotamia, after seven month’s preparation in Antioch.118 Unlike Marcus, Julian was less willing to delegate; if at first in Gaul he deferred to his generals, he also learned on the job, and some of his tactical tricks were picked up from his own reading.119 He was no poser, however, and Ammianus, a professional soldier, praises him unequivocally as “a commander versed in both the practice and the theory of war”.120

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 139

05/10/2011 07:05

140

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

In Ammianus’ narrative of the final campaign, it is Julian’s personal courage that is most apparent. Many incidents are related in positively Homeric language, and Julian appears almost as a second Alexander: he rushes in furiously “where the fighting was thickest”, either in the ecstasy of battle, or to inspire his men; ambushed he holds off two Persian soldiers personally, like Torquatus of old; he chastely refuses to touch the beautiful Persian captives; he orders the ships burnt, and turns the army east towards the vastness of inner Asia.121 Thus, like Alexander, Julian liked to lead from the front and in the final battle before Ctesiphon, Ammianus writes, “no one could tell whether he [Julian] had been more of a general or a common soldier”.122 But it was his own rash courage that killed him. In June 363, he rushed to a skirmish without waiting to put on his breastplate, and was fatally wounded. Ammianus says that nobody knew who threw the spear, and is himself more concerned to place Julian among the ranks of ancient heroes such as Epaminondas, Marcellus, Sicinius Dentatus and Sergius. In Julian, he writes, the days of ancient glory had briefly returned: The old poets may sing of Hector’s battles and extol the courage of the Thessalian chief [i.e. Achilles]; age after age may tell of Sophanes and Aminias and Callimachus and Cynegirius, the crowning glories of the Persian wars; but it is universally admitted that the courage of some of our men on that day shone no less bright.123

Even if Ammianus writes for effect, he did march under Julian; there must be a core truth to the narrative, and so one wonders how best to situate Julian’s reckless bravery and Mesopotamian plans. From one perspective, Julian appears as Roman imperator, intoxicated by power at the head of a huge army, ardent for the glory of an Alexander or Trajan. He had scorned this glory in a more philosophical mood when he wrote Caesars, yet one need not divorce Julian the warrior from Julian the philosopher, or assume that he was simply carried away by battle frenzy or the thrill of victory. There may have been an element of this, of course, but perhaps more important were his philosophical convictions, confirmed by experience and books alike. Divine providence permeated everything, and throughout his life, Helios and the gods had shown Julian special favour; they saved him from Constantius and the Christian “disease”; they educated him in true philosophy so as to restore the true faith; they were guiding all things for the best; despite the sufferings of this life, the soul is immortal, and all will be well. Secure in this knowledge, long tested by experience, it may be that Julian really did gain a “heart entirely devoid of fear”, courage in Plato’s sense of fearlessness before the temporal.124 In the Republic, Socrates had argued that knowledge of the eternal Good is the ground of courage before transient evil. This knowledge makes the Guardians at once philosophers and leaders of the Auxiliaries, just as, mutatis mutandis, Julian was both Iamblichean pontifex

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 140

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

141

maximus and imperator. An intense, even mystical faith is not incompatible with battle fury, and so Julian’s own fanatical attachment to his “Good” may be a real reason for the daemonical energy he displayed in Mesopotamia. Furthermore, courage can serve ideal ends, and one doubts that Julian wanted to gain the title Parthicus out of vainglory alone. I would suggest that the notion of Julian as a Platonic philosopher-king fits more of the evidence than some other portraits. Why would Brown’s reforming Hellenist or Bowersock’s “puritanical pagan” undertake this distant war and persevere in it against all the signs? For the omens became ever more inauspicious as they marched further, the soothsayers more pessimistic, and even Sallust wrote to dissuade Julian from continuing. But Julian’s philosophical advisors consistently overruled the soothsayers, and the army marched on.125 What did Maximus and Priscus say? Was the campaign part of Julian’s otherwise systematic attempt to promote paganism? One can speculate that it was in fact related to this ultimate design. He may have hoped personally to lead the armies to victory, return home a hero, beloved by the Eastern troops too, victor over both Parthians and Germans, saviour of Syria and Armenia as well as Gaul. Victory would make the army solidly pagan again, and silence all critics. It would prove that Julian was indeed the “best” of the Romans, temperate, just, courageous and, most of all, beloved of the gods, for had he not led the army in sacrificing to local gods along the march, as when he sacrificed to the Moon at Carrhae, to the deified Gordion at Zaitha?126 Had they not rewarded his piety? His victories would be victories of the gods themselves; as imperator, as much as pontifex maximus, he would have served his king Helios. Victory would justify his crusade to restore the old ways, and would teach the empire that it owed its existence and prosperity to the gods. Victory, and a loyal army, would free his hand to threaten Christians with force where gentle reason was not persuasive enough. Indeed, the next generation rumoured that Julian “had devoted the blood of the Christians to the gods after the victory”.127 That is, rumour had it that Julian wanted a triumph so that he could finish the job of persecution, and now by open force if words and laws proved too slow. It was not to be of course. Julian was wounded in a skirmish near Ctesiphon, and died a few days later. Who threw the spear? Whether it was a Persian, a Saracen, a legionary, a Christian or God himself is unclear. In any case, it ended the short and intense reign of Julian. And it ended his foolish hope of making an Iamblichean utopia out of the late Roman empire.

Assessments: a philosopher-king Julian was clearly very talented: intelligent, imaginative, sensitive, with endless energy both physical and mental. To his natural capabilities went a royal

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 141

05/10/2011 07:05

142

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

education, culminating in Iamblichean Neoplatonism and the theurgy of Maximus. His first 25 years were taken up with study, not politics. Then he served in administration and the army in Gaul for some five years. Thus, his talents and education roughly approximate those sketched by Plato, with the difference that Julian studied little mathematics, and became Augustus at age 30 rather the 50 recommended by Plato for the Guardians. Still, Julian was a philosopher who became emperor. Regarding the first half of this equation, scholars tend to dismiss him as a mediocre thinker—unfairly in my opinion.128 Julian wrote his many, varied works in a few short years, under stress of circumstances, harried by myriad considerations of empire. All the same he managed to produce a variety of erudite, stylish pieces that are not rehashes of old maxims or strings of copied passages. Julian independently assimilates Platonic ideas, and adds a new voice to the Hellenic literary tradition. His Caesars and Misopōgōn are particularly innovative, and while significant philosophical creativity eluded him, in this he was hardly alone. Only a few thinkers in the history of philosophy have been radically innovative, and one should not judge him against them. Nor should one assess his output next to that of an Aristotle or Hegel. Better to compare him with a Marcus, Frederick II or Lenin, who were equally busy with politics; against them, one must remember that Julian died young. Mature philosophy is usually the work of experience, and Schopenhauer was exceptional for finishing his World as Will and Representation by age 30. Julian died aged 32, and was clearly regarded as a philosopher by ancient admirers and detractors.129 If so, he was a philosopher-king in his own style, and, as we have argued, his philosophical creed gave him a fierce sense of political purpose. He brought Socratic frugality to court and government; he passed laws to guide his subjects back to the “true faith”; he killed oxen over bloody altars at Naissus, Pessinus, Antioch and elsewhere, and thus hoped to awake divine presences; as servant of King Helios, he may have sought to extend the bounds of the empire to root out Christianity everywhere. In these various ways, Julian was a philosopher who used power for idealistic ends. On the other hand, he was an emperor who philosophized. Most of his writings date to his time as Augustus, and these tend to combine religious, philosophical and political considerations seamlessly. He kept Priscus and Maximus as closest advisors until the very end. Julian was Platonic too in his skill at telling “noble lies” for the sake of his “Good”; a good propagandist and myth-maker who sought to overawe subjects into acquiescing before his divinely sanctioned authority. All this and more makes Julian a multidimensional figure, whose complexity does not lend itself easily to a neat label. Ancient admirers like Eunapius, Zosimus and Proclus looked upon him as semidivine hero; Ammianus’ admiration was profound.130 His Christian detractors often acknowledge his superior talents, but feel they were corrupted—an ardent

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 142

05/10/2011 07:05



J u lian the A p o state

143

soul who persecuted his spiritual kin, an apostate who hardened himself to the loving God whom all seek. This image of a “diabolical Julian” persisted throughout the Middle Ages, so that he often became the Apostate par excellence, and sometimes even the Beast of the Apocalypse.131 When Ammianus was rediscovered in the Renaissance, Julian was fashioned anew by Montaigne, Montesquieu and many others. Among Enlightenment thinkers, particularly Voltaire and Diderot, he became (with Marcus) a champion of reason and religious toleration against an oppressive Church. In this cultural atmosphere, Gibbon shares Ammianus’ admiration for this “philosophic prince” and devotes three whole chapters to his short and ineffectual reign, while granting only one to Constantine, who was historically far more influential. But even Julian could not escape Gibbon’s acid jibes: “In the exercise of his uncommon talents, he often descended below the majesty of his rank. Alexander was transformed into Diogenes; the philosopher was degraded into a priest.”132 Sainte-Beuve, Renan, Ibsen, Kazantzakis, Gore Vidal and many other writers were intrigued by Julian.133 He has equally been the subject of discussion by more recent historians. Peter Brown understands Julian as a product and representative of the conservative, land-owning elite of the eastern cities, the “community of the Hellenes”.134 For Bowerstock, he is a “puritanical pagan”, a paradoxical creature who brought a fanaticism to the easy-going culture of polytheism. To Athanassiadi, he is a “soldier of Mithras”, an intelligent and energetic champion of Hellenism. O’Meara sees him as conservative leader, seeking to guard the established order in the spirit of Plato’s Laws.135 Browning’s verdict is that Julian combined “Roman political sense and Greek culture” but his very talents and intelligence led him into an impasse of his own making: “[H]is failure was in part due to the very sincerity and candour with which he pursued his purposes ... His bounding springs of energy were more and more devoted to the wrong tasks ... It was his very excellence that made him so vulnerable.”136 Browning’s insight recalls Plato’s fears that the philosopher’s talents are, paradoxically, what most threaten to corrupt him. This brings us again to the simplest title for Julian, and (I would argue) the most comprehensive: Julian is best understood as a philosopher-king, the Roman emperor who came closest to Plato’s proposed Guardians. Of course Julian’s divisive reign did not bring an end to humanity’s troubles, as Socrates hoped might happen with philosopher-kings. One can only guess how Plato would have regarded him. Modern historians tend to judge Julian a failure: his large ambitions came to nothing, and were already meeting serious resistance before he left for Persia. Some scholars speculate about what might have happened if Julian had ruled for 40 years, like an Augustus. Yet, Julian was not one to play the long game, and so for all his intelligence, erudition and cunning, Plato might have regarded him as one of the many who were

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 143

05/10/2011 07:05

144

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

tragically ruined by his philosophy. Wisdom may come with time, but Julian rushed impatiently at the highest goals: rushed into the arms of Maximus, who promised quick and easy salvation; rushed through sweeping administrative and religious changes; rushed into battle against many foes, not least the Sassanian empire. Most of all, he rushed to a very definite conception of the “Good” and its opposite: it was Helios and not “the Galilaean”, the traditional and not the new. In this, he forgets how Plato had been reticent about the Good, shrouding it in images and irony, because as a transcendent mystery it cannot be realized or even fully conceptualized in the temporal realm. These ideas were central to Neoplatonism also, but Julian wanted a more tangible creed, and when he got it, he brandished it as a cure-all. As dogmatic as some of the bishops he hated, Julian remained blinkered by his assumptions. He seems to have remained wilfully blind to the possibility that in a Christian culture too, the old piety, learning and eloquence could be refashioned in a new dispensation. So when Themistius suggested that pagans and Christians could co-exist, Julian became apoplectic with rage. Thus, for all his learning and talents, he would seem to have little of the scepticism and dialectical openness of Plato’s Socrates. On the other hand, he recalls more the spirit of Plato’s Laws with its concern for form, ritual, class, regulation of private conscience, the discouragement of religious innovation and fear of “atheism”. But that programme was written for a tiny, intimate city of a few thousand citizens, not for a vast empire of some 60 million souls. One imagines therefore that Plato would have regarded Julian as noble, intelligent, erudite, a lover of wisdom and one who yearned to be a wise king. But he was too proud to wait to mature slowly into the role. And so he died, deluded in his conviction that the gods loved him—young and in the end perhaps something of a fool.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 144

05/10/2011 07:05

6

From Moses to Modernity Ancient images of Moses: prophet, lawgiver, philosopher “Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land and tell all Pharaohs, ‘Let my people go.’” And in the story, as in the song, the prophet did go down and with God’s guidance led his people out of captivity, bringing them to freedom and the Promised Land. The narrative of Exodus remains one of the most potent in Western history. It gave strength to New World slaves. It instructed medieval kings and caliphs. It was widely known in Greco-Roman antiquity also, and here among its many retellings, one particular variation highlights the persistence of our theme through vast cultural and political change. For it was in Alexandria that a Jewish Platonist, Philo, interpreted the sacred history of the Hebrews in the light of Plato’s Republic and Laws and so came to regard Moses as the perfect philosopher-king and legislator. This image of Moses proved an enduring one and would be adapted and reshaped down the centuries, by writers as varied as Eusebius, al-Farabi, Falaquera, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Nietzsche and Orwell.1 Here is an ongoing chapter in the indirect influence of Plato’s argument, which is now more than ever charged with the potency of myth. The myth of Moses proved suggestive to ancient audiences first of all because of the association with Egypt. Moses’ birth by the Nile could only presage that he would be a wise man, for as everyone knew, Egypt was wise. From the earliest Greek literature, the name of Egypt was one to conjure with: land of wonders, rich in gold, teeming with strange animals and gods, producer of drugs, medicines, doctors and myriad priests—so much sprang up beside the miraculous river Nile.2 For Plato too, Egypt is the land of timeless wisdom, redolent of eternity itself: Socrates impresses Phaedrus with tales of Thoth and Egyptian inventions; Critias recalls how Solon learned the history of Atlantis in Egypt; and the Athenian Stranger of the Laws often casts longing eyes towards that isolated land whose music, sculpture, architecture remained unchanged over 10,000 years, and whose immemorial antiquity has sanctified every dance, festival and local practice, and purified its people of any craze for novelty.3 The literary reputation of Egypt did not diminish due to greater familiarity during the Hellenistic age or the Roman empire, perhaps partially because Egypt was

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 145

05/10/2011 07:05

146

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

the home of Alexandria, which, with its Library, cosmopolitan population and great port, was one of the most creative places in the Mediterranean. Here by the banks of the Nile wise men and gods were still being born during the Roman empire: Ammonius Saccas (teacher of Plotinus), Origen, St Antony, Athanasius, even Hermes, the Thrice-Great One. Egypt was so wise that Diogenes Laertius felt compelled to start his Lives of Philosophers by stating that philosophy was Greek in origin, and not barbarian or Egyptian, even though Homer, Orpheus, Thales, Democritus and many other Greek sages were rumoured to have “studied” there.4 Later still, Ammianus praises Alexandria as the “crown of all cities”, where the sciences of philology, geometry, astronomy, medicine and divination have so long flourished. Here it was (Ammianus writes) that people first “discovered various religions in what may be called their cradle, and now carefully preserve the origins of worship in their esoteric scriptures”. And it was from this esoteric wisdom that Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Solon and Plato drew their essential insights. Indeed, Ammianus says, Roman law got “its strongest support” from Solon, and so indirectly from Egypt.5 Clearly Egypt was wise, and so it was reasonable enough that Moses’ admirers would associate him with this home of learning. Most prominent for the later Western tradition in this regard is the statement in the Acts of the Apostles: “Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was capable in both words and deeds.”6 To be learned in all the sophia of Egypt was high praise indeed. The association with Egypt is one facet of Moses’ story that later writers might embellish for their own purposes. Before turning to these authors, then, let us recall some of the incidents of the canonical narrative that would be so fertile in suggestion to later readers. According to Exodus, Moses was born a Jew but adopted into the Egyptian royal family and brought up as the brother of the future Pharaoh. Later, after his murder of the Egyptian became known, Moses fled into the wilderness of Sinai, met a wife and for 40 years shepherded flocks for his father-in-law Jethro. But there on the mountain of Sinai, like Hesiod, Amos and other inspired shepherds, Moses experienced some profound change. Now inspired with new authority and power, he returned to Egypt, overcame Pharaoh and his magicians and so delivered the Hebrews from slavery. He also transformed them into an organized, civilized people. As they wandered in the wilderness of Sinai, Moses retired to the mountain for 40 days and nights and was given the Ten Commandments on two tablets. The Decalogue summarized the fundamental law, both divine and human, and the law was further elaborated in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, which with Genesis and Exodus were traditionally ascribed to Moses’ authorship. Among the Patriarchs, therefore, Moses was exceptional: he was the only person ever to have seen God face to face;7 to him God communicated His name; and it was through Moses that God gave law to the Hebrews and truly made them His people.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 146

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

147

A paradigmatic figure, Moses became for pagans the most famous Jew of the Old Testament.8 Or at least his name was famous, as were the broad outlines of his life. Most non-Jews got their information at second hand, and as a result their treatments can vary in details and become a canvas on which to project their own cultural concerns. For example, Moses could become a target for anti-Jewish, or anti-Christian polemic in Quintilian, Tacitus, Juvenal, Galen, Celsus and Julian.9 Or, he might attract legendary material, often intended to magnify his name. For example, in some accounts, he personally leads the armies to conquer Canaan, where he defeats the Amorites and kills the giant King Og in hand-to-hand combat; he defeats the Ethiopians for the Pharaoh, or he conquers Egypt with the Hittites’ help. In different guise again, he becomes wise in myriad ways: learned in Egyptian lore, he serves as a priest in Heliopolis; he invents the alphabet, hieroglyphics, a sundial; a powerful magician, he can control nature and predict the future. Moses’ reputation for wisdom rested most of all on his legislation, and here he is often mentioned alongside Minos, Lycurgus and other divinely inspired lawgivers as one of mankind’s great benefactors.10 First among these admirers was Hecataeus of Abdera, who as court historian for Ptolemy I wrote an Aegyptica in which he tells of one Moses, “highly distinguished in both practical wisdom (phronēsis) and courage”, who founded Jerusalem, built the temple, established as ruler-priests those men “most outstanding in practical wisdom and excellence”, instituted national military training, led campaigns against the Hebrews’ neighbours, and won much land that he distributed equally among the people while granting the priests larger lots in order to support their contemplative leisure. These latter points may echo aspects of the economic legislation of kallipolis and Magnesia, and Hecataeus generally is eager to show Ptolemy how out of Egypt came wisdom equal to that of the Greeks. Plato is not mentioned explicitly, and in fact Hecataeus states that the Jews never had kings, only leading priests; the Platonic precedents are clear nevertheless.11 Other writers like Pompeius Trogus expressed high admiration for Moses’ wise leadership and to prove it, Trogus made him son of the even wiser Joseph, a magician who unerringly forecast the future for Pharaoh.12 Nor was it only second-rate writers who noticed Moses. Theophrastus (successor to Aristotle) calls the Jews a “race of philosophers” because they studied astronomy and were always talking about God.13 Strabo’s highly sympathetic Moses is a Stoic philosopher and prophet-king.14 And the author of On the Sublime cites Moses to cap his argument that “great writing is an echo of a great mind”, for in his view, the “beginning of the Laws [of Moses]”, i.e. the opening words of Genesis, evoke the sublime simplicity of God with a quiet power of their own.15 Platonizing authors also noticed Moses. Galen was of the opinion that Genesis featured a Demiurge, even though Moses was mistaken in making him

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 147

05/10/2011 07:05

148

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

unconstrained by the limitations of matter and reason. In Galen’s judgement, therefore, Moses was inferior to Plato as a physicist and theologian. He was also inferior as a legislator, because his laws went “undemonstrated” (i.e. lacked Platonic preambles).16 Julian was sharply dismissive of Moses in his Against the Galilaeans, but others praised him highly as an actual philosopher-king whose teachings anticipated Plato by centuries. In particular, the rhetorical question of Numenius (a Neopythagorean)—“What is Plato but Moses speaking Attic?”— was quoted again and again.17 Numenius’ reverence would become standard for many later Jewish, Christian and Muslim Platonists: more ancient and original than any Greek writer, Moses was the prophet of a pure monotheism, the quasi-divine legislator, the teacher of moral conduct, the mediator between God and humanity.18 The specifically Platonic argument that Moses was the philosopher-king seems to have been first thoroughly explored in the work of two Hellenizing Jews, Philo and Josephus. Philo of Alexandria (c. 25 BC–c. 50 AD) was a complex, many-sided individual, at once pious Jew and learned Hellenist, subtle politician and Platonic mystic yearning for a sublime transcendence. He wrote in Greek and Armenian, and his life’s work was an allegorizing exegesis of the Pentateuch: here he explicated Moses’ writings along Platonic lines, and found Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy to be the source of all wisdom. That is, Moses was “not only a philosopher, but the very father of philosophy, from whom all Greek thinkers take their best ideas”.19 For this great figure, Philo composes a suitable Life, in which Moses appears as a perfect philosopher-king.20 Philo retells first how Moses was exposed by the Nile, rescued by the Pharaoh’s daughter, brought up in the house of the king and treated by all as the future king. The education of this prince was royal indeed. Tutors flocked from Egypt, Greece and other quarters of the world to teach the boy. The Egyptian tutors taught him arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music (the mathematical curriculum of Plato’s Guardians!), as well as hieroglyphics and religious lore. The Greeks taught him other liberal arts, while the remainder instructed him in “Assyrian” literature and Chaldean astronomy. This miraculous child quickly demonstrated how little he really needed tutors, for he learned so fast that he seemed merely to “recollect” truths and know already what he had not even been taught: Philo’s presentation here draws on ideas about anamnēsis in Plato’s Meno. In effect, Moses was self-taught and he soon began to teach his teachers. All this revealed his philosophical soul and his true love of wisdom, which he absorbed from all quarters without prejudice as to provenance.21 Nor were his virtues merely theoretical. Neither palace pleasures nor courtiers’ flattery could seduce him from the right path: he was very handsome, as Philo often remarks, but remained temperate, in full rational control of his passions, and even longing ascetically to live “by soul alone”.22 At the same time he did not grow misanthropic, but remained considerate to all, including the Hebrew slaves.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 148

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

149

His murder of the Egyptian overseer and subsequent protection of the women at the well exposed his innate love of justice.23 In exile in Midian, Moses continued to improve in virtue, philosophy and the study of nature. It was in exile, as a shepherd for Jethro, that Moses learned the first lessons of kingcraft. For (Philo argues) those who do not consult the opinions of the many (e.g. thinkers like Plato) recognize that a king is “shepherd of mankind”, and so with Jethro Moses learned to be one.24 Plato’s philosophers do not fear to look up at the Sun and so too, Philo’s Moses did not take off his shoes in the presence of the Burning Bush. On the other hand, he did hesitate to accept God’s appointment of him as leader of the nation;25 as for Plato, Philo’s sage is not interested in power. A versatile “philosopher” is thus chosen as king of the Jews, and Philo’s narrative of Exodus illustrates Moses’ capabilities in both roles. Pharaoh is wicked and ignorant of the true, invisible God; appropriately enough he is advised by magicians and “sophists”. But Moses, “friend” of God, is granted the Creator’s powers over the elements of Creation.26 The Ten Plagues sent upon the Egyptians prove this power, and Philo carefully divides some of them into plagues of water (the Nile turned to blood, frogs), earth (lice), air (storms of hail, locusts brought by the dry south wind), fire (blisters caused by ash), adducing elaborate quasi-scientific explanations for each, replete with learned references even to Herodotus’ theory of why the Nile floods.27 These explanations reveal Moses as both natural philosopher and hand of God, a king who combined divine knowledge with divine justice. So, when he is finally acknowledged as king by the Hebrews, it is not because of his wealth or mere physical power; rather, his own virtue and God’s favour made him leader.28 Like Plato’s Guardians, Moses was absolutely devoted to his people’s good, and took no material reward for his service. He lived in poverty and luxuriated only in the abundance of his temperance, fortitude, temperance, knowledge and so forth.29 Philo combines a Cynic joke about the “wealth” of the sage, with God’s grant in Genesis of all Creation to Adam and Eve: Moses is granted dominion over all the elements and wealth of the world, and so is rich, even though he takes nothing for himself.30 Philo’s Moses has an even more exalted status than this, however. Having entered into “the darkness where God is”, Moses becomes the very “god and king” of the Jews, and so he rules over a favoured nation, more powerful than the Egyptians and one tasked to “offer up prayers for the whole universal race of mankind”.31 Thus, as mediator for the mediators, Moses becomes a “paradigm for all those willing to imitate him”.32 That is, he becomes the spiritual leader of mankind, the living law in whom is embodied all that human beings should do. In essence Philo’s Moses has become the logos of the world. The first section of Philo’s Life treats Moses’ kingship and how he fulfills the kingly duty “to command what ought to be done and to forbid what ought not

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 149

05/10/2011 07:05

150

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

to be done”. In this section, Moses brings the Hebrews out of Egypt, through the wilderness and into Canaan where he leads them to victory over the Amorites, Edomites and others who had unjustly attacked them. In the next three sections, Philo goes on to demonstrate how Moses was also a perfect lawgiver, priest and prophet. For Philo these four functions are not mutually exclusive: “the king is at once a living law, and the law is a just king”, while to legislate, one must know about things both human and divine, and so the wise legislator shades off into priest (leader of ritual sacrifices) and inspired prophet.33 As with the Platonic virtues, each function implies all the others, and Moses was able to be the perfect king only because he was perfect in the other roles also. There are Platonic moments in these later sections too. In the second section, on Moses as legislator, Philo draws tacitly on the main ideas of the Laws. First of all, God is the truest lawgiver and judge: he punishes iniquity with fire, water and elemental power, as when the Flood waters rose up around Noah’s Ark, and Sodom and Gomorrah burned. But in a secondary sense, Moses was a true lawgiver, far superior to all other national legislators, because his laws were truly universal. Going back to Egyptian antiquity, they have endured through all the vicissitudes of the Hebrews’ fortunes, and will last as long as the world does, unlike all other law-codes which have changed or become obsolete.34 And they have a universal application, unlike local laws of, say, Athens. The proof that Philo offers for this proposition is the Septuagint. Moses’ laws are so respected that Ptolemy Philadelphus (best of kings) commanded the Pentateuch to be translated into Greek, and so made available to the “other half ” of mankind (i.e. the Gentiles). On the island of Pharos, set apart from the impurities of Alexandria, the scholars set to work, and there they were so infused with the spirit of the laws, and therefore of God, that their translation was itself inspired and perfect. Thus, the Mosaic Law has been made available to “all” mankind—and (in Philo’s inference) is now respected by all.35 Granted that Moses established universal laws, he could do so on the basis of the deepest philosophical knowledge. This is evident in the preamble to the laws, a preamble which is nothing less than the account of Creation itself. Merely to issue commands is tyrannical, but Moses’ way was to give suggestions and recommendations “so as to inspire rather than force people to virtue”. Therefore, the story of Genesis somehow grounds the Decalogue in the nature of things, and makes them harmonious with the eternal law of the universe, the city of God: Moses “related the creation of that great metropolis, the world, thinking his laws the most fruitful image and likeness of the constitution of the whole world”.36 Throughout, Plato’s name is not mentioned, but the influence of the Laws is clear. The ideal of harmony between the human and cosmic returns in Moses’ role as priest. In founding the national cult, God infuses Moses’ mind with the idea

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 150

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

151

of the Tabernacle—or rather the Idea and eternal paradigm37 by which Moses fashioned this repository for the Ark and the Tablets. Here Philo dwells in detail on the sacred numbers, rational proportions and honourable materials that went into its making; he dwells also on the cosmic symbolism of the high priests’ vestments. Both Tabernacle and vestments are images of the cosmic whole, and as such they transform the ritual and celebrating priest into a microcosm of the whole, elevating them above mere mortal particularity.38 All this was Moses’ work as priestly founder. Of special interest here is his legislation regarding the Sabbath day, as interpreted by Philo. Due to Moses, it is the Jews’ custom even to this day. . . [to] hold philosophical discussions on the seventh day, disputing about their national philosophy, and devoting that day to the knowledge and consideration of the subjects of natural philosophy; as for their houses of prayer in the different cities, what are they, but schools of wisdom, and courage, and temperance, and justice, and piety, and holiness, and every virtue, by which human and divine things are appreciated, and placed upon a proper footing?39

Such passages might lead a Greek reader to infer that some book like the Timaeus was read out and discussed in the synagogues and Philo facilitates the inference by often noting similarities between Genesis and Plato’s account of creation: the visible world was made in a single act by a wise creator; its rationality and beauty are not perfect, yet they point to the greater wisdom and generosity of its invisible maker and king, who is beyond all telling.40 Of course, Yahweh is not limited in power like Plato’s Demiurge, but Philo was not much concerned to stress the differences. So deeply do Platonic ideas colour Philo’s exegesis of sacred texts that St Jerome quipped “either Philo platonizes, or Plato philonizes”.41 Philo’s melding of Greek and Hebrew traditions would effectively inaugurate a long tradition of such creative synthesis. In the next generation, Josephus would construct a similar Moses as part of his defence of Judaism. Apollonius Molon and Apion had contended that the Jews could boast of no great inventor, invention or sage.42 To refute such slanders, Josephus offered his own apologetics, which included a Hellenizing image of Moses, presented in his Against Apion and Jewish Antiquities.43 To quote a conclusion of Feldman’s detailed analysis: Josephus’ treatment is “a veritable aretalogy such as would be appreciated especially by a Roman society which admired the portrait of the ideal Stoic sage.44 More specifically, Feldman argues that Josephus’ model was Plato’s Guardians, and to a lesser extent Thucydides’ Pericles. This is true even of such details as Moses’ philosophical poverty and his “regal look”: Josephus makes him tall, handsome and physically impressive, not only to appeal to

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 151

05/10/2011 07:05

152

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

the aesthetic preferences of his Greco-Roman readers, but also perhaps to echo Socrates’ desire that the Guardians be “most handsome”.45 Again, like Thucydides’ Pericles, Moses took no bribes, and often shepherded his people with an Olympian calm that showed temporal crises to be merely temporal. It is interesting thus to see both Plutarch and Philo adapting Thucydides’ Pericles in their own Platonic styles. Together Philo and Josephus illustrate the fusion of Greek and biblical traditions in the East, particularly in the hothouse of Egyptian Alexandria. They also illustrate the generalization that Plato was “probably the most important single intellectual factor in the process of Hellenization in the East during the Hellenistic period”.46 This process of Hellenization would continue throughout Christian history, as Platonic ideas were used to forge new theologies. Philo was an important presence here, especially in the prolonged debates on the nature and identity of the logos. We have seen how Hellenistic kings could be called a “living logos”, and how Philo uses this language for Moses. More generally Philo relies on a doctrine of the logos that joins together several traditions and will foreshadow complicated arguments over the next five centuries. First, as a Jew of this later period, Philo believed that Yahweh was a distant, transcendent God who had appeared to Moses, and less directly to the Patriarchs, judges, prophets and His “chosen people”; to them Yahweh did not reveal Himself openly, but through intermediaries like angels, through His Glory and real presence (shechīnā, doxa) or through the Spirit or Wisdom or Word of the Lord.47 A second tradition on which Philo draws is the Platonic one. Elaborating on the Platonic suggestion that the “divine and mortal do not mix”, the so-called Middle Platonists were developing ontological hierarchies in which there are various forms of mediation between the highest divinity (Good, One, First God) and the “visible gods” of nature; Mind, Demiurge and World Soul are the more important of these intermediaries. Third, the term logos was crucial for the Stoics, as one of the many names for God. The Stoic God is reason itself, as well as the rational law and form that animate material nature. The Stoics also distinguished between the inner logos of thought (logos endiathetos, ratio), and its outer physical expression (logos prophorikos, oratio): to be a sage is to live in accordance with both senses of logos, outer deeds reflecting inner knowledge of and harmony with the cosmic logos or God.48 In his diffuse treatments, Philo begins to weave the following strands together: God, both as Yahweh and as the highest noetic principle (the Platonic Good), exists transcendent, inaccessible except in the ravishment of mystical union; but God also reveals Himself indirectly through the logos, that is through rational argument, as well as through the lives and words of privileged thinkers and prophets. Most notable here was Moses, the “philosopher-king” of humanity: he heard the word of God, lived according to it and was therefore a “living law” to his Hebrews and a logos to all later peoples.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 152

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

153

Others, like Clement, would echo Philo by saying that Moses was “always guided by the best logos”.49 But both in and out of Egypt, there appeared other logoi, and the precise nature and identity of the logos became a matter of great controversy particularly when John in the Fourth Gospel identified Christ with the logos.50 One cannot begin to summarize the complex Christological debates of the first Christian centuries, but enough to say here that Scripture and Greek philosophical vocabulary are mingled in exotic ways: for Theophilus, Christ exists from all eternity as the logos endiathetos, but in Jesus becomes the logos prophorikos and so the timeless Word was made Flesh; for his part, Origen is happy to speak of Christ as the Demiurge, completing the creation for his Father.51 What is the relation of Christ to the Father: is He a subordinate mediator between Creation and God the transcendent? Or is He of the same nature as the Father in a different modality, expressing the divine goodness, and so becoming the conduit through which the divine life flows down, and the gate through which man must reascend to immortal life? Complicating these debates further was the background in Hebrew sacred history. Yahweh is “king” of the world (e.g. Psalms), and the Hebrew nation was traditionally understood to have been first a theocracy, ruled directly by God through the agency of Moses and then the Judges. They received their judgements from him and when war came they led the people into battle, following the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts.52 But this pristine unity of God and people did not last. With time, the people demanded to have kings “like the other nations” and Yahweh, somewhat reluctantly, gave them Saul as his first “anointed one”. So followed generations of kings, some good, many bad, until the kingdom went under to Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman overlords. Through this time of “slavery”, there persisted hopes for a new kingdom, a new Moses and a new David who would save the nation by driving out all Pharaohs and Philistines. For some Jews, therefore, the words that Pilate had placed over the Cross might be interpreted as a bitter insult: here hung Jesus, “King of the Jews”, as if his fate symbolized the historical sufferings of their people. For believers, on the contrary, this crucified Jesus was the Messiah, the “anointed one” or in Greek, ho Christos, “the Christ”, who brought a new kingdom indeed, with his revelation of peace and love. Jesus, Christos, king, Demiurge, Logos: Jesus becomes at once a carpenter from Nazareth, the heir of David, the perennial creator of the world and “living law” whose example of service for others replaces any Pharisaic conformism to the written Law of Moses. Such were some of the main elements that went into the making of Eusebius’ Constantine. For in the early fourth century, the bishop Eusebius constructed an image of the first Christian emperor that would lay the basis for a thousand years of Byzantine royal ideology, and thereby influence the entire European tradition: the true king becomes the representative of Christ, whose words

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 153

05/10/2011 07:05

154

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

and deeds lead the people towards God.53 Eusebius presents his image in both an Encomium and a Life of Constantine. The Encomium is shorter but touches surely on the main ideas: God the Father is first King, king of all; Christ is his son and logos, and appointed by him as “lord and governor of this universe”, more principle than person; in turn, Constantine imitates the virtues and providence of Christ, and so becomes the “sole true philosopher king”.54 Thus, like Julian in relation to Helios, this Constantine is not merely pontifex maximus presiding ex officio over external rituals, but a spiritual priest, an exemplar of piety, a “shepherd of the people” as he guides their souls along the right path to salvation, and so proves to be their “saviour”, not merely by giving wheat or military protection, but by protecting them from demons, pagans, heretics and their own errors. Eusebius’ Life goes to even greater lengths, effectively portraying Constantine as a new Moses, and drawing many implicit parallels between the two.55 Just as Moses grew up in the house of the Pharaoh and learned the Egyptians’ wisdom, so too Constantine grew up among the persecutors Diocletian and Galerius and learned the Roman art of government.56 Moses fled Pharaoh’s wrath to Midian and his (future) father-in-law Jethro; Constantine fled the Tetrarchs’ wrath to Britain and his father Constantius I.57 Through Moses, God crushed Pharaoh under the Red Sea and, through Constantine, drowned Maxentius by the Milvian Bridge.58 In drawing these parallels, Eusebius wrote with a detailed knowledge of Jewish apologetic literature of Moses,59 and it has been argued that Philo’s Moses was his main source, after Scripture. Moreover, the stories of Moses’ campaigns60 were a necessary precedent for the otherwise paradoxical notion of a Christian imperator, and through the Life one gains a distinct sense that Christ was God for Constantine primarily because he was Lord of Hosts, giver of victory.61 As for legislation, many passages referring to Constantine’s religious decrees, rescripts, building of churches (including the Holy Sepulchre), tearing down of shrines to idols, attendance at synods, coaxing of bishops, exhortations to doctrinal unity and so forth seem to make any explicit invocation of Moses superfluous: God had revealed His will to Constantine, and made him His agent in uniting His people, and indeed all people under the new covenant.62 Jesus was born at a time when Augustus had established peace by force of arms: now under Constantine, Roman power was united in the Christian revelation, for Constantine had seen God’s sign the day before his victory. Now that a Christian had become king, it seemed that a new day was dawning, and there would finally be an end to the troubles of the empire, and even “of humanity itself ”. Eusebius’ Life thus praises Constantine for inaugurating a new epoch in sacred history. And yet, there is nothing new under the sun. Like Philo’s Moses, Eusebius makes Constantine physically imposing and beautiful: he has the “royal look” as did the ideal Hellenistic king and Platonic Guardian.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 154

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

155

As with many monarchs before, his soul is stocked with virtues—temperance, phronēsis, and God-given sophia, all “signs of his royal greatness”,63 and all evidenced by the fact that Constantine brought an end to the madness of civil war and persecution. From among Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors, only Alexander and Nero are mentioned by Eusebius, and he offers no detailed comparisons with any former kings. Yet they haunt the Life too as Constantine is acclaimed Deliverer, Benefactor, Saviour and Shepherd, titles of the Hellenistic kings before they become Christ’s.64 Again, the air is redolent with Neoplatonic hypostases and the theology of the logos: God is King of All (pambasileus), and King of Kings, but Constantine is his friend and therapōn (servant, retainer, lieutenant). Some readers have even argued that Eusebius’ Constantine appears as the near equal of Christ, as if he were the newest manifestation of God. Certainly the hierarchy is clear: God, Christ, Constantine, followed by all other lesser kings. Throughout, the ghosts of the past are present: Eusebius’ Constantine joins the ranks of philosopher-kings as he looks up to a good God for inspiration; he joins the sacred kings, especially when compared to the sun.65 This is most evident in one chapter of the Life (4.29), where Eusebius describes Constantine’s manner of addressing audiences. The emperor used to work late into the night, “furnishing his mind with divine knowledge”, and preparing discourses which would rationally persuade his subjects, and which were received with admiration as the works of “a philosopher”.66 These discourses (Eusebius says) dwelt on the sole kingship of God, God’s providential care for the cosmos and man’s salvation. These tenets of hope for the faithful were mingled with threats of punishment for the unrepentant. And then Constantine would remind them that the God of all had given him monarchy over all upon the earth, and that in imitation of the greater ruler he entrusted portions of it to them in turn; but that everyone would in due time have to account for their activities to the high King Himself.

Thus, Constantine might delegate power, but all power flows ultimately from God, and is accountable to God. The passage thus looks forward to ideas that would enthrall the Byzantine empire and Latin West: God the Creator and cosmic autocratōr is the font of all power; through Him all things are made; leaders too are made, and whether popes or kings, they gain their authority from God; this they delegate in turn to the subordinates they make, and they to their subordinates, and so on down to the peasants, who (like Adam and Eve) also exercise a kind of sacred “kingship” over their children, animals and property; each is appointed as steward of a portion of Creation, but all will be called to account sooner or later, whether given two talents or ten. In the end,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 155

05/10/2011 07:05

156

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

popes and emperors too will be summoned before the highest Judge to justify themselves.

