102 PHILO'S POLITICS
Of course the theory would be only partially exemplified in a prefect
who had to work under a human superior. It was more fully repre
sented in Tiberius and Augustus. Tiberius
for twenty-three years dominated land and sea, and allowed no spark of war
to smoulder anywhere, but with an open hand he lavishly dispensed peace
and its benefits to the end of his life. He was of the noblest ancestry from
both parents, surpassed all his contemporaries in sagacity and forcible speak
ing. He lived to a fine old age, though he had the maturity of judgement of
an old man while he was still young.^77
Augustus was even nearer the ideal. Philo did not hesitate to say of him
that he "surpassed human nature in all the virtues," though it is notable
that, to use the distinction Philo made above,^78 he surpassed not in his
material nature (ouoia) but in his actions and qualities, elsewhere called
eunpayia, or ra a£iGJ|jaTa Kai ai Tuxai.^79 This notion is now elaborated to
show that Philo means by Augustus' "virtues," first, the fact that he
founded his title and power alike by the magnitude of the autocratic
rulership he achieved and by the KaXoKayaGIa he displayed; second, the
fact that he brought peace to the Empire when it was distracted by civil
wars, in the course of which he led the cities into liberty, made disorder
into order, and took the wild nations and filled them with gentleness
and harmony, so that instead of a single Greece there were many by his
spreading Greek civilization in the most important parts of the bar
barian world. He was a man of peace, he gave every man his due (i.e.,
he was just), he scattered lavish favors, and throughout his life he held
back for himself nothing that was good or fine. In all ways he was
Benefactor (euepy^T/ic) for forty-three years. The entire civilized world,
with the single exception of the Jews, recognized in him a person equal
to the Olympians, and decreed honors to him, dedicated games to him,
triumphs, statues, and the like, in spontaneous recognition of his divin
ity.^80 At the end he left all in peace, £uvo|jua, and harmony; the Greeks
- Legat., 141 £., abridged. The last detail is one not mentioned in other accounts of king
ship which I have seen. One is reminded alike of the Jewish thought that old age is a divine
seal of approval, and the Aristotelian notion that true happiness cannot be said to have been
realized by one who died young. Even more striking is the reminiscence of the young "Self-
Taught," the savior endowed with divine wisdom from infancy, so that when presented with
teachers they proved less wise than the child. I suspect that it is the latter notion at which
Philo is hinting.
- See the fragment quoted above, p. 99. 79. Cf. Legat., 140.
- Ibid., 143-151.
