(^6) PHILO'S POLITICS
or maddened by wine that while such storms as I have described were raging
he would want to cast off, when his ship would be swamped by the seas rush
ing over it and be swallowed up with its crew? The man who wants to sail
in safety must wait for a favorable wind, one that is propitious and gentle.
And what? When a person sees a bear or a wild boar or a lion sweeping
down upon him, the hope being to pacify and mollify the beast, does he in
flame it and tantalize it, until he actually offers himself as a banquet and feast
to the pitiless carnivores? Is it true that one gets nothing by trying to oppose
serpents and Egyptian asps and other creatures which bear destructive poison,
and inflict sure death upon those they attack? Surely it is far better to use in
cantations and make them manageable and so to escape suffering calamity
from them.
Are there not certain men who are more savage and treacherous than boars,
snakes, and asps, men whose treachery and hostility can be escaped only by
mollifying and propitiating them? So for example Abraham the wise man
did obeisance (npooKuv/joei) to the sons of Chet (whose name means those
who "disperse"), because the emergency convinced him he must do so. He
did not consent to this act of obeisance because he honored those who by race
and habit were the natural enemies of reason, and who "disperse," fritter
away, and piteously squander education, the coin of the soul; but he feared
their present power and irresistible strength and took care not to provoke
them. In this way he could preserve that great and powerful treasure and
achievement of virtue, that best dwelling place of wise souls, the double
cave, which he could not occupy when fighting and warring, but only when
he was cultivating and serving reason (or the Logos).^11
What? Are not we also, as we loiter in the market place, often "dis
persed" by the rulers, and "dispersed" by the beasts of burden? But we "dis
perse" for each from a quite different motive; for we give way to the rulers
out of honor, but to the beasts out of fear lest we be injured by them. Now
when occasion offers it is a good thing to oppose our enemies and to destroy
their power of attack ((3(a), but lacking such opportunity it is safe to keep
quiet, while if one wishes to get any benefit from them it is advantageous to
propitiate them."
This seems to be plain enough. The Jews could hardly have mistaken
Philo's meaning, and Macchiavelli himself, had he written from the
point of view of the Prince's subjects, could have given no more realistic
advice. Beasts and asps the Jew may well consider the Romans in his
- Philo explained the double cave shortly before in Som., ii, 26, as a retreat into a life of
consideration of the two-fold problem of philosophy, the problems of God and of the created
world, including man. - Som., ii, 81-92.