The Lord’s anointed: Justinian and medieval ideals One God, one faith, one empire, one king: Eusebius’ synthesis trumpets the unification of the world under Christian emperor, Christ the king and God the almighty Father. The ideas remained basic for Byzantine emperors whose pretensions to being autocratōres remained undiminished even when their actual power was whittled away. At the beginning of this tradition, Justinian has been called the first Byzantine emperor, and a second Constantine. In addition, he was flattered as a philosopher-king towards the beginning of his reign, by Agapetus, deacon of Hagia Sophia: There has been revealed in our age that time of felicity which one of the writers of old prophesied as coming to pass when either philosophers were kings or kings were students of philosophy. Pursuing the study of philosophy, you [Justinian] were counted worthy of kingship; and holding the office of king, you did not desert the study of philosophy. Now if the love of wisdom is what makes philosophy, and if the beginning of wisdom is to fear God—Who is always present in your heart— then what I say is clearly true.67

Plato’s name is omitted, perhaps even forgotten in an age when Isocrates and his Cyprian orations were more influential. And Platonic mathematics and dialectic has now been replaced by the wisdom of Proverbs 1.7: not with wonder does wisdom begin, but with fear of the Lord. One may debate whether Justinian lived up to Agapetus’ image of him. As a Guardian of sorts, Justinian organized the reconquests of parts of North Africa, Spain and Italy. But these came at a high price in lives and money, and are often criticized as foolishly squandering the empire’s resources. On the other hand, he rebuilt Hagia Sophia so lavishly that he is reputed to have boasted, “Solomon, I have outdone you!” The egoistic language reflects the royal ideology: Procopius rejoices that God himself gave Justinian the idea and the engineering expertise to raise up the great dome.68 In this regard, it seems serendipitous that the Church was already dedicated to “holy wisdom”, or more properly to the Logos, Christ and second person of the Trinity. Justinian might well have boasted that he had outdone Moses also, when he organized the systematization of 1,400 years of Roman law, into two “tablets”—the Codex Constitutionum and Digest. To these volumes was added an introductory textbook, the Institutes, whose prologue clearly reflects the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 156

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

157

influence of Stoic ideas about the law of nature. It explains, for instance, the utility of the laws: now that the provinces have been recovered with God’s favour, “all peoples are ruled by the laws either published or composed by us [Justinian]”.69 The first article begins with first principles: a definition of justice as the “constant purpose (voluntas) to give each person his due”; a definition of jurisprudence as “the knowledge of things divine and human, the science of the just and the unjust”, a phrase that recalls the Stoic understanding of philosophy as “knowledge of things divine and human”;70 and a clear distinction between the law of nature, law of nations and Roman civil law. Thus one can see a philosophical habit of generalization and systematization informing the legal work issued in Justinian’s name. Here Justinian “the philosopher” did not quite claim that the Corpus Iuris Civilis issued from his own infinite wisdom, and he was happy to praise the work of experts past and present, like Gaius, Tribonian, Theophilus and Dorotheus.71 Regarding theology, however, he was not so modest. Constantine had chaired theological disputes and, like a George Washington, could sway proceedings by sheer charisma. But Justinian was more like Julian in his zeal to intervene actively and promulgate his own treatises and edicts, with regard to the Monophysite and Origenist heresies, for example. In this type of energetic government, he came closer to the Caesaropapist ideal than most later Byzantine emperors dared. Nor was his intervention limited to theological debates within the Christian fold. This “guardian” of the faith also passed laws in 529 AD forbidding or limiting public teaching by the non-orthodox and non-Christians. It may have been these laws that brought about the closing of the Platonic Academy. At least according to the canonical story, the Academy closed in 529 as a formal centre and as one of the last bastions of pagan Hellenism. Agathias goes even further to tell a story of how seven Academicians set out for Ctesiphon, chasing rumours that the Parthians were ruled by an enlightened king and friend of philosophy, Chosroes. The king proved not so congenial, and a year later the philosophers returned from their exile to the Mediterranean world.72 The story is not corroborated in any other source, and so some attentive scholars have turned on it a sceptical eye. Nevertheless, it has often been taken up by those zealous to criticize Christendom, as if Justinian were an anti-intellectual bigot, as were all those benighted medievals. Yet even if one were to take the story literally, one should note that the philosophers in fact returned to the Christian world. One might therefore take it as symbolic, in a way, of the fate of Plato’s Republic through the medieval period. For like Agathias’ philosophers, the dialogue migrated east, as it were, and became the main political text for Muslim and Jewish thinkers, before it returned to Western studies during the Renaissance. In the East, it had a far more glorious career than Agathias’ Seven.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 157

05/10/2011 07:05

158

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

For in Jewish and Muslim contexts, the stress on the unity of God, of the law and of the divine dispensation made Platonic ideas of an all-wise, inspired leader especially instructive for understanding the patriarchs and prophets. Moses and Muhammad were particularly celebrated as the preeminent philosopher-kings, perfect in virtue, at once lawgivers, prophets and priests, as had been so emphatically the case with Philo’s Moses. Among the many relevant texts here are Al-Farabi’s Virtuous State, which consciously develops aspects of the Republic; and the commentary on the Republic by Averroës (Ibn Rushd), preserved in the Hebrew translation by Samuel ibn Timmon, who did much to return Plato to the Jewish tradition. To sum up the judgement of experts in the field: the medieval Islamic political tradition has been called “The Legacy of Plato”; while Melamed argues that the Platonizing “Al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd. . . dominated Jewish political philosophy until the beginning of modern times”.73 This tradition includes Maimonides, Falaquera and many others down to Spinoza, who in this, as in so much else, broke with Jewish tradition and rejected the ideal of a philosopher-king. Nevertheless, from al-Farabi to Spinoza: the list of commentaries on, adaptations of, and “footnotes” to Plato’s political ideal is long indeed. The text of the Republic seems to have been lost in the West until translations by Decembrio and Ficino in the 1400s. Yet, as Barker has sketched, and Klibansky has argued more forcefully, Platonic political ideas lived on indirectly—through the influence of Aristotle’s Politics, Cicero’s Republic and Boethius’ Consolations of Philosophy, which repeats the longing for a day when kings will be philosophers.74 To Barker’s brief analysis, one should add that Plato’s ghost hovers behind the literature of the speculum principum.75 Now philosophy becomes handmaiden to theology, and the wisdom that enlightens the king is not geometry, dialectic or learned commentary on Platonic dialogues, but the understanding of Christian Scripture, at best supplemented by pagan learning. Like Philo and Eusebius, therefore, writers on kingship take their exemplars from Scripture: Moses, David, Solomon and, above all others, Christ.76 To take the most prominent example: in his De Regimine Principum (1265–7 AD), St Thomas Aquinas often cites Solomon “the Preacher” as an authority whose inspired wisdom crowns the arguments of Aristotle’s Politics. In Aquinas’ synthesis, ancient pagans and Hebrews alike recognized the necessity for leaders, and the superiority of monarchy as a constitutional form. Following Aristotelian vocabulary closely, he argues that just as God rules the world, reason the soul and the soul the body, so a rational, godlike king should rule society and direct it to its proper end. Before Christ, this end was not fully known, and so most Hebrew kings and Roman emperors grew corrupt. Christ was at once priest and king, but if sacerdotium and imperium must be divided in the interim before the Coming of the Kingdom when Christ will reign directly,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 158

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

159

then let earthly kings be subject to those who can best guide the people towards God: that is, let them submit to the priests, and especially “the Highest Priest, the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Pontiff, to whom all kings over Christian peoples should be subject as to Christ himself ”.77 Temporal kings may have power over intermediate ends (like defence) but these in turn serve as means towards the highest end (salvation), and so the king must be ruled ultimately by the Pope. Moreover, since Christ is the cosmic king, it was understood, and often asserted, that his earthly representatives should have universal dominion. St Thomas’ exact reasoning was not accepted in all details by opponents of papal temporal power or by those who regarded the Holy Roman emperors as the direct successors of Augustus. But few in Christendom could argue with the general framework that the king should be a “most Christian” one, guided by fear of the Lord, Scripture and the wisdom of sacred tradition. The symbolism of the king as the representative of Christ could be quite blatant, not only in Byzantine coronation rituals, but in figures like Charlemagne and Otto III who took crowns on Christmas Day. In addition, there were a number of kings who were called “the wise” because of their own erudition, in theology, the law or otherwise: Leo VI of Byzantium (r. 886–912), Albert II Duke of Austria (r. 1330–58), Alfonso X of Leon (r. 1252–85), Charles V of France (r. 1364–80), John V of Brittany (r. 1399–1442), Frederick II Elector of Saxony (r. 1544–56). The Holy Roman emperors sometimes claimed particular distinction. Otto III (r. 980–1002) was called “wonder of the world” (stupor mundi) for his ambitious intelligence; Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 1152–90) prided himself on being a new Constantine, Justinian and Charlemagne all at once. Also called “wonder of the world” was Frederick II of Sicily (r. 1212–50). A monarch who combined many talents, he was a skilled linguist (he spoke six languages), general, diplomat, lawgiver, administrator, patron of the arts and sciences, and himself a naturalist interested in falconry, astronomy and the empirical inquiries of the day. In 1224, he founded the University of Naples, the world’s oldest state university. In 1231 he issued the Constitutions of Melfi (or Liber Augustalis) which aimed to centralize political, judicial and economic power in the monarchy, but which also proclaimed citizens’ equality before the law, in the best Roman tradition. These laws have been praised as the most progressive of the medieval period, harbingers of measures by the enlightened despots of the 1700s, and even of the modern bureaucratic state. This lawgiver was also engaged in diplomatic intrigues from Egypt to England, and in nearly constant war. He was crowned with success: King of the Romans in 1212, King of the Germans in 1215, Holy Roman Emperor in 1220 while in 1229 came the highest title of all, when he crowned himself King of Jerusalem. So he claimed to be the successor at once of Augustus, Charlemagne and Christ,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 159

05/10/2011 07:05

160

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

scoffing at the popes who excommunicated him repeatedly and vilified him as the “blasphemous beast of the Apocalypse”, for his flouting of the papacy, his reputation for unorthodox scepticism and his diabolical curiositas. Dante puts him deep in Hell, among the Heretics. Here was a kind of philosopher-king whose “wisdom” was indeed a “wonder” to most of his contemporaries.

Freedom and system: philosophes and enlightened despots Individual freedom: the ideology of the modern West seems to mark a sharp break with the past, and with any archaic notions of sacred monarchs, or even submission to one’s supposed betters. Symbolic of the new age is Descartes’ revolt against the past, and the self-evident truth on which he tries to ground philosophy and science: “I think, therefore I am.” For Descartes, the cogito is the Archimedean point, the absolute, indubitable truth underlying both theoretical knowledge and the practical choice of the good. For Descartes, this ego has a life of its own, with its own feelings, volitions, memories and ideas. It is sovereign over itself, a separate substance whose freedom cannot be permanently alienated. In this, it might be called the first substance—the most real and constant thing in our experience. But political wisdom revolves around conceptions of what is most real. Therefore, the appearance of the forceful Cartesian ego, source of power over nature, and even the matrix from which arise ideas of God, is emblematic of political revolutions to come. Private conscience soon gains a near sacred status and the individual’s freedom will be hallowed in new “tablets” like the US Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man or the UN Charter of Human Rights. In the Cartesian cogito, therefore, are fore-tremors of political earthquakes: enlightened despots, republican revolutions, the abolition of slavery and serfdom, workers’ movements, the wiping away of the last traces of feudalism and, eventually, in the twentieth century, the end of monarchy as a political force. It would seem that Descartes, who philosophized freely in free Holland, shared Huck’s dream of a country that would be “out of kings”. And yet, paradoxes remain. Plato had warned that radical democracy is prone to tyranny: the people clamour to have a champion set over them. And so it has been that several modern revolutionary movements brought with them almost messianic longings for a leader to embody the people’s will, and to lead them with his superior vision and strength. Individuals may be free, but they can clamour for a king to make their freedom manifest. To return momentarily to Descartes then: for all his radical rhetoric and claims to replace the bogus wisdom of the past with a true method, Descartes was a royalist!78 Again, the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 160

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

161

seeming incongruity is symbolic, analogous to paradoxes on a larger scale. For even when trumpeting individual freedoms, modern states from France to Russia have progressively centralized power in ways unimaginable to Plato, the Hellenistic kings or Roman emperors early and late. One reason for this was the strengthening of another ideal, less dramatic than the cult of the individual, but equally influential. This is the ideal of system: being, truth and reason are unitary, and therefore, rational individuals can contribute to the systematic articulation of all knowledge and experience. The spirit of system was not unknown to the ancient world, which had its Aristotle, Euclid, Proclus, as well as the Ptolemies who tried to collect all worthy books in the Alexandrian Library. But both practically and theoretically there was not quite the same drive to unity. Platonic and Aristotelian thinkers did not regard nature or human nature as perfectly rational, and so full systematization was ruled out as impossible; but postNewton, the rational faith was that nature is perfectly intelligible, and mankind theoretically perfectible. Dreaming of a systematic mastery over nature and mankind, Descartes writes his Meditations and Principia, and in his New Atlantis of 1627, Bacon dreams of a House of Solomon, a literary parallel to the royal academies springing up in Rome, London, Paris, Berlin and elsewhere. The “spirit of system” was a phrase used to epitomize the philosophes’ method, and in this spirit Diderot edited the Encyclopédie, and Voltaire his Dictionnaire philosophique. As for the nineteenth century, its spirit of system-building is proverbial, most impressive in the work of Hegel, while more popular manifestations are the many books with titles like Outlines of Universal History. Again, the monism of Spinoza informed that of Hegel, who in turn taught Marx that all aspects of human history and the global economy are intimately related to each other. The problem now was how to make this universal substance a home for the free subject. Justinian sought to give laws to a reconstituted empire; modern system-builders too have sought the single philosophy that will legislate for an integrated world. This long preamble may explain partially why the ideal of philosopher-kings has endured through modern thought and history—even when Plato himself is specifically abhorred as archaic, otherworldly or illiberal. It is in fact astonishing to catalogue the many major political writers who struggle to articulate their own notion of wisdom, and then claim that leaders educated in their school should rule, legislate or at least enjoy predominant influence behind the throne or parliament: Machiavelli, Calvin, Hobbes, Locke, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Marx are some names. Let us begin with an early decade of revolution. The year 1516 saw the publication of More’s Utopia and Erasmus’ Institutio Principis Christiani, and 16 years later Machiavelli’s Prince appeared in print. Each is haunted in its own way by Plato’s ghost. More (sometimes nicknamed Plato Redivivus) explicitly compares

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 161

05/10/2011 07:05

162

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

his utopia to Plato’s, and the association would become a commonplace: both works advocate their own ideas of communism, education and the emancipation of women; both works have often been labelled as merely utopian.79 Erasmus’ Institutio was written for the improvement of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and forms a late example of the by-now ancient genre of the Fürstenspiegel. Different altogether in spirit is Machiavelli’s Prince: his wise leader combines leonine force with foxy cunning, a virtù of power that is not quite compatible with Greek aretē or Roman virtus, let alone Jewish or Christian piety. Yet Machiavelli does not jettison the ancient practice of taking ethical exemplars: “A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme.” But what was a pious reader to think when Moses is cited next to Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus and Hiero as a man of virtù, an “armed prophet”, who successfully instituted a new regime because he used force more than prayers?80 This Moses is more one-dimensional than Philo’s philosopher-legislator-priest-prophet, and Machiavelli’s bow to Moses the prophet seems at best snidely pious.81 But he is not so sceptical when he turns, in the final chapter, to that sacred “good” which his soul so ardently desired, the liberation of Italy. To this end, Italy needs a new prince who will institute a new political order and lead his people from captivity. It needs a new Moses, Cyrus or Theseus, and for such a saviour Machiavelli looks to the house of the Medici, which has already produced men as great and God-beloved as any of the ancients: how extraordinarily the ways of God have been manifested beyond example: the sea is divided, a cloud has led the way, the rock has poured forth water, it has rained manna, everything has contributed to your greatness; you ought to do the rest.82

So Machiavelli yearns for a new Moses, instructed in the precepts of his Prince: the ideal of wise leadership remains, even when conceptions of what wisdom is are rapidly changing. The Machiavellian mind is very different from that of Plato’s dialectician-guardian, and, more generally, the waning of a sense of transcendence seemed to leave little room for kings who rule by light of the Good “beyond essence”. Machiavelli’s influence is cited as one reason why Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus rejects and terminates the long Jewish tradition of philosopher-kings. And yet, abstract systems continue to issue forth in movements, manifestoes, ideologies and even law-codes and states. One early example, almost contemporary with Machiavelli’s fairly atheististic The Prince, is Calvin’s Institutio Christianae Religionis (1536), written at once as an introduction for theology students, and for “His Most Christian Majesty, the Most Mighty and Illustrious Monarch, Francis, King of the French”, as a defence of Calvinism against its

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 162

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

163

many slanderers in France. Its dual theologico-political aspect is reflected in the fact that this piece of fundamental theology is explicitly written to instruct the sovereign as “a minister of God”. More lastingly, it provided the fundamental theology grounding theocratic states in Geneva, Scotland and Massachusetts, states which, like Magnesia, aimed to be “virtuous republics under God”, but which were far more puritanical than Plato in banning art, theatre and other worldly distractions from virtue. Calvin fairly abhorred the name of philosopher, which he associated with the vanities of heathen wisdom. But labels are secondary, and he can be compared with the Athenian Stranger — a “wise legislator” whose ideas stand behind the constitutions of actual colonies. Indeed, of all Greek philosophers, Calvin likes Plato best, particularly the more pessimistic and ascetic strands of his thought: for Calvin, as for the writer of Laws, human beings are endowed with an inalienable sinfulness, and it is to restrain this evil and to return us to the divine that governments are instituted among men.83 Calvin and Hobbes are a strange pair to place by Plato’s side. Yet Hobbes too hearkens back to Plato, and far more explicitly than Calvin does. In finishing Book 2 of Leviathan, Hobbes claims that he has outdone Plato and all philosophers hitherto, for he is the first to have “put into order, and sufficiently, [and] probably proved all the theorems of moral doctrine”, which theorems being necessary (more than the principles of sciences mathematical) to the right ordinance of a Commonwealth, Hobbes expresses the hope that his book will fall into the hands of a sovereign who would understand, establish and promote it as the fundamental law of the land, even to the point of ordaining that its truths and trains of argument be read out on an appointed day before the assembled people, so as to educate them in the rationality of their state and gradually “convert these truths of speculation into the utility of practice”.84 Hobbes thus presents himself explicitly as a new Plato, and implicitly as a modern Moses, the legislator behind the truly wise society. This wisdom includes knowledge of both natural law (Books 1–2) and Scriptural exegesis (Books 3–4), both of which require Hobbes’ nominalistic materialism, and not Aristotle’s obscurantism, to be understood correctly. Hobbes himself was a royalist, but in his argument it is the consent of the people that raises up sovereigns, gives them power and a near-sacred status. For in their desire to escape the state of nature, they should honour their sovereign as a “mortal god”, a Leviathan who preserves his people in peace, life and everything good. To rebel against him is to reject natural law and God himself (for natural law is the art by which God governs the world); more importantly, it is to contradict one’s own, individualistic desire for preservation. Hobbes thus combines absolute monarchy with nominalistic, quasi-democratic individualism—a combination as cunning as the blending of democracy and monarchy in Magnesia. Hobbes raged against scholastic Aristotelianism, notions of the spirit,

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 163

05/10/2011 07:05

164

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

mystical transcendence and any sort of ontological dualism. Equally prejudiced against the “superstitions” of priestcraft, monkishness, papism and Aristotelian medievalism with its talk of “essences” and “incorporeal substances” were the philosophes of the 1700s. Philosophy for them was empirical, not rationalistic; scientific, not obscurantist; based on induction, not Aristotelian syllogism and empty scholastic deductions. As proud as Hobbes of their superiority to the past, they were perhaps more naive than he in their trust in Nature, Natural Law, Reason, Freedom, Progress and Perfectibility. Such secular shibboleths they enshrined with all the timeless aura of Platonic Ideas, and preached them fanatically as substitutes for Faith, Hope and Love. Enlightenment did not now proceed from the divine sun, Helios, or omniscient God. Rather it streamed as the “natural light of reason” from the plain facts of observable nature or from the apodeictic truths of mathematics and morals. Some writers railed against the spirit of system that had produced an Aristotle, Aquinas and even Descartes. Yet their heroes Bacon, Locke and Newton were just as systematic and the great project of the age was the Encyclopédie (1751–72), with its revealing subtitle—Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Crafts.85 Attempting to summarize human knowledge and promulgate it to the people, this massive work of some 72,000 articles was more ambitious than the “education” provided by works like Plato’s Laws, Justinian’s Institutes or Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah. A stream of pamphlets, cheap books, plays, poetry and handbooks like Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique were supplementary efforts to enlighten the people, and so prepare the way for wholesale social reform.86 The ideal of enlightenment brought a political corollary: many welcomed the strong monarchs across Europe as potential educators of mankind, particularly when the fashions of the time made them readers of literature, patrons of arts and sciences and promoters of the philosophes’ ideas. Frederick II in Prussia, Catherine II in Russia and Joseph II in Austria were the most prominent of the autocrats who were idolized by their contemporaries as enlightened rulers. There were many others, including Charles III of Spain, Stanislaus Augustus of Poland, Leopold Grand Duke of Tuscany (brother of Joseph II), Gustavus III of Sweden and some lesser princes.87 Most successful, however, was Frederick II, and well might Kant equate the Age of Enlightenment with the “century of Frederick”.88 Later historians refer to these figures collectively as “enlightened despots” but this is a somewhat later term: the contemporary phrase was in fact “philosopher-king” or, more precisely, philosophe-roi. Republic 473c–d was a favourite passage to be quoted—often completely out of context. For example, the influential Encyclopédie article on “Philosopher” attributes to Marcus Aurelius (and not Plato) the “true saying” that people will be happy “when kings are philosophers or when philosophers are kings”. The citation seems a blatant act of misinformation, but the writers might have justified it

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 164

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

165

to themselves as a “noble lie”. Marcus was a name preferable to Plato, because Plato was metaphysical, Marcus this-worldly; Plato’s ideas anticipated Christian theology, Marcus persecuted Christians; Plato was a dreamer, Marcus an emperor.89 Frederick II similarly eulogized Marcus but ignored Plato, and in 1764 a pamphlet appeared with the title “The Spirit of the Philosopher Kings, Marcus Aurelius, Julian, Stanislas and Frederick”. The title betrays a revealing preference for strong, pagan Roman emperors: for the Enlightenment, wisdom lay in mastering physical reality, not transcending it.90 Strength was indeed needed if the “philosopher-kings” were to pursue the agenda of their times: promoting religious toleration of minorities, freedom of thought and the press, freeing the serfs, reforming the law, humanizing punishment and limiting the power of intermediary bodies that might stand between the people and their enlightened monarch. This arrogation of power was extended over churches, monasteries, convents, regional parliaments and courts, universities, guilds and all alleged petty “despots” who exercised office merely out of self-interest or feudal inertia. The monarch therefore aimed to be absolute: laws and government ministers should not intervene between people and king, and intimacy between ruler and ruled is illustrated best by the stories of Frederick’s popularity, or the fact that Joseph II travelled about his realms and was nicknamed “the People’s Kaiser”. To keep up with the demands of being “absolute” Frederick, Catherine and Joseph needed amazing reserves of energy and philoponia. Like Alexander, Antiochus III, Marcus, Julian or Justinian (“the emperor who never sleeps”), they worked incessantly at the “trade” of monarchy, concentrating in their persons as much as possible of the expertise needed to give systematic unity to the state. This expertise made them almost like the “living law” of Hellenistic monarchs, or Philo’s Moses, and like them, enlightened despots were accountable only to the higher law of Reason and Nature. In practice, this made them not accountable at all, and so the systematization of state control did not at all preclude Machiavellian tactics. If moral pieties needed to be swept aside, so be it: Frederick seized Silesia without pretext or warning; Joseph and Catherine connived in the First Partition of Poland (1772); Joseph closed 700 monasteries and convents, nearly half the total in his domain. Frederick (r. 1740–86) illustrates this duality of enlightenment reason and force. By age 17, he was signing his letters Frédéric le philosophe, and from 1733–40 in Rheinsberg he made up for his meagre education by reading French literature, translating a piece by Wolff91 and writing such works as his Anti-Machiavel, published with Voltaire’s help in 1740. Here he shows how he had imbibed prevailing fashions as if they were eternal truths—Nature, Reason, Progress, cosmopolitanism—and here he famously defines the prince as the “first servant of the people”. His thirty volumes of collected writings include six

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 165

05/10/2011 07:05

166

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

of poetry (universally decried as bad), seven of history and two of philosophy. He played the flute and as king proved a great patron of the arts; he revived the Academy of Science in Berlin, hosted literary figures at Sans-Souci, and it was here, according to Voltaire’s anecdote, that the Dictionnaire philosophique was conceived. As a sometime favourite of Voltaire, Frederick was a model of enlightened rule. He limited censorship, tolerated religious diversity, abolished the use of torture, promoted education, agriculture and industry. He initiated the writing of Germany’s first law-code, the Allgemeines Preussisches Landrecht (1794), which synthesized natural, Roman and German law. Nor did he merely direct: he intervened in cases, and allowed citizens the right of direct personal appeal to him, as self-styled avocat du pauvre. His presence was felt in every area, and he was regarded as a model of Prussian discipline. Lessing wrote odes of praise, Gleim “wrote of him as of a kind of demi-god”92 and anecdotes made him a favourite of the people. On the other hand, Voltaire wrote his La vie privée du roi de Prusse (1785) to expose the philosopher-king as a mere tyrant. And Frederick could be tyrannical when it came to taxation, greatly needed to fund his huge army and incessant wars. Most notably, the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) has been called the first global war, with its alliances of European powers, and it established Prussia as a great power in central Europe. Legislator, general—though not a priest or even much beholden to religion, he was magnified by worshippers like Carlyle as a quasi-sacred figure: Strange enough to note, one of Friedrich’s last visitors was Gabriel Honoré Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau. These two saw one another; twice, for half an hour each time. The last of the old Gods and the first of the modern Titans;--before Pelion leapt on Ossa; and the foul Earth taking fire at last, its vile mephitic elements went up in volcanic thunder. This also is one of the peculiarities of Friedrich, that he is hitherto the last of the Kings; that he ushers in the French Revolution, and closes an Epoch of World-History. Finishing off forever the trade of King, think many; who have grown profoundly dark as to Kingship and him.93

Carlyle’s style of hero worship could also be quite compatible with more democratic sentiments, and indeed through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several leaders were almost revered as the embodiment of the people’s will—Napoleon, Andrew Jackson, de Bolívar, O’Connell, Garibaldi. The idea of the will is particularly important for nineteenth-century German thought, as in Hegel and Nietzsche, both of whom have their own versions of the philosophic king or legislator.94 Hegel combined the Enlightenment ideal of subjective freedom with the recognition that individuals are in practice conditioned by groups, national traditions and the ethos of their civilization. At critical junctures, both subjective and “substantial” existence are united in certain world-historical individuals, who

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 166

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

167

embody the will of their times and indeed that of the Spirit itself. So, in Hegel’s understanding of history, Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and Napoleon were among the strong men through whose overpowering passions the “cunning of Reason” operated, as it used the imperfect material of human ambitions to effect a greater historical good. None of these are for Hegel philosopher-kings in Plato’s sense, of course, for they were power-driven world-conquerors, the very antithesis of the contemplative thinker. Yet by extending the sway of Greek civilization (Alexander), the Roman peace (Caesar), Christianity (Charlemagne) or rational liberty (Napoleon), they were the unconscious bearers of spiritual purposes, thus mediating between particular contingencies and universal ends. Through them, the universal was individualized and the rational system of the Idea willed itself into actuality: through them, mankind has realized its innate freedom. Mutatis mutandis, then, Hegel’s world-historical individuals bear at least a distant family likeness to Plato’s Guardians and philosophical demiurges: promoting spiritual unity, they too do the work of the Idea, though of course, Plato and Hegel differ sharply as to what the highest Idea is and imports.95 Analogous for Hegel to the world-historical individuals are those individuals who should head the rational, modern state. In Hegel’s mind, the rational state will be a kind of constitutional monarchy. This is significantly different from any sacred or even philosophical kingship: modern society is too complex to be overseen by a single person, and the ancient ethics of virtue has been replaced by the Kantian Moralität of duty, the quasi-Christian core of a more deeply integrated communal life (Sittlichkeit). The role of the king is not to exemplify virtue, and he need not be wise or even intelligent. For mankind itself has grown wise through history (Hegel argues), and has learned to respect the wisdom of the bourgeois family, free market, self-regulating corporations and trained civil service, which for Hegel is the “universal class”. Through these levels of society, decisions are made and ideas filter “up” to the royal seat; others draft the legislation which it is the king’s duty merely to sign. Yet this duty is still of the highest importance: the king’s signature actualizes the great “I will” of the nation. In Hegel’s system more broadly, the Will brings the phenomenal realization of the Concept (Begriff), and so the king becomes a vessel for the progressive self-actualization of the Idea. Less abstractly, in the king, the people’s subjective freedom is no longer a diffuse universal but finds actual, individual expression. Thus, one finds once more the desire for systematic unity with subjective freedom, a king who embodies the will of the people. In this regard Hegel was most inspired by Napoleon, organizer of the Napoleonic Code, and aggressive guardian of the truths of the Revolution. This admiration for a willful leader who uses power to promote a true ideology foreshadows much in the twentieth century. Hegel should not be easily caricatured as a proto-communist or proto-fascist, insisting as he does on the right of private

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 167

05/10/2011 07:05

168

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

property, and the free rationality of the inner mind. And yet there is a direct line of caricature from his constitutional monarchs to the idolization of a Leader like Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler or Stalin. The Führer-Prinzip as well as Lenin’s call for a “vanguard of the proletariat” have roots in the spirit of the systematic, organic monism fostered by Hegel.

Natural light of reason: Thomas Jefferson, philosopher-president Before turning to Lenin as philosopher-king, however, let us look at a different product of the Enlightenment faith in human perfectibility. In his Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies (1775) Edmund Burke notes that the colonists were avid readers, especially of law, and that book exporters “have sold nearly as many of Blackstone’s Commentaries in America as in England”.96 Even more popular than the Commentaries was Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government and Locke’s two Discourses. Behind these titles lay Filmer, Pufendorf, Grotius and a whole tradition of natural law theory going back to Cicero and Aristotle. Study of the law thus threw up fundamental philosophical issues: the state of nature, rights of man, relation of temporal and spiritual authority, nature of authority itself and even the nature of God. Burke advised wariness of these inquisitive Americans: “this study [of the law] renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources”. And indeed, when tensions rose, the culture of the colonies gave rise to an assembly of formidable intellects, notably the “Seven”: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and George Washington.97 When these and other “craftsmen of freedom” met at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776 and issued the Declaration of Independence, and when after independence they drafted the US Constitution (1787), they succeeded in joining power to Enlightenment principles, and founding a nation on a philosophy of individual freedom and equality. Montesquieu’s notion of republican virtue, Lockean individualism and much else went into the making of the American State Papers: again, one is tempted to draw an analogy between Plato’s Athenian Stranger and the group of American philosophical legislators. Furthermore, what Plutarch claims for Lycurgus’ Sparta could definitely be asserted of the US Constitution: it was an education for Europe, studied by enlightened despots like Leopold II of Tuscany, and taken as the model for many later nations’ constitutions. It worked so well partly because it was not too idealistic or doctrinaire, crafted as it was out of a keen awareness of human will-to-power and the need for flexibility. Pierce Butler, for example, justified it by quoting Plutarch’s Solon: not the best law, but the best law of which the people were capable.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 168

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

169

Prominent among these “wise legislators” was Thomas Jefferson, and for this and his other accomplishments as a thinker and third President, he has been persuasively called “America’s Philosopher King”. Like the Athenian Stranger summing up Plato’s experience, Jefferson sums up much of Enlightenment “wisdom”. He was educated by tutors like William Small who was strongly associated with the Scottish Enlightenment; he studied common law and practised for seven years; he immersed himself in Locke and Montesquieu, and these dominated his thinking when he became one of the chief writers of the Virginia Constitution of 1776 and the Declaration of Independence (he was absent from the Constitutional Convention). While in France, he conversed with Condorcet, de Buffon and other naturalists, and was, in Lerner’s view, “one of America’s polymaths and best amateur scientists”.98 He was also a humanist. He read Plato in the original, along with Thucydides, Epicurus, Cicero, Tacitus and other classical authors. Epictetus he admired greatly as a moral guide equal to the New Testament. The latter he valued (like Kant) for its moral teachings, and gathered together important ethical passages to make up the so-called Jefferson Bible. Here, as in Jefferson’s cosmos at large, there was no room for angels, miracles and superstitious hocuspocus, and with typical Enlightenment prejudice against metaphysics, Jefferson mistrusted Plato as a proto-Papist with his talk of essences and Ideas known only by mysterious intuition.99 And yet as a Deist, Jefferson should really have felt at home with the Timaeus, or even with Julian’s particular interpretation of it: as we have seen, Julian posited multiple creations of mankind, with each national group adapted artfully by the Demiurge to its natural environment, Scythians to Scythia, Thracians to Thrace and so forth.100 For the Deist Jefferson, God is more a clockmaker and mechanist than Platonic hand-worker, but a craftsman nevertheless, and this God also created the world in a single act, and cleverly, perfectly adapted each species to its environment. Thus Deism lays the deeper basis for Jefferson’s commitment to individual liberty: governments should acknowledge the divine wisdom, respect local variety and leave individuals alone as much as possible, while safeguarding their natural rights.101 Jefferson was therefore committed at once both to the abolition of slavery, and to the exportation of former slaves back to their God-given homes in Africa. “We hold these truths to be self-evident”: the preamble of the Declaration of Independence rings with serene self-confidence, and the proud belief that Jefferson and the Founding Fathers had not only encoded human wisdom, but actually articulated the natural laws of God’s providence, reverberates through the literature and mythology of the times. George Washington, for example, writes in an open letter to the state governors that they live in an epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period. Researches of the human mind after social

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 169

05/10/2011 07:05

170

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

happiness have been carried to a great extent; the treasures of knowledge acquired by the labors of philosophers, sages, and legislators, through a long succession of years, are laid open for us, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the establishment of our forms of government.102

In the dreams of the time, America was the New World, indeed the New Eden, untainted by the sins of Old Europe, rich in the resources of a virgin continent, and even richer in the accumulated wisdom of tradition and the divine revelation, which would guide a Christian people to build the New Jerusalem, and give mankind itself a new baptism in the waters of liberty. In this great labour, Jefferson ultimately came to be revered almost as a new Moses, and the Declaration of Independence as well as Madison’s Constitution take on the status of quasi-sacred texts.103 In a different vein, Lincoln paid the highest tribute to Jefferson when in 1859 he compared his “self-evident truths” to the postulates of Euclid: The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society... All honor to Jefferson, to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a mere revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there that to-day and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.104

Lincoln himself has been revered as a “philosopher-king”, particularly by Straussians, for his intellect, his ostensible dedication to freedom and equality even in the face of terrible, protracted war. If so, he here honours Jefferson as his political exemplar, a man whose political life was enlightened by fundamental truths. Yet Jefferson’s vision of America differed from Lincoln’s. Lincoln’s Republicans took over the earlier Federalist vision of the United States as a great industrial and financial power—the Hamiltonian vision that Jefferson bitterly resisted as Secretary of State under Washington (1790–3). Jefferson’s own vision was rather more in the spirit of Plato’s Laws. He dreamed that the United States would be a country of independent farmers and craftsmen, guided by wise laws jealously maintained and strictly interpreted, as well as by a political class dedicated to those laws, a class of superior talent and virtue, yet genuinely republican in its commitment to freedom and equality. Jefferson feared that Hamilton’s measures for an “energetic government”, strong executive, national bank, closer ties to the British empire and the like would conspire to re-create the moneyed elites, the “aristocracy of paper” and even the familial aristocracies

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 170

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

171

of the Old World—those “rapscallions” whom the revolutionaries had managed to throw out. True, the people should be guided by their betters,105 but let the elite be a “natural aristocracy” of talent and education, not mere birth, wealth or military power. In keeping with the Enlightenment faith in liberty, Jefferson had greater faith in human goodness than did the Athenian Stranger, and so did not want laws and magistracies to be multiplied needlessly. Unplatonic too was the Louisiana Purchase which helped the United States to expand across the continent and grow confident in the faith of its “Manifest Destiny”. Here was no tightly knit Cretan city of 5,040 households. Yet, mutatis mutandis, Jefferson’s Virginia and United States were also “republics of virtue, under God”,106 ruled by regal quasi-divine laws, supported by a self-sufficient, largely agrarian economy, and populated by yeoman-citizens of republican virtue, happy in their wise isolation from the “entanglements” of foreign alliances. And like the citizens of Magnesia, Jefferson wanted his Americans well educated. He shared Plato’s zeal for education, in particular scientific education, and in Enlightenment style, he prized knowledge as the solvent of most ills. Knowledge is virtue, and persuasion is better than force: educated over time, the Indians would be gradually prepared for “higher” European civilization, and slave owners would come to accept the abolition of slavery.107 So Jefferson supported primary, state-supported education for the people, and higher education “to form the statesmen, legislators and judges, on whom public prosperity and individual happiness are so much to depend”. His obsession as an older man was to found a university that would train his future, natural elite. Jefferson’s ideal curriculum for this University of Virginia was broader than that of Plato’s Guardians. It comprised ten subjects: ancient languages, modern languages, pure mathematics, mathematical physics, “natural philosophy” (chemistry, mineralogy), biology, medicine, government and history, municipal law and, finally, “Ideology, General Grammar, Ethics, Rhetoric, Belles Lettres, and the fine arts”.108

Scientific wisdom: Marx, Lenin, Stalin Ideology seems a startling inclusion in an Enlightenment curriculum, but Jefferson construes it simply as “the doctrine of thought”—that is, as logic, part of the trivium alongside grammar and rhetoric. Yet the word itself catapults us into the twentieth century, an age in which ideas, more than ever before, could shape movements, parties, nations, alliances, and could in some cases even produce rulers who positively demanded power as theirs by right of their ideological gnōsis. Perhaps the most potent of ideologies was Marxism, and at first glance, it might seem strange to compare Marx to the Athenian Stranger, or

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 171

05/10/2011 07:05

172

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Philo’s Moses. Platonic ideas were even less in vogue among nineteenth-century revolutionaries than they had been among the eighteenth-century philosophes. Indeed, the Left set itself against all the forces of reaction, Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, captains of industry and petty bourgeois, as well as the miscellaneous monarchs, dukes, Junkers of a fraying feudal order. Plato was regarded as part of that benighted order, and so Das Kapital mentions him only to dismiss him. It dismisses the division of labour in the Republic as “merely the Athenian idealisation of the Egyptian system of castes, Egypt having served as the model of an industrial country to many of his contemporaries also, amongst others to Isocrates”. Similarly, Marx assimilates the Platonic argument that “the work cannot wait for the labourer” to the conditions of the industrial factory, thus insinuating that Plato would have protested the Factory Act and refused to give the workers breaks: le platonisme où va-t-il se nicher! Marx concludes darkly.109 Nor might Plato have found any refuge in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, for this too half condemns the Republic as a conservative text, a reaction against Sophistic individualism.110 More generally, Plato was regarded by the Left as an illiberal idealist not to be welcomed in the modern world. His cult of Ideas would exclude the people, and would bore scientific materialists; even the communism of his Republic was elitist and merely utopian. Marx loudly claimed to be both scientific and democratic, yet despite these assertions and despite their hostility to religion, Marx’s writings and very person would do much to focus the millennial yearnings of his followers. It is often argued that despite its militant atheism, Marxism was very much a secular religion that swept in where Arnold’s “sea of faith” was ebbing away, and replaced theological controversies with sects and heresies of its own. Marx himself hailed from a line of rabbis and though not brought up Jewish, as a mature man he would bear the mighty beard of an ancient prophet, and as he thundered against the abomination of capitalism, root of all evil, with its surplus value, wage slavery, commodity fetishes and other Golden Cows, he did so with the fiery indignation of an Amos or Elijah. Here was one whom the pharaonic ruling classes could not bribe or browbeat into abandoning the people: here was one with an absolute sense of right, one who would suffer exile and poverty in his righteous struggle against oppression. So he wandered for years in the wilderness of the British Library, but it was there in his lonely researches shepherding statistics and stray facts into systematic form, that he would receive revelations of a higher order. Somehow fated to be the greatest prophet of communism, he brought down his revelations to the public not in two, but in three volumes, that codified for all time the fundamental “laws” of economics, society and history. With its mixture of statistical detail, keen intuition of the essential fact, broad philosophical principle and moral seriousness, Das Kapital was not only

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 172

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

173

a great book, but an inspired one, and for believers it superseded all previous books and wisdoms hitherto. Moses may have mediated between God and mankind, and Hegel may have summed up the history of Spirit, but Marx had synthesized all their essential insights, mediating between the past, with its alienated self-consciousness, and an enlightened future, when mankind would become whole again. Das Kapital thus seemed to ground the emerging proletarian self-consciousness on revelations of the inner dynamic of history. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and “all philosophers hitherto only contemplated the world”, but the task for philosophers now was “to change it”. With their sacred text, their higher knowledge of the trajectory of history and workings of society, revolutionaries knew that their prime task now was to apply the laws to their own times. Marx himself revealed little about this detailed practical work, for although he had led the people to the very borders of the Promised Land, he died before entering it himself. Nonetheless, he had proved the historical necessity of the workers’ paradise, perhaps one on a global scale, and so his disciples’ faith was strong. A few wars to free the people from their ancient oppressors and take possession of the means of production! The industrial world was flowing with milk, honey and endless commodities: expropriate the Philistines! How easy is it then! But when revolution came to Russia in 1917, the task of fitting a Marxist paradigm to the complexities of actual rule would require demiurgic cunning of the first order. Lenin by all accounts was a supremely talented individual, intelligent, tireless, physically strong, a shrewd tactician both in small committees and on wider national and international stages.111 His own struggle to unify the splintered Russian Left behind the idea of proletarian government and a Bolshevik “vanguard of the proletariat” led to some 55 volumes of theoretical and practical works, including Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899), What Is To Be Done? (1902), State and Revolution (1917) and Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917). In these Lenin took upon himself the mantle of Hegelian and Marxist world history,112 thus making himself the spokesman of the Idea, as of human destiny. As if priding himself a king in the realm of thought, Lenin did not hesitate to dip into the most technical debates and to correct the “bourgeois” epistemology of Mach and Avenarius, for example: these and others are exposed as secret “Fideists”, unwitting lackeys of the ruling classes, dupes of the bourgeois mentality, Mensheviks and worse.113 Here politics and philosophy are inextricably joined, and Lenin’s factional struggles were inevitably steeped in ideological jostling: to win command of the Left, he needed to establish himself as the rightful heir to Marx. With the revolution, Lenin not only gained supreme power as a kind of princeps of the Central Committee and Politburo. He was also enthroned as the philosopher of the USSR, with unchallenged ideological auctoritas. Eventually, his writings (along

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 173

05/10/2011 07:05

174

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

with those of Marx and Engels) were enshrined in the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, and a caste of scholars established to guard them from the profane. When Lenin withdrew from active politics, Trotsky and Stalin in turn vied to present themselves as the rightful heirs to his intellectual empire, and his successor as supreme leader. Trotsky “the pen” was acknowledged as the “best” thinker among the Bolshevik leadership, and was even more confident in his obvious intellectual powers. But this, paradoxically, was a weakness: too much the philosopher, he was eventually outmanoeuvred by the man he foolishly underestimated as stupid. Born in Georgia in 1879, the son of a cobbler and washerwoman, made general secretary for the Central Committee in 1922, and leader in 1928, Stalin distinguished himself early and late by his cruelty, his ruthless brutality. But vicious as he would become in his enforcement of “revolution from above”, Stalin was far from being stupid or uneducated. Despite a harsh family background, he was awarded a scholarship to Tiflis Spiritual Seminary, where with the elite of Georgia he studied Latin, Greek, Russian literature and theology from age 14 until he was almost 20, consistently earning the highest possible marks.114 Later he gave serious study to Marx, Engels, Lenin and other communist thinkers, and according to anecdote at least, he studied Hegel and German idealism with Jan Sten from the Marx-Engels Institute for two hours a week from 1925–8.115 Stalin studied diligently to present himself as an orthodox follower of Lenin but at the same time he wrote Principles of Leninism (1924), A Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1938), Marxism and Problems of Linguistics (1950), The Economic Problems of the USSR (1952) and other works in some 13 volumes. Much of this is often judged to be dubious originality, yet it reveals again how revolutionaries of that generation felt the need to present themselves as leaders in revolutionary thinking, even if Stalin modestly claimed to be but a “guardian” of Lenin’s new laws.116 Again, though not as a versatile as Trotsky, Stalin claimed in later life to read 500 pages a day: Marxism, architecture, linguistics, genetics and international relations were among Stalin’s intellectual interests. Historical works especially attracted him. He kept up with writings on both the Russian past and the annals of Mesopotamia, ancient Rome and Byzantium. When the fancy took him, he held conversations with physicists, biologists and other scientists.117

His favourite novel was Prus’ Pharaoh; he annotated Machiavelli’s Prince; he went to the opera, ballet, concerts and had such disparate interests that one biographer judges him a mere “intellectual dilettante”. Whether or not Stalin felt deep self-doubt about his omnicompetence, he certainly thrust himself as an authority into specialized debates in a plethora of disciplines. He

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 174

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

175

condemned Deborin’s ideas as too Hegelian and conservative; Aleksandrov’s History of Western-European Philosophy did not have enough party spirit; Pavlov’s behaviourism was wrong on dialectical grounds; Marr’s class-based linguistics ignored the historical roots of language; and so forth.118 Arbiter of literature, art, music, science, history, he felt the need to settle debates from on high, far more autocratically than a Justinian or Julian. Stalin also carefully cultivated his image of practical wisdom. He had himself systematically portrayed as handsome, athletic, broad-shouldered, resolute. Here was a leader who, for all his omniscient learning and far-reaching vision, could not be fooled by academic sophists or bourgeois idlers. The “man of steel” knew when to act, and when he did act, his will became reality. He defeated the Nazi hordes by his example of courage, his strategic and tactical genius. He transformed a land of peasants into a nuclear super-power. Arrogating such accomplishments almost to himself alone, Stalin accepted the adulation of his grateful people and like Aristotle’s great-souled man, calmly tolerated the honours that they showered upon him, as Hero of Heroes, Coryphaeus of Science, Great Architect of Communism, Brilliant Genius of Humanity, Gardener of Human Happiness and other titles. Here was a man whose word was truth, whose example was law, whose being was felt somehow to be almost divine, at least by the simple-minded who knew him only from afar. Indeed while the ancient icons of Christ cosmocrator were being systematically destroyed, new images of Stalin were appearing everywhere, as if to fill the void. Truly a “red Tsar”, heir to Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible and ultimately to Byzantine emperors and the Caesars of Rome, Stalin brought back emperor worship in the guise of a “cult of personality”, as yet another ploy to consolidate his power. Generalissimus of the Red Army and secular god of the Soviet system, both abroad and at home Stalin is said to have “exercised greater political power than any figure in history”.119 If so Plutarch would have compared him to kings, even when officially he was just General Secretary of the Central Committee. Mindful of the changing senses of the words “philosopher” and “king”, one can nonetheless conclude that Stalin succeeded Lenin as the philosopher-king of the USSR: he too exercised power in the light of his own willful blend of Marxist and Machiavellian “wisdom”.120 The degree to which Stalin preserved, supplemented or perverted Leninism and the degree to which both applied, developed or betrayed Marxism remains controversial. In one perspective at least, both Lenin and Stalin were superb tacticians and self-willed opportunists who made some decisions that seemed radically contrary to communist ideas. Nevertheless, in the longer schema, they remained fundamentally convinced of their ideological creed.121 If so, the central control exerted by these Marxist kings of the USSR could read almost like a satire of Socrates’ Guardians. For as leaders of the vanguard of

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 175

05/10/2011 07:05

176

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

the proletariat, Lenin and Stalin infused consciousness of the future Good into the less mindful workers and peasants. In solidarity with the people, yet placed above them as leaders due to their superior intelligence and revolutionary zeal, they too were craftsmen whose special task was to look “up” to the paradigm of the communist utopia, and then “down” to formulate policy, expropriate the expropriators,122 collectivize the farms, politicize art and myth-making, infuse army “auxiliaries” with correct respect for the Party and even turn bureaucrats, scientists and philosophers into so many “brain workers”, as if physicists and professors were equally part of the proletariat. Almost any means seemed justified in pursuit of the all-redeeming end of a classless society: Lenin’s endlessly shifting party alliances, the volte-face of his New Economic Policy, Stalin’s purges, the Moscow show trials, the Gulag, the burning of churches and replacement of “bourgeois” Christian myths with the myth of the revolution and its “noble lies” of liberty, equality, solidarity and progress.

A concluding fable: Orwell’s Animal Farm This corruption of noble ideals found a worthy satirist in Orwell. His Animal Farm (1945) allegorizes Stalin’s betrayal of the Russian Revolution, with almost all its characters and events corresponding to figures and events in the Soviet Union of the 1920s.123 It begins when Major, the old prize boar, gives his final speech, and the animals crowd round to catch some of the wisdom garnered over a long life. Old Major denounces the injustices on the farm, where the animals do all the work and Mr Jones takes all the profit. He relates a dream about a song his mother used to sing to him as a piglet; this anthem, “Beasts of England” (and Ireland!), tells of the “golden future time” when all animals will be free and happy. Allegorically, Old Major is Marx, with a dash of the pre-scientific utopian socialism that Marx so loudly despised.124 But like Marx, the most that Major can really offer the animals is an aspiration: he gives them an injured sense of group consciousness, rouses them to dream and revolt but does not detail how the farm can be run any better. It is the pigs who are most galvanized by his speech. They eagerly work up his remarks into a full system—Animalism. In the spirit of Voltaire, they then abbreviate the principles of Animalism to Seven Commandments, which are written on the barn wall as “an unalterable law by which the animals on Animal Farm must live for ever after”. When the sheep and hens cannot learn all seven laws, the pigs condense them into a single maxim: “Four legs good, two legs bad.” This captures all the truth of Animalism, yet is so catchy that even the sheep can remember it, as they repeat endlessly, “Four legs good, two legs baaaaaad.” So, as systematizers, educators, propagandists, the pigs are wise

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 176

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

177

legislators, and when the laws are complete they prove faithful “guardians” of them, for a while. They excel also in practical science. They read the textbooks and learned journals in Mr Jones’ house about irrigation, electricity, blacksmithing, carpentry and, eventually, beer production. Snowball is brilliantly active in all this, particularly as he draws up plans for building a windmill or improving the animals’ nature: Snowball also busied himself with organizing the other animals into what he called Animal Committees. He was indefatigable at this. He formed the Egg Production Committee for the hens, the Clean Tails League for the cows, the Wild Comrades’ Re-education committee (the object of this was to tame the rats and rabbits), the Whiter Wool Movement for the sheep, and various others, besides instituting classes in reading and writing. On the whole, these projects were a failure.125

Orwell writes with a light touch, but through the humour there reverberate echoes of the massive self-assurance of a Lenin or Trotsky, with their Titanic plans to remake the Soviet soviety, the natural landscape and human nature itself, in the light of the communist “good”; here too are echoes of Enlightenment hopes to perfect mankind, and Descartes’ dream of mastering nature.126 Despite Snowball’s efforts, rats remain rats, sheep sheep, and a storm batters down the first windmill. For all his intelligence, Snowball is a fool. Or rather: his great intelligence is paradoxically part of his folly. Snowball is so creative and expansive that he cannot recognize limits, in himself, others or reality at large. This failure turns tragic when Snowball is unable to recognize the effectiveness of a very different kind of practical intelligence. Napoleon is not as eloquent as Snowball. He is not as inventive, and does not have Snowball’s mechanical genius. He does not have Snowball’s military record as hero of the Battle of the Cowshed. And yet, the animals think that he has “greater depth of character”; an ancient might even have called it “greatness of soul”. Certainly, he has greater staying power, and he is fantastically successful. He has a “reputation for getting his own way”,127 and when he does get his way and is ensconced as top pig, he develops a liking for pomp, spectacle, gun-shot salutes and military marches. He appears in public flanked by his hounds, and preceded by a black cockerel who clears the way like a trumpeter with his shrill cock-a-doodle-doo. When out of sight, he lives in luxury, surrounded by sows and his 400 piglets. Though “not much of a talker”, Napoleon is wise in his own interest and clearly understands the value of force and fear in controlling others. Napoleon’s hard-headed wisdom has its simple-minded admirers among the animals. “Napoleon is always right,” Boxer repeats, and the motto is said to sum up the general mood. Napoleon is always right and indeed Napoleon is so wise in his profound grasp of Animalism that he has single-handedly transformed the farm:

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 177

05/10/2011 07:05

178

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

Napoleon was now never spoken of simply as ‘Napoleon’. He was always referred to in formal style as ‘our Leader, Comrade Napoleon’, and the pigs liked to invent for him such titles as Father of All Animals, Terror of Mankind, Protector of the Sheep-Fold, Ducklings’ Friend, and the like. In his speeches, Squealer would talk with the tears rolling down his cheeks of Napoleon’s wisdom, the goodness of his heart, and the deep love he bore to all animals everywhere. . .. It had become usual to give Napoleon the credit for every successful achievement and every good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another. ‘Under the guidance of our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days’; or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, ‘Thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!’128

Napoleon is now not merely Stalin, universal genius, leading Marxist and incarnation of the revolutionary will. More, he has become the old Frazerian sacred king. His personal vigour, virtue and wisdom somehow keep the earth itself fertile, and guarantee that it freely give up its wheat, steel and other useful commodities. It is a lie, of course, for Napoleon is in fact hardly right. At first successful, the pigs grow corrupt, and they pervert the noble ideals of Animalism to their opposites. The immutable Seven Commandments on the barn-wall are secretly amended, and each change is sophistically defended by the pigs’ spokesman, Squealer, a brilliant speaker and true dialectician who “could turn black into white”.129 The seventh commandment, “All animals are equal” becomes “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Even the summary commandment, “Four legs good, two legs bad”, is transmuted into “Four legs good, two legs better”. Hallowed words like “equality” are twisted to justify inequality. The denial of hierarchies is used to erect a new hierarchy, and at the top of this new caste are the pigs, who now distinguish themselves by walking about on their hind hoofs, wearing human clothes and sleeping in beds. Napoleon and the others sit down to carouse and play cards with Farmers Pilkington and Frederick, as Jones had done years before. Once more, “pigs” are in charge. There is a universal quality about Orwell’s fable that makes it for many readers something more than just an allegory about the betrayal of Soviet socialism. As bitterly as Swift, Orwell laments the corruption of even the best ideas and virtues. Not only is socialism hijacked by profiteers, but it is hijacked by those who should be the natural leaders. The pigs are intelligent, but they use their intelligence to filch the farms’ surplus and indulge their piggish nature. The result is not incompatible with Marxist evolutionary materialism, according to which the mind is the brain, and the brain simply a complex organ evolved to serve the life of the organism. The brain and all its ideas (including

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 178

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

179

the philosophy of Animalism) exist to serve the body’s changing needs: superstructure serves substructure, or in Hume’s dictum, the mind is “slave of the passions”. Not surprisingly, Marx wanted to dedicate the English version of Kapital to Darwin. This whole metaphysical outlook is brilliantly (and perhaps unwittingly) satirized in the figure of Napoleon. He outsmarts even Snowball to become alpha-pig and when ensconced as king-hog proceeds to use Animalism for his own ends. There is no greater proof of Napoleon’s success than his harem of sows and brood of little Napoleons—400 healthy piglets, and not one sent to the butcher. Such ideas constitute the antipodes of Plato’s idealism, yet Orwell’s fable is universal enough to allow some comparison with the Republic. Both books describe meritocracies with three castes, each naturally suited to a certain type of labour: pigs or Guardians, dogs or Auxiliaries, and working animals or productive farmers and artisans. Here the rulers (pigs) and soldiers/police (hounds) almost coalesce into a single ruling class, as their interests are more tightly bound together than those of the workers (animals). The difference is that Plato’s Guardians control their Auxiliaries so that they are guard-dogs for the people’s benefit; Orwell’s hounds are more like wolves, terrorizing the animals at the whim of tyrant Napoleon. Again, both books explore societies based directly on a philosophical outlook: Animal Farm is grounded on social organization for the well-being of the individual, Plato’s kallipolis on intuition of an eternal Good for the eventual enlightenment of each eternal soul. Finally, both Orwell and Plato fear the decline of ideals before greed, ignorance, bad luck, and the power of circumstance to twist nominal virtues into actual vices. Animal Farm reverts to its old name of Manor Farm, while Socrates describes the degeneration of the ideal into timarchy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny, “imperfect societies” each of which is grounded in a yet more attenuated understanding of the Good. In both works, the ultimate corruption of philosophy is tyranny: Animalism declines into bureaucratic state capitalism; knowledge of the “Good beyond essence” declines into a brutal hedonism. Both Napoleon and Plato’s tyrant exercise power in their own most narrow self-interest: Napoleon playing cards, drinking whisky and rutting with the sows is a modern incarnation of the erōs tyrannos that Plato so bitterly satirizes in Republic IX. But despite his keen awareness of evil and the frequent perversion of fine ideals in this world, Plato does not therefore despair of a Good that exists there, or the human capacity to have some intuition of it here. Orwell’s fable is more pessimistic. It offers other models of wisdom besides Major, Snowball and Napoleon, but these too are found lacking. Benjamin seeks simply to endure. “Nobody has ever seen a dead donkey,” he repeats stubbornly. For Solomon, the Preacher, narrator of Ecclesiastes, all is vanity, and for Benjamin too there is nothing new under the sun. He gazes on the pigs as on another set of masters.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 179

05/10/2011 07:05

180

P hil o s o pher- K ings o f A nti q u ity

However, Benjamin’s “wisdom” of cynical quietism held no attractions for Orwell the social activist. In the end, Benjamin is as self-interested as the pigs, and his political non-involvement contributes to the death of Boxer, his only friend. The other model of wisdom is Moses, Mr Jones’ tame raven, who used to caw about a marvellous Sugar Candy Mountain far away. He claimed even to have glimpsed this Mountain on some of his higher flights, and his tales sometimes distracted the animals from their pains. Regarded as a collaborator with Mr Jones, Moses is exiled during the revolution and never returns. As an atheist, Orwell has no truck with the wisdom of “Moses”. In the end, then, all the leaders are found wanting. Old Major’s dream turns to nightmare; the pigs start stealing apples and milk early on; Snowball is driven out; Napoleon begins his reign of terror so that he can rut with the sows; Benjamin morosely ruminates on; Moses flies away. For a fable that is often categorized as a children’s book, Animal Farm makes for bleak reading. T. S. Eliot rejected it for Faber & Faber, but in his letter to Orwell he makes some suggestions for improvement: your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore the best qualified to run the farm—in fact, there couldn’t have been an Animal Farm at all without them: so that what was needed (someone might argue), was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs.130

This conjunction of intelligence with morality might be more succinctly called wisdom, and Eliot’s remarks again take one back to Plato’s ancient insight. Modern philosophy does not tend to worry much about the virtue of wisdom, or virtue at all. This fact is symbolized by the specious argument that Hobbes uses (following a hint from Descartes) to prove that everyone is equal in wisdom: everyone is equally wise because everyone is content with their share of it.131 But the intellectual arrogance of a Lenin or Trotsky, who were quite content with an ideology once accepted, serves as a warning against this sophistical relativism. The career of a Stalin also serves to remind one of the corollary to Plato’s proposal: when true fools become kings, then troubles for states and even for humanity itself will not cease. Wisdom may begin in wonder at the starry heavens, doubt of one’s own self, or fear of the Lord: in each case, wisdom begins when one is not content with one’s share in it. Therefore, let the powerful not be corrupted by any crude, misdirected ideology; let the wise rule, but be sure that they are in fact wise. Perhaps it was this absence of wise rule on Animal Farm that contributed to Eliot’s own dissatisfaction with the book. In Republic 6, Socrates wonders whether in the countless ages of the past, or at the present hour in some foreign clime which is far away and beyond our ken, the perfect philosopher is or has been or hereafter shall be compelled by a superior power to have the charge of the State.132

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 180

05/10/2011 07:05



F r o m M o ses t o M o dernity

181

He himself states that such a scenario is not impossible, even if most people disagree. When Plato wrote the passage, he could not predict the future, and he knew nothing about the Roman or Jewish past, for example. But history has at least partially vindicated the hope that his Socrates articulates. Through six chapters, we have pursued the “swan” of Plato’s ideal. Plutarch’s virtuous “kings”, two Roman emperors (Marcus during the Principate, Julian during the Dominate), Philo’s Moses, Constantine, Justinian, Frederick II of Sicily, enlightened despots, Jefferson, Lenin, Stalin—these are among the more prominent of those who have been at times praised as philosopher-kings, even if none, perhaps, were “perfect philosophers”. A longer list of names might include rulers as diverse as Archytas of Tarentum (c. 428–347 BC), Alfred the Great (r. 871–99 AD), Leo VI “the Wise” of Byzantium (r. 886–912), Alfonso X “el Sabio” of Castile (r. 1252–84), Charles V “the Wise” of France (r. 1364–80), Edward “the Philosopher” of Portugal (r. 1391–1438), Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (r. 1458–90), Pope Benedict XIV (r. 1749–58), Napoleon, US Presidents Lincoln (1861–5), Woodrow Wilson (1913–21) and Barack Obama (2009–), the Iranian President Ayatollah Khomeini (1979–89) and the Czech President Václav Havel (1989– 2003), all of whom have been called “philosopher-kings” in some fashion. Again, the US President Bill Clinton claimed that he read and re-read Marcus’ Meditations during his time in office—for courage perhaps, or perhaps to associate himself with a venerable tradition. Philosophers too, like Rousseau,133 Fichte, Nietzsche and Heidegger, have shown the desire to influence political trends, as philosophic legislators behind thrones, if not themselves monarchs or presidents. And in imaginative literature, Shakespeare’s Lear and Prospero, Swift’s Houyhnhnms and the mathematician-despots of the Floating Island of Laputa, Melville’s “Starry” Vere, Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor and even Mustafo Mundo of Huxley’s Brave New World are all “kings” who rule according to their own understanding of what is most important and real.134 To pursue every name would indeed drag one through archives, “rolls, records, documents, and endless genealogies”. But the persistence of the type and the persistent longing for it through so many vicissitudes of history suggest that it will continue to persist in times to come. We live in an age of relative democracy and freedom. At the same time we live in a “global village”, where everybody and everything is inextricably intertwined. If so, the human community remains hospitable to ambitions for a global government, as well as a global philosophy and theory of everything. That government and that philosophy may not be Platonism or any –ism hitherto. But a safe generalization is that it will form another chapter in the story of philosopher-kings, whether they be enlightened by the search algorithms of a Google, or the revelations of a God.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 181

05/10/2011 07:05

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 182

05/10/2011 07:05

Notes Notes to Chapter 1: Fundamental Themes: Kingship and Wisdom 1.

2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

Thus, the word “king” derives from the Old English cyning, a chief who “was chosen or accepted in each case from a recognized kingly or royal cynn or family (usually tracing its genealogy up to Woden)” (from “King”, Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed.). More broadly, a cynn was a tribe, people or nation so that an Anglo-Saxon king who was “elected by the Witenagemot. . . was therefore the choice of the nation (Brewer 2001: 629, “King”). Cf. Brooke 1963: 21–49 (“On King-Making”) and Ullmann on the Germanic tribes’ “descending” views of kingship that competed through the Middle Ages with the “ascending” or theocratic theory of Roman and Byzantine Christianity (1976: 12–13). For more on divine-right theory, see Figgis 1965, Nicolson 1962: 188–230 and Wooton 1986. Frazer goes on to speculate that this primitive monarchy was largely beneficent, as once ensconced, the kings could devote themselves to “research”, improving their magic powers, and so breaking free from the unwritten taboos and mould of custom that tyrannizes primitive life. In all, Frazer’s magician-kings were proto-scientists, even if their brand of knowledge was spurious. The slow recognition that magic formulas do not work forced them to reinterpret their craft, and so with time the magician developed into the priest-king. This figure did not control nature directly, but knew the prayers and rituals that would please the gods, and so he could exercise an indirect influence over natural phenomena. See esp. Golden Bough, Chapters 6–8 (Abridged version), pp. 83–109; Frazer 1905 treats in shorter compass the Golden Bough’s ideas of the magician-king. Hom. Od. 19.109–14. In the Republic, Adeimantus (Plato’s more piously inclined brother) quotes this passage to illustrate the common belief that the just prosper. Another classic work informed by notions of sacred kingship is Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus. The play begins with devastation: crops blighted, flocks infertile, and all because the crimes of Oedipus the King have polluted the land (OT 22–30). Cf. Frazer 1905: 124 (Lecture IV). “The earliest known religion is a belief in the divinity of kings . . . when history begins there are kings, the representatives of gods” (1927: 7). Oakley 2010b: 4. Oakley’s central thesis is that the monotheism of Judaism and Christianity held the seeds of the modern disenchantment and desacralization of nature—and so led to the end of the sacred kingships that dominated ancient, medieval and early modern societies. Chapters 1–3 contain excellent surveys of relevant material of ancient Near Eastern, Hebrew, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and early Russian and Muslim ideas of kingship. On Egyptian and Mesopotamian kingship, see Wilson 1974 and Jacobsen 1974, respectively. On early Hebrew ideas of kingship, see Goodenough 1929 and Gray 1961.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 183

05/10/2011 07:05

184 N o tes 7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20. 21.

Evans-Pritchard, 1962: 210. For a survey of anthropological research, see Feeley-Harnik 1985. On Easter Sundays, Louis XIV of France would touch suppliants, saying “Le roy te touche, Dieu te guérisse”; Queen Anne of England touched 200 people in 1712; Charles X of France continued the practice from 1824–30. See Hocart 1927: 33–46 (“King’s Evil”) and Axon 1959. From a psychoanalytical perspective, H. G. Baynes writes that there is an innate “need to create a king; namely, a symbolical representative of the ruling principle: that value which cannot be overthrown by daemonic influences from the shadow-world of the unconscious. This is a need that must be recognized as vital for all mankind” (1936: 101). For a succinct contrast of the two characters, see Il. 1.280–1 and 23.884–97 (Achilles judges Agamemnon’s worth in the Funeral Games). This general description applies both to theories that most value the sovereign individual (e.g. anarchism, liberal democracy) and those that privilege the sovereign collective, das Volk, the nation, the group-containing-each-individual (e.g. communism, fascism). Plut. Them. 18.7. Rousseau, Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, Second Part. Cf. Dumézil’s well-known hypothesis of three basic functions and classes in Indo-European societies: the sacred, martial and economic. This theory is reflected in Aristotle’s view of Homeric kingship (Pol. 1285b9–23); in Diotogenes’ fragment on kingship generally (in Stobaeus 4.61.8; cf. Goodenough 1928: 66); in much literature on the Roman emperors (esp. Millar 1977); and elsewhere. On the theme of the king battling the forces of chaos, see Hocart 1927: 21–32 (“God Save the King”). Indeed, Justinian had himself represented as Achilles, on a prominent statue in Constantinople: see Downey 1940. Thus, for example, Spartan kings went into battle with a guard of Olympian victors; Pericles, Cleon, Alcibiades and other important Athenian leaders were stratēgoi who served in the field; Antigonus the One-Eyed died fighting at Ipsus, aged 81; at Pharsalus, Caesar fought with his Tenth Legion; Julian fought at Strasbourg and in Mesopotamia. The importance of military ability in the Roman tradition is clear: the highest military honour was the spolia opima, gained when a general killed the enemy leader in handto-hand combat; being proclaimed imperator (victor in the field) was often the best way for an emperor to bolster his power; and the Praetorian Guard which exercised so much influence was so named after the cohors praetoria of Republican generals. See esp. Aeschylus’ use of the militaristic word tagos for Zeus, PV 96 (o( ne/oj tago\j maka/rwn). Tagos is related to tattein (“to station”), and is the term for an elective military kingship in Thessaly. After constructing his ideal state in the Republic, Plato’s Socrates “should like to hear some one tell of our own city carrying on a struggle against her neighbours, and how she went out to war in a becoming manner, and when at war showed by the greatness of her actions and the magnanimity of her words in dealing with other cities a result worthy of her training and education” (Tim. 19c2). These remarks look forward to the story of the Critias, just as they look back to Socrates’ argument in the Republic. 1 Samuel 8. 19–20. The Prince, Chapter 14.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 184

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38. 39.

40.

185

Sceptre of Zeus: Il. 2.100–9. Association of the sceptre and themistes: Il. 1.234–9, 2.205–6. More generally, the sceptre is a symbol of authority, carried by heralds and Teiresias the prophet. Op. 259–64. Ur-nammu’s dates (according to Stearns 2001) are c. 2113–2096 BC; Lipit-Ishtar’s 1934–1924; Hammurabi’s 1792–1750; and Tukulti-Ninurta’s 1244–1208. Tr. L. W. King in Horne 1997: 114–45. For discussion of early Near Eastern law, including Hammurabi’s, the first “systematic code of laws”, see Sharpes 2005: 159–60. See e.g. Hes. Th. 79-96 (Kalliope and Muses inspire kings; e)k de\ Dio\j basilh=ej). Hesiod’s phrase is quoted by Callimachus in his Hymn to Zeus, 1.79. For related ideas in early Byzantine contexts, see Gage 1933a, 1933b and Graber 1936. Agamemnon sacrifices to Zeus for the army (Il. 2.402–29), as does Nestor to Athena (Od. 3.417–44), and Alcinous to Poseidon (Od. 13.179–87). Priam and Agamemnon take the oaths before Menelaus and Paris duel. Such examples lead Aristotle to call the Homeric kings “lords of the sacrifices” (Pol. 1285b9–11; cf. 1285b22–3). Note also how the original Roman kings took auspices for the city, and were its chief priests. Spartan kings sacrificed a goat to the Muses before a battle, and were the first to sing the paean of advance (Plut. Lyc. 21.4–22.2). The wife of the Athenian archōn basileus “married” Dionysus in the spring festival of the Anthesteria. Hdt. 7.149. E.g. Pol. 7.14 (= 1332b12–1334a10). Plut. Them. 27.4. Erskine 1991: 116. Plut. Pyrrh. 19.6–7. Persian King: e.g. Ar. Ach. 65–108. Agoracritus: Ar. Eq. 1333. Pind. O. 113-14 (to\ d' eÃsxaton korufou=tai basileu=si). One hears thus that Parrhasius was “king” of painters and is said to have worn a purple tunic and golden crown. Similar garments were said to have been worn by Empedocles and Gorgias, while later in the 3rd century AD, Themistius was called “prince of orators” and Proaeresius “king of eloquence”. Note also Ammianus’ interesting (but mistaken) explanation of the Egyptian hieroglyphic for king: “they use the symbol of a bee making honey to signify ‘king’, indicating in this way that in a ruler’s nature sweetness should be combined with a sting” (17.4.11). Olmstead writes: “When Cyrus entered Babylon in 539 B.C., the world was old” (1948: 1). I.e. the King Lists of Mesopotamia, with names of Sumerian, Akkadian, Gutian, Assyrian, Babylonian and other kings from c. 2700–100. Whitehead 1967: 208. It is Whitehead, of course, whose popular quotation is often repeated out of context. In fact, his full statement contains a veiled criticism of the tradition of scholarship that finds a systematic Platonism in Plato: “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them . . . his writing [is] an inexhaustible mine of suggestion” (1969: 53). In fact, Plato’s Socrates suggests that the Guardians should be good-looking (Rep. 7.535a10–12), and Lucretius notes that the beautiful have influence (6.1110–16). Herodotus reports that the Ethiopians elect the tallest men as kings. Swift’s Gulliver

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 185

05/10/2011 07:05

186 N o tes

41. 42.

reports that the Lilliputians hold jumping contests to determine the king. Such satires hearken back to mythic stories where the prince must win a race or perform some physical feat to win his bride and kingdom: so, for example, Hippomenes racing for Atalanta’s hand. Rep. 473c11–e4. Cf. Tim. 17c7–18a10 and Leg. 731b (citizens should be at once very spirited and very gentle).

Notes to Chapter 2: Plato’s Dream 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

See esp. Tigerstedt 1977 for a survey and critique of major scholarly interpretations through to the twentieth century. For the various anecdotes comparing Plato to a swan, see Riginos 1976: 21–5. Pl. Symp. 221d–22a. One might note Socrates’ social status and not generalize too quickly about all ancient philosophers being from “the aristocracy” or “the leisured classes” (e.g. Vatai 1984: 131). See e.g. Rep. 489b3–c7, Ion 540b–d, Tht. 170b–c; cf. Leg. 875c–d (epistēmē the only real authority). Pl. Plt. 291b–92d. He was forbidden to practise it by the tyrant Critias (Xen. Mem 1.2.31); cf. Cole 1991. See Xen. Mem. 4.2.11 for the quote, in the context of a conversation with Euthydemus; see Mem. 2.1.17 for equation with happiness; cf. 3.9.10 (true kings rule by knowledge). Pl. Grg. 521d–e. Pl. Rep. 373a–b. They thus recall Polemarchus’ definition of justice (Rep. 332d), as well as conventional formulas for the heroic outlook; cf. Leg. 731b. Rep. 375c5–d1. This vocabulary, the origin of the Guardians from the Auxiliaries, their shared lifestyle and shared pursuit of war, as well as corroborating passages from the Timaeus and Critias, all suggest that what Socrates envisions is not a single, all-knowing, all-interfering, absolute king, such as hinted at by the figures of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, who aspire to be philosopher-politicians, and vaunt the ridiculous claim to know cobbling, generalship, the number of the stars and sands, and everything besides (Euthd. 294, 305–6). Rep. 499a11–c5; cf. Rep. 473c–e (quoted in Chapter 1). For hints or allusions to the proposal, cf. Rep. 376c, 484b, 487e, 501a, 520a, 525b, 540d. Rep. 473c–e, 499a–c, 502a, 543a; cf. 520b, 540d (filo/sofoi duna/stai) and in Books 8–9, the kallipolis is referred to as the “royal” city (576d–e, 580b) and the tyrant is contrasted with “the kingly” type (587b–d). There is no talk of a single philosopher-king. See esp. Arist. Pol. 1322a–b. The Ath. Pol. refers to the Areopagus of Draco and Solon as phylax tōn nomōn, designed “to guard the laws” (nomophylakein: see 3.6, 4.4, 8.4, 25.2; cf. Plut. Sol. 19.2). In general, the office of nomophylakes was aristocratic in nature, according to Aristotle (Pol. 1323a8). City-guardians (politophylakes) in Larissa: Arist. Pol. 1305b29–30. In Athens, sitophylakes, of fluctuating number, to oversee grain and bread:

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 186

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

15. 16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

187

Arist. Ath. Pol. 51.3. More controversial is the function and existence of a fifth-century board of nomophylakes, preceding that of Demetrius of Phalerum: see Cawkwell 1988, O’Sullivan 2001. Socrates elsewhere refers to his leaders as archontes, hēgemones, epistatai (Rep. 412a, 528b), “guardians of the laws” (421a, 484b, 504c) and nomothetai (427a, 429e, 530c, 538d). Morrow 1960: 209–15 and 582 discusses nomophylax and related terms to conclude that “the office [‘of guardian of laws’] is an ancient feature of Greek community life” (210); cf. Dow and Travis 1943: 158–9. Rep. 525b8-9 (o¸ de/ ge h(me/teroj fu/lac polemiko/j te kaiì filo/sofoj tugxa/nei wÓn). Desmond 2007 offers philosophical and philological reasons for translating the enigmatic phrase epekeina ousias in this way. Rep. 509d1–4 (no/hson toi¿nun, hÅn d )e)gw¯, wÐsper le/gomen, du/o au)twÜ eiånai, kaiì basileu/ein to\ me\n nohtou= ge/nouj te kaiì to/pou, to\ d )auÅ o(ratou= ktl.). Cf. Rep. 597e6–8 where the tragic poet is third removed from “the king and the truth”— presumably the Ideas which all poets ultimately imitate. Note Mircea Eliade’s suggestion that Plato “could be regarded as the outstanding philosopher of ‘primitive mentality,’ that is, as the thinker who succeeded in giving philosophic currency and validity to the modes of life and behaviour of archaic humanity” (1959: 34). To explicate Eliade’s statement in the terms of his own thought: the theory of Forms is an abstract variation on the “archaic” conception that individual events and entities are not primary or basic, but gain their meaning and validity from mythic paradigms. In this sense, the Platonic subordination of particular to Form is a variation on the archaic fascination with reality “in illo tempore”. For a similar but independent discussion, see Goodenough 1940: 87–8. Rep. 488e–89a. Rep. 500d10–501c8. Rep. 500c9–d8 (dhmiourgo\n ... swfrosu/nhj te kaiì dikaiosu/nhj kaiì sumpa/shj th=j dhmotikh=j a)reth=j). For similar ideas, see Leg. 709b–c (legislator like a pilot, doctor), 858b (like a stonemason). Nor can the Guardians be taken uncritically as examples of the priest-king, which appears in the Statesman as a rival to the true politikos (290d–91a). E.g. Rep. 342e6–11. Compare this with Frederick the Great’s definition of the enlightened despot as the “first servant of the state”. Spectators: Rep. 486a8–10. Mathematics good training: Rep. 522. Promoters of efficiency: Rep. 421c (oÀpwj oÀti aÃristoi dhmiourgoiì tou= e(autw½n eÃrgou eÃsontai). Dēmiourgoi of freedom: Rep. 395b8–d1 (dhmiourgou\j e)leuqeri¿aj). Descartes, Discourse on Method, Part 6, 44. Beauty: Rep. 7.535a10–12; cf. Feldman 1993b: 239 for echoes of this conceit in Pompeius Trogus, Philo and others. Rep. 503c–e. One might note several philosophers who had their own “bridle of Theages”: exile for Diogenes; shipwreck for Zeno (D.L. 7.4–5); exile for Philo’s Moses and Dio of Prusa; ill-health for Seneca (as for Pascal and Nietzsche later); house arrest for the young Julian; the quiet life of a lens grinder for Spinoza; exile for Marx; Siberia and foreign exile for Lenin and Trotsky; cf. the effect of the Babylonian Captivity on the religious development of the Hebrews.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 187

05/10/2011 07:05

188 N o tes 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38.

39.

40.

Evil cannot be eradicated here: Tht. 176a5–8; cf. Seventh Letter 325e–26a. The ideal state is ideal, and not necessarily a practical option: Rep. 592b, Leg. 739d–e. Pace Hegel and others who thought that pre-Christian Greek thinkers had relatively little appreciation of the force or even existence of evil. This is certainly consistent with the Platonic tenet that evil is a privation of good. But many passages in the Laws seem to move away from this, to regard evil as a permanent presence, perhaps separate from law and the good: see e.g. 691c–d (no autocrat can resist temptation), 701b–c (man’s “Titanic nature”, ever striving), 777b (man is a “troublesome animal”), 783a (sexual lust that causes “every species of wantonness and madness”; cf. 839e), 854a–b (the “weakness” and primeval “madness” that drives men to rob temples); 875a (without law man is the most savage animal), 918d (most people avaricious), 732a–b (the selfishness that is the source “of all offences”). For Plato, human beings are uniquely capable of extremes: when educated, man “becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures” (766a; echoed by Aristotle Pol. 1.2 (= 1253a29–33)). Leg. 875a–b (tr. Jowett, modified slightly); cf. 691a–d, 713c, 739c–e. Sanders suggests both that Dionysius I invited Plato out of “interest in contemporary political theory and above all in monarchical speculation” (p. 6) and that he wanted to be seen as a rival to the Persian kings in pomp and luxury (2008: 6–9). Plt. 265d. Plt. 267e7–68a4. Plt. 271e4–72b4. Cf. Jowett: “Plato glories in this impartiality of the dialectical method, which places birds in juxtaposition with men, and the king side by side with the bird-catcher; king or vermin-destroyer are objects of equal interest to science” (Statesman, “Introduction and Analysis”). Leg. 712a. These inner continuities between the Republic and Laws are not always emphasized clearly. Schofield for example writes: “Plato appears to have abandoned in the Laws the trust in the union of philosophy and power he had signaled in the Republic when discussing the conditions necessary for bringing the good city into being” (1999a: 241 = 1999b: 45); cf. Vlastos 1957: 234–8. This old thesis of Zeller (1888: 522) is modified by Morrow who rightly stresses the inner relation of the rule of philosophy and (philosophic) law in Magnesia; he even begins and ends by discussing Plato’s “demiurgic skill” in melding principle and empirical conditions (1960: 10–12, 568–72 et al.). Leg. 714a. Laks opines that Magnesia is a “noocracy”, ruled by nous (2000: 271, 281, n. 31), but this interesting coinage is not quite accurate. Magnesia is ruled by magistrates who apply the law fairly slavishly, legislative creativity being discouraged even among the higher magistrates. There is a measure of mindlessness in this, but this is for the citizens’ good: cf. Whitehead on the “godsend” of a well-worked-out routine. From a different perspective, of course, the laws are an education: “For of all kinds of knowledge the knowledge of good laws has the greatest power of improving the learner” (Leg. 957c). But the whole point of the Laws is to defend rule by laws over rule by living, corruptible minds. Magnesia is ruled by mind only indirectly, for its laws represent a kind of ossified intelligence: the Athenian Stranger and Cleinias articulate the laws, which are then obeyed. Plt. 295b–d.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 188

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

46. 47.

48.

189

Leg. I, for instance, explores the many ramifications of legislation for drinking alcohol. Need for preambles: 818b–23d, 857c–59b; cf. Morrow 1960: 553–4 for examples of preambles to specific laws as well as similar moments in Anglo-Saxon legislation. Leg. 644d–45b. For the image of man as a puppet, cf. Marcus, Med. 7.3. Lovers of laws: Leg. 697a (no/mwn e)piqumhtai¿). Origin of law: 677a–82a. For references to laws of many peoples, see Morrow who, with some reservations, approves Rostovtzeff ’s “essential insight, that Plato’s Laws is a collection and codification of the whole of Greek law” (1960: 6). A “dream” or “city and citizens of wax”: Leg. 746b. Cnosians to send out a colony: 702c–d. For example, the Laws revisits old themes such as that “virtue is one” (Leg. 963a–965e), that “nobody does evil voluntarily” (Apol. 25e, Prot. 345d, Rep. 589c, Leg. 731c), and that knowledge is anamnēsis (Symp. 208a, Leg. 732c). Like Socrates in the Republic, the Athenian Stranger recommends specialization of jobs (Leg. 846e), the education of women (even in war), supervision of music and myth, the thorough unification of citizen with citizen (so that each will call older people “father” or “mother”), and the limitation of higher education in mathematics to members of the Nocturnal Council and others with legislative powers, for these subjects are at once highly rewarding and highly dangerous: Leg. 738b, 817e, 967d–68a. They will be dialecticians also, though perhaps more in the style of the Sophist: Leg. 823b–e, 967e; cf. Rep. 522–5. For the dangers of mathematics and dialectic, see Rep. 519, 539b–d, Leg. 819a. Most of all, the Athenian Stranger shares the Republic’s concern with education: the rocking of babies to calm their fears and give them their first lessons in courage (Leg. 790d–91b); the public crèches; the supervision of children’s games (797a–b); the supervised curriculum of gymnastics, music, poetry for both boys and girls (794ff.); the state-sponsored choruses which train body and soul, integrate the individual dancer with the group, and with the serene movements of the “visible gods, and so constitute “the whole of education” (672e). Sophistic ideas: e.g. Leg. 889e–890a. Atheistic cosmology: 886a–e. Dialectic: 892d–93a. The “two mother forms of states”: Leg. 693d. Mixed constitution: e.g. 756e. The two are exemplified in old Persia and Athens: Cyrus, founder of the Persian monarchy, was not jealous but generous towards his subjects, giving gifts, allowing freedom of speech, listening to wise advisors, and so tempering autocracy with a quasi-democratic culture of equality; while the Athenians of the age of Marathon and Salamis tempered their democracy with an absolute respect for the laws, their “queen and mistress” before whom they were “willing slaves” (698a–699d, 700a). This division of basic constitutions differs significantly from classifications of Aristotle (democracy, oligarchy, monarchy) and Montesquieu (republic, monarchy, tyranny), and seems based on the distinction between systematic control (monarchy) and individual freedom (democracy): note that several Archaic Greek tyrants claimed to be champions of the people; monarchy and democracy (albeit in aristocratic forms) were regarded as the two main constitutional forms in the Hellenistic age (Hahm in Rowe and Schofield 2000: 459); and numerous modern kings and dictators have claimed to embody the people’s will, as suggested in Chapter 6. Law as despotēs: Leg. 715d. The import of this is not always recognized, but Morrow goes part of the way (1960: 573–90, “The Rule of Philosophy”); cf. Rowe’s comment on “the ‘kingship’ of reason and law. . . envisaged in Plato’s Laws” (Rowe and Schofield 2000: 395). The notion that “nomos is basileus” had been stated by Pindar (Fr. 69), and his phrase became proverbial, and was adapted by Herodotus (7.104), Lysias (Epitaph. 18–19), Plato’s

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 189

05/10/2011 07:05

190 N o tes

49. 50.

51. 52. 53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

Gorgias (484b) and later authors: see Martens 2003: 30. The Stranger does not quote Pindar’s phrase, but in discussing justifications of rule, he alludes ironically to the “wisest Pindar”, for Pindar spoke of the rule of the strong, not recognizing that the truest authority is wisdom, which allows for “the rule of law over willing subjects” (690b–c). Most of all, the notion of being a “slave” to “king-law” is paralleled exactly in Pl. Ep. 8.354b–c (no/moj e)peidh\ ku/rioj e)ge/neto basileu\j tw½n a)nqrw¯pwn... douleu=sai no/moij basilikoiÍj). Marriage and participating in eternity: Leg. 721b–c; cf. Symp. 207d. Procreative sex: 838e–39d. Living from the land, not the sea: Leg. 743d, 842a–d. No citizen traders: 847e, 918d–19e (with a long preamble on greed). Certain market-days for retail and wholesale trading: 849b–e. No lending at interest: 742c, 949e, 915d-e. Merchants outside the city: 952e; cf. Arist. Pol. 7.6.1327a31-39. On “industry and trade” generally, see Morrow 1960: 138–48. Magnesia 80 stades from the sea: 704d–705b and Morrow 1960: 95–100; the phrase “corrupting sea” is taken from Holden and Purcell 2000. These are the theōroi (“spectators”), who report to the Nocturnal Council: Leg. 949e–52d. Leg. 887c. For the critique of materialism, see esp. 889ff. Keeping contracts with foreigners who do not share the same national law, but are “sacred to Zeus”: Leg. 729e–30a. Not abusing slaves, orphans or the weak; accepting dishonour, exile or even death above wrongdoing: e.g. 927c (orphans “the most sacred of all deposits”). Atomistic self-love is the cause of vices such as a foolish complacency with one’s share of wisdom: e.g. 731e–32b. Leg. 948c. Only public worship: Leg. 909d–10c. No magic, superstition or irrational exuberance: 909a–d. For more on the “law against impiety”, see Morrow 1960: 470–96. Even those myths involving miasma and punishment after death: see infra Chapter 2, n. 66. He does, however, leave room for the innovative regulation of myths, as in the Republic. See the trials of Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Phidias and Socrates: Socrates says that his “true” accusers are all those anonymous individuals who slander philosophers as reckless freethinkers (Ap. 18d–19e). Leg. 793a–b; cf. 730b, 788b, 822d–23a, 838a–b. Cf. Leg. 853b for the Stranger’s “sense of disgrace in legislating, as we are about to do, for all the details of crime in a state which, as we say, is to be well regulated and will be perfectly adapted to the practice of virtue”. On private initiation of cases, see 704b, 767b, 866b–c, 868b, 914e et al. and Morrow 1960: 275–6. These euthynoi are to be “magistrates of the magistrates” and “divine”: Leg. 945b. Thus Laks more accurately calls it the “Dawn Council” (in Rowe and Schofield 2000: 282). Leg. 964e. Leg. 962b (tr. Jowett, modified slightly). Morrow closely compares the Nocturnal Council with the Republic’s philosopher-kings, and even the Academy itself (1960: 502–14, 573–7): the Council is “one of Plato’s most striking inventions . . . Just as Plato’s Academy has been the prototype of countless later institutions of higher learning, so his Nocturnal Council can be regarded as the first of the long series of learned bodies of jurists, commissions of experts and law councils that have been set up since his time to act as guides to legislators” (514). If so, we should juxtapose Plato’s attempt at systematization

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 190

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

65.

66.

67.

68. 69.

191

with, say, Justinian’s revision of Roman law, or the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia; Morrow himself notes the Laws’ influence on certain Stoics (565). E.g. Leg. 693a (“but we should consider when we say that temperance is to be the aim, or wisdom is to be the aim, or friendship is to be the aim, that all these aims are really the same; and if so, a variety in the modes of expression ought not to disturb us”); 705e–706a (The legislator aims at “that on which some eternal beauty is always attending, and dismisses everything else, whether wealth or any other benefit, when separated from virtue”); cf. 630a, 688a–b, 770d et al. Leg. 762e (toiÍj qeoiÍj doulei¿an). On the indispensable virtue of serving one’s betters, whether magistrates, elders, laws, customs, myths or gods, see e.g. 729b–c. Honour for parents, elders, ancestors: e.g. 931a and Morrow 1960: 461–4 (cult of ancestors). Reverence for antiquity: e.g. 798a–b. Reverence for ancient myths: 872d–e (miasma), 881a–b (Hades), 886c–d et al. Art imitating reality: Leg. 668a. Regarding symmetries, space (e.g. as in the Timaeus) is in itself a principle of individuation and division but symmetry orders space into regular, recognizable patterns so as to give it greater semblance of unity. Magnesia has a degree of rotational and radial symmetry. At the centre and on the highest ground will be an agora, surrounded by temples to Hestia, Zeus and Athena, as well as law courts and other official buildings; around these in turn come the houses of citizens in 12 sections, just as the citizen body is divided into 12 districts with 12 tribes, each dedicated to one of the 12 Olympian gods. The city should be open and have no wall, but if it does, it should be formed from the external walls of houses, so that these are built right into the wall, forming a single whole, and themselves contributing to the defence for the whole (779b). Around the city proper are 12 country villages, each with its complement of citizens and craftsmen (848c–e), and each laid out like the central city. Citizens have two plots of land, one in the city, the other in the country. Thus in all, the entire city-state radiates out from the central acropolis (745b): the circle is the most symmetric of plane-figures. Perhaps the Stranger feels that the city’s circular symmetry will symbolize, complement and even bolster the spiritual and moral unity, the friendship of the city’s members. Add to this other features, such as the 365 festivals, one for each day (828b), and the 5,040 citizen households, no more, no less, because 5,040 is a “useful” number, divisible by each integer up to 10 and having 59 factors in all—given this numerological rigmarole, one might well agree with the Stranger when he says that he is daydreaming and making a city out of wax (746b). But in a different way, the Stranger is giving a more mathematically rigorous version of a deep-seated and widespread instinct, from ancient Peking to Babylon to Tenochtitlan: microcosm should mirror macrocosm, and city should imitate cosmos, with temples in the centre, royal palaces nearby, and lesser mortals farther and farther out. If the Platonic God “always does geometry”, so does the Athenian Stranger when he lays out Magnesia with rule and compass: in this way too, Magnesia is a “city of God”. Law should unify the city as much as possible: 739c–e. Leg. 716c. Borrowing a phrase from Menexenus 238d, Morrow describes Magnesia as an “aristocracy with the approval of the people” (1960: 229–33), but this does not quite capture the Stranger’s complex of considerations—the divine, divine providence or natural law, philosophical laws promoting virtue and the need for citizens to “guard” them jealously as their preservation and salvation.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 191

05/10/2011 07:05

192 N o tes 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

Contrary to Nietzsche’s characterization of him (and post-Socratic philosophers) in Birth of Tragedy. Megalopolis: D.L. 3.23 on Megalopolis. Cyrene: Plut. Ad Principem Ineruditum 1.779d; cf. Plut. Luc. 2.4–5. Ath. Deip. 11.508e; cf. 506e–f and Plato, Fifth Epistle. Chroust 1967: 26. Chroust 1967: 28. For similar views, though expressed less univocally, see Morrow 1960: 5–9 and Guthrie 1975: 23 (“It was certainly [Plato’s] intention that many of his pupils should leave the Academy for politics, not as power-seekers themselves but to legislate or advise those in power . . .”). Schofield’s “Plato and Practical Politics” gives an overview of scholarly assessments of the Academy’s political nature (Rowe and Schofield 2000: 293–302). For the peripatos of the Academy, with its gymnasium and walks where comic poets like Epicrates might eavesdrop, see Dillon 2003: 2–9. Academicorum Philosophorum Index Herculanensis (ed. Mekler), X. 29. For many of the names in this paragraph, see Plutarch, Adversus Coloten 1126a–e; cf. “The Oration against the Philosophers”, delivered in 307 BC at the end of Demetrius’ regime, by Demochares, nephew of Demosthenes (fragments in Düring 1941: pp. 149-51); Athenaeus Deipnosophistae, 508d–509c; Appian Mithridatic Wars, 3.138–42; and Morrow 1960: 8–9. For Eudoxus, cf. D.L. 8.88. D.L. 3.24. D.L. 3.46. Pl. Ep. 6. Ath. Deip. 508e. Suda “Clearchus”; Diod. Sic. 15.5. MacMullen uses the collection of spurious, firstcentury BC letters between Chion and Clearchus to uncover the thoughts of that later tyrannicide, Brutus (1966: 11–12). D.L. 3.46. D.L. 4.13-14; Plut. Phoc. 27.1–4. See Popper’s The Open Society and its Enemies (1945). E.g. Pl. Rep. IX, Tht. 174b–75b.

Notes to Chapter 3: From Plato to Plutarch 1. 2. 3.

4. 5.

Aretē of his soul: Xen. Ages. 3.1. Wisdom: 6.4. Paradigm: see esp. 10.1–3. For details, see Farber 1979. Africanus: Cic. Rep. 2.26.62. “Most just and wise king”: Rep. 1.27–8. On the Cynic and Stoic Cyrus, see Hoïstad 1948 and Fears 1974, respectively. Machiavelli knew the book well but rejected Xenophon’s overt moralizing: in the Prince he makes Cyrus an exemplary leader by dint of ruthless virtù (see Nadon 2001: 14–24). Leg. 695a–b. Plutarch calls Cyrus a “good king”: De Is. et Os. 24 (= Mor. 360b). Cf. Arist. Pol. 5.8 and the Peripatetic Themistius Or. 6.81, 8.102, 8.114, 18.225. Norlin attributes to Isocrates “a worship of Hellenism as a way of life, a saving religion of which he conceives Athens to be the central shrine and himself a prophet commissioned

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 192

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

22.

193

by the gods to reconcile the quarrels of the Greeks and unite them in a crusade against the barbarian world” (1991: Introduction, x). Julian’s Panegyrics of Constantius and Eusebia draw upon Isocrates’ Evagoras; he favourably contrasts the wisdom of Isocrates with that of Solomon in Contra Galilaeos. Isocrates’ ideas, Cyprian orations, and prose generally, would be very influential in Neoplatonic Hellenism and early Byzantine literature: see Baynes 1960: 144–67 (“Isocrates”); cf. Too 2005:165. E.g. Isoc. Letter to Philip, 140. E.g. Isoc. Letter to Philip, 127. Isoc. Letter to Philip, 29. Sophists’ writings: Isoc. Letter to Philip, 12. Greatness of the Panegyricus: 84. Isoc. Letter to Philip, 149–52. For example, in the Letter to Alexander, Isocrates praises Alexander as philanthrōpos, philathēnaios, philosophos (Epist. 5.2)—the last because Alexander respects all learning. He respects even the art of eristic, although he does not practise it himself, because a king should issue commands and not engage in undignified arguments with inferiors. In a different vein, Race compares the panhellenism and moral exhortations of Pindar and Isocrates: for example, Pindar Ol. 1.113–14 resembles Isocrates’ Evagoras 40 in extolling the king as nearest the gods (1987: 146). I will not discuss the controversy about the authenticity of the Letters. Enough to say that they clearly reflect Isocrates’ own preoccupations. Merlan in fact regards the Letter to Alexander as “a masterpiece . . . [It] contains his whole educational philosophy in a nutshell—and a recapitulation of his life-long polemic against his rival, Plato’s Academy” (1954: 75–6). Pl. Phaedr. 278e–79b. Pl. Euthd. 305c6–d2; cf. Plut. Them. 2.6. He calls himself a “philosopher” in e.g. Antid. 270. Cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes that Isocrates studied philosophy with Prodicus, Gorgias and Tisias “who had the greatest name for sophia among Greeks of that time” (Isoc. 1). See esp. Antid. 261–9. For a portrait of the wise person, see Panath. 28–32. Cf. Antid. 270 (“in the next resort I hold that man to be wise who is able by his powers of conjecture to arrive generally at the best course”), 295–6. Cic. de Or. 2.22.94 (meri principes). On Isocrates’ students, cf. Norlin 1991: xxix and pseudo-Plutarch Lives of the Orators. See de Or. 3.56–73 on the relation of philosophy and the orator. Dionysius of Halicarnassus praises Isocrates’ programme as the best for attaining aretē and the “true philosophy” of praxis (Isoc. 4). MacMullen notes that eloquentia “for a thousand years . . . remained at the heart of classical civilization” (1966: 15). An exception is the Peripatetic Strato, who tutored young Ptolemy II in mathematics and science. Aristotle urges Themison to philosophize, that is to honour soul over body, and phronēsis and nous as the highest end of life: indeed these aspects of a human being are “alone immortal and divine” (Protr. 17, 108–10. Nor is philosophy theoretical only: e.g. 8.5–7 (filosofhte/on aÃr¡ h(miÍn, ei¹ me/llomen o)rqw½j politeu/esqai); cf. 9.4–9, 17.7–12. Chroust’s interpretation is that he was a “petty and little known ‘ruler’ on the island of Cyprus” whom Aristotle, qua member of the Academy tried to bring over to Platonic

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 193

05/10/2011 07:05

194 N o tes

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31.

32.

33. 34. 35. 36.

philosophy, thus gaining for the Academy “a political and intellectual foothold on Cyprus” (1967: 31; cf. Chroust 1966). Again, Chroust may exaggerate when he implies that the Academy pursued political goals systematically. See D.L. 5.1–16 for details. In the school at Mieza, Aristotle also tutored other young Macedonian nobles, including Hephaistion, Cassander and Ptolemy. Plutarch: Alex. 7.4–8.5. Isocrates: Letter to Alexander. Merlan 1954 interprets the latter in detail to argue that the contemporary Isocrates was better informed than Plutarch. Plut. De Fortuna Alex. 1.6 (6.329b). But Isocrates gives similar advice to Philip. Pol. 1284a3–b28, tr. Jowett (modified slightly); cf. 1332b17–18 (there must be rulers of some sort, an all-virtuous ruler would be ideal, but is difficult to find). Ehrenberg argues plausibly that Aristotle is responding to a passage like Pl. Plt. 291d–300e, and is not thinking specifically of Alexander (1938: 72–85). Statesman’s phronēsis: Ar. Pol. 3.4 (1277a15–17). Pericles: Eth. Nic. 6.5 (1140b8–11). Fr. 646f (Rose). One might compare Kant’s statements in On Perpetual Peace (1795): “That kings should philosophize, or philosophers become kings, is not to be expected. But neither is it to be desired, for the possession of power is inevitably fatal to the free exercise of reason. But it is absolutely indispensable, for their enlightenment as to the full significance of their vocation, that both kings and sovereign nations, which rule themselves in accordance with laws of equality, should not allow the class of philosophers to disappear, nor forbid the expression of their opinions, but should allow them to speak openly” (2005: 2.2; tr. Campbell-Smith). For the use of Alexander as both positive and negative exemplar among philosophers, see Stoneman 2003; cf. Boswell 1996: 2 nn.1–2. In Strabo 15.1.64 (to\n me\n basile/a e)painoi¿h, dio/ti a)rxh\n tosau/thn dioikw½n e)piqumoi¿h sofi¿aj: mo/non ga\r iãdoi au)to\n e)n oÀploij filosofou=nta). Cf. Deutscher’s description of Trotsky as a “prophet armed” (1954), a phrase from Machiavelli’s The Prince. See De fort. Alex. 332e–333f where all Alexander’s deeds are said to be those of a philosopher. In this, Plutarch anticipates what Menander the Orator would recommend for writers of basilikoi logoi. They should praise the king’s practical wisdom as the culmination of his virtues, the basis of his good reign: “after this [the other virtues] comes ‘wisdom’ (phronēsis). At the beginning of your treatment of each virtue, you must employ prefatory ideas, as we said. In regard to wisdom, you should say that the emperor would not have been capable of carrying out all these deeds, nor would he have borne the weight of such mighty matters, if he had not surpassed all men on earth in wisdom and understanding, which enables lawgiving and temperance and all other virtues to come to successful fruition. Then you can add that he is ‘quick to see, clever in understanding, better than a prophet at foreseeing the future’” (376.13–22, tr. Russell and Wilson 1981: 90–2). De fort. Alex. 329a. De fort. Alex. 329b–c (tr. M. M. Austin in 2006: 36). Alexander putting logos into erga: 328a. See Pl. Tim. 41d for the metaphor of “mixing” elements in a bowl. E.g. Tarn 1933 and 1948: 437–41; cf. the clarion call that concludes Hammond 1989: “his [Alexander’s] ideas on race, nationalism, intermarriage, and religion are, or should be, an inspiration to us today; and the fact that he put them all into effect in a span of thirteen

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 194

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43.

44. 45.

46. 47.

195

years fills one with hope of what a man of genius may be able to do in our contemporary world”. Bosworth levels his lance at these authors especially (1996: 4, nn. 9–11). On Alexander’s education, including Platonic motifs in the taming of Bucephalus, see Whitmarsh 2002: 180–6. Note also Plutarch’s interesting comments on leadership abilities: “A true leader himself creates the obedience of his own followers; as it is the last attainment in the art of riding to make a horse gentle and tractable, so is it of the science of government (lit. “it is the task of kingly knowledge”: basilikh=j e)pisth/mhj eÃrgon), to inspire men with a willingness to obey” (Lyc. 30.4–5). Again, one notes the ancient assumption that there must be leaders, and most people desire them rather than abstract individual autonomy. Aristotle: Plut. Alex. 5.7–7.9. Diogenes: 14.2. Psammon: 27.10–11. Gymnosophists: 64–5 (cf. Arrian, Ana. 7.1–3). Philosophers Anaxarchus and Callisthenes: e.g. Alex. 53. Darius’ women: Alex. 21.7–11. Not a drunk: 23.1–2. His invincibility was presaged by omens, which the pious Plutarch would not be inclined to discredit: e.g. 3.5–9. For Alexander’s degeneration as he goes east, see Mossman 1988 and Whitmarsh 2002. On Plutarch’s frequent association of the East with Dionysus, see Ant. 60 with Braund 1993, Pelling 1988 and 1999; cf. Wardman 1955. “Jeu d’esprit” and “full-blown fiction”: Bosworth 1996: 1–4. “Creation of Belief ”, especially at the symposium at Maracanda (summer 328 BC), with quasi-Aristotelian ideas in the background: Bosworth 1996: 98–116. 1996: x (italics added). Similarly categorical is the following depiction of Alexander as an ancient Machiavelli: “His sovereignty was the overriding imperative. Its acquisition justified any and every act of violence; resistance to it merited massacre and repression” (1996: 29). Note also Vatai’s conclusions: “From Dion to Philopoemen, the Academy failed signally to find a philosopher-king who could rescue the Hellenes from widespread misery and political annihilation” (1984: 122); “[N]o Stoic assumed a royal mantle and probably only one king in our period, Antigonus Gonatas, took Stoicism seriously. Not even Antigonus attempted to put Zeno’s Politeia into practice” (124); and finally “the incursions of intellectuals into politics [sc. in Vatai’s period of study] were ultimately failures” (130). For details on several “scholarly kings” (Juba II, Archelaos, Herod, Claudius) in the twilight of the Hellenistic age, see Roller 2003, 2004. For military inventions, see Tarn 1930: 101-152 (“Siege Warfare and Naval Warfare”). Note that there was no philosophy that promoted technological innovation or the “mastery of nature.” Archimedes was thought by some to have invented the cranes, claws, and solar lasers that for so long kept Marcellus’ legions at bay and convinced them that they were “fighting against gods,” when they besieged Syracuse in 212: but Plutarch half castigates Archimedes for sullying the divine ideas of geometry by applying them to mechanics (Marc. 14.8-18.1; 14.11 on to\ gewmetri¿aj a)gaqo/n and 16.3 on “fighting gods”). Demetrius and Antigonus declared kings: Plut. Demetr. 18. Nicknames: 25.7; cf. Praec. 823c. For a debate about the possible influence of Macedonian armies in the election of Macedonian and Hellenistic kings, see Hammond 1993 with responses from Borza, Gruen, Samuel and Burnstein. Of the universality of monarchy, he writes: “The hallmark of the Hellenistic world was monarchy. Almost every successful general, whether

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 195

05/10/2011 07:05

196 N o tes

48. 49.

50. 51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

61. 62.

63.

Macedonian, Greek, Bithynian, Cappadocian, or of mixed race set himself up as king” (1993: 12–37). Arrian 2.14 (= Austin 2006: §6). Most like Alexander: Plut. Pyrrh. 8.1–2. His “philosophy”: Pyrrh. 8.6 (kaiì oÀlwj tou=to meletw½n eÃoike kaiì filosofw½n a)eiì diateleiÍn o( Pu/rroj, w¨j maqhma/twn basilikw¯taton, my trans.). Austin’s translation, “the art of war, which he thought the most royal of sciences” (2006: §47a), gives a different sense. Attalus I: Polybius 18.41. Antiochus: Polybius 11.34; cf. Austin 2006: §150, and 252, n. 9. Thus it was as overlord that Antiochus I could proclaim himself a god-king in the Mesopotamian style: “I am Antiochus, the great king, the legitimate king, the king of the world, king of Babylon, king of all countries, the caretaker of the temples of Esagila and Ezida, the first (born) son of King Seleucus, the Macedonian, king of Babylon. . . O Nebo, lofty son, (most wise) among the gods, splendid (and) worthy of all praise, first-born son of Marduk, child of Arua, the queen who fashioned all creation, do look friendly (upon me). . .” (Austin 2006: §189). Suda, s.v. Basileia (2) = Austin 2006: §37. See also the common description of Asia, Egypt etc. as “spear-won land”. Walbank 1992: 210–12. So Ptolemy Keraunos, Antiochus IV (cf. Ptolemy V) and Ptolemy XII, respectively. Diodorus 1.2-10 (= Austin 2006: §38). For the rhetoric of kingship among the anarchistic Cynics, see Desmond 2008: 193–9. See for example, D.L. 7.122, 125; Chrysippus’ views in SVF III.615–22; Cic. Rep. 1.42–5 (of the three basic, unmixed constitutions, kingship is easily the best), Paradoxa Stoicorum; Plut. Sto. Rep. 20; Musonius Rufus, fr. 8 (Lutz); Epictetus, 3.22.72–6. On the other hand, note the quip that if the gods practised dialectic, they would use the dialectic of Chrysippus (D.L. 7.180): true Stoics think and speak like gods. See e.g. Sen. Clem. 1.1, 1.8; Consol. Pol. 7.2; Musonius 36.23 (Hense); cf. Clarke 1956:103–10. Antigonus liked to listen to Zeno’s lectures whenever in Athens, and invited him to court but Zeno sent Persaeus and Philonides instead (D.L. 7.6–10; cf. 7.15 and Tarn 1969). Persaeus became Antigonus’ secretary and wrote books such as On Kingship and Reply to Plato’s Laws in 7 Books (D.L. 7.36). Tarn writes: “friend and pupil of the philosophers Menedemus and Zeno, his Stoic sympathies made him the first king whom philosophy could claim as her own” (1952: 16). Pl. Ep. 312e (tr. Morrow 1997, modified slightly). On the Stoa’s dominance, see Tarns’ excellent survey 1952: 325–36. Dillon’s study of The Middle Platonists (1977) begins from c. 80 BC. Goodenough 1928: 102. An offshoot of this “philosophy” is found in the quasiphilosophical colony that Alexarchus (brother of Cassander) founded on Mt Athos—Ouranopolis, or the Heavenly City, in which Alexarchus represented the Sun and the citizens were called Children of Heaven (Ath. 3.54 = 98d–e). The city is viewed by John Ferguson, for example, as the “only example of a practical attempt to produce a foundation of a new kind to incorporate the values of a new age” (1975: 110). For example later writers like Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 5.5.29 2-3) and Themistius (212d, 228a). Julius Caesar knew it, and the idea is common enough in Roman writers for Goodenough to call it the “official” philosophy of the Roman empire (1928: 100; cf.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 196

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

64.

65. 66.

67.

68. 69. 70.

197

Chestnut 1978), but Marten disagrees (2003, 47–8). Arrian: Alexander is “the law and definition of justice,” IV.9.7–8; cf. Plut. Alex. 52.3–7. For references and a summary of scholarship, see Marten 2003 (Chapter 3, “‘Higher’ Law: The Living Law”), 31–66. He shows that the idea is most important and complex in Philo, who uses it to construe the lives of the Patriarchs and Moses. On the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, cf. Hahm 2000: 458–61. Cicero: Leg. 3.2–3 (magistrate is lex loquens); cf. Rep. 52–6 (virtuous leader gives his life to the people as their law, and he acts in imitation of God, who is king of the world), De Off. 41–2 (when there are no good kings, then law is necessary; cf. Plato’s argument in Laws). Plutarch: Mor. 779d–782f, esp. 781b (Ad principem ineruditem). Clement: Strom. 2.4.35–40. I have also stumbled across the idea in Calvin’s Institutes 4.20.14 (“Hence nothing could be said more truly than that the law is a dumb magistrate, the magistrate a living law”, tr. Beveridge). He includes Hom. Il. 2.204 (“plurality of rule is not good: let there be one ruler, one king”) as well as Hes. Th. (“kings come from Zeus”). Plato’s Statesman: D.L. 3.58. For other authors, see D.L. 2.110, 4.14, 5.22, 5.42, 5.47, 5.49 (Theophrastus’ four treatises on kingship), 5.59 (the Peripatetic and successor to Theophrastus, Strato of Lampsacus’ On the Philosopher-King), 6.16 (Antisthenes’ Cyrus or On Kingship and Archelaus or On Kingship), 7.36, 7.167 (Dionysius’ On Ancient Kings), 7.175 (Cleanthes’ Politicus, On Laws, and On Kingship), 7.178. See Adams 1970: 12–20 for a list of authors of works of this title. These works, as well as Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Isocrates’ Cypriot orations, the Neopythagorean texts by Diotogenes, Ecphantus and Sthenidas, were a major source of inspiration for Seneca’s De Clementia, according to Griffin 1992: 142–3. Plut. 189d6. Demetrius of Phalerum was himself a philosopher-king of sorts, virtual dictator of Athens for Cassander, from 317–307 BC until he fled before the “liberator” of Athens, Demetrius Poliorcetes. Dow and Travis conclude that “In all antiquity he was the most accomplished philosopher actually to rule a state” (1943: 144), basing their judgement on praise of his intellectual attainments in D.L. 5.80 and Cic. Brut. 37 (eruditissumus of the Attic orators, and reminiscent of Pericles); cf. Cic. Leg. 3.14. During his reign, Demetrius was advised by Theophrastus, and his oligarchical laws were most probably informed by the extensive research represented by Theophrastus’ Nomoi. Among his provisions were “guardians of the laws” (nomophylakes) whose authority was bolstered by priestly insignia and status. Demetrius himself wrote several works on politics, including On Lawgiving in Athens (D.L. 5.80; cf. Plu. Lyc. 23). For longer discussion see Gehrke 1978; Vatai 1984: 118–21 and W.S. Ferguson 1911. For an appreciation of the Library, and Alexandria, see Green 1985. Tarn 1969 idealizes the role of philosophers in Antigonus’ reign. Hecataeus was the court historian of Ptolemy Soter who around 320–315 BC wrote a work to magnify Egypt as the home of all culture and of the perfect philosophical state: see Murray 1970. Hecataeus also wrote On the Philosophy of the Egyptians (summarized in D.L. 1.10–11). Analogously, note Megasthenes, the ethnographer whom Seleucus Nikator made ambassador to kings in India. In his Indica Megasthenes would find Platonic institutions in that exotic land: see Bosworth 1996: 88–92. Murray claims that Megasthenes used Hecataeus to “show that India is an even better land than Hecataeus’ Egypt, a Platonic ideal state with a rigid caste system and philosophers on top, and that all civilization springs from India not Egypt” (Murray 1972: 208).

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 197

05/10/2011 07:05

198 N o tes 71.

72. 73. 74. 75.

76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

82. 83. 84.

85. 86.

His reputation for patronage is evident from the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates, a fictional piece in which Ptolemy II holds a banquet at which he asks questions of the 72 translators of the Septuagint, and through their answers receives an “education in kingship” (Arist. 294 (Hadas)). D.L. 7.186. Ptolemy IV knew enough Stoic doctrine to try to catch the philosopher out, in one amusing story (D.L. 7.177). Ariston: Ath. Deip. 6.58 (= 251c). Plut. Philop. 1; cf. Polybius 10.22. Plut. Gracc. 20. Tarn 1952: 40–1, 122–5; cf. 325–36 on the dominance of Stoicism, esp. p. 332 on the Stoic postulate of a world state and its corollary, individual equality. For authors who line up for and against the view of Aristonicus as “a socialist reformer”, see Gruen p. 597, n. 105; cf. Austin 2006: §432, n. 4. Gruen himself is sceptical: “To what degree Aristonicus represented the aspirations of the downtrodden and championed a rising of slaves will never be fully determinable. Evidence is too thin to draw such conclusions” (1984: 597). He himself inclines not to see it as “a matter of ideology” and writes of Stoic egalitarian ideas that “there is no evidence for their influence on Aristonicus” (p. 597, n. 105). Still, given the scanty sources, Tarn draws a persuasive picture of the socioeconomic conditions that could give Stoic doctrine revolutionary potential. On Blossius, cf. Vatai 1984: 126–9; he alludes to Toynbee’s description of Blossius as a “Stoic prophet of revolution”, the “Hellenic prototype” of Marx, but is himself sceptical of the role of Stoicism in events. For a collection of ancient sources on Aristonicus, see Yavetz 1991: 45–66. Cicero: Plut. Cic. 20.3. This may be the Thrasyllus who organized Plato’s dialogues into tetralogies (D.L. 3.56). For evaluation of Thrasyllus see Krappe 1927 and Tarrant 1993. So argues Griffin 1976: esp. 144–54. D.L. 7.185. Number of his books: D.L. 7.180. For the continuance of philhellenism among aristocrats of the Roman Republic, especially from the second century, see Gruen 1984: 250–72. Curiously, far fewer were interested in Dion, Plutarch’s parallel for Brutus. Wordsworth was an exception. He mentions Dion in the Prelude, and writes a tragic 124-line poem, “Dion”, based on Plutarch’s Life. Pritchard 1952 argues that Wordsworth partially associates Dion with Napoleon, for as Dion sullied Platonic ideals, so Napoleon betrayed Revolutionary ones; cf. Fink 1953 and Seltzer 1992. See Jones 1971 for details on Plutarch’s political career and associates. See Swain 1989 for further discussion. Dillon 1996 discusses this in more detail. Similar ideas can be found in Philo Immut. 173–6 (with Goodenough 1940: 85–7), where he speaks of the great empires of Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Macedonia, Persia, Parthia, Carthage and so forth, as so many temporary favourites of the Logos. They rise, and fall, so that in the end “the inhabited world might as a whole be like a single state and enjoy the best of constitutions, a democracy”: that is, a democracy of equal creatures before the law, logos and monarchy of God. Galb. 1.2–4 (with a reference to Plato’s warning about soldiers’ power). God of the cosmos: Mor. 811d4 (o( tou= ko/smou basileu/j). Education, nous and logos are most divine thing in us: Mor. 67e.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 198

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94.

95. 96.

199

For the chronology of works, I follow Jones 1966 and 1971: 134–7. The Latin titles of these works are Praecepta gerendae reipublicae, An seni res publica gerenda sit, Ad principem ineruditum, and Maxime cum principibus philosopho esse disserendum. Prae. ger. reip. 807c (a)ristote/xnaj... dhmiourgo\j eu)nomi¿aj kaiì di¿khj). Prae. ger. reip. 816a. Prae. ger. reip. 811b–d. Prae. ger. reip. 811d–f. Stasis had long been a political bugbear for the quarrelsome Greeks; Plutarch’s grandfather had seen the wars of Antony and Octavian, and Plutarch himself lived through the civil war of 69 AD. Julian knew this life, and recommends it (Or. 7.200b). According to Leo, Plutarch presents his material in this order: family background, birth, appearance, ethos, education, political career and death (1901, 145–92; cf. Momigliano 1993; Stadter 1989: xxxiv). This is similar to Menander Rhetor’s recommendation for organizing a basilikos logos: proomion, family and national background, birth, education, youthful practices, mature accomplishments, good fortune or tychē, comparison with other great men and epilogue (Peri Epideiktikon, 368–77, text and translation in Russell and Wilson 1981: 77–95; cf. Heath 2004). Examples of royal and/or divine birth in the Lives include the following. Lycurgus was in the eleventh generation from Heracles (Lyc. 1.4); Solon was probably descended from Codrus, ancient king of Athens (Sol. 1); Alcibiades was not only an Alcmaeonid but a descendent of Eurysaces, son of Ajax (Alc. 1.1); Coriolanus, or Caius Marcius, was of the Marcii, descended from Numa through Ancus Marcius (Cor. 1.1); some say that Cicero descended from the Volscian king Tullus Attius and was born, fortuitously enough, on the “same day on which now the magistrates of Rome pray and sacrifice for the emperor” (Cic. 1.2, 2.1). Other Republican Romans hail from patrician families that boast many consuls, censors and triumphs: one is Aemilius Paulus of the Mamercii, who bore the epithet reges and were said to be descended from Mamercus, son of Pythagoras (Num. 21.2, Aem. 2.1). Royal birth or nature can be expressed more symbolically also: Pericles’ mother dreamed she was about to give birth to a lion (Per. 3.3); Pericles’ counterpart Fabius was lion-like in his slow calm (Fab. 1.5); as a boy Alcibiades warned that his bite was “like a lion’s” (Alc. 2.3), and Plutarch quotes Aristophanes’ lines that if one rears a lion cub, then later one must deal with the lion (16.3). Note also that Alexander was most leonine (Alex. 2.6): the lion seal blessed his birth (2.5; cf. 13.2, 73.6; and Bloch 1973: 141–8 for the universality of such royal signs), and his killing of a huge lion demonstrated his regal, Heraclean nature (40.4–5). Lysimachus too killed a lion (Demetr. 27.6) but when Antony hitched up lions to pull his chariot, it seems more a sign of his empty pretensions and love of appearances (Ant. 9.8). What is most important therefore is not material circumstances, birth or family background, but virtue: witness Themistocles’ illegitimacy and barbarian mother, the orphanage of Coriolanus or Cimon, the obscure birth of Cato the Elder up in the Sabine back hills, the proletarian parents of Eumenes and Gaius Marius or the little that can be said about the ancestry of Aristides, Timoleon or Marcellus. Plutarch tells Sosius that “virtue. . . may take root and thrive in any place”, even in a place as obscure as his own Chaeronea (Dem. 1). Pomp. 2.1; other prominent examples include Demetr. 2.2. Demetr. 18; cf. 10.3–4 Athenians proclaim him and Antigonus “kings” and “saviour gods”: this was the first such proclamation in the Hellenistic world; cf. Agis 3.9.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 199

05/10/2011 07:05

200 N o tes 97.

98. 99.

100. 101.

102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110.

111.

Dio 10.1–5. Or again, in a passing comment, Cato the Elder calls King Eumenes a “flesh-eater” and says that none of the kings who are so admired can be compared to Epaminondas, Pericles, Themistocles, Manius Curius or Hamilcar Barca (Cat. Ma. 8.12–14): the latter seem to fulfil the role of “kings without kingdoms”, enthroned as they are in their own virtue. Other notable examples of how appearances do not make a king: Phoc. 29.3–4, Agis 7, Aem. 8.1–9.1 (the craven Perseus, so unworthy of the Antigonids’ wealth and power), Luc. 21.5. For more thorough treatment of Plutarch’s verbal descriptions of his characters, see Tatum 1996. See Them. 18.7, Sol. 14.7–9, Arist. 24.2, Per. 15.3.6, Ages. 40.2, Aem. 7.4 (Hannibal) and 22.8–9 (Scripio Africanus and Aemilius Paulus), Pomp. 25.2–3, 38.2, Ant. 37.3, 61.2, among others. For explicit moral discussions see On Virtue, Progress in Virtue and Whether Virtue can be Taught. For Plutarch, philosophy is very much synonymous with virtue, and most of his “philosophical” essays are essentially moralizing ones, blending historical exempla with edifying precepts, in a way more reminiscent of Isocratean paideia than Platonic dialectic. For an analysis of virtue in the Lives, including philanthrōpia and Plutarch’s debt to Isocratean ideas, see van Raalte 2004. E.g. Sol. 5.4. The series of Lives probably began with Epameinondas and Scipio Africanus, and both would have furnished material for the Platonic theme: Epameinondas, Pythagorean and the leading general during Thebes’ hegemony; Scipio, conqueror of Carthage, patron of Panaetius and other Greek literati. These Lives are lost, however. Lyc. 4.2, cf. 21–2 regarding musical, warlike Sparta. The idea that poets are “unacknowledged legislators” (Shelley) because music first shapes the soul, was a central theme of Plato’s Republic and Laws. In the following, I will sometimes include references to the particular Life under discussion within the main body of the text; for example, the next reference (Lyc. 26) will be cited simply as (26). Lyc. 7.3 (my trans.). The passage echoes Leg. 683c. Lyc. 9.3. didaskaleiÍa swfrosu/nhj (Lyc. 2). Lyc. 10.1–2; cf. Pl. Gorg. 518b–c; Leg. 807a. Plutarch’s love of laconisms is evident in the two whole chapters devoted to Lycurgus’ apophthegms (Lyc. 19-20; cf. 25.4–5) and his book Sayings of the Spartans. Lyc. 13; cf. Rep. 425ce Thus, for example, Spartan women were effectively held in common; for the sake of good breeding: wives could be farmed out to friends or associates, or for the sake of conceiving good sons (15.6–8; cf. the common Socratic analogy between animal-breeding and human education; Romans swapping wives). Children were regarded as property of the state, not the family, and their education stresses obedience and reverence: there is always some leader to emulate, whether it is the leading boy (16.5), the watching elders (17.1), the paidonomos (17.2) or the Irens, young men who led the boys’ companies and who might quiz them with edifying questions such as “Who is the best of men?” (18.2), to which the boys were expected to give a reasoned response. Teacher-city: 30.5–6 (th\n tw½n Spartiatw½n po/lin wÐsper paidagwgo\n hÄ dida/skalon); cf. Thuc. 2.41 (Cunelw¯n te le/gw th/n te pa=san po/lin th=j ¨Ella/doj pai¿deusin eiånai). Bees obeying their Spartan hēgemōn: 30.2.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 200

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

201

112. Lyc. 30.1-2. The philosophic nature of Sparta is reinforced by Plutarch’s comparison of it to Heracles, the philosophical hero par excellence for Hellenistic schools. Note that Polybius similarly praised Lycurgus as a wise legislator, because he created all at once the first mixed constitution that illustrates Polybius’ own theory of the need for “checks and balances” to prevent the corruption of king, elders or people (VI. 10.6–7); the Roman constitution was also mixed, but grew organically. 113. 16.1–2. The notion that Romulus’ Rome was a “fevered city” that had to attack its neighbours recalls the discussion of the origins of war in Pl. Rep. 373b–e. 114. Num. 18–20 and compare esp. 20.3 with Rep. 401c on the image of moral goodness spreading from some good source (a leader, education, images), like a breeze from a healthy country. 115. Num. 20.7. The passage continues: “The wise man is blessed in himself, and blessed also are the auditors who can hear and receive those words which flow from his mouth; and perhaps, too, there is no need of compulsion or menaces to affect the multitude, for the mere sight itself of a shining and conspicuous example of virtue in the life of their prince will bring them spontaneously to virtue, and to a conformity with that blameless and blessed life of good will and mutual concord, supported by temperance and justice, which is the highest benefit that human means can confer; and he is the truest ruler who can best introduce it into the hearts and practice of his subjects.” 116. SHA, Ant. Pius 2.2, 13.4; Aur. Vict. Epitome 15.2; Eutrop. Breviarium 8.8; cf. Farquharson 1975: 74. For more detailed interpretation of Plutarch’s Numa as “a slight departure” from Plato’s philosopher-king, and a more realistic type of statesman than the Guardians, see Boulet 2004. Julian certainly regarded him as the philosopher-legislator of the Romans, a view probably derived from his reading of Plutarch: “then Zeus set over [Rome] the great philosopher Numa. This then was the excellent and upright Numa who dwelt in deserted groves and ever communed with the gods in the pure thoughts of his own heart . . . It was he who established most of the laws concerning temple worship” (Contra Galilaeos 193c–d); cf. Athanassiadi 1992: 178. 117. Sol. 2-3.3 (sofi//aj e)rasth/j). 118. Sol. 22.3. 119. Sol. 15.8–9. 120. The two councils serve like anchors to the city—a possible echo of Leg. 761c. 121. Sol. 28. 122. Them. 2.6–7. Thucydides’ native intelligence (gnōmē): Them. 15.4. Greeks vote him first prize in sophia: Them. 17.3. 123. Compare Arist. 3.5 with Rep. 362a–b. 124. Arist. 6.1–3. The terms “besiegers of cities, thunderers, conquerors” were actually given to Demetrius Poliorcetes, Ptolemy Keraunus and Seleucus Nicator, respectively. The attribution of Hellenistic epithets to the early fifth century is obviously anachronistic— another sign that Plutarch can colour his presentation with the terms and preoccupations of a later time. 125. Cat. Ma. 7.1–2. 126. Talks with Protagoras: 36. Eclipse: 123d, 138d. Entertaining sophists: 139b. 127. See Stadter 1976: lxxviii–lxxix for references in the Life to Plato, “one of the most important sources for the Pericles”. 128. 17.4 (megalophrosunē).

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 201

05/10/2011 07:05

202 N o tes 129. 130. 131. 132.

133. 134. 135. 136.

137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152.

Per. 12.4–6. Co-workers: 12.4 (sxedo\n oÀlhn poiou=sin eÃmmisqon th\n po/lin). Per. 13.5 (aÃqikton u(po\ tou= xro/nou). Per. 39.2 (my trans.). Alc. 35.3: “Certainly, if ever man was ruined by his own glory, it was Alcibiades. For his continual success had produced such an idea of his courage and conduct, that, if he failed in anything he undertook, it was imputed to his neglect, and no one would believe it was through want of power.” Alcibiades’ shield: Alc. 16.2. Passion for conquest: 17.2. Socrates and Meton: 17.5. Phoc. 2. Phoc. 6, 11.1 and 14. Phoc. 7.5–6. Plutarch adduces the distich of Archilochus (fr. 1) as a parallel. He might well have added that Phocion’s proposal also recalls Homeric and Platonic precedents: Homer’s Achilles is encouraged to be “both a speaker of words and doer of deeds” (Il. 9.443: mu/qwn te r(hth=r' eÃmenai prhkth=ra/ te eÃrgwn); Plato’s Guardians are trained in war and dialectic, the philosophical technē logōn. Later when Alexander became more autocratic, he would write peremptory letters, leaving out the introductory word “Greeting”—except when writing to two people, Antipater and Phocion (Phoc. 17). Phoc. 5.3–5. Phoc. 30.5 (kaiì me/ntoi Fwki¿wn me\n w¨j a)reth\n e)pedei¿knuto th\n peni¿an, [e)n] v tosauta/kij ¹Aqhnai¿wn strathgh/saj kaiì basileu=si fi¿loij xrhsa/menoj e)gkategh/rase). Phoc. 38 (fu/laka swfrosu/nhj kaiì dikaiosu/nhj). Pyrrh. 20. For detailed analysis, see Holland 2004. Luc. 1.5-8, 42. On Lucullus’ self-presentation as a cultured philhellene, see Tröster 2004. Not studying Greek: Mar. 2. Reminiscence and meditating on past accomplishments: 45.9–46.5. Buszard 2004 discusses Plutarch’s pairing of Pyrrhus and Marius. Cicero showing power of rhetoric to promote justice: Cic. 13.1. Saviour, founder, Father of the fatherland: 22.5, 23.6. Consul, with powers of an autokratōr and dictator (in effect a king?): Comparatio 3.4. Year of Cicero’s consulship: Cic. 44.7. Recognizing Caesar’s ambitions: 20.6; cf. Caes. 4.8–9. Cicero’s dream: Cic. 44.3–5. Cic. 2.3, alluding to Rep. 475b and the Guardians’ love of all learning. Later he would often consult with one of his philosophical friends Publius Nigidius (20.3). Inappropriate jesting as consul: Cic. 27, 38, Comp. 1.4-5 (to\ bwmolo/xon). Boasting: Cic. 24.1; Comp. 2.1. “Unable to resist honour”: 45.1 (h( fu/sij hÀttwn ouÅsa timh=j); cf. Comp. 2.1 and Cic. 6.2–5 for the sense that the honour Cicero craved was of a lower, common variety—the applause of the people in Rome. Cic. 40. Wanting to be called “philosopher” and not “orator”, and being infected by common passions: Cic. 32.6–7. This analysis accords with Cicero’s own statement in Off. 2.3–5 that philosophy is an activity for holidays, or retirement. Cf. Ca. Min. 20 for Cato’s similar attitudes. In a more kindly vein, Plutarch does not criticize Cicero for his grief at the

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 202

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

153. 154. 155.

156. 157. 158.

159.

160. 161.

162.

163.

203

death of his daughter Tullia, writing only that philosophers came from all directions to comfort Cicero, but he could get no comfort (Cic. 41.7). Cic. 46.6; cf. Arist. Pol. 1.2, 1253a29–33 and Pl. Leg. 766a (quoted in Chapter 1). Comparatio, 3.3, alluding to Plat. Rep. 473d. Other examples show how circumstances can transmute virtues into vices: Coriolanus’ indifference to wealth becomes an inhumane disdain for the people’s sufferings (Cor. 1.4); when Cato sells his old war-horse so as to save the cost of shipping it home, his frugality has become cruelty, his megalopsychia petty calculation (mikrologia, Cat. Ma. 5)—the attitude of a peasant rather than a philosopher. Dion 47. Cf. Pelling 2002: 95 comparing Brutus’ sparing of Antony after assassinating Caesar (18.3, 20.2). That in Plutarch’s view Timoleon was the “saviour” of Sicily where Dion had failed, see Teodorsson 2004. Brutus’ love of Caesar: cf. Brut. 2, 5 (his mother Servilia, a sister of Cato, was madly in love with Caesar, and it was rumoured Brutus was their child). Did not desire power: 8.4 (could have been first in Rome, after Caesar), 29.3–4 (did not seize power, abided by the laws after the assassination); cf. MacMullen 1966: 13 for his “purity of motive”. Paradigm of virtue and philosophical education: 2, 29.3. Caesar as doctor: Comp. 2.3. God’s disapproval, portents: Caes. 69.2–14 (violent death of all the conspirators, the vision to Brutus, the comet, how the sun remained dim for the rest of the year 44 BC, and how the crops did not ripen fully: here, Plutarch’s Caesar becomes a sacred king, guarantor of the cosmic order). Brutus’ unyielding nature: Brut. 6.7–9. For similar discussion of Dion-Brutus, see Pelling 2002: 91–7; and Dillon 2005. Cicero’s quip and Cato’s intransigence in not canvassing popular support: Phoc. 3.2 (Cato did not act like God, who “governs the world, not by irresistible force, but persuasive argument and reason”); Cato Min. 30.9–10. Phocion (Cato’s parallel) makes better use of rational persuasion: Phoc. 11.1. Relevant for Plutarch here is that Phocion was a student of the Old Academy, while Cato was a Stoic. For a modern portrait of the two men, see MacMullen 1966: 1–18. On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, 6 (“Sättigt eure Seelen an Plutarch und wagt es, an euch selbst zu glauben, indem ihr an seine Helden glaubt.”). Ideals not of this world: Cim. 2.3–5. Plutarch’s frequent criticisms of Stoicism extend to the Lives, as when he hesitates to commend the fact that Cleomenes studied with Sphaerus, a student of Zeno: “The Stoic philosophy is a dangerous incentive to strong and fiery dispositions, but where it combines with a grave and gentle temper, is most successful in leading it to its proper good” (Agis 23.6). Per. 1.2–2.4. Cf. Aem. 1–3 and Tim. 1 where Plutarch speaks of the Lives as mirrors of the self, invitations to self-exploration, as Whitmarsh notes (2002:192). For more on the purpose of the Lives see Barrow 1967, 51–65, 150–61; Gossage 1967; Russell, Plutarch, 100–42; Wardman 1974: 1–37. Pelling in 2002 argues “that the Lives have ‘resonance’ for Plutarch’s own day, but it is difficult to extract clear political guidance” (87); “it is often very hard to define exactly what course of action Plutarch would be recommending” (88). He therefore speaks about Plutarch’s “exploratory moralism”, which recognizes the difficult complexity of ethical and political decisions. Whitmarsh similarly writes: “The Lives. . . do not simply constitute an idealized handbook of philosophical Hellenism in action across Greek and Roman

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 203

05/10/2011 07:05

204 N o tes contexts; on the contrary, as recent scholars have stressed, they tend to avoid prescriptive theoreticism, exploiting the dyadic structure to explore tensions between different ways of thinking about the world” (2002: 179). Cf. Duff 199: 249–86 and 2004: 285–6. 164. Prae. ger. reip. 814a–c. Cf. Hobbes’ warning that reading too much ancient history may corrupt the young with a passion for “favouring tumults”, under “a false shew of Liberty” (Leviathan Part II, Chapter 21 (“Of the Liberty of the Subjects”)). 165. On philanthrōpia in Plutarch, see Hirzel 1912: 21–32; cf. Martin 1961. Aristotle stated that the statesman’s greatest task is to promote philia between citizens, for man is a “political animal” who is most fulfilled in a city closely knit by familial ties and friendships. The notion endured into late antiquity, as explored by Downey 1955.

Notes to Chapter 4: Marcus Aurelius 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

For a more complete list, see Rawson 1997. Morford 2000 explores evolving Roman attitudes to Greek philosophy. For more specific discussion on “The Stoics and the Empire,” see Rutherford 1989: 59–80. For why “philosophy and subversion went together” (MacMullen 1966: 53) under the Principate, see ibid.: 1–94. See esp. P. Brown 1980. In Tacitus’ famous phrase, “Nerva Caesar res olim dissociabilis miscuerit, principatum ac libertatem” (Agricola 3.1). Daly and Suchier (1939) argue that the Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti Philosophi may date to as early as the third century. Another anonymous piece pairs Hadrian with Secundus “the Silent Philosopher”: see Perry 1964. See especially Meditations I and SHA 2 for tutors’ names and specialties; cf. Farquharson 1975: 13–54, 60–75; and Birley 2000: 86–112 (“The Education of a Caesar”) (all references to the Historia Augusta are to Marcus’ life by Capitolinus, unless otherwise noted). An author under Constantine writes: Fronto Romanae eloquentiae non secundum sed alterum decus (Panegyrici Latini viii.14.2, ed. Baehrens; cited in Farquharson 1975: 38). Fronto on the emperor’s need to speak well: e.g. 1.52, 2.40, 2.58, 2.138. Speech on accession: Dio 71.1. Speech to the army: Dio 71.3. Cf. Brunt, 1974: 4, n. 22. Med. 1.11. Farquharson finds a “very exact parallel in the Emperor Julian’s praise of his master Libanius” (1975: 51). Med. 1.6, SHA 2.6. Marcus made Rusticus consul in 162AD and City Prefect from 162–8. For more on Rusticus, see Hadot 1998: 8–11. Other philosophies were represented by the Stoics Cinna Catulus, Claudius Maximus, Apollonius of Chalcedon and Sextus of Chaeronea (Plutarch’s nephew); the Peripatetics Claudius Severus Arabianus (consul in 146) and his son Claudius Severus (consul in 167, 173); and the Platonist Alexander of Seleucia (secretary ab epistulis Graecis from 170). Med. 1.7. Watson dates his dissatisfaction with rhetoric to about 146 AD (1884: 50–1). On Marcus’ “conversion”, see Hadot 1998: 11–14. SHA 7.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 204

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

205

In his paean to Antoninus (1.16), note how Antoninus treats the goods of fortune as “preferred indifferents”: “And the things which conduce in any way to the commodity of life, and of which fortune gives an abundant supply, he used without arrogance and without excusing himself; so that when he had them, he enjoyed them without affectation, and when he had them not, he did not want them.” For such reservations, see e.g. Farquharson 1975: 35; Birley 2000: 162; McGlynn 2009: 140. One notes that Julian later had even less practical experience when he was sent as Caesar to Gaul. See for example the exercise set for Marcus by Fronto in Letter 5.27. Marcus himself seems to regret not having mastered dialectic or physics (Med. 7.67). SHA 7.5; cf. SHA, Verus 3.8. Tacitus, Annals 1.11.2 (solam divi Augusti mentem tantae molis capacem). Brunt comments: “No doubt his natural inclination was towards a life of philosophic study. It is significant that he does not thank the gods (nor Hadrian or Pius) for making him emperor (i, 17)” (1974: 3). Like Plato, the Roman world would have recognized Lord Acton’s maxim: Lucan for example writes “exeat aula / qui volt esse pius, virtus et summa potestas / non coeunt” (BC 8.493–5). Dio expresses his admiration for Marcus’ ability to respond successfully to the “portentous and unparalleled troubles” of his reign (71.36.3). SHA 8. SHA 8. Lucian, Hist. Conscr. 31. Comparison to Trajan: SHA 2.4. Letters: e.g. Fronto ad Ver. Imp. 2.1 (= Haines Vol. 2, pp. 129–37). SHA 23.6.24. SHA 28.4. Med. 9.2 contains the only reference to loimos. Amm. Marc. 29.6.1; cf. SHA 14. SHA 21.6. SHA 23.5 SHA 17.4–5, 21.9. Pius set a precedent here by selling furniture, and using his private money for public ends (Vita Pii, 6–7). Birley’s assessment of Marcus’ “gesture” ends curiously: “A gesture like the palace auction had more than a practical benefit—it demonstrated that the emperor was willing to make sacrifices. As a Stoic, Marcus cannot have found it any great hardship to get rid of some of the trappings of power (Faustina may have resented losing some of her jewels and dresses)” (2000: 219). See Birley 2000: 223ff. and Appendix III for a “hypothetical” reconstruction from scattered literary passages, coins and the Aurelian monument. See Birley 2000: 241. War of Nations: SHA 22. Eutropius: 8.12. Cited in Birley 2000: 197. 20,000 soldiers stationed: Dio 71.18–19; cf. SHA 24.5, 27.10. SHA 14.1, 22.1. Dio 71.11. SHA 24.3 (“He settled innumerable foreigners on Roman soil”); cf. 22.2; cf. Birley 2000: 230–2.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 205

05/10/2011 07:05

206 N o tes 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47.

48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

So Dio’s 71.13.2 (e)pi¿pan e)celeiÍn h)qe/lhsen) and 71.16.1 (hÃqele me\n [kaiì] au)tou\j kaiì panta/pasin e)kko/yai) become in Stanton: “his policy was to extermine the invading tribes completely” (1969: 581). Birley 2000: 229. SHA 21.6. See Dio 71.24. SHA 24–5, 27, 29.4. Early editors and translators of the Meditations Xylander (1559), Caspar Barth (1624), Jean-Pierre de Joly (1742, 1773) and even Farquharson (1944) assumed that the work must represent either selections from, or else the beginnings of a systematic treatise: the unquestioned assumption here is that real philosophy must be in systematic form. For details, see Hadot 1998: 25-27. My attempt at systematization of Marcus’ ideas descends from ontology to ethics and politics (cf. Med. 11.5). For a different (and more extensive) reconstruction, beginning with three “disciplines” (of judgement, desire and action), and attempting to discern Stoicism’s “highly rigorous conceptual system” (Hadot 1998: 47) behind the Meditations, see ibid.: 39–47 and 101–231. On the many names for God or nature, see Med. 3.11.3; cf. D.L. 7.136–7, 147; Sen. NQ 2.45. On cosmic unity, see esp. Med. 7.9. On the notion of “cosmic consciousness” (or the “point of view of the cosmos” or the “cosmic perspective”) and its consequences for Marcus, see Hadot 1998: 137–46 and Sellars 1999. The notion is fundamental to Epictetus and Stoic ethics generally, as Long insists (1989, esp. Chapters 6 (“The Logical Basis of Stoic Ethics”) and 8 (“Stoic Eudaimonism”). Cf. Long 2002: 19–27 and 153–6: “It is this last point that has regularly troubled critics of Stoicism who today, even more than in antiquity, are likely to find the philosophy’s theology and unqualified faith in divine providence naïve and unpalatable. Yet, it is a serious mistake, in my opinion, to interpret Stoicism, as some modern scholars have tried to do, in ways that tone down the cosmic dimension. For, whatever we may think of that, it was central to the Greek and Roman Stoics’ outlook on the world and the mainstay of the confidence this outlook engendered” (p. 23). Indeed, this outlook could be expressed through monarchical metaphors, as when Epictetus compares “the god within” to Caesar: obey this ineluctible God as soldiers obey their Caesar (Arr. Epict. Diss. 1.14). Med. 2.3–4; cf. 2.11, 17. Med. 3.2. Schlegel is one such example, and Matthew Arnold wrote an essay in highly laudatory of Marcus (1863); cf. Farquharson’s comments (1975: 20, 37). Marcus’ aesthetic sensitivity is also redolent of some Platonic passages: for all its imperfections, nature is fashioned by the Demiurge to marvellous beauty (Timaeus), and in the Symposium Socrates describes how the soul may rise up to see a “vast sea of beauty” (210d4), like the revelation of some mystery shining through each particular. Med. 10.5: “Whatever may happen to you was being prepared in advance from all eternity, and the weaving of causes was from eternity spinning the thread of your being together with whatever is incident to it” (my trans.). Seed and joint cause: e.g. Med. 4.36, 4.40. Cosmic sympathy: e.g. 6.38, 9.9. On the essential relatedness of things generally, see e.g. 2.1.4, 4.3.4, 11.18.1–2, Standard Stoic similes: see e.g. D.L. 7.40, 143. Med. 2.1. Cosmos as city: 3.11, 4.3–4, 6.44, 10.6; cf. 5.22. Again there are Platonic near-cousins, particularly in the Timaeus, where the physical

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 206

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

56.

57.

58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63. 64. 65.

66. 67.

207

cosmos is an animal comprising all others, and where the kallipolis with its head, breast and stomach mirrors the universe in miniature. Med. 2.1, 2.3–4 (aporroia), 2.16 (phyma, apostasis tēs physeos). Elsewhere, those alienated from nature are likened to wandering, blind beggars and to “tumours” (apostēmata tou kosmou, 4.29), or to runaway slaves (10.25); cf 6.30.1–3 for the celebrated exhortation “not to become caesarified” (OÐra mh\ a) pokaisarwqv=j), a neologism suggesting that tyrants tend to regard themselves almost as absolutes, without relation to or dependence on others. For more on Marcus’ vivid imagery, see Rutherford 1989: 147–55. E.g. do not hurry: Med. 1.7, 1.15–16. Stay focused: 2.5, 3.10. On the virtue of truthfulness (alētheia), which Marcus stresses in a thoroughly Roman vein, see Brunt 1974: 8–10. Marcus was nicknamed Verissimus by Hadrian, and takes the name “truthful” (alēthēs) seriously in 10.8. Brunt notes that Marcus never countenances Plato’s idea of the “noble lie”, and strives to be as plain and open as possible; so he praises Pius for having very few secrets, kept for the public good (1.17.7); and he writes that a Roman should be simple, upright, strong (2.5) On the unity of inner and outer, see e.g. 1.14–16, 3.16. Do not be suspicious but expect only good from others: 1.5, 1.14, 2.8, 2.13, 3.4, 4.18 etc. Sympathy with the criminal: e.g. 3.10, 4.3.2, 7.22, 7.65, 10.30, 10.37, 11.18.4–5; cf. his clemency towards Avidius Cassius’ followers, astonishing behaviour in a reigning princeps (Dio Cass. 71.30). No idea is more characteristic of the Meditations: e.g. 4.32–3, 4.40, 4.48, 4.50. No tragedy: e.g. Med. 3.7 Epictetus also ridicules the self-pity of tragic kings like Priam, Achilles and Oedipus: “For what else is tragedy than the perturbations of men who value externals. . .?” (1.4). Antoninus’ cheerfulness: 1.16; cf. 1.8–9. Works of nature: Med. 2.12. Bubble: Med. 8.20. Student of nature: Med. 10.9.1. Acceptance of all: e.g. 3.4, 10.6. Put aside self-love (philautia). Expressions of love: Med. 1.12–14, 6.39, 11.1 (family, neighbours), 7.13, 7.31 (mankind), 2.1 (the busybody, etc.), 2.5, 6.30, 10.1, 11.18 (a loving disposition). Cf. Clarke’s insightful comments (1956: 129). All this is remarkable if Roman patricians of the time were indeed cold and arrogant: Fronto can find no Latin equivalent for the Greek philostorgia (Ad Amicos 1.3, Ad Ver. 2.7 = Haines Vol. 1, p. 281 and Vol. II, p.155) and Marcus thanks him for showing him how the Roman elite were “somehow lacking in affection” (astorgoteroi pōs, Med. 1.11); cf. Haines Vol. 2, p.18 and Hadot 1998: 279–80. Med. 10.21. Med. 1.17. So Marcus often uses imperative forms. Brunt notes: “‘Always remember’: such phrases recur some forty times” (1974: 3). In my view, the most concise illustration of Marcus’ longing to cross over to that blessed union with God is Med. 10.1: “Will you ever, O my soul, be good and simple and unified and naked, more bright than your surrounding body? . . . will you ever be full and without need and longing for nothing and desiring nothing . . . but content with present circumstances and happy in all things present?” (my trans.). For references, see Hadot 1998: 245–6. Hadot himself returns to the idea, when discussing Marcus’ solitude and “lassitude”, as both emperor and philosopher: he longed for a moral good but could not find it in the court, let alone the army (1998: 290–6). Med. 4.48. For the ideal prayer (i.e. let the gods grant what is good, whatever that may

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 207

05/10/2011 07:05

208 N o tes

68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

74. 75. 76.

77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87.

be), see Med. 9.40; cf. Pl. Phaedr. 279c; D.L. 7.124; Clarke 1956: 119–21. For a different argument that Marcus was not a pessimist, see Hadot 1998: 163–79. Acropolis of the mind “free from passions”: Med. 8.48. Promontory: 4.49. Med. 4.39 (hypolambanon). The Stoics tend to regard the wise man as “godlike”: e.g Sen. Ep. 41.3–4, 59.14; Lucan BC 9.601–4; Arr. Epict. Diss. 2.19.27. Cf. Clarke 1956: 118–21. Priest and minister: Med. 3.4, 3.6. Med. 3.16 (tr. Staniforth). On mind as fire, see Med. 4.1, 8.35, 10.31. For the mind overcoming all obstacles or exercising virtues proper to each occasion, cf. Med. 3.11, 5.20, 6.50, 7.68, 8.35, 10.33. The idea may partially explain why in 11.7 Marcus writes that his position in life (i.e. as emperor) gives him the most opportunity to philosophize. Some Stoics linked God and the logos with Heraclitus’ fire, which animates nature and whose particular manifestations (fire, water, earth, air) compose it. Marcus’ comparison of the mind to fire somewhat anticipates Hegel’s system of absolute idealism, by which the divine self posits and reabsorbs all its creations. For an argument that Marcus was an opium addict, and that this inspired his philosophical envisionings, see Africa 1961—a literalistic perspective rightly rubbished by Hadot 1984, cf. 1998: 251–7. Med. 9.29; cf. Hadot’s discussion (1998: 303–4). Med. 7.48. For the same thought, and a direct quote of Plato Rep. 486a, see Med. 7.35; Plato, Tht. 174e similarly contrasts the philosopher’s cosmic outlook with the tyrant’s narrow obsession with his few acres of territory. The idea that the mind can and should adopt a panoptic view of history, time and space is crucial for Marcus: see e.g Med. 2.9, 3.11, 4.32–3, 4.35, 4.50, 6.47, 8.5, 8.31; cf. 5.24, 9.32, 11.1, 12.24.3. Hadot describes these and other passages (including those from other ancient schools) as exercises of the spiritual imagination (1998: 47–8, 254-56, 275–6). Greatness of soul: e.g. Med. 3.11.2, 7.35, 10.11.1. Courage (before death): 7.35. SHA 27.7 (Sententia Platonis semper in ore illius fuit florere civitates, si aut philosophi imperarent aut imperantes philosopharentur). Med. 1.14. For sketches of each of the figures named, see Hadot 1998: 296–9. Cf. Med. 11.5 where Marcus writes that his “craft” (technē) is to “be good”. On the equation of philosophy with ethical life in this period, see Hadot 1998: 3–5 and passim. Brunt writes insightfully: “In effect, as only a detailed analysis could show, Marcus’ philosophy bade him adopt the principles traditionally demanded of an emperor since Augustus both by panegyrists and critics of the regime” (1974: 6). Dio 71.3.3–4, SHA 22.3–8. Among the few passages, see 8.34 (seeing severed limbs) and 10.10 (hunting Sarmatians). Birley 2000: 233. Parrhēsia: SHA 8.1 (mimographus); cf. Med. 11.6 where he praises Old Comedy for its Cynic-like freedom of speech. “Office of a king”: Med. 7.36 (my translation). SHA 24.1–2; Marcus gives reasons for sympathy and clemency in Med. 10.30, noting how he too has acted in ignorance (and hence not fully voluntarily), thinking money, pleasure, fame to be good; cf. 10.37. This deviates from Stoic orthodoxy, which makes the just judge absolutely inflexible in applying the law (e.g. D.L. 7.123; SVF 3. 641). Med. 1.16; cf. 1.3 (frugality, to liton, learned from his mother).

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 208

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97.

98. 99.

100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110.

209

Med. 10.15; cf. 10.23 echoing Plato Tht 174d–e. SHA 17, 21; Eutropius 8.13; cf. Dio 71.33.2–3. Loyalty to Faustina (who bore Marcus thirteen children, of whom only six survived): Med. 1.17. Baths: SHA 23.8. Epictetus counselled sex only for procreation. Reading: SHA 15.1. Blunt weapons: Dio 71.29.4; but see Med. 10.8.1 for admiration of fighters’ courage. Nets: SHA 12; cf. Birley 2000: 200-201. Marcus’ dislike of the games: Med. 6.46. Limiting gladiatorial expenses: SHA 11. “Necessary expenditure” for Smyrna and other cities: Dio 71.32.3; cf. SHA 23.2. SHA 23. Dio 71.32.1. Dio 71.3.3. Birley 2000: 219. Med. 3.10 (trans. Staniforth). For similar, Pascalian sentiments on how little (and potentially noble) man is within the infinities of time and space, see Med. 3.10, 4.3, 4.26.5, 4.32, 6.36.1, 8.21.2, 10.17, 12.7 et al.; cf. Thomson 1953 on geography during Marcus’ era and the by-now common idea that the earth was but a point in the universe. On the vanity of fame, cf. Med. 2.17, 6.16, 7.6, 7.10, 7.21, 7.62 et al. esp. 3.10, 4.32–44 and cf. Brunt’s Appendix II (1974: 20). Contrast Domitian or Constantius II, who arrogated to themselves the victories of Agricola and Julian, respectively. Birley writes: “There is a change of atmosphere from the aggressive martial confidence of the Column of Trajan, which extolled the disciplined achievement of the armies of Rome. There is a note of pathos that is only too clear, when the burning and destruction of enemy villages, the execution of rebels and the remorseless onset of battle are displayed, carved on the winding panels. The only unity that it possesses is the ever present figure of Marcus, generally accompanied by a faithful counsellor who is surely Claudius Pompeianus. The war was a grim and sordid necessity. Marcus knew it, and the artists of the column clearly felt it” (2000: 245, referring to Hamberg, 1945 for “the spirit of the column”). See esp. Med. 3.14 (not reading The Acts of Romans and Greeks of Old Times). Med. 7.3. He also delegated powers to the Senate: “He made the senate the judge in many judicial enquiries, even in those which belonged to his own jurisdiction” (SHA 10.1; Birley 2000: 180). Amicus noster, as he is called in Dig. 37.14.17. Papinian also came to maturity in Marcus’ reign. SHA 10, cf. 24, 71; Dio 71.6. Haines Vol. 2, pp. 12–19. Compare Med. 3.4.3, 5.16, 6.30 with Pl. Rep. 429d–430a. Cod. Just. 7.2.6; Digest 31.67.10; cf. SHA, 9 and Birley 2000: 178–82. W. Williams 1976 claims to discern an almost fastidious attention to detail in Marcus’ constitutions, a trait common among ancient Stoic politicians. See Watson 1884: 76–7 and 114ff. See Birley 2000: 133, 178–9. On Marcus’ social legislation generally, see Watson 1884: 69–118, and Noyen 1954, 1955. Watson, 1884: 89–97. Watson interprets Meditations 1.14, for example, along these lines: “He strove to make real that idea which he speaks of in his Thoughts – the idea of a ‘polity

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 209

05/10/2011 07:05

210 N o tes

111.

112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118.

in which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed’” (p. 89). Cf. Noyen: “The slaves and the freedmen, about whom we possess some sixty laws, constitute the lion’s share in Marcus’ legislation. The latter is completely dedicated to the ‘favor libertatis’, and makes us think, however daring this opinion may seem, that Marcus, faithful to his stoic principles, aimed at the complete abolition of slavery” (1955: 376). This is the approach of biographers as different as Renan (1861: 18–31) and Birley who judges that the Senatus consultum Orfitianum, for example, was “a great step forward in the recognition of a woman’s individual existence apart from her family” (2000: 204). Hadot’s Marcus seems at times almost like a contemporary liberal democrat (1989: e.g. 299). See Stanton, 1969: 573–4. He thus quotes and dismisses Noyen’s key assumption: “In order to eliminate all misunderstanding about these extremely important measures, we stress the fact that it is not our intention to attribute all benefits which by these laws have been bestowed on mankind to Marcus only. Such an endeavour would be a negation of Marcus’ epoch and a proof of sheer ignorance of the extremely intricate Roman law of succession. We think however that we may assert that such an enlightened despot as Marcus, who was assisted by a college of eminent jurists, author of so many rescripts, at least promoted in some degree the achievement of these humanitarian innovations in the domain of the right of succession and the manumission” (1955: 278); Stanton quotes the whole except the first phrase about “misunderstanding” (1969: 573). Stanton 1969: 579. Stanton 1969: 581. Stanton 1969: 582–5. Dio writes that Marcus’ “panicked” when he heard of the revolt (71.17: pro\j ta\ a)ggelqe/nta e)cepla/gh). Stanton 1969: 586. These individual criticisms are common among historians, but for a more extreme interpretation, that purports to find the causes in Marcus’ weak psychology, see Dailly and van Effenterre 1954. For example, as a boy he threw himself into his duties as Salian priest. Traditionally instituted by Numa, these priests were dedicated to Mars, whose month of March brought new growth, new life—and a new campaigning season. In March therefore the Salian priests would remove the 12 ancient shields (ancilia) from the temple of Mars and go dancing through the streets, in purple tunics, bronze belts and helmets, beating the shields with daggers. When a war was declared, they shook Mars’ sacred spears, and shouted Mars vigila! (“Mars awake!”). By Marcus’ time, this priesthood was a relic: what need to revive it under the settled reign of Hadrian? Again, before setting out in 167 AD for the German War, he held a lectisternium for seven days and led both Roman and foreign religious rites. So many animals were sacrificed that a joke letter was written: “The white cattle to Marcus Caesar—greetings! If you conquer, then we are finished.” Reasons of state may have motivated Marcus to use age-old rites to calm the people panicked by plague and war: this is Birley’s interpretation, but the graffiti-writers take a more wry view (2000: 204–5). Marcus himself thanks the gods that “remedies have been shown to me by dreams, both others, and against bloodspitting and giddiness” (Med. 1.17). Finally, only a superstitious fool could have admired Alexander of Abnoteichus, kept him as a military

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 210

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

119.

120.

121. 122.

123. 124.

125. 126.

211

advisor and obeyed his prophesy on campaign by throwing two lions into the Danube— as Lucian reports (Alex. 48) and Birley seems to believe (2000: 223–4). Of course, all this is to spin the material in one direction: Marcus was a religious conservative, like Antoninus, but belief in the divinity of dreams and the like was common and would not have been regarded as irrationally “superstitious”. Around 167 AD, Justin was prosecuted by the Cynic Crescens, and martyred along with several others: the city prefect who judged the case was none other than Q. Junius Rusticus, Marcus’ Stoic tutor. Eusebius seems to include a transcript of the proceedings (Hist. Ecc. 4.16; cf. Birley 2000: 206–11 and Appendix IV), where Rusticus effectively applies the law established by Trajan: if the Christians recant and offer sacrifice to the Emperor’s image, then all charges are to be dropped. During Marcus’ reign, there was also anti-Christian violence in Smyrna (where the last hearer of John the Evangelist, Polycarp was executed), Pergamum, Vienne and, most notoriously, Lyons. It would seem incredible for Marcus not to know about the trials at least in Rome and Lyons. If he did know about them, does he not join Diocletian, Galerius, Julian and others as a persecutor of Christianity? If so, how can this be reconciled with Marcus’ own Stoic “gospel” of love? Med. 2.17, read carefully, is a concise and eloquent summary of this position—monism expressed in the language of Platonic dualism by one who is not yet wise; even the notion of philosophy as the sole means to transport one across the flux recalls the image of philosophy as a raft in Phaedo 85d. Another sentence captures the tension between monism and dualism: “O soul of mine, will you never be good and sincere, all one, all open” (10.1). Long suggests that the Platonic dualism of body/soul does not appear in Stoic literature before Epictetus, though Epictetus uses it for ethical, not metaphysical ends (2002: 157–8). Hadot refers back to Cicero’s criticism of Cato (Cic. Att. 2.1.8; Plut. Phoc. 3.2) to explain Marcus’ phrase as a “proverbial expression” for “a state in which all the citizens would have become philosophers” (1989: 303–4). On this, see for example Cicero, Mur. 61–5. Tacitus speaks of Musonius Rufus’ intempestiva sapientia (Hist. 3.81). Note Long’s conclusion regarding Epictetus: “Epictetus offers no political policies or general strategies for improving living conditions and legal safeguards” (2002: 271). On Marcus, Hadot concludes: “Marcus does not propose any specific governmental program in the Meditations. This should not surprise us, for he is less concerned with what must be done than with how it must be done” (1998: 296). E.g. Med. 1.16. Med. 2.2, 4.17, 5.5, 7.1, 8.1, 10.1, 10.8, 10.36 et al. Cf. Hadot on Marcus’ “consciousness of his own fallibility” (1998: 286–7). Hadot also alludes to some Stoics’ distinction between sages (rare or purely ideal), those who seek wisdom (like Marcus) and those who do not (1998: 76–7), but one should add that this distinction essentially rows back to the tripartite division of Plato, Symposium 202a–203a: it is the rare “lover of wisdom” who (like Socrates) knows that he lies between divine wisdom and the ignorance of the selfcontented masses. The philosopher knows that he is not truly wise: this attitude induces a certain scepticism and humility. For echoes of other Platonic texts, see Hadot 1998: 57 and Rutherford 1989. Cf. Med. 1.16; 10.12. For more on Marcus’ philosophical circle of friends and assistants, see Hadot 1998: 19–20.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 211

05/10/2011 07:05

212 N o tes 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138.

139.

140.

141. 142. 143. 144.

Birley 2000: 233. Birley 2000: 166–7. Birley 2000: 247. SHA 22. Among oblique references to the wars may be Med. 10.10 (“hunting” Sarmatians), and 8.34 (passing by severed feet and heads); cf. 8.9 (court), 8.30 (speaking in the Senate), 9.2 (plague). Stanton 1969: 585–6. Fronto, Ad Antoninum Imp. 1.3.2 (= Haines Vol. 2, p. 121). Phaedrus: see Farquharson 1975: 52. Only one cloak: “Suppose Caesar that you can attain to the wisdom of Cleanthes and Zeno, yet against your will, you must put on the purple cloak, not the philosopher’s mantle of coarse wool” (Haines Vol. 2, pp. 63–5). See Justin, 1 Apol. 1; Athenagoras, Leg. 1; cf. Euseb. Hist. Ecc. 4.26.9–11. Cf. Hadot 1998: 17–19. Ab excessu divi Marci, 1.2.4 (tr. P.B. Watson). False philosophers, flatterers: Dio Cass. 71.35.2. Marcus as philosopher: 71.1. Marcus was “so outstanding for his wisdom, lenience, innocence of character and literary attainments that when he was about to set off against the Marcomanni with his son Commodus, whom he had made Caesar, he was surrounded by a crowd of philosophers, who were protesting that he should not commit himself to the expedition and to battle, before he had expounded the difficulties and obscurities of the philosophical schools. Thus it was feared, from zeal for philosophy, that the uncertainties of war would affect his safety. And so greatly did the liberal arts flourish in his reign that I would think it the glory of the times” (Aur. Vict. de Caes. 16.9–10; cited in Birley 2000: 282–3). Julian probably had not read the Meditations but most scholars surmise that they were known to Themistius. At least he alludes to the “precepts” (paraggelmata) of Marcus (6.81c7). For a discussion of the mysterious fate of the text, see Hadot 1998: 21–8. The Meditations were popular among the Byzantines especially after Arethas made efforts in the early 900s to have more copies made. Diocletian was another admirer of Marcus. Gibbon’s discussion of Diocletian’s voluntary retirement (305 AD) has none of his usual irony: “It was in the twenty-first year of his reign that Diocletian executed his memorable resolution of abdicating the empire; an action more naturally to have been expected from the elder or the younger Antoninus, than from a prince who had never practised the lessons of philosophy either in the attainment or in the use of supreme power. Diocletian acquired the glory of giving to the world the first example of a resignation, which has not been very frequently imitated by succeeding monarchs. The parallel of Charles the Fifth, however, will naturally offer itself to our mind . . .” (Decline and Fall, Chapter 13, Part IV). What offers itself equally naturally to the mind is that Plato’s philosopher-kings are qualified for power partly because they do not want power. SHA 1.1. Hadrian impressed: SHA 16.5–7. Disciplinarian: 22.6–7. Eastern progress: 26. Plato’s words: 27.7. In fact, he shamelessly claimed to be Marcus’ son, though of no blood relation. See Major 1964, pp. 172–271 for a discussion of Sir Thomas Elyot, whose Image of

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 212

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

145. 146. 147.

148.

149. 150. 151.

152.

213

Governance, Compiled of the Actes and Sentences Notable of the Most Noble Emperor Alexander Severus (1540) projected Plato’s ideal onto the later Roman emperor. Marcus’ religious virtues: SHA 19.10. Dreams: 18.4. SHA 19.10. Cf. Hadot’s analysis of reasons for Marcus’ popularity since his texts were rediscovered by the West in the 1500s (1998: 307–13; cf. 19–23). Hadot’s view is that Marcus was a proto-Kantian who champions the primacy of pure practical reason, and thus articulates universal ethical truths. Hadot betrays rather hackneyed Enlightenment assumptions when for example he hesitates to call Marcus “religious” (p. 52) or when he refuses to sully the “purity” of Marcus philosophy by mixing it with “all the vague and imprecise implications, both social and mythical, which the notion of religion brings with it” (p. 309). Because they seemed to lack the “religious” dualism of Platonic tradition, Epictetus and Marcus were favourite moralists in the 1700s and later: Thomas Jefferson had tremendous regard for Epictetus, and contemplated translating him to English; Matthew Arnold revered them as the near equals of Jesus and the Evangelists (see MacMillan 1979; Long 2002: 267–9). Most famous is Gibbon’s verdict: “If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.” Gibbon was echoing similar judgements of ancients like Aelius Aristides, as well as moderns like de Tillemont (see Farquharson 1975: 6-9). Another hint of the future, a dim foreshadowing of Domitian’s Tetrarchy is the fact that Marcus made Lucius Verus his co-emperor, “an arrangement for which there was no exact precedent” (Brunt 1974: 10). So writes Farquharson 1975: 9. “Last of the Roman Stoics”: Clarke 1956: 124–6 (“The Stoic Way of Life”). Renan almost makes Marcus the ultimus Romanorum when he writes: “The day of the death of Marcus Aurelius can be taken as the decisive moment in which the ruin of ancient civilisation was decided” (tr. Hutchison 1903: 243). Dudley 1958: 189. Cf. Birley 2000: 178. In fact, through the Medieval period, the statue was thought to represent Constantine, and as a result it was the only bronze statue of a pre-Christian emperor not to be melted down. For the influence of the statue and the “myth” of Marcus during the Renaissance, see Mezzatesta 1984.

Notes to Chapter 5: Julian the Apostate 1. 2. 3. 4.

Crowning: Amm. Marc. 20.4.17–18 (torquis). Dream: 20.5.10; cf. Julian Ep. ad Athen. 284c. It would appear again the night before his death in Mesopotamia, signaling that the gods had abandoned him (25.2.1–3). For Marcus’ “perfect virtue,” see Julian Ep. ad Them. 253b; cf. Caesars 312a–c, 317c–d, 328c–d. For Julian as usurper, see Müller-Seidel 1955. Athanassiadi treats Julian as a proto-Byzantine (1992: 11–12, 188–91) but the Byzantinist Kaegi is wary (1984: 350). So Plu. Demetr. 3.5. Amm. Marc. 21.16.8 alludes to the massacre in condemning Constantius’ immanitas and

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 213

05/10/2011 07:05

214 N o tes

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

saevitia. For tragic diction and quotations, see e.g. Julian Or. 7.228b–c, Ep. ad Athen. 270c–71b. Julian’s father was Julius Constantius, half-brother of Constantine the Great. He never knew his mother, Basilina, who died young. Due to Mardonius, Julian did not attend theatre until he was an adult (Mis. 339c–d, 351a). No study of law: Mis. 353b. For the view that Julian’s paganism was first fed by a literary aestheticism and especially the love of Homer instilled in him by Mardonius, see Rendall 1879: 45 and Atthanassiadi 1992: 14–20. Julian, Mis. 353b; cf. Or. 8.241c and in his funeral oration, Libanius calls Mardonius “the best phylax of temperance” (Or. 18.11). Mardonius taught Homer and Hesiod: Julian Mis. 352a–d. An education in virtue: Mis. 274 (under him, Julian learned to walk modestly, eyes fixed on the ground and with none of the swagger of a royal prince or courtier). Julian Ep. ad Athen. 271b–d. See Gorbatov 2006: 65–6. Rendall compares Julian’s isolated, studious childhood with that of J. S. Mill, as related in his Autobiography, Chapter 1 (1879: 38, n.3). That he did this out of dread of Constantius, the all-powerful jailor, see Theodoret 3.2; cf. Julian Ep. 30, 36.423c, 53 (= Bidez 40, 61c, 97, respectively). Julian’s apparent retraction of his earlier Christianity gained him the epithet “the Apostate” among Christian writers like Gregory Nazianzen, Socrates and Sozomen (see Athanassiadi 1992: 26 for references). I.e. in February 356 AD. Cleanse impiety: Or. 7.231d. Saved by the gods and philosophy: e.g. Ep. ad Athen. 271d–72a, 275b. On philosophy as the sole salvation, cf. Pl. Phd. 85c–d and Marcus Med. 2.17. Christianity as a nosos: 229d; cf. Contra Galilaeos 327b, Ep. 41.348c 58.401c (= Bidez 114, 98, respectively). On pagans’ fears that their world had grown old and “sick,” see Athanassiadi 1992: 80–1, 168. Liban. Or. 13.12, 18.18; Sozom. Hist. Eccl 5.2; and Rendall 1879: 48–9. On Julian’s early education, see Bouffartigue 1992: 13–32 and Bringmann 2004: 29–42. Eunap. VS 7.1.1. Maximus the guru: Julian Or. 7.235b–c. For a brief account of Maximus, his brand of Iamblicheanism and his importance to Julian, see Athanassiadi 1992: 31–7. Julian Or. 7.217b. Eunap. VS 7.2.6–11. For more on Iamblichean theurgy, see Lewy 1978, Athanassiadi 1993 and especially Shaw 1995. On religious dimensions of Roman imperium from the Republic down to Constantine, see Turcan 200: 134–45 (“The Imperial Cult”). He notes the solar imagery of Augustus, Caracalla and many in the third century, and draws a parallel with Plato: “As in Plato (Rep. 6, 508c) the sun was the visible image of the invisible Good, the emperor was the actual and personal incarnation of the life-imparting Daystar who, by handing the globe of the world to him on the reverse of coins, made him his vicar and a kind of co-regent. Their images side by side in the third century, and still on the obverse of Constantinian coins, even conveyed a kind of ‘consubstantiality’ (F. Cumont)” (p. 142). Popular belief sometimes attributed divine powers to emperors: Hadrian cured a blind woman, it was said (SHA Hadr. 25.2); cf. Tac. Hist. 4.81 and Suet. Vesp. 7.5–6 on Vespasian; and Bloch 1973: 34. That Julian did in fact project the image of one directly inspired by the divine is reflected in Libanius 24.36–7. Ammianus 21.1.7–12 explains the theory of augury and prophecy that formed “part of a

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 214

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

22.

23.

24. 25. 26.

27.

28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

215

philosopher’s equipment”. Shooting stars: Amm. Marc. 25.2.4–5. Prophecies of death in Phrygia and in battle: 25.3.9, 23.3.19. Prolific omens on the Persian campaign: sudden deaths of associates with significant names (Felix and Julian) and of an old priest (23.1.4), earthquake in Constantinople and the warning in the Sibylline books (23.1.5), the fall of his horse Babylonius (23.3.6), death of a lion (23.5.8), thunderbolt kills a soldier named Jovian (23.5.12) et al. Flights of birds, entrails: e.g. Amm. Marc. 22.1.1. Interpreters of dreams: 23.3.3. Sibylline books: 23.1.5. Tarquitian books: 25.2.7. Etruscan diviners: 23.5.10–11 (overruled in Mesopotamia by philosophers like Maximus), 25.2.7. Castalian springs in Antioch, revived by Julian after over two centuries’ silence: 22.12.8. Signs from the gods: Ep. ad Athen. 284c (teras); 20.5.10, 25.2.3 (Genius Publicus). “Julian’s omnivorous curiosity led him to embark on a new mode of inquiry. He thought of re-opening the prophetic springs of the Castalian fount, which the Caesar Hadrian is said to have blocked with a huge mass of stone” (Amm. Marc. 22.12.8). Ammianus also criticizes Julian in Antioch as “superstitious rather than genuinely observant of the rites of religion”: 25.4.17. This is part of his argument that Julian’s very talent, success and power eventually corrupted him; when in Antioch, proud of so many previous successes, “he began to entertain ambitions too high for a mortal” (22.9.1) and so in his deepening isolation grew headstrong, especially in the Persian campaign. Lib. Or. 18.19; cf. Rendall 1879: 51–2 and Athanassiadi 1992: 44. For Julian’s relationship with Libanius, see Cribiore 2007: 142–3. Allusion to his conversion: Ep. 47.434d (= Bidez 111). Julian Ep. ad Athen. 275c–77d; cf. Amm. Marc. 15.2.7–8. Julian Ep. ad Them. 260a–c. Rendall links Julian’s growing sense of destiny with his years in Athens and with the current pagan oracle that after 365 years, the kingdom of Christ would end and a new king would restore the rule of the old gods (1879: 58 citing Augustine De Civ. Dei 18.53–4). On a different note, Athanassiadi argues that Julian was impressed by the still vibrant civic life of Athens, proud of its ancient heritage: “Julian the statesman perceived in Athens the continuing strength of the polis, which he later sought to make the foundation-stone of his administrative reform” (1992: 51). E.g. Julian Or. 4.157c (written over three evenings), 6.203b (written in two days); 7.216a (jotted down by a “mere soldier”, pressed for time). Such modesty is a standard rhetorical trope but one senses that in Julian’s case it was true: he was emperor after all, and an ambitious, energetic one. For instance, he quotes or echoes Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Theognis, Heraclitus, Herodotus, Thucydides, Euripides, Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, New Comedy, Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, Iamblichus, oracular responses—and much else. Study of Caesar and Plutarch: Bidez 1932: 98; cf. Julian Or. 3.124b–c (on the need to study past exemplars, particularly when on campaign) and Athanassiadi 1992: 55. Amm. Marc. 23.5.16–23. Mis. 347a; cf. Or. 3.124b–c and 6.203b for his constant reading. Zeller 1931: 303. More recent scholarship tends to stress the continued vitality of polytheism in the mid-fourth century: Julian’s crusade was not wholly quixotic. Iamblichus the master: Julian Or. 4.146a, 157c–58a. Julian Or. 4.130b.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 215

05/10/2011 07:05

216 N o tes 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48.

The divisions are Or. 4.132b–42d, 142d–52a, and 151c–end; cf. R. Smith 1995: 144–5. Julian’s Encomia of Constantius and Eusebia follow Menander’s guidelines on the basilikos logos closely: he seems to have known the genre well (see e.g. Tougher 1998). Julian Or. 4.132c–d. Proper powers: Julian Or. 4.133ac. Manifestations: 4.148c–150d. Julian Or. 4.132c-33c, 141d–42b, 156c–57b. Julian Or. 4.141ab. Creation of mankind: Julian Or. 4.131c, 152a. Astronomy, sex, health: 4.152b–c, 150a–c, 153b, respectively. Apollo’s religious-political blessings: 4.152d–53a, 153d–57b. In his enthusiasm, Julian even makes Helios (an intellectual god) the giver of rain: Or. 4.151d. Satisfied with his reasoning, he generalizes with complete self-assurance: “[T]here is no single blessing in our lives which we do not receive as a gift from this god, either perfect from him alone, or, through the other gods, perfected by him” (153d). Elsewhere Julian opines that there were multiple creations of mankind (opposed to Genesis’ account of Adam and Eve, the primal couple) and that to each separate race was assigned a particular place, way of life and patron-god (e.g. Or. 7.205d, Mis. 348b–d, Ep. 20 (= Bidez 89a), Contra Galilaeos 116b, 131b–d, 137e–38d, 143a–e etc. in his response to Moses’ monotheistic cosmology). These latter are the “city-protecting gods” (poliouchoi theoi): so Athens had Athena, Alexandria its “king” Sarapis (Ep. 47.432d = Bidez 111), Jerusalem Yahweh (whose ancient, local Temple Julian sought to restore) and Antioch Zeus, Daphne and Calliope until she replaced them with Christ (Mis. 357c, 360d, 366b). Thus, in Julian’s version of Platonic idealism, human diversity is explained by the diversity of lower gods, who are themselves so many various reflections of Helios and the One. basileuousa polis: 4.131d; to kratoun kai basileuon genos: 4.131c. Whether Helios should be identified with Mithras remains a controversial question in scholarship of Julian. Athanassiadi 1992, following Cumont and others, takes the identification as fundamental; Smith by contrast is more cautious and emphasizes more the influence of Iamblichus and the Chaldaean Oracles on the Hymn (1995: 139–63). Or. 6.184d; cf. 182c–86b passim. In Or. 7.215d Julian divides philosophy along Peripatetic lines into natural, practical and logical parts. See esp. 6.183a–b. Eudaimonia: Or. 6.193d. Apatheia: 192a, 199c. Living according to nature, and the “god within”: 194a, 196d, 197b, 268d et al.; cf. Iamblichus Protrepticus 8.138. Self-knowledge, scorning opinion, likeness to God: e.g. 6.185a, 7.225d–26c. Nous more divine than soul: 6.183b. “Silent reason”: 6.197a. Or. 6.186b–203b. Julian notes resemblances between Cynicism and other philosophies: for example, Cynics resemble Socrates in their merely external roughness (6.187a–b), their indifference to and elenchic testing of popular opinion (e.g. 6.191c, 195c–97a, 200c; cf. 7.208d–209a); like Plato, they scorn opinion, prize knowledge and virtue, consider writing of little importance (6.188c–189b) and “practise death” by ascetically disciplining body to soul and emotions to reason; like Aristotle, they hold that man is “a social and political animal” (201c) who seeks happiness and self-knowledge and so aims to become like god (185a). See esp. Or. 6.188a–c, 199a–200b; cf. 7.211a–14a, 7.238a–d (e.g. Diogenes goes to Olympia to see Zeus’ temple; goes to Corinth in obedience to the gods, but prefers holy Athens). Oenomaus: 6.199b; cf. 7.209b–11a. Or. 6.187d.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 216

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56.

57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70.

71. 72.

217

Or. 6.188a: Julian glosses this as Iamblichus’ view. Cf. 191b and 182c–d where Prometheus and Hermes are together the givers of reason and mind. The Cynic is truly kingly, and godlike, in virtue: Or. 6.195b, 203a–b. Cf. 7.212d (Diogenes visits the temples, and Alexander, the “most royal of his time”, visits Diogenes). Philosophy and Athena: Or. 6.184d. Or. 6.216c–d; cf. 7.205c–6d (horses have always neighed and humans have always made myths). Previous philosophical myth-makers Plato et al.: 7.215b, 217a. Inner truth of theological myths: 219a–22c. Julian as self-conscious mythopoios: 7.227b–34c. Or. 7.234c. On Julian’s possible use of Dio’s First Kingship Oration, see Asmus 1895. Ep. ad Them. 253c; cf. 204–b. The date of the letter is uncertain, and so we do not know whether Themistius’ phrase (253c) referred to Julian as Caesar in Gaul or Augustus in Constantinople. Heather 1998 tells the life of Themistius, “the Talleyrand of his time” and “a real philosopher” (1998: 126). Ep. ad Them. 254a, 262d. Ep. ad Them. 256a–d. Ep. ad Them. 259a–b. In Caesars 334a similar ideas are attributed to Marcus. Ep. ad Them. 258d alluding to Pl. Leg. 714a and Arist. Pol. 1287a. Ep. ad Them. 262a–b. Julian’s early doubts about his capacities for office are also reflected in Ammianus’ anecdote: as Julian settled into his role as Caesar in Gaul, he could be heard sighing and murmuring the name “Plato” (16.5). For the anecdote about Solon, see Ep. ad Them. 262c–d with Plut. Sol. 15.8–9. Caesars 335b (polla\ kthsa/menon, polla\ xari/sasqai, my trans). Caesars 334a (tr. W.C. Wright, adapted slightly). This is one of the few places in which Julian explicitly names Mithras, leading to doubts as to the nature or extent of Julian’s supposed Mithraism (e.g. Smith 2005). Caesars 306c. Ep. ad Them. 253a; on Julian’s admiration of Alexander, see Bowerstock 1978: 15–16, 101–2. Cf. Athanassiadi 1992: 74–5. Ammianus comments that Julian “extended his activity into every field” (23.1). Athanassiadi argues that Mithraic dualism gave Julian the mentality of a crusader, fighting evil for the good (1992: 41 and Chapter II “Miles Mithrae,” 52–88): “The desire to be a socially useful person, which Mithraism had kindled in him, was transformed by his experiences in Gaul into an all-pervading sense of worldly mission . . . Julian believed that his primary duty in life was to restore a collapsing oikoumene, and in his attempt to fulfil this mission he had taken as his model and guide the god who had first encouraged in him a sense of worldly belonging: Helios-Mithra, supreme deity at once of the Neoplatonists and of the Roman state, was henceforth to inspire Julian in all his doings” (p. 88). This particularizes O’Meara’s summary of late Platonic politics as ascent to the One, preparing for enlightened descent to the “Cave” (2003). Ep. 8.415c–d (= Bidez 26); cf. Lib. Or. 18.114. He did not install hypocausts to warm his house in Paris, “always slept alone” (Mis. 340b–42a, 345d), and in fact slept little, working and studying late, like Alexander and Caesar (Amm. Marc. 16.5.1; cf. 25.2.2, 25.4). On campaign, he shared the soldiers’

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 217

05/10/2011 07:05

218 N o tes

73.

74. 75.

76.

77.

78. 79. 80.

hardships (e.g. 17.1, 23.5.19-24, 25.2.1, 25.4.12), perhaps in imitation of many of Plutarch’s heroes (see e.g. Plut. Caes. 17.1–2). Amm. Marc. 22.4. Ammianus writes scathingly of Constantius’ example and court: “Under him the leading men of all classes were consumed by a passion for riches which knew no bounds and recognized no legal or moral restraint” (16.8.8). And he condemns “the gang of eunuchs, who are always savage and bitter, and who, because they lack family ties, lavish on wealth alone the affection due to a beloved child” (18.5.3). Julian offers an allegorical version: Or. 7.232a–d. Ammianus criticizes Julian for not living up to his ideals and summarily condemning all members of the court; a philosopher should take care that the few meritorious individuals are not unjustly punished (22.4). When Maximus arrived in Constantinople in early 362 AD, Julian jumped up from his curule chair and rushed across to greet his friend and master (Amm. Marc. 22.7.3). The act seems typical of the impetuous Julian (Libanius compares him to Plato’s manic Chaerephon (18.155); cf. Gregory’s unflattering description of him as a gauche young student in Athens: Or. 5.23), but it could also be a calculated political gesture: imperial favour for Maximus as philosopher, pagan and Hellene, a deliberate return to Augustan ideals, including the parrhēsia fostered by Good Emperors like Marcus. Julian’s onlookers, however, were shocked: the expectation under the Dominate was that the emperor move slowly, sit upright in imperturbable dignity, as remote as a high god. Often quoted in this regard is Constantius’ entry into Rome: “he exhibited no emotion, but kept the same impassive air as he commonly wore before his subjects in the provinces. Though he was very short he stooped when he passed under a high gate; otherwise he was like a dummy, gazing straight before him as if his head were in a vice and turning neither to right nor left. When a wheel jolted he did not nod, and at no point was he seen to spit or wipe or rub his face or nose or to move his hand” (Amm. Marc. 16.10.9). On Julian’s uneasy combination of theocratic monarchy and populist parrhēsia, see Athanassiadi 1992: 113. Parallels to this combination can be found especially among enlightened despots like Joseph II (“The People’s Kaizer”); it is analogous to Philo’s theory of Creation as a “democracy” of equals, under the “monarchy” of God; and it recalls Plato’s attempt in the Laws to fuse the two “mother constitutions”. Other economic policies follow a similar trend. In Gaul, he had streamlined expenses so as not to have to raise taxes, to the people’s detriment and officials’ profit: see Amm. Marc. 16.5.14–15, 17.3 and 18.1; cf. Athanassiadi 1992: 59–60. For his later measures as Augustus, see Athanassiadi 1992: 103–9. See Bradbury 1995, esp. 347–55; cf. Miller 1983 and esp. Bowder’s clear discussion of “Julian and the Cities” (1978: 103–6). For many more details on Julian’s various measures to restore the city curiae and promote predominantly pagan cities over Christian ones, see Athanassiadi 1992: 98–110. This included sitting personally on the councils of Constantinople, Antioch and elsewhere. Amm. Marc. 22.7. He also promised accountability for his conduct of the Parthian war: 23.5.22. Amm. Marc. 22.10.6. For praise of Julian as a strict but fair and humane judge, see Amm. Marc. 16.5.13, 18.1.2–4, 22.9.9–12, 25.4.7–9, 30.4.1.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 218

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

81. 82.

83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

92. 93. 94.

219

For Julian’s initial profession of religious tolerance, see Amm. Marc. 22.5. One group affected by the recall of exiles was the Donatists in North Africa. Religious appointments included Arsacius as high priest in Galatia, Chrysanthius in Lydia, Nicagoras in Greece, Pegasius (former bishop of Ilium), Seleucus in Cilicia and Theodorus in Asia. Maximus’ position as kathēgemōn to Julian would place him almost higher than Julian himself. For copious references, see Athanassiadi 1992: 185–6; on Pegasius, for example, see Julian Ep. 19 (= Bidez 79), Kahlos 2007: 47. A related move might be his appointment of educated pagans to city councils and municipal offices: Lib. 18.104, Amm. Marc. 21.10.6 (Aurelius Victor, the historian), 22.7.6, Zos. 4.3.3 with Athanassiadi 1992: 83. The letter in question is the “Fragment of a Letter to a Priest”, so titled by W. C. Wright in the Loeb edition, and referred to here with the abbreviation FRLP. FRLP 289b–90a. Cf. 305c–d where Julian recommends almsgiving to counter the Christians’ practice of the love-feast (a)gaph/), which is one of their ways of luring the poor to their “atheistic” beliefs. Like Marcus, Julian disliked the Games (Mis. 340a), and thought theatre had degenerated altogether from times of old, when drama was a form of worship to Dionysus (FRLP 304b–c). FRLP 300d. FRLP 301c; cf. Pl. Rep. 401c–d on the moral effect of good images. As in Plato’s ideal state, citizens should “learn by heart the hymns in honour of the gods”, for these were given by the gods, or inspired directly by them (301d–302a). FRLP 302a, a practice Julian himself followed. FRLP 303b (oi( be/ltistoi). FRLP 305b (to/ te filo/qeon kai\ to\ fila/ nqrwpon). For similar moral guidelines to priests, see Ep. 20.453a–c to Theodorus (= Bidez 89a). Honouring priests: FRLP 296c. Sacred law is highest: 289a. E.g. FRLP 298c. Scholars often refer to some of Julian’s epistles as “pastoral letters” and works like Hymn to the Mother of the Gods as veritable “encyclicals” (e.g. Athanassiadi 1992: 141, 175), but Bowder (1978: 100) and Smith (1995: 110–11) suggest that for Julian the pagan “church” of Maximin Daia was perhaps just as important a precedent as contemporary Christian models (1995: 110–11). FRLP 294c (li/qoi kai\ cu/la). On current Neoplatonic controversies about the status of statues, see Athanassiadi 1993: 9–10. See Ep. 47 (“To the Alexandrians,” 432–5) for a concise glimpse of Julian’s views of Christians in relation to Jews, Greeks and Helios. On the ideal of personal integrity, see Hom. Il. 9.312–13 where Achilles says to Odysseus, “As hateful to me as the gates of Hades is the man who hides one thing in his mind, and says another”; cf. supra Chapter 4, n. 57 for the idea in Marcus’ Meditations; Seneca’s maxim concordet sermo cum vita (Ep. 75.4.; cf. Ep. 24.19; 52.8; 108.36); Pliny’s advice to find a tutor “from whom [the child] will learn virtue first, eloquence second, for without virtue eloquence is a poor accomplishment” (Ep. 3.3; cited in Farquharson 1975: 17); and Cato’s moral definition of the orator as vir bonus, peritus dicendi. These few passages indicate how much Julian could draw upon, but it is the educational measures of the Republic that are most resonant in his rescript: an enlightened king reforms the myths, in order to instil correct opinion, which is the basis of right action and healthy social relations, for when inner beliefs grow corrupt, then self-will, greed and mere sensuality

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 219

05/10/2011 07:05

220 N o tes

95. 96.

97.

98. 99. 100. 101. 102.

103.

104.

105. 106. 107.

spread disastrously. Platonic too is the association of Christians with sophistry and retail trading: in Plato’s dialogues, the sophist can be regarded as an unprincipled kapēlos, who does not produce, “own” or believe in any of the intellectual goods that he so casually sells (e.g. Soph. 231c–e); cf. Desmond 2006: 154–5. Ep. 36.422b–423d (= Bidez 61c). Cf. supra Chapter 5, n. 47 for how the “Cynic” Orations (# 6–7) naively make philosopher-priests of Diogenes and Crates, because they attended to Apollo’s command (paraxa/racon to\ no/misma, “alter the currency”, i.e. criticize customs), invoked the Muses and so forth. Basil, Gregory and other commentators note Julian’s use of “persuasion” over force, though for them this constituted a sophistical and self-willed perversion of reason. Even Julian’s defenders acknowledge that his education decree was an act of “genuine, if refined, persecution” (Rendall 1879: 215). In response to this blanda persecutio, Apollinaris the Elder and Younger put Jewish and Christian Scripture into classical form: the Pentateuch became 24 books of hexameters; Kings I and II were retold as a heroic poem; other selections of the historical books became Euripidean-style tragedies; and the Gospels and Epistles were turned into Platonic dialogues, with Jesus as chief philosopher (Socrates Hist. Eccl. 2.26, 3.16). For alarm among Christian contemporaries like Gregory of Nazianzen (who wrote two speeches Against Julian), see Rendall 1879: 219–22. For an example of Julian’s general policy of using reason rather than force so as to avoid making martyrs, see Ep. 41.438b “To the citizens of Bostra” (= Bidez 114). Mis. 361d–362d (tr. W. C. Wright, adapted slightly). To what extent was Julian’s public religious programme theurgic in nature? Smith 1995: 110–13 surveys differing assessments and argues that theurgy was limited to “a part of his personal credo”. See Amm. Marc. 22.14.3; cf. Rendall 1879: 225. Amm. Marc. 22.12.6–7. White oxen and Marcus: 25.4.17. See esp. Mis. 364c–d: “Next with respect to the slanders which both in private and publicly you have poured down on my head, when you ridiculed me in anapaestic verse, since I too have accused myself I permit you to employ that method with even greater frankness (parrhsi/a); for I shall never on that account do you any harm, by slaying or beating or fettering or imprisoning you or punishing you in any way. Why indeed should I?” For their love of pleasure: Mis. 342b–d, 351a, 357d–358a; cf. Lib. 35.11, 23.26–7. Julian explains this by learnedly recalling how Antioch was named after Antiochus, the sex-mad Hellenistic king who lusted after his stepmother, and so (in Julian’s quick fancy) transmitted to all his civic “descendents” his lawless own freedom (347a–349a). This is an example of Julian’s belief that individual cities had souls (Lib. 18.147)—a belief stemming perhaps from Plato’s metaphor of the city as the soul “writ large”. Compare Mis. 350c–d with Pl. Rep. 372e; here too, Julian associates Plato’s “city of pigs” with the simple but true people he knew in Gaul (cf. Mis. 360c). Athanassiadi 1992: 217–18 lists other parallels with Republic 8, but her interpretation of Julian’s use of the Platonic original strikes me as forced. Compare Mis. 342c with Pl. Rep. 492b–c. Mis. 344b–345a. Mis. 356d.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 220

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

221

108. Mis. 355b–c adapts Pl. Rep. 563c–d. 109. Antiochenes’ intemperance: Mis. 342d–343c. For the literary tradition that Antioch was the fleshpot of the East, see Wright’s comments: “Antioch moreover was a frivolous city. The Emperor Hadrian three centuries earlier had been much offended by the levity of her citizens, and the homilies of Saint Chrysostom exhibit the same picture as Julian’s satire” (1913: 418–19). 110. Tetrapylon: Malalas Chron. 328.3–4. Alexander, turbulentus et saevus: 23.2.3. 111. Amm. Marc. 22.12.1–2. Athanassiadi describes “Julian’s behaviour during the Persian campaign” as “the greatest problem of Julianic historiography” (1992: 193). 112. Amm. Marc. 16.12.23–34 (ubi ardor proelii sperabatur inmanis); for the phrase, cf. Hom. Il. 13.789. 113. cf. Amm. Marc. 16.12.36–7; cf. Hom. Il. 13.310–11 (shield to shield), 4.428–38 (Achaeans silent, Trojans noisy). 114. Amm. Marc. 16.12.38–40. 115. Ep. ad Athen. 280c–d. 116. Nicknames: Amm. Marc. 17.9.3 (fallacem et specie sapientiae stolidum). I have included here a few of the taunts from Constantius’ courtiers, too juicy to pass by (17.11.1). Given that the Antiochenes (and Gregory Nazianzen) also mocked him, it would seem that to many contemporaries he appeared as something of an odd ball. Troops’ enthusiasm: e.g. “the auxiliary troops, who always think such work beneath them, were so eager to respond to Julian’s blandishments that they carried beams of fifty feet or more on their shoulders without complaint and were of the greatest service in the building operations” (18.2.5–6, rectoris amor). Julian addressing troops as “fellow-soldiers”: Jul. Ep. ad Athen. 287c, Amm. Marc. 23.5.16–23, Lib. Or. 12.67. 117. Amm. Marc. 22.2.1–3; cf. 21.9.6, Lib. Or. 18.111, Zos. 3.10.3 and Bowersock 1978: 58–9. 118. Speed of march: Amm. Marc. 23.2.7. 119. These may include Homer (Amm. Marc. 24.6.9; cf. Hom. Il. 4.297–300), Polybius (24.2.16–17), Plutarch’s Alexander and Pyrrhus (24.1.3). He had many military exemplars: like Julius Caesar, he studied late into the night (25.2.3), and may have written commentaries on his own Gallic campaigns; like Scipio Africanus, he forewent pleasure, to show that he was invincible in prosperity as well as in battle (24.4.27); he personally attacked one of the gates at Pirisabora, as Scipio Aemilianus had done in the siege of Carthage (24.2.16–17). Other exemplars mentioned in passing are patriots of the Republic like the Mucii, Curtii and Decii (23.5.19). Note also his probable resort to the obsolete practice of decimation (24.3.2). N. Baynes suggests that Marcus was Julian’s model “as philosopher and ruler” but Alexander was “his exemplar as general and conqueror” (1955: 346–7). 120. Amm. Marc. 24.1.2; cf. 16.5.10 (the Platonist learns to march in military style). 121. Rushing in furiously: e.g. Amm. Marc. 24.5.6 (“The emperor was in a fury . . . He was now on fire to destroy the fort where he encountered such danger, and flung himself heart and soul into the task, never leaving the front rank, where he could set an example by his personal courage and see and judge the conduct of his men”), 24.4.1–5 (Julian shows the valour of Torquatus and Valerius Corvinus), 25.3.1–6 (final skirmish). Some other epic moments: before Sassanian cataphracts, so covered in iron scales that they seem like “men of iron” (25.1.11–12), and before the terrifying elephants, Julian was undismayed and showed a “heart without fear” (25.1.16). Persian women: 24.4.26–7. Ships burnt: 24.7. 122. Amm. Marc. 24.6.15.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 221

05/10/2011 07:05

222 N o tes 123. Amm. Marc. 24.6.14; cf. 24.4.5 (Julian as heroic as Titus Manlius Torquatus and Valerius Corvinus). Ranks with ancient heroes like Epaminondas: 25.3.8. 124. Heart without fear: see the philosophico-historical harangues he gives to the soldiers on campaign (Amm. Marc. 24.3.4 (pectus omni liberum metu)); cf. 23.5.21 (Nihil enim praeter dolos et insidias hostium vereor nimium callidorum). For Julian’s confidence in the wisdom and generosity of the gods, and for his “great hopes” that they will make all right in the afterlife, see esp. FRLP, 298d–299a; cf. Ep. ad Athen. 275d–276b. For the idea of Pl. Phd. 62 that we are the servants and “possession” (ktēmata) of the gods, as farm animals belong to their master, see Ep. ad Athen. 276b, FRLP 297a. 125. Sallust: Amm. Marc. 23.5.4–5. Soothsayers and philosophers (i.e. Maximus, Priscus): 23.5.10–11, 25.7–8. Julian also overruled his generals: 24.7.3. 126. Julian made a point of sacrificing in each place according to local custom, as when he sacrificed to the Mother of the Gods at Pessinus (Amm. Marc. 22.9.5–8), to Jupiter on Mt Casius outside Antioch (22.14.4–5), to the Moon at Carrhae (23.3.1) and to the deified Gordian at Zaitha (23.5.7–8). He also dutifully celebrated the Roman festival of universal deities, like the Mother of the Gods (23.3.7). 127. Rendall: 1879: 222–3 alluding to Jerome Euseb. Chron. 504 and Orosius 7.30. 128. E.g. Wallis 1972, Bowersock 1978, Smith 2005. Athanassiadi, by contrast, sees Julian as an innovator (1992: 169). 129. E.g. Eutropius: “In some respects he was more like a philosopher than a prince” (10.16, tr. J.S. Watson). 130. For the “pagan Julian-legend” among late polytheist intellectuals see Browning 1975: 220. Julian is Ammianus’ main focus: see esp. 16.1–5 (“it seems that the life of this young man was guided by some principle which raised him above the ordinary and accompanied him from his illustrious cradle to his last breath . . . He was brought up in seclusion like Erechtheus by Minerva, and it was not from a soldier’s tent but from the quiet shades of the Academy that he was drawn into the dust of battle . . .”). 131. Browning 1976: 229. Augustine’s judgement is representative: “He had unusual talents, which were led astray through his ambition for power by a sacrilegious and detestable inquisitiveness” (De Civit. Dei 5.21). 132. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 24. Despite Gibbon’s hesitation here, his anti-Christian partiality towards Julian attracts a sharp attack from Hilaire Belloc (1919). 133. For a fine synopsis of Julian’s many metamorphoses through to the twentieth century, see Nulle 1959, supplemented by Browning’s Epilogue (1976: 219–35) and Bonnefoy 1992: 285–7. Modern adaptations of Julian include Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean (1873), regarded by Ibsen himself as his greatest work, Kazantzakis’ Julian the Apostate (1945) and Julian, the diary-form novel by Gore Vidal (1962). Nulle 1966 humorously follows “the Julian myth” in the United States, from colonial gentlemen to twentieth-century college clubs. 134. “Julian spoke up for the ‘community of the Hellenes’. He represented the depressed gentry of the ancient Greek towns of Asia Minor—‘honest men’ who had watched with growing anger the blasphemies, the indecent affluence, the deep intellectual confusion of the court society of Constantine and Constantius II . . .” (Brown 1971: 91). 135. O’Meara 2003: 120–3 gives a concise summary of Julian’s career, in the context of a Neoplatonic politics of ascent to the One and descent to the human community. I prefer

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 222

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

223

to assimilate Julian to the philosopher-kings of the Republic, noting Julian’s energetic government, myth-making and religious innovations, activities forbidden to Magnesia’s magistrates. The difference may be one of emphasis. 136. Browning 1975: 224. “Roman political sense and Greek culture”: 221.

Notes to Chapter 6: From Moses to Modernity 1.

2.

3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

The influence of Moses and the Decalogue is honoured, for example, by the fact that the Chamber of the US House of Representatives was ringed (in 1949) by relief sculptures of 23 historical lawgivers, including Hammurabi, Lycurgus, Solon, Papinian, Gaius, Justinian, Alfonso X “the Wise”, Maimonides, Blackstone, Jefferson and Napoleon. Moses is the central figure, looking straight out (and directly opposite the Speaker’s chair), while the others are in profile, looking towards him. Wealth: e.g. Hom. Il. 9.381–4, Od. 4.127. Medicines, doctors: Hom. Od. 4.229–33; Hdt. 2.84. Priests: Hdt. 2.4, 2.58 (Egyptians most knowledgeable about the divine). New forms of life appear spontaneously in the Nile’s alluvial muds: Diod. Sic. 1.10.2; Ov. Met. 1.422–3. Cf. Homer’s sympathetic figure of Aegyptius “who knew myriads of things” (Od. 2.15–16). E.g. Leg. 656d–657c, 799a–b, 819ad; cf. 846d–847b (strict specialization of crafts) and Joly 1982 for fuller discussion. Picking up on this leitmotif, Nietzsche caricatured Plato’s thought for its “Egyptianizing” tendency to make mummies of all living process: see esp. Twilight of the Idols, “What I owe to the ancients” and “Reason in philosophy” (§1); cf. Beyond Good and Evil, §27. D.L. 1.1 (Diogenes also discusses claims to priority by Babylonians, Indians and others besides the Egyptians). Later, he cites authors who claimed that Solon (1.50), Plato (3.6–7), Pythagoras (8.3), Eudoxus (8.87), Democritus (9.35) and others visited Egypt. Amm. Marc. 22.16.15–22. Acta 7.22 (kai\ epaideu/qh Mwu+sh=j e)n pa/s$ sofi/a? Ai)gupti/wn). Deut. 34.10; cf. Num. 12.8. See Gager passim, Feldman, 1993b: 233–87. See Gager 1972: 80–112. For a list of great Egyptian lawgivers, juxtaposed with Minos, Lycurgus, Zarathustra, Zalmoxis, see Diodorus 1.94 (cf. 40.3.2); and Strabo 16.38–9 where Moses is a divinely inspired prophet who could have been king. See Gager 1972: 33–4 for comparison with Plato’s Rep. 540a–b and Leg. 744. Hecataeus’ writings are excerpted in Diodorus Siculus 40.3 (cited in Gager 1972: 26–8). On Hecataeus, see esp. Murray 1970; cf. Feldman 1993b: 203–4. See Justin’s epitome, 36.2.1–16: Gager 1972: 48–9. Theophrastus: apud Porphyry, Abst. 2.26. For other Peripatetic passages of similar import, see Gager 1972: 36, n. 30; Feldman 1993b: 203–4. Feldman 1993b: 238–9. 9.9–10. no/moi a)po/deiktoi: De Differentia pulsuum, 8.579.15 (Kühn); cf. Walzer 10–15 with Gager’s summary 1972:87–91.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 223

05/10/2011 07:05

224 N o tes 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

Five extant authors quote it: Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1.22.150.4); Eusebius (Praep. Ev. 9.6.9; 11.10.14); Theodoret (Graecarum Affectionum Curatio 2.114); and the Suda (“Numenius”). Cf. Gager 1972: 66–7. Among Apologists, see Justin Apol. 44; Tatian Ad Graec. 40–1; Clement of Alexandria Strom. 1.21.101–50; Origen C. Cels. 4.21 (cf. 1.18, 6.7, 6.43); and Eusebius Praep. Ev. 9–13. Justin Martyr, for example, writes that “our first prophet and lawgiver, Moses” was older than any Greek writer or sage, and it was from him that Plato took ideas about the soul’s immortality and God’s goodness, for instance (1.44.7). For Christians, Moses brings the first covenant, Christ the second. Analogously, in the Muslim tradition, Moses is the prophet “whose career as a messenger of God, lawgiver and leader of his community most closely parallels and foreshadows that of Muhammad” (Keeler 2005: 55–66). By contrast, anti-Christian writers like Thomas Paine (Age of Reason, Part II (1792)) and Robert G. Ingersoll (Some Mistakes of Moses (1879)) are critical of the Mosaic law, as was Julian (Contra Galilaeos 152, 155). Dillon 1977: 143. On Philo generally, see Goodenough 1938, 1940; Dillon 1977: 139–83; Dvornik 1996: 558–65. For Philo’s Life of Moses, see especially Goodenough 1940: 37–9. Tutors and fast learning: De vita Mosis, 1.20–4; cf. Feldman 1992a: 306. Beauty: e.g. De vita Mosis 1.19. Asceticism: 1.25–31. De vita Mosis 1.51–7. De vita Mosis 1.60–2; cf. Pl. Pol. 275a. De vita Mosis 1.83. Pharaoh’s sophists: De vita Mosis 1.92. Friend of God: 1.156. The other plagues are darkness (as if caused by a long eclipse) and the Lord’s own plagues of the dog-flies, mortality among livestock and the pestilence that took away all the eldest born sons. Herodotus’ theory: compare De vita Mosis 1.115-16 with Hdt. Hist. 2.24–7. De vita Mosis 1.148. De vita Mosis 1.153–4. De vita Mosis 1.155–7. De vita Mosis 1.149. See De vita Mosis 1.158–62, a passage particularly pregnant with meaning for Philo. De vita Mosis 2.2–6; cf. 2.187. De vita Mosis 2.12–14. De vita Mosis 2.17–40. De vita Mosis 2.50–1 (tr. C. Yonge). Philo strikes a similar note in his Life of Abraham: the patriarchs “walked with the Lord” and lived in spontaneous harmony with natural law. A history of their lives is therefore an appropriate preamble to the articulation of the Mosaic Law later in Scripture. De vita Mosis 2.76, 2.88. De vita Mosis 2.117–35. De vita Mosis 2.216 (tr. C. Yonge). Tim. 28c3–5 was often cited for its suggestion of the transcendence of God, “the Father of all”. Jerome, Vir. illust. 11; Suidas, “Abraam” and “Philon”; Photius, Bibl. 105. See Josephus, Ap. 2.135, 148. The charge was repeated by Julian Contra Galilaeos 176a–178a.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 224

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61.

225

Ap. 2.145–289 (esp. 154 and 161 comparing Moses with Solon, Lycurgus, Zaleucus and Minos) and AJ 2.243–53 (on Moses as general). 1992a: 292. See also Feldman 1968 on Josephus’ Abraham. The Abraham of Jewish Antiquities appears as a sophisticated Greek philosopher: he is a good speaker and a powerful reasoner; arguing from natural irregularities, he formulates an unusual teleological argument for the existence of a demiurge-God; since he came from Chaldaea, and was told by God to count the stars, he is regarded as an astronomer; he went into exile not only because of God’s call but because his philosophical and scientific beliefs were distrusted by “the many”; he went to Egypt to study theology with its learned priests but in fact instructed the Egytians in arithmetic and astronomy, which the Egyptians in turn taught the Greeks. Rep. 7.535a11-12; Feldman, 1992a: 307–10. Note also that the poverty of Philo’s Moses (De Vita Mosis 1.27.152) has no parallel in biblical or rabbinical literature, leading Feldman to posit the parallel with Plato’s Guardians (1992a: 291, n. 13). Feldman 1993b: 201. Shechīnā : see Salmon and Grieve 1911: 920. On the logos as a fundamental principle for Stoicism, at once epistemological, physical and ethical, see Hadot 1998: 74–7. Cf. Dvornik 1966: 297 and 594–617. Other logoi include Julian’s Helios: Ep. 47.434d (= Bidez 111); cf. Contra Galilaeos 327b–c, 333b–d for Julian’s disagreements with John 1. Theophilus, Refut. 10.32; Origen, Commentary on John, 1.19; cf. Homilies on Numbers 2 for Moses’ vision of heavenly paradeigmata. On Yahweh as “king”, in canonical Scripture, see for example Gray 1961. On the Near Eastern contexts for this dominant metaphor of divine kingship, see Goodenough 1929 and Gray 1956. See esp. T. D. Barnes 1980; cf. Evans 1996: 58–60 (“The Imperial Office and its Ideology”). Lord and governor of universe: 5. 11–12. Imitating Christ: 5. 1–4. Sole philosopher-king: 5. 4. For Platonic aspects of the Encomium, see O’Meara 2003: 145–51. For more detailed analysis, see Hollerich 1989a, 1989b; Mortley 1996 (Chapter 5); Cameron and Hall 1999: 35–9; and M. Williams 2008: 36–57. Vit. Const. 1.12; cf. 1.19. Vit. Const. 1.20. Vit. Const. 1.38-40. In fact, Vit. Const. 1.37.2–40.2 repeats Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 9.9.3–11: Eusebius reused the account of the battle he had given in his earlier History. In the battle, Maxentius called on magicians’ help, but Constantine called on God (1.27; cf. 1.36–7 and 2.4 where Licinius surrounds himself with Egyptian soothsayers and sorcerers): parallels with Pharaoh and Moses are implicit. E.g. Praep. Ev. 8.8.1–55 = Josephus, Ap. 2.163–228. E.g. Artapanus fr. 27; Praep. Ev. 9.26. Cf. Josephus’ parallel between the story that the Pamphylian Sea retreated before Alexander, and the story of Moses and the Red Sea (AJ 2.347–8). Note the comparison of Constantine’s labarum with the Ark of the Covenant (Vit. Const. 2.12; cf. Cameron and Hall, 1999: 39, 209–10), or with Moses’ rod (rediscovered during Constantine’s rule)—all instruments of holy power, and Eusebius notes that Constantine’s armies marched behind their own replicas of the labarum (1.31).

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 225

05/10/2011 07:05

226 N o tes 62. 63. 64. 65.

66. 67.

68. 69.

70. 71.

72. 73.

74.

Constantine’s universal sovereignty under God: Vit. Const. 2.19; cf. 3.7 (distant kings do him homage). Guiding bishops to harmony, doctrinal unity: e.g. 3.12–13, 21. Cf. Hollerich 1989a, 421–7. Vit. Const. 1.19. Vit. Const. 1.39, 4.65; cf. M. Williams 2008: 45. Vit. Const. 1.43; here and elsewhere Eusebius does not draw attention to Constantine’s cult of Sol Invictus. Constantine showed great respect for literary “cultivation”, both personally and as a matter of policy, but at the same time could be bluntly dismissive of the abstractions of argumentative Greeks, as during the Arian controversy: see MacMullen 1969: 163–75 (theology and Nicaea) and 213–16 (education). For Constantine having his sons educated, see Eus. Vit. Const. 4.51, Julian Or. 1.28, Amm. Marc. 21.16.4. On Constantine’s possible knowledge of philosophy (in the Oratio ad Sanctorum Coetum), see T. D. Barnes 1980: 73–5. Chapter 17 (cited in Barker 1957: 56–7). For discussion, see Fotiou 1985, Evans 1996: 61–4 and O’Meara 2003: 171–2. Evans writes that Agapetus took over Eusebius’ concept of Christian kingship and that “the influence of his Mirror was later to reach even the Tsars of Kievan and Muscovite Russia” (1996: 61). In addition, “we have an anonymous pamphlet of a similar date which revives the political thought of Plato and the Roman Stoics. The emperor should be chosen from the ‘best men’ (aristoi) and his rule should be modelled upon God’s” (ibid.). On Procopius’ panegyric, see Evans 1996: 64–5. Individual laws, by contrast, do not have preambles—another Stoic feature. Poseidonius for example had criticized Plato’s recommendation of rational preambles. His maxim iubeat lex, non disputet (apud Sen. Ep. 94.38 where Seneca discusses and rejects Poseidonius’ views) was quoted with approval by the sixteenth-century commentator on the Digest, F. Duaren (in Digest. 1.3; cf. Laks in Rowe and Schofield 2000: 291). So Posidonius defines philosophy: Cic. Off. 11.5; D.L. 7.92; Sen. Ep. 89.4; cf. Philo, Cong. 79.3. Yet the Prologue consistently uses the “royal we” and congratulates the students on being able to follow “a course of legal education which from start to finish proceeds from the Emperor’s lips . . . We have read and examined [the law books] and endowed them with the full force of our own pronouncements” (3–6, tr. Birks and McLeod). The Corpus also includes the Novellae. As a whole it remained the chief law book of the Byzantine empire until it was revised by another “philosopher king”, Leo VI “the Wise” (r. 886–912 AD), whose tutor was Photius. Evans 1996: 65–71 tells the story in the context of Justinian’s “new zealotry” (p. 67) against paganism. Melamed 2002: 4. “Legacy of Plato”: this is the title of the second section of Rosenthal 1968; cf. Rosenthal 1940. Plato’s influence is stressed even more by Strauss in “Farabi’s Plato” (1945) and “How Farabi Read Plato’s Laws” (1969: 7–63). O’Meara adopts a more Neoplatonic context in his survey of Al-Farabi’s Virtuous State, with its systematic organization, from God as first principle down to perfect and imperfect societies (2003: 185–97). Boethius: I.4. Barker 1919, Appendix B (“The Later History of the Republic”): “Compared with the Politics, the Republic has no history. For a thousand years it simply disappeared.” Yet, Barker notes that medieval Realists were Platonists of a kind and that the quadrivium

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 226

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

80. 81.

82. 83.

84.

227

of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music comes directly from the mathematical studies of the Guardians. He quotes Ker to the effect that the three classes of the kallipolis correspond closely to the medieval laboratores, bellatores and oratores: the idea is generalized by Dumézil from Indo-European evidence. Klibansky elaborates on this and much else in The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition during the Middle Ages (1981). On the genre, see Hadot 1972; cf. Burns 1991: 218–21, 326–8, 483–5. In this tradition, Isocrates’ Cyprian orations and the figure of Marcus Aurelius are often influential. But there can be pagan models too. In the Knight’s Tale by Chaucer, Theseus utters Boethean sentiments and plays peacemaker, leading scholars like Reidy (1977) and Burnley (1979) to regard him as a philosopher-king. De Regimine Principum, Chapter 14 (tr. P.E. Sigmund). For Descartes’ political conservatism, see Taylor 2001. For example, Edmund Burke refers to the Republick of Plato, Utopia of More and Oceana of Harrington as part of the “the rich treasury of the fertile framers of imaginary commonwealths” (Conciliation with the Colonies). Looking back over the utopian tradition, Jowett in his introduction to the Republic, regards the book as the ancestor of Augustine’s City of God, Dante’s On Monarchy, More’s Utopia and Campanella’s City of the Sun. The Prince, Chapter 6. The Prince, Chapter 6: “And although one may not discuss Moses, he having been a mere executor of the will of God, yet he ought to be admired, if only for that favour which made him worthy to speak with God. But in considering Cyrus and others who have acquired or founded kingdoms, all will be found admirable; and if their particular deeds and conduct shall be considered, they will not be found inferior to those of Moses, although he had so great a preceptor”. The Prince, Chapter 26. For detailed discussion, see Melamed 2002: 149–66. Calvin cites Plato approvingly as the “soberest and most religious” of the philosophers (I.5.11) who recognizes that one must strain every fibre to know God, the highest end (I.3, III.25.2), and who knows that the soul is immortal, an image of God (I.15). In calling the philosopher to meditate on death, Plato comes closest to Christian mortification of the flesh (II.3.20), and he too knew the reality of evil, recommending that we best pray by saying essentially “Thy will be done” (III.20.34). As a heathen Plato made many mistakes, not seeing the Creator through Creation, arguing that sin is due to ignorance (II.2.22), initiating the nonsense about angels and demons (I.14.12). On the other hand, he knew that human concupiscence must be governed by law (III.23.2)—and God for Calvin is the “Law of laws”. Calvin winds up with some bows to Plato: Adeimantus’ speech about oracle-mongers (Rep. 364c–365a) is praised as a “most elegant passage” that should shame all proponents of indulgences and “the Popish mass” (IV.18.15). The final chapter on civil government alludes to Plato’s Laws, as it links magistracies and laws in its own way; of course Plato was ignorant of the Law of Moses, firm basis of all civil law (IV.2.140). In all this Calvin shows his wide knowledge of pagan antiquity: the young Calvin thought of becoming a classical scholar and wrote a commentary of Seneca’s De Clementia. Steinmetz 2009 discusses his ambivalence towards ancient philosophies. Leviathan Chapter 31 (“Of the Kingdom of God by Nature”). For the “Sabbath” on which the Leviathan (or versions thereof) are to be “read and expounded” to the assembled people, see chapter 30 (“Of the Office of the Sovereign Representative”). For historical

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 227

05/10/2011 07:05

228 N o tes

85.

86.

87.

88. 89. 90.

91.

context, see Beales’ excellent discussion, “Philosophical Kingship and Enlightened Despotism” (2005: 28–59); for an exploration of Hobbes’ relation to the Platonic tradition, see Craig 2010. Cf. Krieger 1970: 139 on the labels coined by de Condillac and d’Alembert to differentiate the seventeenth-century “spirit of systems” from the eighteenth-century “systematic spirit”. Krieger also gives a few other revealing book titles like D’Holbach’s System of Nature (1970: 179–80). Voltaire designed the Dictionary to be a portable compendium of theistic, anti-Christian wisdom, “a vade mecum for budding philosophes, an Enlightenment psalter enabling all enemies of the infâme to sing in tune but from a hymn sheet of their choosing” (Pearson 2005: 299–300). Once an enthusiastic patron of Diderot, by the end of her reign Catherine II was highly sceptical of the French thinkers. In a 1794 letter to Melchior Grimm, she writes: “Do you remember that the late King of Prussia [Frederick II] claimed to have been told by Helvétius that the aim of the philosophes was to overthrow all thrones, and that the Encyclopédie was written with no other end in view than to destroy all kings and all religions?” (cited in Hyland et al. 2001: 171). Beales 2005: 34, 38 shows how widespread rhetoric of philosophic kingship was. Among enlightened ministers, Beales mentions Firmian, Du Tillot and the marquis Pomball “effective ruler of Portugal from 1750 to 1777” (2005: 42), while Krieger offers Kaunitz, Johan Struensee and Bernardo di Tanucci (1970: 242). Generalizing, Krieger contrasts the previous “twenty-five hundred years, when men . . . looked to a single extraordinary figure, the philosopher-king” for improvement, but rarely found him, with the mid-eighteenth century when “the marriage between the king of the realm and the queen of the sciences [was] the most revealing political institution in Europe preceding the French Revolution” (1970: 241–2). “What is Enlightenment?” (1784). Beales agrees with Kant’s verdict (2005: 35). I follow Beale’s argument 2005: 30–1. So Krieger: “The Enlightenment was for politics, as for many other fields of eighteenth-century endeavour, above all a way of mastering reality. What has been called enlightened despotism thus mirrored the Enlightenment at large in its belief that knowledge is power” (1970: 246). Regarding strong Romans, Montesquieu curiously includes Julian among the Stoics and praises him in superlative terms: Stoicism with its indifference to externals and its contempt for pleasure and pain is the natural school of virtue, for “[i]t was this sect alone that made citizens; this alone that made great men; this alone great emperors”. Indeed the “sacred spirit” of Stoicism made the greatest emperors, and though Montesquieu searches all nature he can find (excepting Christian exemplars) no “nobler object than the Antoninuses”, and since the time of Julian “there has not been a prince . . . more worthy to govern mankind” (The Spirit of Laws, XXIV.10). For his part, Voltaire abstracts from Julian’s religiosity to use him as a mascot in his polemics against the Church: “si vous ne suivez cet empereur ni dans les églises chrétiennes, ni aux temples idolâtres ; si vous le suivez dans sa maison, dans les camps, dans les batailles, dans ses mœurs, dans sa conduite, dans ses écrits ; vous le trouvez partout égal à Marc-Aurèle. Ainsi cet homme, qu’on a peint abominable, est peut-être le premier des hommes, ou du moins le second” (“Julian”, in Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)). Note the sense of continuity here: Leibniz respected Plato’s general notion of

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 228

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

229

philosopher-kings, though his own philosophical ideas differ; the Leibnizian Christian Wolff wrote De Rege Philosophante et philosopho regnante (1730). 92. Sime and Phillips 1911: 54. 93. History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Book I, Chapter 1. The last sentence signifies that most people are “dark” or ignorant of Frederick, and that “Real Kingship is eternally indispensable”, as Carlyle goes on to argue in the next paragraph. Note also how Hegel writes of Frederick as the “hero of Protestantism” and “a philosophical King—an altogether peculiar and unique phenomenon in modern times” (1952b: 360, Fourth Part, III.2). 94. Polin 1974 argues that Nietzsche’s notion of “great politics” (Größe Politik) is a modern adaption of Plato’s philosopher-king. One may add that Nietzsche implicitly calls for a new Moses when he longs for Übermenschen to bring down “new tables” and a “new law” (e.g. Thus Spoke Zarathustra); and to strike a blow for this aristocratic revolution, he sketchily compares the Laws of Manu to Plato’s Republic (Anti-Christ §55–7; cf. Brobjer 2005: 250–3). 95. On Plato and Hegel, see Foster 1935. Barker ends his Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle with the comment: “We have spoken of Hegel under the rubric of the influence of the Politics; it would have been wiser, perhaps, to detect in Hegel the fulfilment of the influence of the Republic” (1918: 530). Hegel himself loudly dissociates Plato’s Republic from modern liberty: “Plato in his Republic makes everything depend upon the Government, and makes Disposition the principle of the State; on which account he lays the chief stress on Education. The modern theory is diametrically opposed to this, referring everything to the individual will. But here we have no guarantee that the will in question has that right disposition which is essential to the stability of the State” (1952b: 365, Fourth Part, III.3). Yet his conception of God makes totally immanent Platonic Ideas and the ideal of an engaged wisdom: “Divine Providence is Wisdom, endowed with an infinite Power, which realizes its aim, viz., the absolute rational design of the World” (1952b: 158, Introduction III). 96. Burke 1996 [1775]: 123. Nulle notes that Julien was included in this “brisk” book trade and that the details of Julien’s career were “common knowledge” in the American colonies (1966: 166). 97. See Morris’ Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny (1973). 98. See Lerner 1996: 105–14 (“Jefferson’s Cosmos as a Frame for His Thought”). 99. An indication of his metaphysical leanings is given in one letter to William Short (11 Oct. 1819) in which Jefferson refers to himself as an Epicurean. 100. See supra Chapter 5, n. 40 for references. Julian’s Neoplatonic Demiurge was not quite the God of the Deists, but his hostility to organized Christianity was enough to make him a mascot for Voltaire and others: see Nulle 1959. Gossett touches on ideas of race in both Julian (1997: 8–9) and Jefferson (40–4), noting further how Voltaire and other thinkers of the Enlightenment scornfully rejected the Mosaic implication of human unity—for how could a scientific age accept the myth that all peoples descend from Adam and Eve?—and proceeded to find rationalizations for essentially racist ideas. 101. “He saw a genetic pluralism, a ‘happy variety of minds,’ among men as part of the scheme of creation, and he wanted to protect a man’s right to preserve his own variety within the larger scheme” (Lerner 1996: 108). 102. In Schroeder 2007: Vol. II, 273 (“Circular Letter to the Governors of All the States on Disbanding the Army”, 18 June 1783).

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 229

05/10/2011 07:05

230 N o tes 103. Jefferson himself called the Constitutional Convention of 1787 an “assembly of demigods”. On the near apotheosis of Jefferson after his death, and the American “civic religion” of freedom, see Lerner 1996: 39, 119. Note similar rhetoric in France in the National Convention of 21 September 1792, which opened with these sentiments of Louis Pierre Manuel: “Representatives of the sovereign people: the task which devolves upon you demands the power and wisdom of gods themselves. When Cineas entered the Roman Senate he thought he beheld an assembly of kings. Such a comparison would be an insult to you. Here we see an assembly of philosophers occupied in preparing the way for the happiness of the world” (cited in Robinson 1906, Vol. 2: 446). 104. “Letter to H. L. Pierce and Others, Springfield, Illinois”, 6 April 1859. Lincoln did not know of the recent development of non-Euclidean geometries, or the Platonic notion that mathematical hypotheses (like Euclid’s postulates) are not self-evident but can be assumed or denied (see the Divided Line). 105. Jefferson’s attitude towards “the people” seems positively Plutarchean (i.e. paternalistic), if one credits Lerner’s analysis: “There were times when he was tempted. . . to dismiss the people as ‘a swinish multitude,’ but these moments of bitterness were rare. His prevailing mood was that the people could be reached, persuaded, educated; that if they were not always swayed by reason, they were at least capable of reason . . .” (1996: 54). 106. The phrase “republic of virtue” was first used by Jefferson. The idea was taken in a different direction by Robespierre’s France of 1791–4, also known as a “Republic of Virtue”. 107. Lerner 1996: 98–100. 108. Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia, 4 August 1818. Cf. Lerner 1996: 97–104. 109. Capital IV.14 (1952: 179, n. 3). If Marx is indeed referring to the Socratic assumption that the labourer should be naturally qualified for his work (e.g. the strong for heavy lifting, the smart for brain work), and that in this sense the “work must wait for the right type of worker”, his criticism is wholly misleading. Plato’s demand was in fact akin to the socialist motto, “from each according to his ability”. 110. Preface (1952a: 5), and §185, Addition (1952a: 640). 111. Pipes writes of Lenin’s quasi-demiurgic flexibility: “Lenin frequently changed his mind, because he was first and foremost a tactician who modified his opinions to fit the situation at hand” (1998: 1). 112. Lenin intensively studied Hegel’s Science of Logic in 1914–15, and the publication of his hundreds of pages of notes and commentaries in 1929–30 shook up the world of Marxist thought. Lenin wrote that “One cannot understand Marx’s Capital and in particular its first chapter without having studied the whole of Hegel’s Logic. Thus, a half-century after Marx, not one Marxist understood Marx!” Of particular interest for Lukacs, Bloch, Guterman, Lefebvre and other Marxists was his interpretation of Hegel’s concluding chapters on “The Idea of the Good” and on “The Absolute Idea”, asserting the activist and materialist implications of Hegel’s idealism. It was noted also that Lenin immersed himself in this most abstract of works at a time when the “contradictions” of the old European order seemed to be leading to its violent death—and restoration in proletarian revolution. For details, see Anderson 1992. Note also how notions of dialectic in the Republic (i.e. Divided Line), Sophist and Parmenides may anticipate Hegel’s (and Lenin’s) privileging dialectic as the key to understanding true reality: the Guardians’ dialectical

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 230

05/10/2011 07:05

N o tes

113. 114. 115.

116.

117. 118. 119. 120. 121.

122. 123.

231

exercises in rational dianoia precede the nous that accesses the Good beyond particular conception; for Lenin, Hegel’s Science of Logic prepares for Marx’ Capital, which gives to mankind the laws of primitive accumulation, surplus-value, class-formation and so forth. In works like Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1909), briefly summarized and assessed by Ulam 1989: 104–5; Cf. Pannekoek 2003, esp. 101–20 and Harding 1977. See Bullock 1998: 13; cf. Service 2004: 32–42 for Stalin’s time at the Tiflisi Spiritual Seminary and for the subjects on the curriculum, which also included mathematics and secular history. E. van Ree 2000: 32, n. 54. For Stalin’s wide reading, see van Ree 2000: 302–3, nn. 55, 57 and 2002; Ulam 1989: 104–5; Service 2004: 560–70. At the same time, Stalin’s complex attitudes towards philosophers remain difficult to assess: even while taking lessons, he was contemptuous of Sten (“all he can do is talk”) and in 1937 had him shot (see Bullock 1998: 440; cf. 199–201). Ulam writes: “The enjoyment of absolute power had not weakened his ambition—indeed it grew stronger as he grew older—to become a great historian and philosopher of Marxism. This ambition led him... to employ ghostwriters. Thus in 1938 there appeared The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – Short Course, before which Russia’s philosophical and historical professions, calling it a work of genius, immediately prostrated themselves. Only with Khrushchev was this work revealed as having been written by a committee of the Central Committee with Stalin’s participation, rather than by the dictator himself as the title page asserted ... [o]ne chapter clearly bears the imprint of Stalin’s didactic style – a lengthy, lucid, but thoroughly unoriginal disquisition on dialectical and historical materialism. Let us be fair: neither Khrushchev nor Brezhnev ever learned enough Marxism to be able to write it” (1989: 463). So too, Stalin wrote Marxism and Problems of Linguistics by himself, without any ghost writers. Service 2004: 560. Service judges Stalin a dilettante (2004: 560) but also “theorist-in-chief of the world communist movement” (ibid.: 567). For details see van Ree 2000; cf. Donoso 1979. Hingley 1991: 194. Cf. Service’s title for his Chapter 52, “Vozhd [i.e. Leader] and Intellectual” (2004: 560–70). van Ree 2000 and Service 2004 argue this for the more difficult case of Stalin: “The purposes of Stalin at any rate sprang not only from his psychological drives and practical considerations but also from his world view. Marxism was the guiding philosophy throughout his adult life” (Service 2004: 9). The central Marxist demand is an application of the key formula of Hegelian logic, according to which many successive “negations of negations” bring about the Spirit’s self-actualization. For example, Tsar Nicholas II becomes Mr Jones, the feckless but callous owner of Manor Farm. Marx becomes Major, the old boar who has a dream that one day all animals will live in shared prosperity: he dies not long before the revolution. The Soviet people are represented most by Boxer, the great drayhorse, immensely strong, persistent, loyal and heroic, but somewhat slow and gullible. And the Bolshevik Party, self-appointed vanguard of the proletariat, becomes the pigs, who are the most intelligent of the animals and so the most natural leaders. From among the pigs, Snowball (with his desire to promote Animalism worldwide) represents Trotsky (and “permanent revolution”) while Napoleon (with his plans for Animalism on one farm first) symbolizes Stalin (and

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 231

05/10/2011 07:05

232 N o tes

124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133.

134.

“socialism in one country”). The hounds are the Cheka, OGPU, NKVD and KGB. The Battle of the Cowshed against Mr Jones when he tries to return is the war in 1918–19 between Reds and reactionary Whites with their French and British allies. The building of the windmill represents Stalin’s Five-Year Plans. The Battle of the Windmill against Farmer Frederick points to Barbarossa, the German invasion of 1941. There are even more obscure allegorical references: when the hens rebel, we are to think of the Kulaks’ rebellion in the Ukraine. Even the name Napoleon is deliberate, as Trotsky referred to Stalin’s followers as “Bonapartists”: the dictator Napoleon had betrayed freedom and equality just as surely as Stalin betrayed the classless society (see Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, 1937). On this tradition generally, including de Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen, see Gray’s The Socialist Tradition: Moses to Lenin (1946). Animal Farm, Chapter 3. See for example passages from Trotsky’s Literature and Revolution cited in Rodden 1999 (a book that does not explore the potential parallels with Plato). Animal Farm, Chapter 2. Animal Farm, Chapter 8. Brooks’ Thank You, Comrade Stalin! (2000) can be read almost as a long footnote explicating Orwell’s passage. Animal Farm, Chapter 2. Letter to Orwell, 13 July 1944; published in The Times [of London], 6 January 1969. See Hobbes Leviathan, Book I, Chapter 13, whose arguments for natural equality (and the equal distribution of “wisdom”) partially echo the opening paragraph of Descartes’ Discourse on the Method, Part I. Rep. 499c–d. The idea of the “wise legislator” is most associated with Rousseau, of course, but he took much inspiration from Plutarch. D.L. Williams 2007 hardly mentions Plutarch, but makes an interesting case that Rousseau was to Hobbes and the philosophes as Plato was to the Sophists: a creative thinker whose innovation was driven by dislike of materialism, relativism and crude individualism. For the theme in select plays of Shakespeare (esp. Macbeth, King Lear, The Tempest), see Craig 2001, Smith and Travis 2002 and G.S. Brown 2010. See Atkinson 2009 for the argument that “… Captain Vere is nothing less than a flawed but instructive version of the Republic’s philosopher-king, and the telling of his story is precisely the sort of ‘poetry’ that Plato would willingly allow, by his own republican principles, into his ideal polity” (p. 1).

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 232

05/10/2011 07:05

Bibliography Aalders, G. J. D. (1971), “Political thought and political programs in the Platonic epistles”, in Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique: Pseudepigrapha I. Geneva: Vandoeuvres. _____(1975), Political Thought in Hellenistic Times. Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert. Adams, T. (1970), Clementia Principis. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett. Africa, T. W. (1961a), “The opium addiction of Marcus Aurelius”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 22, (1), 97–102. _____. (1961b), “Aristonicus, Blossius, and the City of the Sun”, International Review of Social History, 6, 110–24. Ager, S. L. (2005), “An uneasy balance: From the death of Seleukos to the Battle of Raphia”, in A. Erskine (ed.), A Companion to the Hellenistic World. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 35–50. Anderson, K. (1992), “Lenin, Hegel and Western Marxism: From the 1920s to 1953”, Studies in Soviet Thought, 44, (2), 79–129. Asmus, R. (1895), Julian und Dion Chrysostomus. Tauberbischofsheim: Lang. Athanassiadi, P. (1977), “A contribution to Mithraic theology: The Emperor Julian’s Hymn to King Helios”, Journal of Theological Studies, 28, (2), 360–71. _____(1992), Julian: An Intellectual Biography. London and New York: Routledge. _____(1993), “Dreams, theurgy and freelance divination: The testimony of Iamblichus”, Journal of Roman Studies, 83, 115–30. Atkinson, R. E. (2009), “Sea captains and philosopher kings: Melville’s Billy Budd and Plato’s Republic”, available at: http://works.bepress.com/robert_atkinson/3 (accessed 27 June 2011). Austin, M. M. (2006). The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest: A Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Axon, W. E. A. (1959), “King’s evil”, in J. Hastings (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. VII. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, pp. 736–8. Badian, E. (1958), “Alexander the Great and the unity of mankind”, Historia 7, 425–44. Baldry, H. C. (1965), The Unity of Mankind in Greek Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barker, E. (1959) [1918], The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle. New York: Dover. _____(trans., ed.) (1957), Social and Political Thought in Byzantium from Justinian to the Last Palaeologus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. _____(1964) [1918], Greek Political Theory: Plato and His Predecessors. London: Methuen. Barnes, J. (2002), “Ancient philosophers”, in G. Clark and T. Rajak (eds), Philosophy and Power in the Greco-Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 293–306. Barnes, T. D. (1980), Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Baynes, H. G. (1936), “On the psychological origins of divine kingship”, Folklore, 47, (1), 74–104. Baynes, N. H. (1955), Byzantine Studies and Other Essays. London: University of London, Athlone Press. _____(1960), “Isocrates”, in R. A. Humphreys and A. D. Momigliano, (eds), Byzantine Studies and Other Essays, London: Athlone Press, pp. 144–67.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 233

05/10/2011 07:05

234 B ibli o graphy Beales, D. E. D. (2005), Enlightenment and Reform in 18th-century Europe. London: I.B. Tauris. Belloc, H. (1919), “Gibbon and Julian the Apostate”, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 8, (32), 544–64. Beskow, P. (1962), Rex Gloriae: The Kingship of Christ in the Early Church, trans. E. J. Sharpe. Stockholm: Almquist and Wiksell. Bidez, J. (1965) [1930], La vie de l’empereur Julian (3rd edn). Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Bidez, J., G. Rochefort and C. Lacombrade (eds) (1932–64), L’empereur Julien: Œuvres complètes I-II. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Birley, A. (2000) [1987], Marcus Aurelius: A Biography, revised ed. London: Routledge. Bloch, M. L. (1973) [1924], The Royal Touch: Sacred Monarchy and Scrofula in England and France, trans. of Les Rois Thaumaturges by J. E. Anderson. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. De Blois, L., B. Jeroen, T. Kessels and D. M. Schenkeveld (eds) (2004), The Statesman in Plutarch’s Works: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the International Plutarch Society. Leiden: Brill. Boak, A. E. R. (1959), “Egypt and the Plague of Marcus Aurelius”, Historia, 8, (2), 248–50. Bobonich, C. (2002), Plato’s Utopia Recast: His Later Ethics and Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bonnefoy, Y. (1992), Roman and European Mythologies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bosworth, A. B. (1996), Alexander and the East: The Tragedy of Triumph. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bouffartigue, J. (1992), L’empereur Julien et la culture de son temps. Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes. Boulet, B. (2004), “Is Numa the genuine philosopher king?”, in De Blois et al. (eds), The Statesman in Plutarch’s Works. Leiden: Brill, pp. 245–56. Bowder, D. (1978), The Age of Constantine and Julian. London: Paul Elek. Bowersock, G. W. (1978), Julian the Apostate. London: Duckworth. _____(1982), “The Emperor Julian on his predecessors”, Yale Classical Studies 27, 159–72. Bradbury, S. (1995), “Julian’s pagan revival and the decline of blood sacrifice”, Phoenix, (49), (4), 331–56. Braund, D. (1993), “Dionysiac tragedy in Plutarch’s Crassus”, Classical Quarterly, (43), 468–74. Brewer, E. B. (2001), The Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, originally published as The Brewer Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions. Bringmann, K. (2004), Kaiser Julian. Darmstadt: Primus. Brobjer, T. (2004), “Nietzsche’s critique of Plato’s view of politics”, in P. Bishop (ed.), Nietzsche and Antiquity: His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition. New York: Camden House, pp. 250–9. Brooke, C. (1963), The Saxon and Norman Kings. London: Fontana/Collins. Brooks, J. (2000), Thank You, Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Brossius, M. (2006), The Persians. New York: Routledge. Brown, G. S. (2010), Shakespeare’s Philosopher King: Reading the Tragedy of King Lear. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Brown, P. (1971), World of Late Antiquity AD 150–750. New York: W. W. Norton. _____(1980), The Philosopher and Society in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Brown, T. S.(1946), “Euhemerus and the Historians”, Harvard Theological Review, 29, 259–74.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 234

05/10/2011 07:05

B ibli o graphy

235

_____(1949), “Callisthenes and Alexander”, American Journal of Philology, 70, 225–48. _____(1974) [1949], Onesicritus: A Study in Hellenistic Historiography. New York: Ares. Browning, R. (1976), The Emperor Julian. Berkeley: University of California Press. Brunt, P. A. (1974), “Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations”, Journal of Roman Studies, 64, 1–20. Bullock, A. (1998), Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. London: Fontana Press. Burke, E. (1996) [1775], The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, Volume III: Party, Parliament, and the American Crisis 1774–1780, ed. W. M. Elofson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burnley, J. D. (1979), Chaucer’s Language and the Philosophers’ Tradition. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer; Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield. Burns, J. H. (ed.) (1991), The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c. 350–c. 1450. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buszard, B. (2004), “The decline of the Roman republic in Pyrrhus-Marius”, in De Blois et al. (eds), The Statesman in Plutarch’s Works. Leiden: Brill, pp. 281–96. Calvin, J. (1989) [1536], Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. H. Beveridge. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Cameron, A. and S. G. Hall (eds) (1999), Eusebius: Life of Constantine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cawkwell, G. L. (1988), “Nomophylakia and the Areopagus”, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 108, 1–12. Charlesworth, M. P. (1937), “The virtues of a Roman emperor: Propaganda and the creation of belief ”, Proceedings of the British Academy, 23, 105–33. Chestnut, G.F. (1978), “The Ruler and the Logos in Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Late Stoic Political Philosophy”, Aufstief und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, II, 16, (2), 1310–1332 Chroust, A.-H. (1964), Aristotle’s Protrepticus: A Reconstruction. South Bend, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press. _____(1967), “Plato’s Academy: The first organized school of political science in Antiquity”, Review of Politics, 29, (1), 25–40. Clark, G. and T. Rajak (eds) (2002), Philosophy and Power in the Greco-Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clarke, M. L. (1956), The Roman Mind: Studies in the History of Thought from Cicero to Marcus Aurelius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cole, A. T. (1991), The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Craig, L. H. (2001), Of Philosophers and Kings: Political Philosophy in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and King Lear. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. _____(2010), The Platonian Leviathan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Cribiore, R. (2007), The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Crook, J. A. (1955), Consilium Principis: Imperial Councils and Counsellors from Augustus to Diocletian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crossman, R. H. S. (1939), Plato Today. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dailly, R. and H. van Effenterre (1954), “Le cas Marc Aurèle: Essai de psychomatique historique”, Revue des études anciennes, 56, 347–65. Daly, L. W. and W. Suchier (1939), Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti Philosophi. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Day, J., R. Gordon and H. Williamson (eds) (1998), Wisdom in Ancient Israel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 235

05/10/2011 07:05

236 B ibli o graphy Descartes, René (1999) [1637], Discourse on Method and Related Writings, trans. D. M. Clarke. London and New York: Penguin. Desmond, W. (2006), The Greek Praise of Poverty. South Bend, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press. _____(2007), “The silence of Socrates: Dialectic and the Platonic Good”, Milltown Studies, 58, 73–99. _____(2008), Cynics. Stocksfield: Acumen; Berkeley: University of California Press. Deutscher, I. (1954), The Prophet Armed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dillon, J. M. (1977), The Middle Platonists: A Study of Platonism, 80 B.C. to A.D. 220. London: Duckworth. _____(1997), “Plutarch and the end of history”, in J. M. Mossman (ed.), Plutarch and his Intellectual World. London: Classical Press of Wales, pp. 233–40. _____(2003), The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy (347–247 BC). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donoso, A. (1979), “Stalinism in Marxist philosophy”, Studies in Soviet Thought, 19, 113–41. Dow, S. and A. H. Travis (1943), “Demetrios of Phaleron and his lawgiving”, Hesperia, 12, (2), 144–65. Downey, G. (1940), “Justinian as Achilles”, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 71, 68–77. _____ (1955), “Philanthropia in religion and statecraft in the fourth century after Christ,” Historia, 4, (2–3), 199–208. _____ (1957), “Themistius and the defense of Hellenism in the fourth century”, Harvard Theological Review, 50, 259–74. _____(1961), A History of Antioch in Syria: From Seleucus to the Arab Conquest. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dudley, D. R. (1958), “Unknown Latin literature”, Greece and Rome, 5, 186–91. Duff, T. E. (1999), Plutarch’s Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. _____(2004), “Plato, Tragedy, the Ideal Reader and Plutarch’s Demetrios and Antony”, Hermes, 132, (3), 271–91. Düring, I. (1941), Herodicus the Cratetean: A Study in the Anti-Platonic Tradition. Stockholm: Wahlstron & Widstrand. Dumézil, G. (1977), Les Dieux souverains des indo-européens. Paris: Gallimard. Dumont, L. (1966), Homo hierarchicus: Le système des castes et ses implications. Paris: Gallimard. Dvornik, F. (1966), Early Christian and Byzantine Political Philosophy: Origins and Background. Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. Ehrenberg, V. (1938), Alexander and the Greeks. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eliade, M. (1959), Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. New York: Harper and Row. Evans, J. A. S. (1996), The Age of Justinian. London and New York: Routledge. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1962) [1948], “The divine kingship of the Shilluk of the Nilotic Sudan”, in Social Anthropology and Other Essays. New York: Free Press, pp. 192–212. Erskine, A. (1991), “Hellenistic monarchy and Roman political invective”, Classical Quarterly, 41, (1), 106–20. Farber, J. J. (1979), “The Cyropaedia and Hellenistic kingship”, American Journal of Philology, 100, (4), 497–514. Farquharson, A. S. L. (1975) [1951], Marcus Aurelius, His Life and His World, ed. D. A. Rees. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 236

05/10/2011 07:05

B ibli o graphy

237

_____(ed., trans.) (1968), Markou Antoninou Autokratoros Ta Eis Heauton: The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fears, J. R. (1974), “Cyrus as a Stoic exemplum of the just monarch,” American Journal of Philology, 95, (3), 265–7. _____(1981), “The cult of virtues and Roman imperial ideology”, Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, II, 17, (2), 827–948. Feeley-Harnik, G. (1985), “Issues in divine kingship,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 14, 273–313. Feldman, L. H. (1968), “Abraham the Greek philosopher in Josephus”, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 99, 143–56. _____(1992a), “Josephus’ portrait of Moses”, Jewish Quarterly Review, 82, (3–4), 285–328. _____(1992b), “Josephus’ portrait of Moses: Part Two”, Jewish Quarterly Review, 83, (1–2), 7–50. _____(1993a), “Josephus’ portrait of Moses: Part Three”, Jewish Quarterly Review, 83, (3–4), 301–30. _____(1993b), Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. _____(2002), “Philo’s view of Moses’ birth and upbringing”, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 64, 258–81. Ferguson, J. (1975), Utopias of the Ancient World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Ferguson, W. S. (1911a), Hellenistic Athens. London: Macmillan. _____(1911b), “The laws of Demetrius of Phalerum and their guardians”, Klio, 11, 265–76. Ferrari, G. R. F. (ed.) (2007), Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Figgis, J. N. (1965) [1896], The Divine Right of Kings. New York and London: Harper Torchbooks. Fink, Z. S. (1953),“ ‘Dion’ and Wordsworth’s political thought,” Studies in Philology, 50, (3), 510–14. Fisch, M. H. (1937), “Alexander and the Stoics”, American Journal of Philology, 58, 129–51. Flinterman, J.-J. (1995), Power, Paideia & Pythagoreanism: Greek Identity, Conceptions of the Relationship between Philosophers and Monarchs & Political Ideas in Philostratus’ Life. Leiden: Brill. Fotiou, A. S. (1985), “Plato’s philosopher king in the political thought of sixth-century Byzantium”, Florilegium, 7, 17–29. Foster, M. B. (1935), The Political Philosophies of Plato and Hegel. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Frankfort, H. (1974) [1946], Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. Harmondsworth: Pelican Books. _____(1948), Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Frazer, J. (1905), Lectures on the Early History of Kingship. London: Macmillan. _____(2002) [1906–15], The Golden Bough (abridged version). Mineola, NY: Dover. Gage, J. (1933a), “La théologie de la victoire impériale”, Revue historique, 171, 1–43. _____(1933b), “Stauros nikopoios: La victoire impériale dans l’empire chrétien”, Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses, 13, 370–400. Gager, J. G. (1972), Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism. Nashville and New York: Abingdon Press. Gehrke, H.-J. (1976), Phokion. Munich: Beck. _____(1978), “Das Verhältnis von Politik und Philosophie im Wirken des Demetrios von Phaleron”, Chiron, 8, 149–93.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 237

05/10/2011 07:05

238 B ibli o graphy Gilliam, J. F. (1961), “The Plague under Marcus Aurelius”, American Journal of Philology, 82, (3), 225–51. Goodenough, E. R. (1928), “The political philosophy of Hellenistic kingship”, Yale Classical Studies, 1, 55–102. _____(1929), “Kingship in early Israel”, Journal of Biblical Literature, 48, (3/4), 169–205. _____(1938), The Politics of Philo Judæus: Practice and Theory. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. _____(1940), Introduction to Philo Judaeus. New Haven: Yale University Press. Gorbatov, I. 2006, Catherine the Great and the French Philosophers of the Enlightenment. Bethesda, MD: Academica Press. Gossett, T. F. 1997 [1963], Race: The History of an Idea in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Grabar, A. (1936), L’empereur dans l’art byzantin: recherches sur l’art officiel de l’empire d’orient. Paris: Belles Lettres. Gray, A. (1946), The Socialist Tradition: Moses to Lenin. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Gray, J. (1956), “The Hebrew conception of the kingship of God: Its origin and development”, Vetus Testamentum, 6, (3), 268–85. _____(1961), “The kingship of God in the Prophets and Psalms”, Vetus Testamentum 11, (1), 1–29.  Green, P. (1985), “The politics of royal patronage: Early ptolemaic Alexandria”, Grand Street, 5, (1), 151–63. _____(1990), Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. _____(ed.) (1993), Hellenistic History and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Greenidge, M. (1914), A Handbook of Greek Constitutional History. London: Macmillan. Griffin, M. (1976), Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Griffin, M. and J. Barnes (eds) (1989), Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gruen, E. S. (1984), The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. Guthrie, W. K. C. (1962–81), A History of Greek Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hadas, M. (ed., trans.) (2007), Aristeas to Philocrates: Letter of Aristeas. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock. Hadot, P. (1972), “Fürstenspiegel”, Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, Vol. VIII. Stuttgart, pp. 555–632. _____(1984), “Marc Aurèle était-il opiomane?”, in F. Lucchesi and H. Saffrey (eds), Mémorial André-Jean Festugière. Geneva: Cramer, pp. 33–50. _____(1998), The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, trans. M. Chase. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hahm, D.E. (2000), “Kings and Constitutions: Hellenistic theories”, in C. Rowe and M. Schofield (eds), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 458–76. Haines, C. R. (1919–20), The Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto, Vols 1–2. London: William Heinemann. Hamberg, P. G. (1945), Studies in Roman Imperial Art. Copenhagen: Almqvist and Wiksells. Hammond, N. G. L. (1989), Alexander the Great: King, Commander and Statesman (2nd edn). Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 238

05/10/2011 07:05

B ibli o graphy

239

_____(1990), The Macedonian State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. _____(1993), “The Macedonian imprint on the Hellenistic world”, in P. Green (ed.), Hellenistic History and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 12–37. Harding, N. (1977), Lenin’s Political Thought. London: Macmillan Press. Harle, V. (1998), Ideas of Social Order in the Ancient World. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Haynes, R. (1970), Philosopher King: The Humanist Pope, Benedict XIV. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Heath, M. (2004), Menander: A Rhetor in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heather, P. (1998), “Themistius: A political philosopher”, in M. Whitby (ed.), The Propaganda of Power: The Role of Panegyric in Late Antiquity. Leiden: Brill, pp. 125–50. Hegel, G. W. F. (1952a), The Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Brittanica. _____(1952b), The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Hingley, R. F. (1991), “Stalin”, in Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 15th edn. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, pp. 194–7. Hirzel, R. (1912), Plutarch. Leipzig: Dietrich. Hocart, A. M. (1927), Kingship. Oxford: Clarendon Press. _____(1970), Kings and Councillors: An Essay in the Comparative Anatomy of Human Society, ed. R. Needham. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Höistad, R. (1948), “Cynic hero and cynic king: Studies in the cynic conception of man”. Inaugural dissertation, Uppsala University. Holden, P. and N. Purcell (2000), The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Holland, L. (2004), “Plutarch’s Aemilius Paullus and the model of the philosopher statesman”, in De Blois et al. (eds), The Statesman in Plutarch’s Works. Leiden: Brill, pp. 269–79. Hollerich, M. J. (1989a), “Myth and history in Eusebius’s De vita Constantini: Vit. Const. 1.12”, Harvard Theological Review, 82, (4), 421–45. _____(1989b), “The comparison of Moses and Constantine in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Life of Constantine”, Studia Patristica, 19, 80–95. Hooke, S. (1994) [1936], From Hegel to Marx. New York: Columbia University Press. _____(1955), Marx and the Marxists: The Ambiguous Legacy. Princeton, NY: Van Nostrand. Horne, C. F. (1997), Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Vol. 4. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing. Huffman, C. A. (2000), Archytas of Tarentum: Pythagorean, Philosopher and Mathematician King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hutchison, W. G. (trans.) (1903), Renan’s Marcus Aurelius. London and Newcastle-on-Tyne: Walter Scott. Hyland, P., O. Gomez and F. Greensides (eds) (2001), The Enlightenment: A Sourcebook and Reader. London: Routledge. Jacobsen, T. (1974) [1946], “Mesopotamia: The function of the state”, in H. Frankfort (ed.), Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. Harmondsworth: Pelican Books. Jaeger, W. (1944), Paedeia, Vols I–III, trans. G. Highet. New York: Oxford University Press. _____(1948), Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Joly, H. (1982), “Platon égyptologue”, Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, 2, 255–66. Jones, A. H. M. (1964), The Later Roman Empire 284–602: A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 239

05/10/2011 07:05

240 B ibli o graphy Jones, C. P. (1966), “Towards a chronology of Plutarch’s Works”, Journal of Roman Studies, 56, 61–74. _____(1971), Plutarch and Rome. Oxford: Clarendon Press. _____(1978), The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kaegi, W. E. (1984), “Review of Julian and Hellenism: An Intellectual Biography by Polymnia Athanassiadi-Fowden”, Classical Philology, 79, (4), 349–51. Kahlos, M. (2007), Debate and Dialogue: Christian and Pagan Cultures, c. 360–430. Aldershot: Ashgate. Kant, I. (2005) [1796], Perpetual Peace, trans. M. Campbell-Smith. New York: Cosimo Books. Keeler, A. (2005), “Moses from a Muslim perspective”, in R. Harries, T. Winter and N. Solomon (eds), Abraham’s Children: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conversation. London: T&T Clark, pp. 55–66. Klibansky, R. (1939), The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition During the Middle Ages. London: Warburg Institute. Krappe, A. H. (1927), “Tiberius and Thrasyllus”, American Journal of Philology, 48, (4), 359–66. Krieger, L. (1970), Kings and Philosophers, 1689–1789. New York and London: W. W. Norton. Kuhrt, A. (1984), “The Achaemenid concept of kingship”, Iran, 22, 156–60. Laks, A. and M. Schofield (eds) (1995), Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. _____(2000), “The Laws”, in C. Rowe and M. Schofield (eds), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 258–92. Leo, F. (1901), Die griechisch-römisch Biographie nach ihrer literarischen Form. Leipzig: Teubner. Lerner, M. (1996), Thomas Jefferson: America’s Philosopher-King. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Lewy, H. (1978), Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy: Mysticism, Magic and Platonism in the Later Roman Empire. Paris: Études Augustiniennes. Littman, R. J. and M. L. Littman (1973), “Galen and the Antonine Plague”, American Journal of Philology, 94, 243–55. Long, A. A. (1993), “Hellenistic ethics and philosophical power”, in P. Green (ed.), Hellenistic History and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 138–56. _____(2001), Stoic Studies. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. _____(2002), Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Long, G. (trans.) (1952), The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Lutz, C. (1947), “Musonius Rufus: The Roman Socrates”, Yale Classical Studies, 10, 1–147. Machiavelli, N. (1952) [1532], The Prince, trans. W. C. Marriott. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Brittanica. MacMillan, D. J. (ed.) (1979), The Stoic Strain in American Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. MacMullen, R. (1966), Enemies of the Roman Order. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. _____(1969), Constantine. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Magie, D. (trans.) (1921), Historia Augusta. London: William Heinemann. Major, J. M. (1964), Sir Thomas Elyot and Renaissance Humanism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 240

05/10/2011 07:05

B ibli o graphy

241

Martin, H. M. (1960), “The concept of prâotês in Plutarch’s Lives”, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 3, 65–73. _____(1961), “The concept of philanthropia in Plutarch’s Lives”, American Journal of Philology, 82, 164–75. Martin, R. P. (1984), “Hesiod, Odysseus, and the instruction of princes”, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 114, 29–48. Marx, K. (1952) [1857], Capital, ed. F. Engels, trans. S. Moore. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Matthews, J. (2008) [1989], The Roman Empire of Ammianus. Ann Arbor: Michigan Classical Press. McGlynn, F. (2009), Marcus Aurelius: A Life. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. Mekler, S. (1902), Academicorum Philosophorum Index Herculanensis. Berlin: Weidmann. Melamed, A. (2002), The Philosopher-King in Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press. Merlan, P. (1954), “Isocrates, Aristotle and Alexander the Great”, Historia, 3, (1), 60–81. Mezzatesta, M. P. (1984), “Marcus Aurelius, Fray Antonio de Guevara, and the ideal of the perfect prince in the sixteenth century”, Art Bulletin, 66, (4), 620–33. Millar, F. (1965), “Epictetus and the Imperial Court”, Journal of Roman Studies, 55, 141–8. _____(1977), The Emperor in the Roman World. London: Duckworth. _____(1983), “Empire and city, Augustus to Julian: Obligations, excuses and status”, Journal of Roman Studies, 73, 76–96. _____(2002), “Government and law: Ulpian, a philosopher in politics”, in G. Clark and T. Rajak (eds), Philosophy and Power in the Greco-Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Momigliano, A. (1993), The Development of Greek Biography: Four Lectures. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Monoson, S. (2000), Plato’s Democratic Entanglements. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Montefiore, S. S. (2003), Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. New York: Random House. Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de (1952) [1751], The Spirit of Laws, trans. T. Nugent and J. V. Prichard. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Morford, M. (2002), The Roman Philosophers: From the Time of Cato the Censor to the Death of Marcus Aurelius. New York: Routledge. Morris, I. and B. B. Powell (2009), The Greeks: History, Culture, and Society. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Morris, R. B. (1973), Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries. New York: Harper & Row. Morrow, G. R. (1960), Plato’s Cretan City. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. _____(1962), Plato’s Epistles: A Translation, with Critical Essays and Notes (revised edn). Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. _____(trans.). 1997. Plato’s Epistles in J. M. Cooper (ed.), Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett. Mortley, R. (1996), The Idea of Universal History from Hellenistic Philosophy to Early Christian Historiography. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Mossman, J. M. (1988), “Tragedy and epic in Plutarch’s Alexander”, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 108, 83–93. Mousnier, R. (1989), Monarchies et royautés de la préhistoires à nos jours. Paris: Librairie Académique Perrin.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 241

05/10/2011 07:05

242 B ibli o graphy Müller-Seidel, I. (1955), “Die Usurpation Julians des Abtrünnigen im Lichte seiner Germanenpolitik”, Historische Zeitschrift, 180, 225–44. Murray, O. (1970), “Hecataeus of Abdera and Pharaonic kingship”, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 56, 141–71. _____(1972), “Herodotus and Hellenistic culture”, Classical Quarterly, 22, (2), 200–13. Nadon, C. (2001), Xenophon’s Prince: Republic and Empire in the Cyropaedia. Berkeley: University of California Press. Nicolson, H. (1960), The Age of Reason: The Eighteenth Century. London: Constable. _____(1962), Kings, Courts and Monarchy. New York: Simon & Schuster. Niebuhr, B. G. (1849), Lectures on the History of Rome, Vols I–III, ed. L. Schmitz. London: Taylor. Noreña, C. F. (2001), “The communication of the emperor’s virtues”, Journal of Roman Studies, 91, 146–68. Norlin, G. (1954), [1929], “Introduction” to Isocrates, Vol. I. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Noyen, P. (1954), “Divus Marcus princeps prudentissimus et iuris religiosissimus”, Revue Internationale du Droit de l’Antiquité, 3, (1), 349–71. _____(1955), “Marcus Aurelius: The greatest practician of Stoicism”, Antiquité Classique, 24, 272–83. Nulle, S. H. (1959), “Julian and the Men of Letters”, Classical Journal 54, (6), 257–66. _____ (1966), “Julian in America”, Classical Journal, 61, (4), 165–73. Oakley, F. (2010a), Empty Bottles of Gentilism: Kingship and the Divine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. _____(2010b), Kingship: The Politics of Enchantment. Oxford: Blackwell. O’Callaghan, J. F. (1993), The Learned King: The Reign of Alfonso X of Castile. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Oestreich, G. (1982), Neostoicism and the Early Modern State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oliver, J. H. (1981), “Marcus Aurelius and the philosophical schools at Athens”, American Journal of Philology, 102, (2), 213–25. Olmstead, A. T. (1948), History of the Persian Empire. Chicago: Chicago University Press. O’Meara, D. J. (2003), Platonopolis. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Orwell, G. (1973) [1945], Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. O’Sullivan, L. (2001), “Philochorus, Pollux and the Nomophulakes of Demetrius of Phalerum”, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 121, 51–62. Pangle, T. (1980), The Laws of Plato. New York: Basic Books. Pannekoek, A. (2003) [1975], Lenin as Philosopher: A Critical Examination of the Philosophical Basis of Leninism, ed. L. B. Richey. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press. Parker, K. I. (1992), “Solomon as philosopher king? The nexus of law and wisdom in 1 Kings 1–11”, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 53, 75–91. Pearson, R. (2005), Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Bloomsbury. Pelling, C. B. R. (1988), Plutarch, Life of Antony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. _____(1999), “Dionysiac diagnostics: Some hints of Dionysus in Plutarch’s Lives”, in J. G. Montes Cala, M. Sánchez Ortiz de Landaluce and R. J. Gallé Cejudo (eds), Plutarco, Dioniso y el Vino: Actas del VI Simposio Español sobre Plutarco, Cádiz, 14-16 de mayo de 1998, Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas, pp. 359–68. _____(2002), Plutarch and History. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Perry, B. (1964), Secundus: The Silent Philosopher. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 242

05/10/2011 07:05

B ibli o graphy

243

Pipes, R. (ed.) (1998), The Unknown Lenin. New Haven: Yale University Press. Polin, R. (1974), “Nietzsche und der Staat”, in H. Steffen (ed.), Nietzsche: Werk und Wirkungen. Göttingen: Hans-Dieter Ullrich, Vandenhoeck, and Ruprecht, pp. 27–44. Popper, K. (1945), The Open Society and its Enemies. Vol. 1: The Spell of Plato. Vol. 2: The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath. London: Routledge. Porteous, N. W. 1955. “Royal wisdom”, in M. Noth and W. Thomas (eds), Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient East. Leiden: Brill, pp. 247–56. Potter, D. S. (2004), The Roman Empire at Bay, AD 180–395. London and New York: Routledge. Pritchard, J. P. (1952), “On the making of Wordsworth’s ‘Dion’ ”, Studies in Philology, 49, (1), 66–74. van Raalte, M. (2004), “More Philosophico: Political virtue and philosophy in Plutarch’s Lives’, in De Blois et al. (eds), The Statesman in Plutarch’s Works. Leiden: Brill, pp. 75–112. Race, William H. (1987), “Pindaric encomium and Isokrates’ Evagoras”, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 117, 131–55. Rawson, E. (1975), “Caesar’s heritage: Hellenistic kings and their Roman equals”, Journal of Roman Studies, 65, 148–59. _____(1997), “Roman rulers and the philosophic adviser”, in M. Griffin and J. Barnes (eds), Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 233–57. van Ree, E. (2000), “Stalin as a Marxist philosopher”, Studies in East European Thought, 52, (4), 259–308. _____(2002), The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin: A Study in Twentieth-Century Revolutionary Patriotism. London and New York: Routledge. Rees, V. (1994), “Hungary’s philosopher king Matthias Corvinus 1458–90”, History Today, 44, (3), 18. Reidy, J. 1977. “The education of Chaucer’s Duke Theseus”, in Harald Scholler (ed.), The Epic in Medieval Society: Aesthetic and Moral Values. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, pp. 391–408. Renan, E. (1861–81), Histoire des origines du Christianisme, Vol. 7: Marc Aurèle et la fin du monde antique. Paris: Calmann-Lévy. Rendall, G. H. (1879), The Emperor Julian: Paganism and Christianity. London: George Bell & Sons. Riginos, A. S. (1976), Platonica: The Anecdotes concerning the Life and Writings of Plato. Leiden: Brill. Rist, J. M. (1969), Stoic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, J. H. (ed.) (1906), Readings in European History, Vols 1–2. Boston: Ginn. Rodden, J. (ed.) (1999), Understanding Animal Farm. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Roller, D. W. (2003), The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene: Royal Scholarship on Rome’s African Frontier. London: Routledge. _____(2004), Scholarly Kings: The Writings of Juba II of Mauretania, Archelaos of Kappadokia, Herod the Great, and the Emperor Claudius. Chicago: Ares. Rose, H. S. (1960), “The evidence for divine kings in Greece’, in E. O. James (ed.), The Ancient Gods: The History and Diffusion of Religion in the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pp. 272–8. Rosen, K. (2006), Julian: Kaiser, Gott und Christianhasser. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Rosenthal, E. I. J. (1940), “On the knowledge of Plato’s philosophy in the Islamic world”, Islamic Culture, 14, 387–422. _____ (1968), Political Thought in Medieval Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 243

05/10/2011 07:06

244 B ibli o graphy _____(1969), Averroes’ Commentary on Plato’s Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rostovtzeff, M. I. (1967), The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World, Vol. I. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rowe, C. (2000), “The Peripatos after Aristotle”, in C. Rowe and M. Schofield (eds), Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 390–5. _____(2007), “The place of the Republic in Plato’s political thought”, in G. R. F. Ferrari (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 27–54. Rowe, C. and M. Schofield (eds) (2000), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Runciman, S. (1977), The Byzantine Theocracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Russell, D. A. and N. G. Wilson (eds, trans.) (1981), Menander Rhetor: A Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rutherford, R. B. (1989), The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Salmon, S. D. F. and A. J. Grieve (1911), “Logos”, in Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 11th edn. New York: Encyclopaedia Brittanica, pp. 919–21. Sanders, L. J. (2008), The Legend of Dion. Toronto: Dundurn. Sandys, J. E. and S. G. Campbell (1927), Latin Epigraphy: An Introduction to the Study of Latin Inscriptions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schofield, M. (1999a), “The disappearance of the philosopher king”, in J. Cleary and G. M. Gurtle (eds), Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy. Leiden: Brill, pp. 213–41. _____(1999b), Saving the City: Philosopher-Kings and Other Classical Paradigms. London: Routledge. _____(2000), “Plato and practical politics”, in C. Rowe and M. Schofield (eds), Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 293–302. _____(2006), Plato: Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schroeder, J. F. (2007), Life and Times of Washington, Vols I–II. Teddington, Middlesex: Echo Library. Schubart, W. (1937a), “Das Hellenistische Königsideal nach Inschriften und Papyri”, Archiv für Papyrologie, 12, 1–26. _____(1937b), “Das Königsbild des Hellenismus”, Die Antike, 13, 272–88. Sedgwick, H. D. (1921), Marcus Aurelius. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sedley, D. (2007), “Philosophy, the Forms, and the art of ruling”, in G. R. F. Ferrari (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 256–84. Sellars, J. (1999), “The point of view of the cosmos: Deleuze, Romanticism, Stoicism”, Pli, 8, 1–24. Seltzer, S. M. (1992), “Sicilian daydreams and Parisian nightmares: Wordsworth’s representations of Plutarch’s Dion”, Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900, 32, (4), 607–24. Service, R. (2004), Stalin: A Biography. London: Macmillan. _____(2009), Trotsky: A Biography. London: Macmillan. Sharpes, D. K. (2005), Lords of the Scrolls: Literary Traditions in the Bible and Gospels. New York: Peter Lang.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 244

05/10/2011 07:06

B ibli o graphy

245

Shaw, G. (1995), Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Sigmund, P. E. (ed., trans.) (1988), St Thomas Aquinas on Politics and Ethics. New York and London: W. W. Norton. Sime, J. and W. A. Phillips (1911), “Frederick the Great”, in Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 11th edn. New York: Encyclopaedia Brittanica, pp. 52–6. Smith, A. (2004), Philosophy in Late Antiquity. London & New York: Routledge. Smith, R. (1995), Julian’s Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought and Action of Julian the Apostate. London: Routledge. Smith, S. and C. Travis (eds) (2002), Shakespeare’s Last Plays: Essays in Literature and Politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Sprague, R. K. (1976), Plato’s Philosopher-King: A Study of the Theoretical Background. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Stadter, P. (1989), A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press. Staniforth, M. (1964), Marcus Aurelius: Meditations. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Stanton, G. R. (1969), “Marcus Aurelius, emperor and philosopher”, Historia, 18, (5), 570–87. Starr, C. G. (1949), “Epictetus and the tyrant”, Classical Philology, 44, 20–9. Stearns, P. N. (ed.) (2001), The Encyclopedia of World History (sixth edition). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Steinmetz, D. C. (2009), “Calvin as biblical interpreter among the ancient philosophers”, Interpretation, 63, 142–53. Stoneman, R. (2003), “The legacy of Alexander in ancient philosophy”, in J. Roisman (ed.), Brill’s Companion to Alexander the Great. Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 325–435. Strauss, L. (1977) [1945], “Farabi’s Plato”, in A. Hyman (ed.), Essays in Medieval Jewish and Islamic Philosophy. New York: Ktav Publishing, pp. 391–427. _____(1969), What is Political Philosophy? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Swain, S. (1989), “Plutarch: Chance, providence, and history”, American Journal of Philology, 110, (2), 272–302. Tarn, W. W. (1969) [1913], Antigonos Gonatas. Oxford: Clarendon Press. _____(2010) [1930], Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. _____(1933), “Alexander the Great and the unity of mankind”, Proceedings of the British Academy, 19, 123–66. _____(1948), Alexander the Great, Vols I–II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. _____(1952), Hellenistic Civilization (revised by G. T. Griffith). New York: New American Library. Tarrant, H. (1993), Thrasyllan Platonism. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. Tatum, W. J. (1996), “The regal image in Plutarch’s Lives”, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 116, 135–51. Taylor, Q. (2001), “Descartes’s paradoxical politics”, Humanitas, 14, 76–103. Tellegen-Couperus, O. (1993), A Short History of Roman Law. London and New York: Routledge. Teodorsson, S.-T. (2004), “Timoleon, the fortunate general”, in De Blois et al. (eds), The Statesman in Plutarch’s Works. Leiden: Brill, pp. 215–26. Thatcher, I. D. (1991), “Trotsky’s dialectic”, Studies in Soviet Thought, 41 (2), 127–44.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 245

05/10/2011 07:06

246 B ibli o graphy Thomson, J. O. (1953), “Marcus Aurelius and the small earth”, Journal of Roman Studies, 43, 47–8. Tigerstedt, E. N. (1977), Interpreting Plato. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Too, Y. L. (1995), The Rhetoric of Identity in Isocrates: Text, Power, Pedagogy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Torijano, P. A. (2002), Solomon, the Esoteric King: From King to Magus, Development of a Tradition. Leiden: Brill. Tougher, S. (1998), “In praise of an empress: Julian’s Speech of thanks to Eusebia”, in M. Whitby (ed.), The Propaganda of Power: The Role of Panegyric in Late Antiquity. Leiden: Brill, pp. 105–23. _____(2007), Julian the Apostate. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Toynbee, A. (1939), A Study of History, Vol. 5. London: Oxford University Press. Tronzo, W. (ed.) (1994), Intellectual Life at the Court of Frederick II Hohenstaufen. New Haven: Yale University Press. Tröster, M. 2004, “Hellenism and Tryphē in Plutarch’s Life of Lucullus”, in De Blois et al. (eds), The Statesman in Plutarch’s Works. Leiden: Brill, pp. 303–13. Turcan, R. (2000), The Gods of Ancient Rome: Religion in Everyday Life from Archaic to Imperial Times. New York: Routledge. Ulam, A. B. (1989) [1973], Stalin: The Man and his Era. Boston: Beacon Press. Ullman, W. (1976), Medieval Political Thought. New York: Penguin. Vatai, F. L. (1984), Intellectuals in Politics in the Greek World: From Early Times to the Hellenistic Age. London: Croom Helm. Walbank, F. W. (1992), The Hellenistic World (revised edn). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wallace-Hadrill, A. (1981), “The emperor and his virtues”, Historia, 30, (3), 298–323. Wallis, R. T. (1972), Neoplatonism. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Walzer, R. (1949), Galen on Jews and Christians. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wardman, A. (1955), “Plutarch and Alexander”, Classical Quarterly, 9, 97–107. Watson, J. S. (trans.). (2010) [1853], Eutropius: Abridgement of Roman History. Gloucester: Dodo Press. Watson, P. B. (1884), Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. New York: Harper & Brothers. Westlake, H. D. (1969), “Dion: A study in liberation”, in Essays on the Greek Historians and Greek History. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 251–64. Whitehead, A. N. (1967) [1925], Science and the Modern World. New York: Free Press. _____(1969) [1929], Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. New York: Free Press. Whitmarsh, T. (2002), “Alexander’s Hellenism and Plutarch’s textualism”, Classical Quarterly, 52, (1), 174–92. Williams, D. L. (2007), Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Williams, M. (2008), Authorized Lives in Early Christian Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, W. (1976), “Individuality in the Roman constitutions: Hadrian and the Antonines”, Journal of Roman Studies, 66, 78–82. Wilson, J. A. (1974) [1946], “Egypt: The function of the state”, in H. Frankfurt (ed.), Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man. Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, pp. 71–102. Wooton, D. (1986), Divine Right and Democracy: An Anthology of Political Writing in Stuart England. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 246

05/10/2011 07:06

B ibli o graphy

247

Wright, C. W. (1912), Julian, Vol. I. London: William Heinemann. _____(1913), Julian, Vol. II. London: William Heinemann. _____(1923), Julian, Vol. III. London: William Heinemann. Yavetz, Z. (1991), Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Rome. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Yonge, C. D. (ed., trans.) (2010), The Works of Philo Judaeus. Nabu Press. Yourcenar, M. (1951), Mémoires d’Hadrien. Paris: Librairie Plon. Zeller, E. (1888), Plato and the Old Academy, trans. Alleyn and Goodwin. London: Longmans, Green & Co.. _____(1980) [1931], Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy (13th edn, rev. W. Nestle, trans. L. R. Palmer). Mineola, NY: Dover.

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 247

05/10/2011 07:06

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 248

05/10/2011 07:06

Index Abraham, as Greek philosopher  225n. 44 Academicians in politics  41–2, 49 Academy, Platonic and Aristotle 48–9, 58 and Brutus 85 and Cicero 82 closing of 157 and Dion 84 founding of 20, 31 and Lucullus 81 and Philopoemen 60 and Phocion 80–1 as political centre 41–2 as prototype for learned societies 161, 190n. 64 Achilles 5 and Alexander 7, 53 and Julian 140, 219n. 94 and Justinian 184n. 16 and Phocion 202n. 136 Aelius Aristides  64, 114, 213n. 148 Aesop  14, 72 Agamemnon  5, 8, 14 Agapetus 156 Alexander and Aristotle 49 compared to Moses 225n. 60 and Cyrus 46 Hegel on 167 idealized as philosopher-king 51–3 and Isocrates 48, 193n. 12 as judge 8 and Julian 107, 128, 139–40, 143, 217n. 72, 221n. 119 as “living law” 197n. 63 as model for kings 7, 54–5, 59, 64, 93, 117, 155, 165 and Phocion 80–1 the true king 54 Whitehead on 14 and Xenocrates 42 Anaxagoras  73, 76, 146 Anaxarchus  53, 59 Animalism, philosophy of  176–9

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 249

Antigonids  12, 45, 54–5, 200n. 97 Antigonus I the One-Eyed  54, 59, 64, 184n. 17 Antigonus II Gonatas  53, 57, 59, 195n. 43, 197n. 69 Antisthenes, fable of lion and hares  50 On Kingship 58, 104 Antoninus Pius  as mentor to Marcus 91–2, 104 as “philosopher” 90, 91, 98, 114, 212n. 140 as second Numa 71 his temperance 104, 105 Apollo  as lawgiver 8, 9, 66, 125, 126 model for Constantine 120 model for Seleucids 55 temple near Antioch 136 the wise 71 Apuleius 114 Archimedes of Syracuse  and Descartes 160 as Platonist 195n. 45 Archytas of Tarentum  31, 58, 181 Aristonicus 60 Aristotle  6, 11, 14 see also greatness of soul, phronēsis and Academy 42, 49, 58 on Aristides 75 on history 85 on Homeric kings 185n. 28 on ideal kings 49–51, 58 influences Julian 119, 125, 127–8 influences Plutarch 65 and law 127, 168 on Lycurgan Sparta 68 and Macedonian rulers 49 and Marx 173 on promoting philia 61, 204n. 165 and systematic thinking 161, 164 tutors Alexander 49, 52, 59 Aspasia 76 Athena  goddess of philosophy 121 honoured by Plutarch’s Pericles 76, 77–8

05/10/2011 07:06

250 index honoured in Magnesia 191n. 67 instructs Julian 119, 126, 222n. 130 patron of Pisistratus 13 Athenian Stranger (of Plato’s Laws) 30, 32–40 admires Egypt 145 and Calvin 163 and Jefferson 168–9, 170–1 Athens  city of philosophy 80, 82, 96, 121 as “education for Greece” 68 influence on Plato 19, 35, 38 traces of sacred kingship in 12 Augustus Caesar  compared with Constantine 154 consults Stoic Areius Didymus 60, 88 model for Frederick II of Sicily 159 model for Julian 117, 120, 128, 143, 218n. 75 model for Marcus 92, 102–3, 105, 106 as princeps 4, 12, 87 Averroës 158 Bacon, Francis  161, 164 Basilikos Logos (by Menander Rhetor)  124, 194n. 32, 199n. 94 Benedict XIV  181 Blossius 60 Bodin, Jean  2 Brutus admired by Marcus  102–3 see also Plutarch, Life of Brutus admired in 1700s 61 Burke, Edmund  168, 227n. 79 Caesar, Julius see also Plutarch, Life of Caesar as dictator 12, 13, 57, 87 Hegel on 167 and “living law” 196n. 63 model for Julian 117, 128, 139, 221n. 119 as sacred king 203n. 158 Whitehead on 14 Calanus 59 Callimachus of Cyrene  55–6 Callisthenes  53, 59 Calvin, John  162–3 admires Plato 227n. 83 Carlyle, Thomas  166 Catherine the Great  119, 164, 165, 228n. 86 Cato the Elder see also Plutarch, Life of Cato the Elder on Eumenes 200n. 97 on Greek philosophers 88 obscure birth of 199n. 94 on orators 219n. 94

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 250

Cato the Younger  57 see also Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger admired by Marcus 102–3 befriends Stoic Athenodorus 60 recalled by Julian 122, 127 Charlemagne  159, 167 Chosroes of Persia  157 Christ as king  5, 7, 153–5, 175, 215n. 20, 210n. 40 as logos 58, 153, 156 model for Christian kings 156, 158–9 model for Constantine 9, 113, 120, 153–6 as “philosopher” 220n. 97 reviled by Julian 128–9, 133–4 Cicero see also Plutarch, Life of Cicero criticizes Cato the Younger 85 friend of philosophers 60 and Isocrates 48 and “living law” 58 read by Jefferson 169 Cineas  13, 59, 81, 230n. 103 Cleomenes III  59–60, 203n. 161 concord (homonoia)  47, 52, 61, 63–4, 65, 67, 73, 75, 77, 80, 82, 85 Constantine the Great  9, 17 Edict of Milan 132 as Eusebius’ Moses 153–6 in Gibbon 143 hated by Julian 126–7, 128 likened to Julian 117, 120, 154 on Marcus 113 model for Frederick I Barbarossa 159 model for Justinian 156–7 Constantius II  closes pagan shrines 119, 131–2, 133, 136 convenes Church councils of Antioch, Sardica, Milan, Rimini and others 123 criticized as king of corruption 130 satirized by Julian 126–7 terrorizes Julian’s family 118–19, 121 corruption, threat of from philosophy 15, 18, 25, 42–3, 48, 83–5, 88 from power 30–1, 92, 130, 177 from study of history 85–6, 204n. 164 from talent or virtue 29–30, 52–3, 73, 78–9, 142–4, 176–80 from wealth 36–7, 66–8 courage  of Guardians 18, 24, 25–6, 29 of Julian 129, 139–41 of Marcus 102, 103 of “Moses” 147 of Plutarch’s Alexander 52–3

05/10/2011 07:06

I ndex of Plutarch’s Phocion 80 as royal virtue 6–7, 55 of Stalin 175 of Xenophon’s examplars 46 crafts analogies of Socrates 21–31, esp. 21–2, 27–9 “craftsmen of freedom” 29, 168 regulation of 66–7, 70, 72, 77 “royal craft” 15–16, 21–32, 63–4, 66–7 Crates of Thebes  64 Cronus  in Euhemerus 55 in Julian’s Caesars 128 in Plato’s Statesman 32 Cynics  14, 16, 45 see also Julian, Cynic Orations titles On Kingship 56, 89, 125–7, 149, 211n. 119 true “kings” 46 Cyrus the Great  14, 46–7, 162, 189n. 47 Darwin, Charles  178–9 Demetrius of Phalerum  59, 187, 197n. 67 Demetrius Poliorcetes  7, 54, 64, 73 Demiurge  Christ as 153 compared with Yahweh 147–8, 151 and Deist God 169 and Hegel’s world-historical heroes 167 and Julian 124, 135–6 Lenin as 173, 175–6 and Middle Platonism 57, 152 Plato as 188n. 38 and Plato’s Guardians 27–9 and Plutarch’s Alexander 52 and Plutarch’s exemplars 62–4, 65, 68, 70, 72, 78, 83–5 democratic mixed with monarchical elements  among enlightened despots 165 in figure of Socrates 22–3 in Hobbes’ Leviathan 163 in Magnesia 35–9, 189n. 47 in modern developments 166–8, 181 in modern history 160–1 in Orwell’s Animal Farm 177–8 in Philo’s cosmos 198n. 84 in Plutarch’s Pericles 76–8 in Plutarch’s Solon 71–2 in Plutarch’s Themistocles 73 in policy of “Good Emperors” 89–90, 104, 110 in policy of Julian 128, 218n. 75 Descartes, René  21, 160–1, 164, 177, 180

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 251

251

dialectic  in education of Guardians 15, 22, 26–8 in Lenin’s education 230–1n. 112 in Magnesia 189n. 45 in Marcus’ education 92, 205n. 18 mastered by Orwell’s Squealer 178 neglected by Julian 119–21, 144 scorned by Isocrates 48 in Statesman 32–3 Dio “Chrysostom” of Prusa  64, 89, 127, 187n. 29 Diocletian  112–13, 127, 130, 135, 154, 212n. 140 Diogenes of Sinope  56, 68, 126, 187n. 29 and Alexander 52, 59, 143 Dion  31, 83–6, 102–3, 127, 198n. 81 see also Plutarch’s Life of Dion Dionysius I  13, 31, 48, 84 Dionysius II  13, 31, 64, 84 Dionysus  model for Alexander and Ptolemies 55 as “philosopher and king” 127 Diotogenes, Ecphantus, Sthenidas  57–8, 197n. 66 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor  181 education  of Alexander 49, 52 of Constantine 155 through the Encyclopédie 164, cf. 119 of Frederick the Great 165 of the Guardians 15, 24–30 through Hegelian history 167 through Hobbes’ Leviathan 163 through Homer’s poems 7, 49, 118 of Isocrates’ school 48–9 of Jefferson 169 of Julian 118–23 in Magnesia 36, 39 of Marcus 90–2 of Orwell’s animals 176–7 of Philo’s Moses 148 of Plutarch’s heroes 65, 67–8, 70, 73, 76, 80, 81, 82 through Plutarch’s Parallel Lives 61, 85–6, 122 through Scripture 151, 158 of Stalin 174 Egypt, as land of wisdom  51–2, 59, 66, 72–3, 145–7, 172, 197n. 70 Eliot, T.S.  180 Encyclopédie, the  164–5, 228n. 86 Epameinondas of Thebes  63, 200n. 101 Epictetus  64, 89–90, 91, 101, 103, 107, 169, 206n. 47 Epimenides of Phaestos  71

05/10/2011 07:06

252 index Erasmus’ Institutio Principis Christiani 162 Euclid  19, 161, 170, 203n. 104 Euhemerus  55–6, 59, 60 Eusebius of Caesarea  17, 57, 145 on Constantine 153–6 Exodus, Book of  145–6, 148–9 erōs tyrannos  13, 104, 179 Al-Farabi  145, 158 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb  181 Filmer, Robert  2, 168 Fortune (tychē)  47, 49, 55, 62, 84, 88, 127, 139, 150, 199n. 94 Frazer, Sir James  3, 70, 183 Frederick II of Sicily  17, 159–60, 181 Frederick the Great  17, 142, 164–6, 181, 187n. 23, 228n. 86 Fronto  88, 90, 92, 93, 105, 106, 110, 112 Gaius  106, 110, 114, 223n. 1 Galen  93, 110, 114 Genesis, Book of  146, 147–8, 150–1, 216n. 40 Gibbon, Edward  89, 143, 213n. 148 God, as “king”  2, 5, 7, 11, 32–3, 57–8, 78, 155, 181, 197n. 64, 225n. 52 see also Apollo, Athena, Christ, Cronus, Dionysus, Euhemerus, “the god within”, the Good, Julian’s Hymn to Helios, sacred kingship, Yahweh, Zeus “god within, the”  101, 125, 206n. 47 cf. 107, 160 Good, the  as “beyond essence” 40–2, 54, 79, 117, 144, 162, 287n. 16 as honour and glory 7, 47, 51, 53–4, 77–8, 81–3, 105–6 as Isocrates’ Panhellenism 47 as Julian’s polytheism 117–18, 129, 135–6, 144 “kingship” of 26–7, 57, 124–5 in Laws 39–40 as liberty 160–1, 164–5 as Machiavelli’s patriotism 162 as power 29–30, 79, 162, 177 in Republic 15–16, 26–30 as Stoic God or Nature 96–7, 102 as virtue 65, 85 Good Emperors, as quasi-philosophic  89 greatness of soul (megalopsychia)  47, 51, 62, 65, 76–7, 81, 85, 102, 175, 177 Hadrian 62 model for Julian 117 as philosophic emperor 89–90

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 252

predecessor of Marcus 91, 92, 96, 105, 106, 108, 113 Hammurabi  8, 9, 10, 34, 223n. 1 Hecataeus  59, 147 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich  19 contrasted to Plutarch 85 on Frederick the Great 229n. 93 on Marcus 100, 107 on Plato’s Republic 172 studied by Lenin 173 studied by Stalin 174 as systematizer 142, 161 on world-historical-individuals 166–8 Helvidius Priscus  89, 102–3 Heracles  11, 46, 47, 55, 61, 126–7, 129, 199n. 94, 201n. 112 Herodotus  8, 14, 58, 72, 134–5, 149, 185n. 40, 189n. 48 Hesiod  8, 55–6, 58, 118, 134–5, 146 Hobbes, Thomas  2, 17, 18, 34, 145, 161, 163–4, 180, 204n. 164 Homer  on kings as “the best” 5–6, 6–10, 18, 50 and Cynics 56 inspires Alexander 49, 53 inspires Julian 118, 123, 134–5, 140 and Phocion 202n. 136 and Plato’s Statesman 32 Iamblichus  16, 119–24, 126, 133 Iambulus 60 ideology  of Byzantine kingship 57, 153–6 of Hellenistic kingship 55, 57–8, 155 of Marxism 171–6 of Stoicism 85, 103 of subjective liberty 2, 5, 12, 160, 169–71 Isocrates  idealized by Julian 134–5 idealizing Philip 47–8, 53 later influence 48–9, 58, 61, 90, 156, 193n. 6, 200n. 99 on logos and philosophy 47–9, 85, 102 mentioned by Marx 172 Jefferson, Thomas  9, 17, 34, 40, 168–71, 181, 223n. 1 Jim  1–2, 109 Joseph II of Austria  164–5, 218n. 75 Josephus  151–2, 225n. 4 Julian 117–44 passim Against the Galilaeans 122, 133–4, 148 Caesars 112, 128, 140, 142 compared with J.S. Mill 214n10

05/10/2011 07:06

I ndex compared with Jefferson 169 compared with Stalin 175 criticizes Moses 147–8 Cynic Orations 125–7, 133 education decrees 135–6, 220 in Enlightenment Fragment of a Letter to a Priest 132–4 Hymn to Helios 124–5, 136 Letter to Themistius 127–8, 131, 136 likened to Constantine 117, 120, 154 likened to Justinian 157, 175 Misopōgōn 131, 136–8, 142 as myth-maker 126–8 neglects mathematics 48 patron of Aurelius Victor 112 and Plato's Laws 37, 40 justice, as royal virtue  3, 8–9, 58, 74 of Julian 127–8, 131–2, 135–6 of Marcus 106–9, 111 of Philo’s Moses 149 of Plato’s Guardians 28, 29 of Plutarch’s exemplars 63, 70, 72, 73–6, 81, 83 of Stoic “kings” 56 of Xenophon’s Agesilaus 46 Justin Martyr  martyred 211n. 119 on Moses 224n. 18 under philosopher-emperors 90, 112, 114 Justinian the Great  as Achilles 184n. 16 as Christian “philosopher-king” 17, 156–7, 159, 181 and enlightened despots 165 and Stalin 175 as systematic legislator 8, 161, 164, 191n. 64, 223n. 1 Kant, Immanuel  164, 167, 169, 194n. 29, 213n. 147 king, as “living law”  and Alexander 53 and Christ 153 and enlightened despots 165 and Hellenistic monarchs 8, 10, 50, 57–8 and Moses 149–50, 152 and Plutarch’s exemplars 65 and Stalin 175 and Stoics 57 kingship, sacred  2–4, 9–10 and Christian kings 153–6, 158–9, 162–3 Greek and Roman ambivalence towards 10–14, 87 and Hellenistic kings 52, 55–6, 57–8

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 253

253

and Hobbes’ sovereign 163 and Jefferson 169–70 and Julian 124–5, 136–7 and Marcus 103, 210n. 118 and Orwell’s Napoleon 178 and Philo’s Moses 149–51 and Plato’s Guardians 16, 26–7 and Stalin 175 law  cf. 97 as “distribution of nous” 9, 33–4, 127–8, 136 as “king” 35–8, 150, 189n. 48 as reflection of a philosophical outlook 8, 34–40, 70, 107–8, 134–6, 157, 162, 169–70, 176 as sad necessity 30–1 “unwritten” 38–9, 65, 67, 70, 71 law-making, as regal task  8–9, 68, 70, 71–2, 106–8, 125, 126, 147, 150, 159, 162–3, 176–7, 229n. 94 laws, sets of  16 of Animalism 176 the Decalogue 146, 150 of Frederick II of Sicily 159 of Frederick the Great 166 Justinian’s Institutes 156–7 of Napoleon 167 of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra 229n. 94 in Plato’s Laws 35–8 of Plutarch’s Lycurgus 67 of Plutarch’s Numa 70–1 of Plutarch’s Solon 72 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm  19, 228n. 91 Lenin, Vladimir  17, 18 his “bridle of Theages” 187n. 29 compared to Julian 117, 142 embodying people’s will 168 philosopher-“king” of USSR 173–4, 175–6, 177, 180 Library in Alexandria  58–9, 146, 161 Lincoln, Abraham  170, 181 lion, as emblem of royalty  14, 50, 64, 76,120, 121, 199n. 94 Locke, John  2, 161, 164, 168–9 logos, theories of the  47–8, 57, 152–3 “Longinus”, author of On the Sublime 147 Lyceum 58–9 Lycurgus  8, 127, 147, 201n. 112, 201n. 112, 223n. 1, 223n. 10 see also Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus Machiavelli, Niccolò  influenced by Xenophon’s Cyropaedia 192n. 3

05/10/2011 07:06

254 index his Prince as a new Moses 161–2 studied by Frederick the Great 165 studied by Stalin 174–5 and Trotsky 194n. 31 on wars and laws 7–8 Marcus Aurelius  87–115 passim admired by Romantics 97 compared to Julian 137, 139, 142 lionized in the Enlightenment 143, 164–5 mainly humanistic education 48, 92 model for Julian 128 scorned by Constantine 113 Marx, Karl  161, 171–3, 176, 179, 187n. 29 mathematics  in education of Ptolemy II 193n. 20 and Euhemerus’ Uranus 55 and Hobbes’ political “geometry” 163 in Jefferson’s University of Virginia 171 neglected by Julian 121, 142 neglected by Marcus 92 and Platonic wisdom 20, 26–7, 28, 29, 85, 156, 189n. 45, 191n. 67, 226n. 74, 230n. 104 promoted by Academicians 41–2, 48–9, 84 scorned by Isocrates 48 studied by Philo’s Moses 148 and Swift’s Laputa 181 Maximus, adviser-confessor to Julian  119–20, 121, 130, 133, 137, 141, 144 Megasthenes’ Indica 197n. 70 Melville, Herman  181 Messiah  7, 153 see also Christ Minos  8, 9, 34, 70, 147, 225n. 43 Montesquieu  on Julian 143, 228n. 90 classification of constitutions 189n. 47 and Enlightenment 168–9 More, Thomas  161, 227n. 79 Moses  8, 8–9, 17, 34, 113, 145–54, 158, 162, 173, 180, 223 Musonius Rufus  56, 58, 89, 103, 211n. 122 myth-making  as activity of Guardians 22, 27, 219n. 94 around figure of Julian 222n. 133 around figure of Marcus 112–15 around figure of Moses 145–6 around the New World 169–70 around the Worker’s Paradise 176 of Julian 119, 126–7, 128, 133, 142 of Plato’s Critias 25–6, 72–3 in Plato’s Statesman 32–3 Napoleon Bonaparte  14, 166–7, 181, 198n. 81, 223n. 1

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 254

Napoleon (in Orwell’s Animal Farm) 177–80, 231n. 123 Nietzsche, Friedrich  his “bridle of Theages” 187n. 29 call for “new Tables” 166, 229n. 94 criticizes Plato 18, 40, 223n. 3 praises Plato 19 praises Plutarch’s Lives 85 Numa  8–9, 13, 71, 122, 210n. 118 see also Plutarch, Life of Numa Numenius 148 On Kingship (common title)  45, 50, 57–9, 60–1, 89, 196n. 60, 197n. 66 Onesicritus  51, 59 Orwell, George  145, 176–80 Panaetius  46, 60, 200n. 101 Papinian  106, 209n. 103, 223n. 1 Pericles  4, 50, 80, 151–2, 184n. 17, 197n. 67 see also Plutarch, Life of Pericles Persaeus  58, 59, 196n. 60 “persuasion over force”  27–8, 34, 38, 52, 70, 118, 135–6, 138, 171, 203n. 159, 220n. 97 Philip II of Macedon  13, 33, 41, 42, 47–8, 49, 53, 55, 80 Philo of Alexandria  17, 27, 145, 148–53, 154, 158, 162, 165, 187n. 29, 198n. 224, 218n. 75 philosophes  2, 114, 161, 164–6, 232n. 133 phronēsis  and Isocrates 47–8 and Aristotle 50–1 and Eusebius’ Constantine 155 and Marcus 111 and Menander Rhetor 194n. 32 and “Moses” 147 and Plutarch’s Alexander 52 and Plutarch’s exemplars 65, 71, 75, 83–6 and Stalin 175 Pindar  190, 193 Plato, Republic 473c–e cf. 169–70 concerning Julian 143 concerning Marcus 96, 113–14, 164 in Laws 33 in Plutarch’s Life of Cicero 83 in Plutarch’s Life of Numa 70 quoted or echoed  15, 25, 180 Platonism  20, 26–7, 19, 39–40, 57, 62–3, 78, 85–6, 124–5, 152, 164, 172, 181, 185n. 39, 187n. 18 Plotinus  19, 57, 120, 121, 123, 146 Plutarch  16, 31, 45, 58, 61–86 passim active in public life 61–2

05/10/2011 07:06

I ndex brand of Platonism 62–3 concern for “true” kings of virtue 64–5 concern for virtue 48–9, 61, 63–5 De fortuna Alexandri 51–2, 68 Life of Aemilius Paulus 81 Life of Agesilaus 68, 203 see also Xenophon Life of Alcibiades 11, 13, 73, 78–9 Life of Alexander 49, 52–3, 86, 221n 119 Life of Aristides 73–6, 86 Life of Brutus 84–6, 102–3 Life of Caesar 85 Life of Cato the Elder 76 Life of Cato the Younger 85, 102–3 Life of Cicero 82–3, 86 Life of Crates 64 Life of Demetrius 54, 73 Life of Demosthenes 79 Life of Dion 31, 64, 73, 83–6, 102–3, 127, 198n. 81 Life of Lucullus 81, 122 Life of Lycurgus 63, 65–8, 70–1, 86, 168, 127 Life of Marius 81 Life of Numa 68–71, 81, 86, 122 Life of Pericles 50, 76–8, 85, 199n. 94 Life of Philopoemen 59–60 Life of Phocion 42, 79–81, 86 Life of Pompey 64, 122 Life of Pyrrhus 54, 81, 221n. 119 Life of Solon 71–3, 127–8, 168 Life of Themistocles 6, 11, 73 Life of Timoleon 84, 86 Political Precepts 63–4 recommended by Nietzsche 85 studied by Julian 215n. 29, 221n. 119 Pompeius Trogus  147 popes  32, 159, 181 Poseidonius  60, 110, 226n. 69 Priscus, philosophic advisor to Julian  121–2, 130, 141–2 Ptolemies  12, 45, 46, 54–5 as patrons of learning and philosophers 56, 59, 147, 150, 161 Ptolemy (author of Algemest) 114 Pyrrhus of Epirus  7, 12, 54 see also Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus advised by Cineas 59 “republic of virtue”  40, 163, 171 rhetoric  as craft 21–3 in education 48–9, 96, 134–6, 171, 193n. 19 power of 53, 56, 175, 178, 202n. 145 useful for leaders 1, 63, 77, 82, 90, 122 Roman Senate, as “assembly of kings”  13, 230n. 103

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 255

255

Romulus  13, 68–9, 85, 128, 162 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques  6, 111, 181 Sages, the Seven  71, 73 St Athanasius of Alexandria  132, 146 St Augustine  19, 111 on Julian 222n. 131 St Thomas Aquinas  158–9, 164 Schopenhauer, Arthur  19, 142 Scipio Africanus  model for Julian 221n. 119 patron of learning 46, 60, 200n. 101 Seleucids  12, 45, 54–5 Seleucus Nicator  54, 197n. 70, 201n. 124 Seneca  57, 60, 89, 104, 189n. 29, 197n. 66, 219n. 94, 226n. 69, 227n. 83 Shakespeare, William  181 Socrates  on craft-analogies and kingship 21–3, 63 influence of 19, 46, 56 likened to Antoninus Pius 91, 114 and Plutarch’s Alcibiades 78 and Plutarch’s Aristides 73–4, 75–6 and Plutarch’s Lycurgus 67 and Plutarch’s Pericles 76 and Plutarch’s Phocion 81 Solomon  2, 8, 156, 158, 161, 179, 193n. 6 Sophocles  51, 183n. 4 Sphaerus  58, 59, 203n. 161 Spinoza, Benedict de  158, 161, 162, 187n. 29 Stalin, Joseph  168, 174–6, 178, 180, 181 Stoicism  56–7, 60, 152, 157 in active politics 57, 59–60, 88–90, 91 criticized by Plutarch 85 on ideal kings 10, 14, 16,46, 56–7, 108 Marcus’ brand of 96–103 Swift, Jonathan  178, 181, 185n. 40 system, spirit of  16, 19–20, 24–5, 35–40, 41, 61, 67, 96, 107, 122–5, 132–3, 156–7, 161, 164, 166–8, 172, 175–6, 185n. 25, 185n. 39, 189n. 47, 190n. 64, 197n. 70 temperance, as royal virtue  of Twain’s “King” 1 of Eusebius’ Constantine 155 of Julian 118, 129–31, 137–8 lacking in Orwell’s Napoleon 177–8 of Marcus 103–6 of Philo’s Moses 149, 151 and Plutarch’s Alexander 52–3 and Plutarch’s Lycurgus 67–8 of Plutarch’s Phocion 81 of Stoic “kings” 56 of the Guardians 28, 33

05/10/2011 07:06

256 index of Xenophon’s Agesilaus 46 “Theages, bridle of ”  30, 78, 119 Themistius  127, 144, 185n. 35, 196n. 63, 212n. 139, 217n. 56 Theocritus of Syracuse  55–6 Theophrastus  58, 147 Theseus  in Machiavelli’s Prince 162 as philosopher-king in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale 227n. 76 theurgy  119–20, 137 Thrasea Paetus  57, 62, 89, 102–3 Thrasyllus  60, 89 Thucydides  on Athens 68 idealized by Julian 134–5 on Pericles 77, 151–2 read by Jefferson 169 on Themistocles 73 Trajan  7, 62 compared to Marcus 104, 105 likened to Moses 194n. 31 model for Julian 117, 122, 128, 140 optimus princeps 89, 93 Trotsky, Leon  174, 177, 180, 187n. 29 Twain, Mark  1–2, 54 tyranny, satires of  42, 104, 137–8, 179 virtue, as focus of ancient politics  5–6, 36, 39–40, 45–6, 49–50, 56–7, 61, 63–5, 74, 85–6, 89, 110, 124, 129, 134–5, 151, 154, 167, 180 see also courage, justice, phronēsis, temperance, wisdom Voltaire  2, 119, 121, 143, 161, 164, 165–6, 176 war, as sport of kings  6–7, 9, 14, 15, 23–6, 46–7, 53–5, 92–5, 103, 114, 139–41, 147, 154, 156, 159, 162, 166, 167, 175, 177 see also courage Washington, George  4, 157, 168, 169–70

9780826434753_txt_print.indd 256

Whitehead, Alfred North  14, 19, 188n. 39 “footnotes to Plato” 185n. 39 wisdom see also education, the Good, phronēsis construed generally 17–18, 26, 160–1 differentiated from omniscience 28, 63, 110–11, 129, 14, 175 gained through contemplative theōria 18, 26–9, 51, 67, 69–70, 85, 98–9, 102, 173 dialectic 21 Scripture 148, 156, 158–9 study in Egypt 145–6 study of history 48, 85–6, 102, 172 systematic doubt 160 theurgy 120 some varieties of 18, 21, 48, 63–5, 85–6, 100–2, 125, 177–78, 179–80 Wordsworth, William and Dion  198n. 81 and Julian 118 Xenocrates  42, 58, 80–1 Xenophon  11, 13, 22, 45–7, 51, 58, 126–7, 197n. 66 Yahweh  7–9, 133, 151–4, 156, 159, 180 Zeno of Citium  51, 56–60, 68, 81, 109, 112, 187n. 29 Zeus  ancestor of kings 53, 55–6 Callimachus on 56 Euhemerus on 55 idealized by Julian 124, 132 in Julian’s myths 119, 126–7, 128 as “king of gods and men” 7, 10, 14, 50 as lawgiver 8, 9, 34 as “living law” 58 as Stoic God 96–7 as warrior 7, 9

05/10/2011 07:06