Political fragments of Archytas, Charondas, Zaleucus, and other ancient Pythagoreans, preserved by Stobæus : $b and also, Ethical fragments of Hierocles, the celebrated commentator on the Golden Pythagoric Verses, preserved by the same author
Philosophy
Political fragments of Archytas, Charondas, Zaleucus, and other ancient Pythagoreans, preserved by Stobæus : $b and also, Ethical fragments of Hierocles, the celebrated commentator on the Golden Pythagoric Verses, preserved by the same author
Ethics -- Early works to 1800; Political science -- Early works to 1800
to a liberal and elegant mode of life, are, at the beginning, the
roots to men of wanton insolence, and destruction. For those that
have great possessions are necessarily at first inflated with pride,
and when thus inflated become arrogant; and, being arrogant, they
also become fastidious, and conceive that their kindred, and those
of the same nation and tribe with themselves, neither resemble, nor
are equal to them. But when they are fastidious, they also become
wantonly insolent. And the extremity and end of all wanton insolence
is destruction._ When, therefore, in a family and city there is a
superfluity of possessions, it is necessary that the legislator
should cut off, and, as it were, amputate the superfluities, in
the same manner as a good husbandman lops the too luxuriant leaves
of trees. But of the kindred and domestic part of man there is a
triple species. For there is one species which governs, another
which is governed, and another which gives assistance to a family
and relatives. And the husband, indeed, governs, but the wife is
governed, and the offspring of both these is an auxiliary.
AND IN ANOTHER PART OF THE SAME WORK.
With respect also to practical and rational domination, one kind is
despotic, another is of a guardian nature, and another is political.
And the despotic, indeed, is that which governs with a view to the
advantage of the governor, and not of the governed. For after
this manner a master rules over his slaves, and a tyrant over his
subjects. But the guardian domination subsists for the sake of the
governed, and not for the sake of those that govern. And with this
kind of power the anointers rule over the athletæ, physicians over
the sick, and preceptors over their pupils. For their labours are not
directed to their own advantage, but to the benefit of those whom
they govern; those of the physician being undertaken for the sake
of the sick, the anointers for the sake of exercising the body, and
those of the erudite for the sake of the inerudite. But the political
domination has for its end the common benefit both of the governors
and the governed. For according to this domination, in human affairs,
both a family and a city are coharmonized; but in things of a divine
nature the world is aptly composed. A family, however, and a city are
an imitation according to analogy of the government of the world. For
divinity is the principle of nature, and his attention is neither
directed to his own advantage, nor to private, but to public good.
And on this account, the world is called κοσμος, from the orderly
disposition of all things which are coarranged with reference to one
thing which is most excellent, and this is God, who is, according
to conception, an intellectual[27] animal, incorruptible, and the
principle and cause of the orderly disposition of wholes. Since,
therefore, the husband rules over the wife, he either rules with a
despotic, or with a guardian, or, in the last place, with a political
power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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