BY INNUENDO 63the one concerned with the truth and genuine advantage, the other based
upon opinion and the giving of pleasure. For the politicus can not say right
out whatever he thinks it would be advantageous for the people to under
stand, but must conceal some things for the reason that the hearer is often
aroused to opposition by hearing what is not flattering, and flatly refuses to
obey the truth, so that no improvement is accomplished.^76
The politicus, Philo continues, must often, like doctors, lie to the patient
he is about to cauterize. Philo has of course "lied" in this treatise
throughout. Joseph, as a symbol of Roman rule, if not as a symbol of
the politicus in general, he actually despised. But nothing was to be
gained by saying as much outright to Romans. Himself a good politi
cus, Philo thinks it better to insinuate, to flatter, and so perhaps to guide
into patronage, these Roman rulers whom he hated in his heart. It was
also worth while to remind the gentiles that Egypt had at least once
been ideally governed—by a Jew.
- A fragment from the fourth book of the LA; Harris, Fragments of Philo, 8.