Just as he was faithful to the traditional policy of the Macedonian kings in his dealings with his own people, so, too, in regard to the Greeks the plan he followed was in general the old-fashioned one, of making them his dependent allies. In states ostensibly free and self-governing he secured a preponderating influence by designating an individual as his representative and making him practically governor. Naturally, the domestic opponents of such a person called him a tyrant, and such, in fact, the nature of his position forced him to become, since he could not hold his place without breaking both the public and private laws. But outward appearances were preserved, even when he called in Macedonian troops to his aid, by the old practice whereby he and his adherents assumed the responsibility for their coming. Antigonus Gonatas and some at least of his governors were pupils of Zeno. That meant in this connection that, whereas Alexander the Great, for example, had been obliged to discard what was most characteristic in the politics of Aristotle when he identified himself with the man of transcendent virtue, who, his teacher had urged, should be made absolute monarch when found, Antigonus drew from his philosophy an obligation to let none but the sage rule.[122] As against the wisdom of the ideal wise man the laws of states which he ignored or broke had no avail; for, according to his creed, they were unnatural and hence unwholesome. The wise man could do no wrong. In his actions, since he was a law unto himself, morality triumphed over mere legality. Antigonus Gonatas disdained to seek a justification for his acts by claiming, though a man, the prerogatives of the gods, and, though there was nothing in the pantheistic theory of Stoicism to prevent his being worshiped if people wanted to worship him, he was under no legal necessity to pose as a god; whereas, had he done so, he must have come into conflict with the religious conservatism of his philosophy. He, accordingly, had no difficulty in rendering an account to his own conscience for setting up "tyrants" in his Greek dependencies and for practicing or authorizing lawlessness. But he was too shrewd a man to suppose that because Zeno and he thought his conduct justified he could do what he pleased to the Macedonians or Greeks with impunity. They could not be expected to know that their ruler was a Stoic sage who could do no wrong, or to make allowances for his behavior on that account. Hence, while he could justify his system of government on philosophic grounds, there is no evidence that he was not a scrupulous Macedonian king and a considerate suzerain of Greece. And had he been left alone to work out the problem of Hellenic administration without outside interference it is probable that his high sense of duty and his skill and forbearance would have given Greece a long period of peace.