previous next


ἀρίστου. Darius assumes the king will be ‘the best’ (such an one διαφέρων κατ᾽ ἀρετήν, Arist. Pol. iii. 13, p. 1284 b must rule); he takes no account of the παρέκβασις of monarchy, the bad rule.


στάσιες: cf. Thuc. viii. 89. 3 for internal jealousies as the weakness of an oligarchy.

The aorists ἀπέβη, διέδεξε are gnomic, i. e. they express the usual result (cf. ἀϝεφάνη inf.).


ἐς τὰ κοινά: parallel to ἐς τὸ κοινόν above. The antithetical style of the Sophists is very traceable here.

παύσῃ. Cf. the hopes that Alcibiades in 408 B. C. would prove a ‘saviour of society’ at Athens (Diod. xiii. 68), and, on a larger scale, the acceptance of the Napoleonic rule as a salvation from ‘the Red Terror’. So Deioces was made ruler by the Medes (i. 97), to save them from ἀνομία. For the origin of tyranny generally cf. App. XVI.


ἐλευθερίη. H. here leaves generalizations on Greek politics and inserts a Persian argument, an appeal to the services of Cyrus to his country; perhaps there is the beginning also of the idea which inspires the Cyropaedia of Xenophon—that Cyrus is the ideal monarch.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide References (2 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (2):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: