(^88) PHILO'S POLITICS
was achieved, in Philo's case under Moses and the earlier patriarchs.
But Langstadt is aware that Philo's insistence upon praising democracy
in terms of ideal kingship is so great an expansion of this passage that
the passage alone can hardly be used as adequate explanation of Philo's
peculiar and constant usage.
A more likely source of Philo's ideal democracy is to be found in his
own political environment, to which we have already seen he was
keenly sensitive. For Philo lived in the only age in history when mon
archy and kingship were masking under the pose of democracy. The
imperial rule of Augustus and Tiberius, under which Philo must have
done most of his writing, presented itself as only the archonship in the
Roman Republic, or, for one writing in Greek, in the Roman Democ
racy. It is interesting to turn from Philo to Dio Cassius, and see how
Dio describes the rule of Augustus. Dio records, in Book LII, a confer
ence in which Augustus, before taking over the state, consulted with his
two friends Agrippa and Maecenas. Agrippa^9 begged him to preserve
the Republic, the T&V S/JMCJV KaraoTaoic or S/iMOKpaTia, and not to change
to monarchy. Maecenas,^10 however, goes into a long oration in praise of
monarchy in which he adapts to Roman conditions Plato's ideal aris
tocracy or monarchy, with many echoes of the Hellenistic theory of roy
alty. The single ruler must be just, law abiding, the true pilot of the
ship of state, one who works with a properly selected senate, equestrian
order, and other officials, and has a well disciplined army and an equi
table system of taxation. He must be generous, open minded, modest,
working always for peace at home and abroad, a personal model in
every way to his subjects. He may refuse to take the title of king, but
under other titles must actually be the king in the fullest sense. Such a
man would be truly and inevitably regarded as the "father" and "sav
ior" of the people. The alternative is either mob rule, which Maecenas
like Plato and Agrippa calls "democracy," or else some usurper's tyr
anny. But in one place, where he has been talking of the organization of
the state under monarchy, with the proper men selected to carry out the
various functions of government, Maecenas says:
In this way each class of citizens will zealously discharge the duties which
devolve upon them and will readily render to one another such services as
are due, and will thus be unaware of their inferiority when one class is at a
- Dio Cass., LII, §§ ii-xiii. 10. Ibid., LII, xiv-xl.